Creature Bug

Week 287: Thirds

2009-12-23T23:24:04-08:00

For her birthday party on Sunday, I made three different kinds of soups, three different kinds of breads, three different kinds of desserts, three different kinds of drinks, and had three different appetizers. (And eventually had to take a three-hour nap to recover from all the birthday wonderfulness...)

But the most important thing was the birthday girl, and there is only one just like her.

Only one little Jules who would ask for a coconut cake with red and green coconut sprinkled on it, only one who was smiling so much it took her three passes at trying to get all those birthday candles blown out, and only one who at the end of the party--when I was exhausted from having stayed up almost night cooking and cleaning--came up to me and said, "Thank you, Mama. I yuved my birthday party."

Oh my sweet girl, we're all so happy (and perhaps even relieved) that you're now three years old. I think I've wanted to you be three since you started walking at nine months old, and now you've finally arrived and we've been feeling better about three-dom for a few weeks now. No more diapers. No more hitting. No more furniture and book destruction. A little mellower. Totally adjusted to the nap-free schedule we adopted last summer. And even though the tears still come mostly every day, and even though there is still some work to be done on a particular tone of voice you like to use, we are just having so much fun these days, aren't we? Because you at three is just exactly perfect, and I simply can't get enough of you. More kisses, more hugs, more dancing in the living room--I could just eat you up, you're so sweet. Not just seconds, but thirds of all your exuberance and hilarity and silliness.

Love you with all I have, Jubals.

I'll always remember that you're my 30th birthday wish come true.

{Pictures from Sarah. More pictures here.}

Guess who flew in from Denver today?

2009-12-18T22:05:34-08:00

Oh, happy day!

December Views {17th}

2009-12-17T23:48:11-08:00

(The wreath hanging on my parents' front door.)

On Sunday we are having a little birthday party for Miss Jubals, and even though everyone coming is family and has already seen our house, today I decided to get with the program when it comes to decorating our walls.

I tripped down to the basement to find boxes of framed photos and art that hadn't been opened since they were packed away 18-months ago. There's no good reason why I hadn't opened them before except that I just didn't feel like it. But now? Well, I decided now was as good a time as any to go through it.

Inside the boxes were nearly all the things we had used to decorate our room and Jules' room. Though I hadn't forgotten about any of them, it was a lovely reunion to see some treasured items and photos that had once sat on shelves and hung from the walls of our former house. Now they have a new spot, a new place to hang, a new light to catch. Our rooms feel a little more complete.

Tomorrow a trip to Target, IKEA, and Costco will hopefully help me put the finishing touches on our place.

This process of turning my grandparents' former house into our house has been an interesting one. I am very content with where we are living now, even though it is certainly much different from where I thought we'd be about this time of year. I remember quite distinctly saying at Jules' birthday party last year, "Next year, we'll be having her party in our new house."

I was partly right. We are having her party at our new house...it's just not the one we were going to build.

The disappointment of not building has faded away. I didn't think it would, but it has. Mostly I'm relieved that we didn't go ahead with building, optimistically assuming that Jason would get a job after leaving his other one. What a disaster that would have been! But going through our stuff today made me a little nostalgic for where we lived. That red vase, the wooden kaleidescope, my favorite candle--I remember where they used to sit. I can picture vividly in my mind how the pictures hung in our bedroom, how the curtains hung in Sydney's room. It was a good house.

Where we live now is good too, just different. It has a different feel (owing, no doubt, to the fact that part of the living space was once a mobile home), but what a blessing that my grandparents' home was available for us to move into, allowing us to live on the Family Farm. If we couldn't have lived here, then life would be much different...and we'd probably be back in Oregon.

Yet, here we are, putting pictures up on the walls, unpacking all the decorations that make a place feel less like a space and more like a home.

We're here, for awhile anyway. Who knows when we'll build. I've been okay with that for quite some time, but it was just today that I really stopped to think about it, moving things around in my mind to see how I feel.

Turns out, I'm feeling okay. And I'm happy that we've found our home for the next few years.

