The Biggs

Lightning Round

2010-01-31T21:34:00.001-08:00

I haven't picked up Ulysses in a month, but January was pretty fruitful for other books. It gets dark by 4:30, and is cold and rainy every weekend; plus I got a Kindle for Christmas!

Middlemarch: I am still plugging along, and still completely entranced by this novel. The story of "three love problems" is more than halfway done, I am currently enmeshed in the painful destruction of Rosamund and Lydgate. I still think this is the best English novel I have ever read.

Changing My Mind by Zadie Smith: I suppose there should be a qualifier that I have some hero worship going on with Ms. Smith, and I loved this book of rather ecletic essays even more than her novels. It doesn't hurt that the first essay is about Middlemarch, and in a later essay she states "Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the only t.v. show I have ever truly loved." My absolute favorite essay is a discussion of E.M. Forester and a celebration of a non-intellectual love of literature.

Manhood for Amateurs by Michael Chabon. This is another collection of essays, many of which have been printed elsewhere. While Smith's essays jump through pop culture and academia, Chabon focuses on family and parenthood. I especially liked his defense of being an amateur; whether in parenthood or life.

Where Men Win Glory: The Pat Tilman Story by Jon Krakauer. I am listening to this book to and from work rather than reading it, but it still counts. Krakauer again uses his journalism skills to recreate a riveting, needless tragedy; the parallel stories of Pat Tilman and America's war on terror.

The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt. I am a complete sucker for tales of large, bohemian families, and was immediately drawn into the magical world of the Wellwoods that provides the framework for this novel. Unfortunately, the second half of the book is the horrible consequences of the Wellwoods and their liberal friends inability, or incapacity to protect their children. I still have a ways to go before I am done, but this is a very engrossing novel.

When Everything Changed by Gail Collins. As a feminist, I am always a little mystified by a reluctance to admit how much better the lives of almost all American women have gotten during the last forty years. This is a journalist's detailed history of exactly what has changed from 1960 to 2010 for women in America; it is very straightforward and fascinating read.

Books

2009-10-07T20:28:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about my new job and being done with school is a little, tiny bit of free time and a little, tiny bit of space in my brain. With this new time, I have been reading a lot - and I am finding myself drawn to novels more than I have in the past. Some of these books will remain nameless, as I am not secure enough to wave the I love trashy books banner too high.

I do have two strong recommendations from the past couple of weeks. The first is Zeitoun by Dave Eggers. I am a huge fan of Eggers and highly recommended What is the What, his last book; his last two books are way more accessible than A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Zeitoun is the non-fiction novel story of Abdulraman Zeitoun, Syrian-American, Muslim, father of 4, upstanding citizen, and contractor in New Orleans, LA. This story follows his odyssey immediately before and after Katrina.

I also just read The Lovely Bones - Ariel had read it almost a year ago and told me that I should try it. I started it at 8:00 last night and drank enough coffee that I could stay up until 12:30 to finish it. Susie Salmon, the 14 year old nararrator of the story, is raped and murdered in the first few chapters, and spends the rest of the book observing her family from heaven. Her prose is sharp and clear, and I loved that her perspective on the story is suprising throughout. I felt the story sort of fell apart at the end, but overall very worthwhile.

I also think I am ready to start on the quest for my own personal reading Everest, Ulysses (Actually Ulysses might be K2, and Brothers Karamazov Everest, but never mind). I have gone through most of the other big, challenging novels, but am a little terrified of Ulysses. I read in her biography that Virginia Woolf had to try four times before she could get through page 35, and then thought it was the most amazing thing she had ever read.

Nutshell

2009-05-21T17:13:00.001-07:00

We are starting to come out of the dregs of our grey winter, and I now am feeling enough enthusiasm to blog about life again, so our family has been up to this;

