A record of our adventures in non-college education.
To all our loyal readers, Raquel and I have packed our bags and moved our blog. You can find us here. Please excuse the mess while we get settled. Soon there will be food on the floor and toys underfoot. Until then, farewell.
In my last post I mentioned taking role call. Now, Raquel in her graciousness did not post her mocking comment on this particular slip of the electronic lip, but she thought it was very amusing so she e-mailed it to me. So that everyone knows that I am not above mocking myself when no one else will I am posting Raquel's comment. I hope you are amused. "Role call--this is when to check to see that the children are all filling the same roles as when we came. As we have so many roles to divide among the children (oldest child, middle child, crazy child, etc.) it would be too confusing if they switched halfway through, so we have to keep checking up on them."
Yesterday I found out I am insane. At least I had an insane idea. I thought, "This is the day of rest. So why don't I round up three kids and Raquel round up five kids and we meet at the park?" I was about to go lie down and try to get my sanity back when I mentioned this idea to Seth and Crystal. They were far from thinking it was an insane idea. When I called James and talked to him about it he went so far as to say it was a brilliant idea. So they ate lunch and we ate lunch and then Raquel and I took eight children to the park. The sun was bright and warm and the sky was bright and blue. The kids ran and played and had a marvelous time. Raquel and I sat and talked and every now and then took roll call. I locked the keys in the van and James had to drive his convertible in the fabulous weather with the top down to rescue us. And I found out I was not insane. As I was sitting in the sun not being insane I mentioned to Raquel that we were at a playground with eight children in our care and we were both completely okay with this. I remember when we first moved here and I was in a house with two other young women and nine children. That is a one to three ratio and it was almost beyond my ability to cope. We moved a friend of ours a few weeks ago and I ended up with child duty. It was me in a house with ten children and I was completely unfazed. It is nice to see growth and change. It usually happens so slowly you can't see it until you aren't who you used to be. But sometimes to really see it you have to go and have insane/brilliant ideas.
Do you ever turn on the stereo with the intention of listening to a specific song, and find yourself gripped by the music that comes on? It's not what you wanted to listen to, and it doesn't quite fit your mood, but it's far too pretty to just turn off. This just happened to me with the sound of rain on the roof. I was just about to turn on some music when I heard the rain, just soft enough to be drowned out entirely by music. So I stopped and listened to the rain instead.
Last Sunday Seth, the kids and I broke the futon we used for a sofa. It had been going for a while and this was the final straw. Something inside snapped, we heard a loud crack and that was that. So now we needed a new something-long-to-sit-on. A brand new sofa would be too expensive so Crystal hit upon this dea that we could make a bench and put the futon matress on that and call it a sofa. Then she was looking into patterns for said benches and found a really good idea. We have a nook in our family room that used to be a large closet. It is the exact same lenght as our futon matress. So all we needed to do is build a seat and we had a back and sides. It was going to be so simple.
Tuesday Crystal and the boys went out and bought some wood and we set to making a bench. We got hung up on the legs, but after they were on the rest was not too difficult. And we put it where it went, put the mattress on and now we have a very comfotable futon-sofa-thing. The kids like it because it is higher than the futon was and so they climg up and jump off. I almost fell asleep on it yesterday and Samuel did fall asleep on it today. Hurray for Crystal!
