This one's for the boys

KT, tell Luuuuuuke; and Amy, tell RC.  Shooooot, Dist - if you're looking at this, tell T. Spence, too.  (I don't think Runyan ever cared, but maybe he did.) 

I trimmed the old pits (with scissors) upon their suggestion, and I must say - I like the new look. 

Think bunny tails vs. Wookie.

Chillin' in the heat

It is downright sweltering in Western WA.  Seriously. 

Haaaaaaaaaaaat.

I don't have much else to say other than that.  We've been spending a lot of time with grandma and grandpa, great-grandma, and the great-aunts.  Think, "Gwamma, will you play Star Wars guys with me?" or, "Gwampaaaaa!" [insert frenzied snuggling here] and, "Gweat-Gwamma, I founds lots 'n lots of moths outside last night!" etc. That, and being serenaded by, "Life is Like a Mountain Railroad" by my grandma.  

[For Ashlik: "woof-woof, boom-boom - merry christmas, happy new year"]

Tru-babes [or "Do", as Diego calls him] has started a few new tricks, like throwing and hitting.  Think lots of, "Maaaamaaaa...Do hit me!"  Oh dear...  It doesn't help that Diego can be heard, on the presumed-sly, saying, "Do!  Hit me!"  Too tantalizing.

We are getting the house ready for my brother's wedding next weekend.  The ceremony and reception is going to be right here, at my parents' place.  It should be lovely.  I am really looking forward to it.  And my new(ish) SIL.  Awwww, shucks.  What a gal.  I'm quite fond.  I just went to her bachelorette party last night and watched her "pin the junk on the hunk"; though she was the last to go, and, instead, pinned her junk on another previously-pinned-junk.  Ha!  It was fun to see her outside of a family event.  I learned quite a bit of interesting tidbits about my brother, too.  (Another HA!)  It was fun.

And now, adieu. 

Glazed

Here I sit, enjoying the silence, with my mom asleep behind me and my boys sawing logs above me, and my lover 1,300 miles away.  And all I can do is stare.  My mind is blank.  

zzzzzzzzzzzz

G'night!

Here we are...

At home, in Western WA

"More later"

Tea party

But how/why/when/where did Darth Vader die? And why couldn't he live with his robot suit? How did he get burnt? Why? What about Obi-wan Kenobi?

This afternoon during lunch, I had an extremely lengthy, extensive conversation about Darth Vader with my four year old. Endless questions, endless answering.

Good thing I know my stuff.

Sad junkfood for the brain

I want to post, but have nothing to say --
I've stayed up waaaay too late,
Looking at this. Ay.

Streaming

• Our garden is beautiful - we are eating very well, with frequent 2-3-4 combinations of vegetables at each meal. Beets top of the charts, nummm. Red Swan beans with butter, salt, and parm cheese come next (but that just started last night).
• Being a mother highlights faults and shortcomings like no other job I've ever had. Being a wife is probably second, but I don't think it even touches motherhood.
• Tea parties are all the rage at our house again these days. Diego set up the little kiddie-table in the kitchen today, right below the low-lying window; the view was delightful and we dined on buttered ginger muffins, chicken bits, walnuts, banana chips, and alfalfa-mint tea.
• Diego's naps are becoming shorter and frequently he does not fall asleep during snuggle time. He recently even started saying, "I don't know how to fall asleep!" It may be just a phase, as he is sleeping in quite late to make up for the lost time. Quiet Time has begun. He settles into an upstairs bedroom with books and his beloved pac(fier) and comes down when 1) the music goes off, or 2) the buzzer beeps.
• I am purposefully gearing my life into a slower pace. This includes staying home a lot and focusing more on the daily routine. I am incorporating regimented tasks into my daily and weekly life, like "After Meal Clean-up", where Diego helps by clearing the table, wiping up, and tucking in the chairs; "Quiet Time"; and routinizing things like sweeping, cleaning the bathroom, and vacuuming. My living space is out of control and I need some assistance (structure) to help me manhandle it into submission. I hope to make it simply "what I do" in time.
• So why is it...whenever I get a chunk of free-time, my motivation and To Do list totally dissolves and all I want to do it lay around and read?
• I've started brushing my teeth with tooth powder (Eco-dent is the brand) vs. paste. I really like it and will never go back. The boys are even starting to take to it...yessss.
• I will be at my parents house in Western WA for several weeks at the end of July/beginning of August. My brother Andrew is getting married and my sister has her senior show for the art school she attends. I can't wait to melt into being a daughter again. That feels so good. Squeeze will be coming for a long weekend as well - I am so glad that he'll be there with us, as he wasn't able to attend my other brother's wedding last summer. He'll miss the senior show, though...bummer.
• Blahblahblahblahblah blahblahblah
• My SIL was told "If I were Bond, you'd be my woman" at the post office the other day.
• I've been dreaming about Nepali/Indian food recently - I want curried potatoes & cauliflower and poori like you couldn't believe. I am also nursing a serious obsession with Brazil nuts.
• Both boys love Brazil nuts too, as does Squeeze. They are going real quick, like lightning, in this house.
• I must read.