For Spring Break we went on a road trip to Moab, the Grand Canyon, Phoenix (to visit Rene and John!), Disneyland, Stockton (to visit the Traub cousins) and Ashland, OR. Even though we covered a lot quickly - even one 16 hour day - it was a complete blast. There were so many wonderful places we got to see - hiking the Bright Angel Trail and in Arches NP made me very excited for our upcoming hiking season. My kids are definitely tough! I was so thankful for the friends and family that let us stay - having our family is a little like an invasion, not a visit, but we enjoyed our visits so much.
The girls have started their interferon treatments for Hep C - they will get a shot a week, medicine twice daily, and blood draws frequently (lucky I can do all of this at home)...but after a year they should be hep C free and their livers should last them a good long time. They are doing awesome, even though it is hard, especially for Shkuri, who hates needles. I am really grateful for good medical insurance, so we can afford the treatment, which runs to a mind numbing 10,000$/week for both girls.
Isaac and Shkuri both turned 8!
My sister has been diagnosed with Myelodysplastic syndrome, which is a sort of a chronic, pre-leukemic disease. For now she is out of the hospital and living a pretty regular life (she is a single Mom, making it even tougher), but it has been very scary. We are not super close, but she is moving closer to my parents and I, so that we can be there if she needs us.
School ends the week of June 22nd - for all of us! Shkuri and Isaac finish 2nd, Hamda finishes 1st, Elias graduates preschool, and I complete my 22nd year of college! I still have to pass my boards, but I am beyond excited about finishing school..and I have two great jobs lined up. I will work about 20 hours a week with an M.D. who has a holistic medicine practice in town and about 5 hours a week at two jails in Grays Harbor County seeing inmates. I am terrified, because I have a lot to learn, but I am looking forward to learning it.

Oh Blah De, Oh Blah Doe

2009-03-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was Ariel's Grandfathers Funeral. Elmer C. Biggerstaff was 89 when he died; he was a navy WWII Veteran who had fought in Sicily and Guadalacanal. He loved baseball. He was married to Ariel's Grandmother for over 60 years and was survived by his 2 sons, 7 grandchildren, and 8 great grandchildren. His death was about as good of a death as anyone could ask for; he said good bye to all of his family and died at home. He is going to be missed.

Ariel took these wonderful photos of the kids before the funeral. The kids had all seen him before he died and had lots of questions. I was glad I could tell the kids that Great Pa is in heaven now. Sometimes it is nice to just believe in the simple answers rather than think too hard about the big questions.

These pictures are a great reminder how wonderful it is to know my kids. The absolutely wear me out, but they are just awesome people. With being so busy, this is a time in my life when it is good to be reminded that life is now - and it is worth appreciating. Right now I am home after a full day of clinicals and I am tired - but it was a really good day. I got home in time for us all to eat dinner together, and we got through homework and piano practice in one piece, and now all we have left to do is read some Harry Potter and go to bed.

Rats

2009-02-03T19:32:00.000-08:00

In a study of the effects on stress, Robert Sapolsky showed the rats who received electric shocks develop ulcers from the stress. If the rats had a companion rat to bite after their electric shock, however, their stress was reduced and they would not develop ulcers.

I think Ariel would prefer if I stick with watching the Daily Show.

1/09

2009-01-25T16:51:00.001-08:00

Today I am actually enjoying a Sunday where my (daily) to do list is completed. I went to a yoga class and walked the dog. I spent time reading with all the kids, and supervised piano practice. I tried another recipe in my quest for perfect curry noodles (todays from Mark Bittman, is not the winner). I paid the bills. I studied and even read three chapters from A Prayer for Owen Meany. Now it is just a matter of sitting around and playing our new Carmen San Diego game with the kids. I know I only have another 6 hours or so to enjoy it, but it sure feels great to be home and relaxed for a bit.

I have approximately 20 weeks/450 hours to go before I come close to completing my Masters - I still have to pass boards, but the most intensive work will be done. Ariel and I are both finding ourselves working too much, and it is hard - although we definitely feel grateful that we have work to do. I am going to work hard to finish my clinicals before school ends at the end of June, and am prepared to take some leave from work if I have to. We are planning a road trip to the Grand Canyon for Spring Break, and I am hoping that I can take Isaac for a long weekend to either D.C. or NYC when school ends.

One of the most exciting things that has gone on is a job has practically fell into my lap. About two months ago a friend sent me an email about a local M.D. who has a micropractice (which means he has no support staff, but takes up to 45 minutes with each patient) and practices Functional Medicine (i.e. naturopathic/alternative) that was looking for an NP to expand his client base. I decided to send him my resume, thinking I would never hear from him. He rather informally interviewed me, and as it stands, he is going to use some of my clinical hours to train me to do functional medicine and has plans to hire me when I am all done. His particular type of practice is so much more appealing than the 15 minutes in and out standard practice, and I am allowed to set my own hours. The only thing that makes it less than perfect is lack of complete health coverage. I can't quite believe such an amazing opportunity has just fallen in my lap -if it works out, I will be 7/7 for being hired at every job I have ever applied for.

Too close for comfort??