I hope you all figured out that we returned from our travels safely. It seems I never got around to mentioning it, as we got home and real life immediately came on full force with all it's distractions. There are several blog posts that I'm thinking about writing. I haven't forgotten about posting my version of our Erie adventures, and I may relate some Denver adventures as well. However, since there's so much real life going on around me, I may as well take advantage of it for my blogging needs. First off, an announcement. This announcement should properly have it's very own post, but alas, it's not going to. Theresa is expecting a baby. They've heard a heartbeat, and Theresa is feeling normal morning sickness, neither of which happened with the miscarriages, so we're very excited and hopeful. I'm excited enough that so far I haven't minded the extra food preparation I've had to do while Theresa was busy vomiting. Then again, I haven't done that much more food prep than normal. Yet. Maybe with more practice I'll figure out how to assemble all parts of a meal to be ready at the appropriate times. Every single time so far that I thought I was on top of things and I had it all taken care of it turned out that I forgot just one thing until it was too late. It's almost impressive, since I don't repeat the same mistakes on a regular basis. I just come up with new ones. :-) It's probably based of some sort of complex rotating schedule, "Every other week overcook the vegetables, except when you're distracted enough to forget them altogether. On the alternating weeks (but only during the full moon), burn the food, but catch in time to still be edible in spite of the smoky taste." I find myself being reminded I need to blog by the oddest little bits of life. This morning I brushed Elsie's hair. There was nothing unusual about it--her hair was quite snarled but that's hardly unusual. But it seemed blogworthy. It was the same with the garlic I was chopping on the cutting board. Then there was the very calm conversation with Samuel, reminding him of the way he was supposed to act, and prolonged by discussion if not quite argument from him. I managed to not even come close to yelling at him even though I'd stopped to talk to him while in something of a hurry to get to the bathroom. In other news, after three days running, I finally managed to finish mopping the kitchen floor. The first two days I started too late in the afternoon and had to stop to work on supper. By this time there are a few spots in the first corner that I mopped. I have the feeling that this should distress me, but I don't really care. I'm just glad that the entire floor has been mopped at some point during the last four days, even if not all at once. Despite other post ideas bopping around in my head, this will likely be the only post I publish today. This afternoon I need to clean the bathroom and if at all possible start on supper before Theresa and the children get back from fencing class. I was also rather suddenly reminded that Gabrielle and I have come round to our turn to clean the church building again. Since tomorrow and Saturday are rather full for both of us (game night and Arianna's birthday party), I suspect that most of my evening will be spent scrubbing toilets and countertops at church. At the moment I am just tired enough to wonder why there are no good theme songs to sing while scrubbing toilets. This will be a sore lack in the soundtrack of my life if it is not remedied. With that thought I must leave you--I have a bathroom to clean.
Okay so an off-hand comment in a blog post has turned into my sister bugging me about writing it up as a post. Fine, Adiel, here goes. A couple of years ago the best show ever to air on Fox was on Fox. I know that saying this was the best show on Fox really isn't saying much, but please believe me when I say that Firefly was a mighty fine show. It ran for eleven episodes before Fox decided it was too intelligent for their viewers to enjoy. Firefly combined an intelligent sense of humor with a fine knowledge of what makes for a good story. At first, the show looks like science fiction, but it deals with Western themes and has a lot of western color. They are flying around in a spaceship, but the captain carries a six-shooter. My brother Jonathan watched Firefly faithfully for the eleven episodes it ran and when the series was released on DVD he bought it. The DVD has three episodes that were never shown, though I disavow any knowledge of episode 13. It was like the makers of Firefly realized that they were making a show on Fox and wanted to live up to Fox standards. Beside that episode they are all fabulous. When Jonathan bought the series he was generous enough to share with me because he knew I would really like it. And then my Dad started watching the episodes with me and then we infected the rest of my family with Firefly. The rest, as they say, is history. When I moved to Illinois I brought my copy of Firefly with me. Seth and Crystal were also fans and I came to find out Raquel had watched the series when they aired. And then Raquel found some strange Firefly personality test and we found out who we were. And it fit somehow. So we started figuring out who the rest of our number would be. And here's what we came up with. For those of you who know who I am talking about please understand that these are not direct correlations. The matches are more along the lines of broad strokes and generalizations. James is Mal. Mal is the captain of the ship and he is the leader of them all. He has a very strong personality and usually has some crazy plan that actually works out. Theresa is Inara. Inara is the mother of the whole crew. She is the nurturer and the gentle one on the ship. The others go to her for comfort and she mothers Kaylee and River. Seth is Simon. Simon's role in the show is mainly as River's big brother. There is strength in him, but it is different than that in Mal. He If Mal's the one you look to for guidance Simon is the one you go to for advice. Crystal is Zoe. Zoe is Mal's second and a fierce woman. She can be kinda scary when something she loves is threatened. I know that this doesn't sound much like Crystal, but I have seen her when she's mad and when something has threatened on of her children and she is scary. There is a softer side to Zoe that you don't see much, but you know it's there. I think Crystal is the reverse of Zoe. Raquel is River. River is the girl the government messed with and turned into a psycho assassin. In doing so they monkeyed with her ability to function in reality so she's often the one spouting nonsense or the truth backwards. That isn't actually what makes Raquel River. River is the one that everyone works to protect because she's a troubled girl. But when River kicks into assassin mode she could defend them all if she had to. And she has. I can't think of specifics that I'd want to share, but that is very much Raquel. We work to shield her or at least to support her, but when you get onto something she knows and cares about she could probably fight the battles for us. Me, I'm Kaylee. Kaylee is the spunky kid. She's the ship's mechanic and everyone's little sister. She's the one with Christmas lights around her doorway and a teddy bear embroidered on her coveralls. She can usually find something to be cheerful about even if it's a mutated cow fetus that is being passed off as an alien. Kaylee looks at everything with wonder in her eyes. There's someone who's been brought into our circle, but I'm not sure exactly who he'd be. The best I can come up with is that Jon is Wash. Wash is not quite like the rest of the crew. He fits with them, but he doesn't function like they do. Jon is one of us because we said so, but he doesn't quite work like we do. Simon I mean Seth said it was a bit of a stretch, but I don't think so. Do you have an opinion, Jon-who's-never-seen-Firefly-and-doesn't-know-who-I'm-talking- about? There are two other characters. Jayne is the thuggish muscle of the group and Book is the conscience. A friend from Erie who might be moving out here soon called Jayne. Now all we need is a Book and we've got the whole set.