Where have I been the last two weeks....?

Visiting and being visited, with a wedding tossed in --

Lots of laughs and good conversation

The guys

Heart to heart with Uncle Ry

Diego passed out in the pew
BLS yukking it up with Luuuuuuuie

Totally. zonked.
between the ceremony and reception
zzzzzzzzz

This man was an angel
He seemed to enjoy the boys (and they loved him)
I think he liked their toys, too

Ta Bunz!
His Little Buns!
and Baby T

RC and his lovely brown eyed lady

Diego and the Ladies

Luuuuuuuuke and KT

Working hard for a gourmet brekkers

Playin' hard with the Billinator's (like pollinator)
C-3PO Collectors' Case

Relaxing in the backyard with Darth Veda
(the dog)

July birthdays

(Truen was looking at baby turtles...)

Fireworks with the Cousins

Can you spot the cousin who was plugging his ears?

The Fearsome Foursome

Diego, Truen, Jackson, and Claire

Oh, baby

What a sight: mid-July garden

Pa rulz

I started reading Little House in the Big Woods to Diego last week. He is mesmorized while I am reading it, eagerly waiting (of course) for the pages with illustrations on them. [I try to hold those pages open while I'm reading non-picture passages.]

The "Little House" books were one of my favorite series as a child, as I am sure they are special for many. I re-re-re-read through them the summer before I went to college, knowing it might be awhile before I could re-re-re-re-read them again. And I re-re-re-re-re-read them after I was married, too. My perspective changes with each re-reading. I am noticing that this time around, too (fancy that).

Diego is enjoying Little House in the Big Woods, just as I hoped he would. We are already re-reading favorite passages, like the story of Laura's Grandpa being chased by the black panther through the Big Woods.

The first evening while snuggling in bed, I asked him, "What do you remember about LHitBW?" and I think he's got a bit of Pa Obsession going on.

Here's what he remembered:

1. When Pa butchered the pig; Laura and Mary played with the blown-up pig's bladder like a balloon.
2. When Pa shot the bear holding the pig.
3. When Pa hung the two deers he shot high in the tree, so the wolves wouldn't get them.
4. Pa, building the hickory-smoker in the hollowed out tree. It had a roof!
5. Pa, playing "Mad Dog" with Laura and Mary and scaring them half-to-death.

Can you? Hear it?

Totally tubular. Seriously.

Both the boys and I have been loving this book: Can You Hear It? by Dr. William Lach

Food Renegade

This girl tells it straight and strong: I love it. She and I are on the same path, and so much of what she says speaks to me. Preach!

I think I might be obsessed.

It's hard to undo three decades of damage

Fat is where it's at: For decades, fat has been blamed for everything from heart disease to obesity to cancer. But new research shows that fat can be good for you.

As the obesity epidemic was later to arrive in Europe, the pro-fat backlash isn’t yet in full swing there, but signs are emerging. A recent study in the NEJM fingering total calories, not fats or carbs, as responsible for weight loss, made headlines on both sides of the Atlantic. And anecdotes abound. British celebrity chef Anthony Worrall Thompson has been blatant about using lard in his restaurants. In Norway, sausage consumption is up.