2009-01-16T22:13:00.001-08:00

In the past week, I have read two newspaper articles and listened to one radio story about grandparents living in/near their children and grandchildren. The article in the NY times mentioned that Barack Obama's MIL was going to be moving to the White House with them. Our families situation is even a little more extreme; we added on a MIL apartment to our house for my parents, and bought the house next door for Ariel's parents.

While I have frequent thoughts of moving away from Olympia, I have almost no desire to leave our little family unit. There are days when we are a little close for comfort - and I know there are days when our parents get a little annoyed with a herd of children running through their house, but I can't imagine a much better way to bring up kids.

I certainly can't imagine being able to juggle four young kids with work and school without the help of the Grandmas. Monday and Tuesday the kids go to Grandma Ruth's after school, while Wednesday and Thursday is Grandma Mariettas. I hope that the Grandparents feel they are getting as much from the arrangement as we do.

Tonight for movie night we watched Anne of Green Gables...I had forgotten how much I loved the story. It was so much fun to watch it together as a family. I remember how big a crush I had on Gilbert, and now he looks like such a little kid, sigh.

Lexus

2009-01-09T23:41:00.001-08:00

Today at the hospital, in front of our units window...an older man in a Chevy Suburban (who had a cast on) somehow jumped the sidewalk and curb and landed completely on top of a surgeon's gold lexus SUV. It provided us and our patient's at least an hours entertainment.

Revolutionary Road

2009-01-04T11:50:00.000-08:00

I don't have any plans to see the new Kate Winslet/Leo Dicaprio movie anytime soon, but all the reviews about it have certainly given me some pause. The plot is that of a fifties suburban family who are destroyed by their attempts to recapture the dreams and adventures of their pre-domestic life. In the story, the wife is the prime catalyst of the destruction, as she sets up plans to escape. The story hit a little bit too close to home for me. I feel like I constantly struggle with second guessing my life choices and wondering how exactly I got to be a mom of four living ten miles from where I grew up, when I pictured a life very different then this.

Of course, this is not the 1950s, and I am not some bored housewife trapped by decisions beyond my control. Still, the sentiments made me squirm. On the radio, they were discussing the movie, when a favorite talk show host of mine told a story of how he used to crave a life of adventure, but when he actually saw the lives of the war correspondants who he fantasized about being, he realized their lives were pretty hard and difficult. I have a few friends who live lives close to what I imagined I always wanted and they aren't really any happier than I am. They are often anxious about the choices and sacrifices they have made for their freedom and adventure.
At 31, I still feel like I have a lot of time to live out other lives, and to enjoy the time I have with my family now. I also try and remember that no matter who you are, life is basically filled with the mundane, and that contentenment comes from finding happiness even in the tedious. I don't know that my shlipkis is going to go away anytime soon, though.

Christmas '08

2008-12-25T19:39:00.001-08:00

This Christmas has been one of those great times as a family I wish I could bottle up. I worked yesterday and at the last minute we all went out to Japanese Steak House with our friends Craig and Carrie. This is the first year we haven't done something with my family on Christmas Eve, since it had gotten to stressful to have everyone over at our house.

When Ar picked me up from work to take us out, I thought he had lost his mind - we almost never take all four kids out to dinner, let alone with another family with 3 kids the same age. Instead, it was fantastic! The key to going out to dinner with our kids is to have a chef lighting the food on fire in front of us. We had such a good time, and also got to stop by Ar's grandparents, who didn't feel up to coming over for Christmas this year. We opened up pyjamas when we got home. Ariel had decided to wait to wrap all the presents until Christmas Eve to perpetuate the Santa story - I abandoned him at 11:00 and he was up until 6 am; wrapping presents and finishing up the sword and shields he made (from a Book of Mormon Battles website, oddly enough).

We finally had a white Christmas in Washington, which is lovely. We walked across the lawn to Ariel's parents (one of the keys to a great Christmas is not getting into a car) and when everyone arrived, we opened presents. We only spent about 50$ on each kid, but they were very happy with what we got them, it is truly a joy to watch them open their presents and enjoy the time with them. Ariel's parents gave us a huge suprise; a Wii - I cannot wait to play!! The rest of the day was super relaxed, instead of having a big meal we just had snacks and turkey sandwiches and played board games. We are working on winding the kids down (Ar is very, very tired), but at the moment they are roller blading around the house listening to the Mamma Mia soundtrack.

oh yeah, I am being productive.