"Drink from the harp and we'll be fine." "After three beers and a whiskey I don't think I'll be juggling any eggs." "You didn't do the thing where you grabbed the upside-down crown and your clothes fell off, did you?"
Here is the corollary to Gabrielle's "Dinner with the Lansberries" series of posts. After supper the children run upstairs to play with everyone. For them there is no greater fun, the bluest sky and warmest sun, could never make a day so bright as "My friends came over to play tonight." The grown-ups sit below and say, "What a relief they've gone away and taken all their noisy play so quiet conversation may take the place of the children's trite "My friends came over to play tonight." Our quiet talk soon turns to game. With words for toys we fly to tame each spoken phrase that it may name for just one, vict'ry of the game. Oh, can it be? I think it might-- My friends came over to play tonight. More serious pastimes soon ensue but perfect targets tempt me to toss some pillows thrown straight and true. Well thrown pillows I will not rue-- though a mad chase starts. I'm sure I'm right, My friends came over to play tonight. Far too soon they have to go. They stand to leave; goodbyes are slow nearly drowned out by children's woe. It had to end but at least I know this somehow makes it all come right, my friends came over to play tonight.
Big doings are happening at the Ben-Ezra house. Noah has started potty-training. Justice has started solids. And I made a replacement for the Ugliest Shelves. That's right, I actually replaced the Ugliest Shelves. It was a tough decision. I knew that all of my readers would be heart-broken, but on the other hand a work of better quality would work better and be something I wouldn't not be shamed by. On the gripping hand it was fun to make a hanging craft storage thing. I made it out of the same purple cloth I used on the Ugliest Shelves and hand-sewed the whole thing. It has all these little pockets that are custom made to fit the tools I wanted to fit in them. It's hanging on my closet door and, so far, has been so very useful. But still, remorse tugs at me. Don't worry. I'll get over it.
Last night we ate dinner at the Lansberry's. We have assimilated another into our midst and it was his not-birthday party. We sang, we ate, we chattered. We stayed far too late and discussed whether the ceiling was on Raquel's side or Seth's. I almost hit James with the plastic cork from a non-alcoholic champange bottle and then spent the rest of the evening fiddling with the metal wire the held the cork on. A serious conversation broke out around the table, but it didn't last long. Raquel and I shared our ideas for who of us would be what Firefly character. We talked about mopping and Seth still insisted that the ceiling was on his side. We left far too late, but had a wonderful time.
Earlier today my fingers were cold. Now I can hear you say "Gabrielle (or Gaby, depending on what timezone you live in) that is not the great phenomenon you make it out to be." Yes, I say, but my fingers became cold through a work of mercy and insanity. Come closer and I will tell you of this mighty work. You see, the mixed vegetables contained lima beans. Lima beans, in my not at all humble opinion, are a work of evil. In that little bean is enough bad flavor to spoil an entire bag of mixed vegetables and the chicken potpie they rode in on. I couldn't let this horror happen to the family I have sacrificed many moments of sanity for. I had to eat the potpie, too. So, I bravely did what I was then promptly laughed at for. I hunted through that bag of frozen mixed vegetables like no other bag of frozen mixed vegetables has been hunted through before. Or since to my knowledge. I poked and I prodded and when I found the evil that we call lima bean lurking I grimly fished it out. At times the lima bean tried to disguised itself behind another, kinder vegetable like corn or carrot, but I was too wilely to fall for that trick. At times the nefarious bean had frozen itself to another vegetable and I had to hack them apart. The task was hard and it was long before I was sure that all the lima beans had been purged from the vegetables. Victorious, I held my trophies up so that Crystal could admire my skills. She laughed at me and made a seriously righteous potpie. My hands were cold, but that is a small price to pay for peace and lima bean-free food.