December Views {16th}

2009-12-16T22:59:59-08:00

"Oh!" Sydney exclaimed, just as we were driving up to our house. "Oh! Did you see that? Oh! Did you put those up?"

At first, I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but then I followed her eye and realized what she was looking at.

"Are you looking at the lights on the tree?" I guessed what she was so excited about. Before I had even finished my words, she had jumped out of the car and walked over to a bush in our driveway.

"Are those...did you...oh, it's so pretty!"

"Did you put those Christmas lights up?" she asked.

"Not me," I confessed.

And then she figured it out. They weren't real Christmas lights twinkling on the bush. Or, at least, they weren't electric Christmas lights.

"It's so beautiful," she sighed, and then shook some of the lights off the branches into her hand where they puddled in a less than spectacular fashion.

"Yes," I agreed. "It's very beautiful."

More than once now since that first day of discovery several days ago, Sydney has learned that if the light is just right, and the rain has paused to catch its breath, then the bush will again be all decked out in sparkly lights. "Look, Mom," she'll say. And she and I will trade a smile, both of us captivated by Nature's Christmas lights twinkling on a cold December day.

{December Views}

Week 285-286: Good Tidings of Great Joy

2009-12-15T23:46:43-08:00

I've been trying very hard to be cheerful this Christmas season. All things considered, we are so very blessed. But some days, oh, some days it's just not easy to think about the blessings. Some days I get distracted by the fact that Jason doesn't have a job, hasn't been getting sub calls, and even my teaching schedule at school next semester looks a bit tenuous.

I wake up in the middle of the night, hoping and praying nothing happens to Jason since he doesn't have health insurance. I wonder how we'll be able to get through the summer even though we won't be receiving a single paycheck. Every month our bills are much higher than what we're bringing in, but we knew that would be the case this school year.

We knew, and we committed to not worrying about it.

I'm not worried.

But I'm not always feeling very thankful either.

Some days I work so hard at not being stressed about our situation that I end up getting blindsided by a reminder of my grandmas, and I just wish they were here with me this Christmas. I'd even settle for having my sweet dog by my side, but even she isn't here anymore.

And here, seven paragraphs later, you might be wondering where the good news is. Certainly, none of the above is good news. It's not new terrible news. It's not anything more than what we've already been enduring kind of news. But it sure isn't good, and it most definitely doesn't feel very great.

Yet, good news abounds.

We had a lovely weekend with Jason's parents up near Mt. Hood, despite the fact that it was rainy not snowing.
We are all healthy.
Jason got some good news about a local school district hiring lots of social studies teachers next year.
We spent a wonderful evening with friends, watching So You Think You Can Dance. I love me some good friends.
We have a roof over our head, a furnace that works, and a laptop that connects to the Internet.

Even with all these blessings, all this pales in comparison to the best news we heard today. My uncle, who was diagnosed with glioblastoma last summer, received great news from the doctor today: after the newest round of treatment the tumor has shrunk.

The tumor has shrunk!

In the words of the doctor, this is remarkable and amazing. It would have been enough if the tumor hadn't grown, but more than that, the tumor has gotten smaller. The results are entirely unexpected. Left untreated, an individual with glioblastoma has three months to live. The power of medicine and the power of prayer has given us more than three months. It has given us six months, and the new MRI shows that the treatment promises to give us even more.

When I heard the news--when I read it on my uncle's CaringBridge page--I cried. For all the blessings we have, I think it's fair to say that this has been the year of bad news. But today! Today we finally got some good news, and it couldn't have come at a better time.

Whatever else we have to endure the rest of this year, one thing is sure: today we got very good news.

Amen.

December Views {7/8/9/10}

2009-12-11T15:15:32-08:00

Since I can hardly stand to be outside in this weather, I sent Jason outside to document the Arctic tundra that surrounds us.

Oh, all right. So it's not Arctic, exactly. But it's close. If only we had polar bears. Nice ones. Not the kinds that would eat you up.