Even mainstream nutritional experts have recanted. The blanket message that "fat is bad for you" has few remaining adherents. The AHA, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the American Council on Science and Health have all modified the message, from their original admission that unsaturated fats are good for you to the grudging acknowledgement that even trans fats may not be as bad as they’ve been portrayed to be. "We should apologize for making people think about ‘percentage of calories,’" says the AHA’s Eckel, adding that the focus should be on total calories. "You want to eat steak? That’s fine. Just make it six ounces rather than 16."

To undo decades of fat-phobia, it’s going to take a more rousing endorsement. And for that, it’s necessary to leave the realm of science and enter the kitchen, where it’s easier to consider the possibilities. Take guacamole, or the pat of butter that finishes a risotto or a chocolate pudding. McLagan includes fat in everything from salad to dessert, with recipes for grilled steak and red wine sauce topped with bone marrow. For a sweet, try salty bacon brittle with pork cracklings. These are beyond rich—the animal fats give the dishes depth and an almost medieval earthiness—and they’re delicious, enough to make even confirmed skeptics salivate.

The boys' Nature Shelf

We are following the idea of the Montessori Nature Shelf at our house. Diego (and Truen, too, though to a lesser extent at this point in time) finds all kinds of interesting things, from skulls and chesnuts to dried up toads and hummingbird nests - and everything goes straight to their "Special Shelf", as we've been calling it.

It is a window sill in our sunroom, right by the back door, and both the boys enjoy spending time going through its contents. Pinecones, walnut shells, snail shells, feathers. Pretty rocks and seeds. Bird eggs are the one exception - they go on the window sill above the sink. (Baby Truen would crush them!) Did you know swallow eggs are white with brown speckles?

I've always been one to pick up whatever-looks-interesting off the ground (I had rock collections galore), so nurturing this part of their curiosity comes very naturally. I think I might enjoy it more than they do. Lovely.

Sizzlin' success

Story Hour at our little library is going great. We have had 8 kids the last two weeks, 5 kids the first week. There is a lot of interchange amongst the attendees, so we have probably had 10-12 different kids in during the first three weeks. It might be more than that, but I'm too lazy to attempt a headcount from memory and I haven't been taking attendance. Maybe I should...

I am so pleased. I knew that "if we built it, they would come". Even in a tiny community of 703 people. The years before required a sign up sheet and suffered from massive disorganization, so when an interested individual actually manhandled it into submission - and townspeople could count on it happening - we would smell the sweet rose of success. Yesssss.

The 9-12 year olds' group is going well, too. A SAHD(ad), who is also a former elementary teacher, is organizing it. They are adapting a folk tale into a puppet show (SO cool) and will be performing it for the younger kids at the end of the summer. There are 10 kids in regular attendance.

It is just so thrilling. And encouraging. And fun to participate in.

It makes me proud.

♥ the innocence mission ♥

The Lakes of Canada

One of my all-time favorite songs, ever. (With a couple of minutes of cheesy water sound effects at the end: beware.)

Sufjan does Lakes of Canada, too

Quite a find

On our way to friends' house for dinner last weekend, we were driving by Wildlife Management Land and happened upon this beauty: a wild Cypripedium. It is the brown and yellow "Lady Slipper" orchid, closely related to Minnesota's state flower, Cypripedium reginae. It was our first sighting of a Cypripedium occurring in its natural habitat, which was quite a thrill.

I was watching the landscape very closely as we drove (and we were going very slowly because of the gravel road), as I am interested in, and becoming more familiar with, prairie flowers. We were running late and had already just stopped to look at some tent caterpillars; but when I saw those beautiful, round, yellow flowers, I squealed "Cypripedium!"; Squeeze slammed on the brakes and we all piled out to admire it.

Cypripedium (species unknown)

So very lovely...
(Diego examining it in the background)

Kitchen flop

I attempted to make homemade mozzarella this evening, and what a ker-flop that turned out to be! I'm not sure exactly what went wrong, but my goodness: did it ever. It never turned to "stretchy taffy". No-no-no.

Oh well.
I tried.