2008-12-16T20:15:00.001-08:00

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Peanut Butter Cups

2008-12-14T20:54:00.001-08:00

On Saturday, I started off my weekend with not one, but two, interviews. Given that Friday was absolutely a day from hell (a tree fell over in our front yard, patients went to the ICU, and two kids threw giant tantrums), it might have been nice to have a chill weekend, but I wasn't going to get it.
The first was a phone interview of Ariel and I for a parenting book Marc and Amy Vachon are writing on Equally Shared Parenting. I had emailed them several months ago about an article in the New York Times that featured them, and they thought we might have some input because we pretty much split parenting equally - and we are crazy enough to have four kids between 4 and 7. The phone interview was really fun.
My second interview was a sort of job interview...I heard through the grape vine that a local M.D. was looking to hire a Nurse practitioner and I sent him my resume, although I still have at least six months to graduation. His practice is called a micro practice, and he has no employees in order to keep overhead low. This allows him to spend from between 1/2 hour to 2 hours with his patients, and he has a strong holistic base. If he were to decide to hire me, it would check off almost all of my wish list for a job (Women's Health! Holistic medicine! Part time!!) . We met for lunch, and I was expecting a straight forward job interview, but he was on a slightly different wave length...he was calm and thoughtful, and I was rather nervous and yammery. I am going to start doing some observation time with him and he is going to provide me with some holistic training. At some point I think we will decide if the position would be a good fit for both of us. Overall, the interview was pleased, but I am a bit stressed about my first impression.
The rest of the day I barely sat down; I got some Christmas shopping down and took 1/2 the kids to a friends Gladiator birthday party.
When I woke up today, I was rather wrung out and just wanted to sit around. A friend brought over her three kids this morning so she could perform at church. Later on, we met my sister and her kids and grandkids at Charlie Safari. That was definitely an excellent idea; the kids played for a good three hours on the inside jungle gym. By the time we got home I was feeling much better, I even snuck in time to watch a very good Friday Night Lights episode and work on a school project.
As the kids got ready for bed, I realized what my weekend needed to be complete: peanut butter cups. Yumm. Now I can go to bed in peace.

Ingredients
For the base
2 ounces (50 grams) soft dark brown sugar
7 ounces (200 grams) icing sugar
2 ounces (50 grams) butter, softened
7 ounces (200 grams) smooth peanut butter
For the topping:
7 ounces (200 grams) milk chocolate
3 1/2 ounces (100 grams) dark chocolate
Gold buttons and edible gold stars to decorate, or other decorations of your choice
For the base:
Directions
Place all the ingredients for the base in the bowl of a food processor. Blend the mixture until the mixture takes on a sandy texture.
Place 48 gold petit four cases in sets of miniature tart tins or mini-muffin tins (each indent about 1 3/4-inches in diameter). Use 1 teaspoon of the base mixture to fill the bases of the petit four cases. Press the sandy mixture down into the cases as best you can to form a layer at the bottom of each paper case.
Place the milk chocolate and dark chocolate together into a heatproof bowl. Suspend the bowl over a pan of simmering water (the water should not touch the bottom of the bowl). Melt the chocolate gently while stirring. Spoon teaspoonfuls of the melted chocolate onto the top of each of the sandy bases of the petit four cases.
Decorate the tops of the chocolate covered peanut butter cups with either a gold button or gold star in the middle of each and transfer them to the fridge. Let them set in the fridge, for about 30 minutes.
To serve, arrange the chocolate peanut butter cups in their cases on a clean plate.

Samaritan's Dilemma, or not apologizing any more.

2008-12-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

I just finished reading the Samaritan's Dilemma and combined with post-election euphoria, it has made me think about what a good time it is to be a liberal. I have been very guilty of being embarassed about believing in the good government is capable of doing. After all, we all know that only bleeding heart, naive idiots believe that. This book by Deborah Stone was very inspiring; she sets a few pretty basic ideas. First off, most people universally agree that it is good and moral to help your neighbor. Second, Reaganism drilled the opposite idea into our heads: government help is bad and harmful. To need help is un-American.

The rest of the book is a very reasoned argument why help is not harmful and altruism is a powerful political force. She really rips apart the lies of the "government help is harmful" world view. I was amazed at how much of those ideas I had absorbed, even growing up in a left leaning household. We need the help of our neighbor, and we need to give that help to be a part of the democratic process. No more apologizing for wanting an American government that plays the role of the good Samiritan.