Here's the creek that flows through our backyard. The sheet of ice covering the creek is actually not strong enough for us to walk on, but it's still pretty amazing that it froze over at all. As a by-the-way...do you see that cliff on the far side of the picture? We live about 100 feet up from it.

The girls think the ice is quite the novelty. I'm just happy that they can stand to be out in the cold for more than five minutes. Last year, we got a super deal on their winter coats that still fit them this year (and will probably still fit them even next year). This year, we got a super deal on their winter pants that keep their legs toasty warm.

I'm all about toasty warm clothes.

I'm also, as you can see, all about making my girls look like big pink marshmallows. That's the consequence of having a girly-girl mom: very few gender neutral clothes for us.

Julianne wasn't absolutely sure about walking on the ice. She hung out on the Tom Sawyer raft for awhile, until she finally worked up the courage to take a step out. Even now I'm not sure that she thinks walking on ice is a good idea...and I'm okay with that.

Aside from ice...

...Mt. Hood from my car window, as I was driving back from school this week.

...Lemon rosemary shortbread cookies that I made for my Irish lit students. On our last day of class I brought yummy treats and gave them all a copy of Angela's Ashes. It really was a dream come true to teach this class. The school will soon be hiring a full-time faculty member to take over the lit courses from the adjuncts, so I doubt I'll get to teach another lit class for a long time, but that's okay. I'm just so thankful I had the opportunity for this semester.

Also? Those cookies were darn tasty.

Probably the biggest news of the week, however, is this:

Miss Sydneykins got her ears pierced.

She and I were both quite nervous about it, but neither one of us cried too many tears. Yes, indeed, she's a big girl now.

The Silence is Freezing

2009-12-10T22:53:28-08:00

Every once in awhile, we'll get a winter cold snap that will make the frog ponds and creek freeze over. When I was a kid, we loved it when that happened. It didn't happen every year, or even every other year, but just sometimes we'd get lucky. That's what we called it: "Lucky." We'd don several layers of clothing and go play some rudimentary kind of hockey on the ice. It was cool. Literally.

The freezing weather is back. Absolutely freezing here. Not as cold as other places, but still. Fuhreezing.

I've kind of lost my enthusiasm for cold weather. Fortunately, Jason is a super trooper and has taken the girls outside to walk on the frozen ponds to get a nice winter experience. I had that winter experience as a kid, and all that lucky sub-freezing weather is pretty much tiding me over...for the rest of my life.

No matter how much I bundle myself up, I'm cold cold cold. Today I even had the unfortunate luck of having to park at the gym parking lot (Corban alumni will know what that means) and had to hike down to my classroom way, way down the hill. I might have had mild hypothermia by the time I got to my classroom.

And now tomorrow I'm headed up to Mt. Hood to subject myself to even colder temperatures.

When I sufficiently thaw, I'll post pictures.

Happy weekend to you all. Hope you're staying warm!

December Views {5/6}

2009-12-06T19:49:39-08:00

Brr!

{December Views}

We've had a cold front blow in, and it's just downright chilly outside. According to my dad's favorite weather site, it's supposed to get down to 15 degrees this week (which is too cold for me to figure out how to convert that to Celsius). The predictions of snow never materialized; instead just plenty of freezing sunshine.

Early this morning, either because of the cold or some strong gusts of wind, we lost power for about 45 minutes. I've been sufficiently trained by Hollywood to believe that when the power goes out in the middle of the night then a psychopathic killer is getting ready to burst into my house.

I think moving away from suburbia could be bad for my blood pressure.

(Although no power-outage story can rival that of the time I was in college, and our entire campus lost power one dark and stormy night, and then we were told not to wander around campus because one of our friendly neighbors--from the prison across the street--had that day decided to escape his life behind bars. Oh the drama!)

Fortunately, the power came back and then just after 7:30 the sun came up, so all was well.

My imagination needs to remember that the next time the power goes out.

December Views {4}

2009-12-04T22:24:49-08:00

Even though summer is hands-down my favorite season, I do love the fact that in the wintertime I can say, "I got up at the crack of dawn to take pictures," and it seems impressive without me actually having to lose any sleep.