just off the horizon magenta flames burn low and Heaven shines through the clouds
Well, the kitchen sink is broken again. This makes the third time this year. Except this time we need a part. And the lovely people at the sink company are suspicious, power-snatching people so you have to order the parts directly from them. And so the kitchen sink is out of order and we have to wait five to seven business days for a new part. I say all of this merely to explain the next actual quote. "I'm gonna put some shorts on and climb into the bathtub with the dishes."
sea of headlights lonely in the mist Here we are in Colorado. We travelled through rain , mist, and one looong stretch of highway with a complete dearth of restaurants. It became obvious to us that most of the population of Colorado never eats, but we finally arrived in Denver where they do indeed have food (it must be for all the visitors, because we now know that Coloradoans never eat). This may be the last blog post I get to write before the eighteenth when we will be home again. Unfortunately I have very little of interest to say. When I get back to Illinois my life will return to it's normal state of crazy-full, but right now it's a traveling kind of crazy-full which is not all that interesting to relate. Will the hotel breakfast contain anything besides sugary foods to feed to the children? Will the Spanish-speaking cleaning ladies try to force more clean towels on us before we need them? *suspenseful music swells* With a lack of topics more exciting that breakfasts and towels, I will give you our actual quotes from the trip thus far. "She thought your hand was an entire pack of dogs." "You may not play with the machine gun in the car." "Hey! Who put crayons in my shoes?"
I've heard that God has different ways of dealing with different people. I know someone who says that God beats her about the head with one sin for about six months until she has learned to control that evil better and to lean on Him for more grace and then they move on to the next one. For me God hits me once and then let's it brew in my head. When I start to slack off He biffs me again and so on. I have watched my progress with a number of pet sins over the years and I see their appeal wearing off and I can see some victories. Then I slack off and God wallops me again. As most of you know I have a very hard time being content with God's plan for my body. I've spent the bulk of my life avoiding the question. I would avoid mirrors and I hated shopping for clothes. But God has been good to me and I can see some victories that He has won. Recently I was brought back to a situation that used to give me all sorts of problems and I was so glad when the hang-ups just weren't there. And I've since found myself musing on myself. Here are some of the musings. Raquel and I have talked about my discontent and she listens very well. But she said something to me that is the foundation for the rest of these musings. Raquel said that she knows I think my resurrection body will be thin. She knows that is what I consider to be perfect. But she said that if I were actually skinny it would look wrong. I wouldn't look like me. And she said that how I look is one of the pieces that makes me me. I wonder. I have no idea what a resurrection body looks like, but I know our idea of physical beauty is messed up so why not our idea of perfection? People have told me before that I give really good hugs. I think that is because there is actually substance to hug. I've hugged really skinny people before and I felt like I was going to break them. When I was at the hospital with William and his family I found myself very grateful for my bulk. I wrapped my arms around these people and they would cling to me and cry into my shoulder. And no matter how much they leaned on me there was no chance they could knock me down. And I think that was helpful to them. It is immensely comforting when you can lean and you know someone with hold you up. That someone was me and I felt glad I could do it. When I was about 13 I noticed that I had some silver hair mixed in with my brown. For a while I thought this was embarrassing because I was going gray and everyone knows it is bad to have gray hair. A couple years later someone asked me if I had silver highlights. I said no, I was going gray and I waited for the laughter or pity or whatever response he felt comfortable with. This man went on to tell me that he thought my hair was very cool. The term he used was diesel. I took it as a compliment and began musing about about my hair. Yesterday I put henna dye in my hair to tint it a reddish-goldish-brownish color. I looked in the mirror and couldn't find my silver hair. They had all turned gold which is actually pretty cool and still gives me the two-tone look in my hair, but when I noticed I didn't have silver highlights anymore I felt kinda sad. Henna isn't permanent so they'll come back, but for now my hair isn't diesel anymore. And I actually miss this thing that used to embarrass me. If that's not grace I don't know what is. I didn't really notice when this sin ceased to be a constant problem. I think it will come up again and I know I will have to give it the royal beat down again, but it isn't a constant thing. All of a sudden I can look in a mirror and say, It isn't what I would have picked, but it's all right. And for that I am truly grateful.