I knew today would be my chance to snap some sunrise pictures because (1) I don't work on Fridays and (2) the clouds are coming in because it's supposed to snow tonight. In fact, the clouds showed up about 10 minutes after I was done taking pictures.

My enthusiasm for sunrise photos was a bit diminished when I realized that there really aren't any good places on our property to take unobstructed photos.

Somehow I had in my mind that I would snap that really great horizon photo...but then the trees. Oh, those trees! But of course I love the trees, and I'd rather have them than a photo op anyway.

It's pretty in it's own way, right? I've always thought there was a certain je ne sais quoi about powerlines. Perhaps this photo captures the juxtaposition of sunrises and powerlines. It's nature versus industrialization; light versus dark; solar versus...electric. Ooh. I feel a paper topic coming on.

I'll stop now.

I gave up on the sunrise pictures and decided to capture some other views. A few steps and half a turn later is our orchard.

Looks quite a bit different than it did last April, hmm?

(As a photography sidenote, I love how these pictures nicely illustrate warmer and cooler photos. Blue-tinged photos--which my point-and-shoot Sony leans towards--are considered cooler. Yellow-tinged photos are considered warmer. In the case of the above pictures, they are literally cooler and warmer. Nifty.)

I love living somewhere where there are seasons, although I'm not always fond that where I live rain is a constant part of every season. Oh well. The grass is greener.

Today, however, the grass wasn't so much greener as it was quite frosty. Crunch crunch went my boots as I plodded across the field in my jammies.

Crunch crunch went a pair of smaller boots right behind me.

Mama, I'm cold.

I know sweetie. But your eyes look so pretty in the freezing weather.

Hey! I look pretty all the time!

She got me there.

I thought about maybe making this early morning photography a habit.

Then I put my hand on Jason's truck.

It took my body three hours to warm up after that, and I decided I'll sleep in tomorrow.

{December Views}

December Views {3}

2009-12-03T22:40:36-08:00

If ever there was a day I ought to have had my camera with me, it was today. Cold, frosty, and gorgeous sunshine. This morning, as I crossed the bridge into Oregon (from the Glen Jackson bridge), I really wished I had had my camera to get a picture of Mt. Hood. I suppose it was safer for the drivers around me that I didn't have my camera. Still. I wished it.

Instead, I have far less beautiful but definitely more sentimental pictures for today:

The cats of the Family Farm.

This is Tux, ridiculously friendly and believes with all his heart that he should be a house cat. We'll never have a house cat, nor will my parents. For one thing, out here in semi-rural land, cats are a necessity to catch the mice. They can't be lazing around in the house; they have to be working. For another thing, I don't like cat hair on my clothes. But most importantly, Jason is really, very, absolutely, positively, life-alteringly allergic to cats. If I wanted to do some serious damage to my husband, I could lock him in a room with a cat that's been slathered with peanut butter and then dipped in a vat of dust, grass, and pollen. It'd be the end of him.

It'd probably be the end of me too when faced with the prospect of having to clean up that messy cat.

Tux is the only one who takes issue with his outdoor living arrangements.

Taffy, on the other hand, rather likes being outside. And judging from her antics outside my window last night, she wants the whole world to know it.

She's not winning any awards for her swan song, that's for sure.

Occasionally, Taffy lets the girls pick her up, even though she doesn't much care for kids.

Kitties don't shake hands! Kitties gotta hug!

It's a real mystery why Taffy usually runs away from the girls. They are so affectionate with her.

Fortunately, Tux is less skittery, and as long as no one minds him nibbling on their fingers or the fact that he has too many toes, he's a good cat. We've tried to tell him not to be so friendly otherwise the coyotes will get him, but he doesn't listen. Instead we have to lock the cats up on nights where the moon is full. It's the most we can do for them.

Hopefully we can keep these two around--along with Four who is too skittery to be photographed.

She's looking serious, but really, she's a big fan of the farm cats even if they do make her daddy sneeze.