P.S. The kids have been playing together very nicely all day long. My former pessimistic mood from last post is over.

Frazzle

2008-12-06T18:42:00.001-08:00

Today I contemplated a sad, bitter truth. I cannot stay home with my kids all day without losing my mind. I try very, very hard to be Maria Von Trapp. Instead of cute little curtain dresses and guitar solos, I have my little Von Trapps who get in fist fights every five minutes over someone sticking out their tongue. Instead of Maria, I look like Goldie Hawn in Overboard. We have been home together now for two days (Ar got his free pass day to hang out with his brother and I took yesterday off since the kids didn't have school)
My children are really lovely and they do play with each other very well, but someone always seems to mad at someone else. I am sure that just around the corner there is some great parenting technique I haven't figured out to get the kids to stop the bickering, but I haven't caught on yet. I know we only have ourselves to blame, as four kids between 4 and 7 in a 1400 sq. ft. house doesn't really sound like such a great idea. I have decided that that is what I really want for Christmas; Peace in my house and goodwill towards siblings. As of 6 o'clock tonight, I got tired enough I resorted to the lowest common denominator; the kids are all happy curled up together watching Prince Caspian.

In a totally unrelated note, I have an ARNP job prospect on the horizon! I still don't graduate for four or five months, but this job would be very close to perfect if it does work out. If it goes any further, I will certainly post more details.

Bitte, Herr Cruise

2008-11-24T21:38:00.000-08:00

Tonight at work, the trailer for Valkyrie played ad naseum on the History Channel. All I can say is yikes. Please, Please, Mr. Tom Cruise, do not make another historical movie ever again. Your unblinking stare is scary enough in modern day thrillers, you add Nazis and I just can't take it.

Expertise

2008-11-20T18:30:00.000-08:00

I read in the New Yorker that research seems to have zeroed in on 10,000 hours of practice being the magic number to be an expert at something. It doesn't seem to matter if it is basketweaving or brain surgery - you practice something for 10,000 hours, and you will be an expert. Today I finished my first 100 hours of clinicals as a nurse practitioner. 9,900 hours to go and I will be safe to see patients :). I also have about 9,700 hours of surfing practice before I can hit the pipeline. Maybe another 8,000 to go before I am ready to play my violin at Carnegie Hall. None of this takes into account actual natural talent, of course, but it is still comforting to have a magic number out there when I can expect not to embaress myself in front of people doing above activities. I should be way over 10,000 hours of parenting by now - and I certainly don't feel like any kind of expert in that arena.

Sayulita, Nayarit, Mexico

2008-11-18T20:29:00.000-08:00

We are now all settled back in our routine and safe in Olympia after vacation in Sayulita, Mexico. It is a little sad to be back in dreary WA. I might love my hometown, but the weather is a bit depressing. Our family had an absolutely marvelous time in Sayulita. It is a village of about 3,000 Mexicans and probably close to 1200 Ex-Pat Americans and Canadians. I can't exactly pretend that it is undiscovered, but I thought it was a happy medium....it still felt like you were in Mexico (unlike PV, which has a WalMart and a Hooters)...but with restraunts, coffee shops and Mexican Handicraft boutiques. Since there were 9 of us on our trip, we rented a house. The house, Casa del Cielo was incredible - by far the nicest house I have ever stayed in, and the kids loved the pool. If you ever have to make kids happy, give them a pool and you will not be dissapointed. The only draw back to the house was the very, very long trek up a major hill it took to get back from the beach town in 90 degree weather.

Basically, our ten day trip pretty much followed the same routine;
6:30 Get woken up by roosters
6:45 Kids put on bathing suits and end up in the pool, or play Pig Pig with Grandpa Mike
8:00 We make it to the beach (a ten minute walk from the house), rent a surfboard and settle in in front of Don Pedro's. Everyone gets slathered in sunblock and we get some baked goods to eat for breakfast
8:00-5:00 We take turns surfing (while I lounge on the beach waiting for my turn, I read my way through six books of the Sookie Stackhouse Southern Vampire Mysteries and three books of James Patterson's Women's Murder Club) while the kids either play in the sand or boogie board in the waves. The first few days I kept a very close eye on them, and then eventually let them roam a bit.
12:30 Get Fish Tacos from a stand and cold diet coke from a tienda (Yakult yogurt drinks for the kids) or tamales from the tamale beach lady for lunch
5:00 Trek up the big hill and get really hot and dirty, then jump in the pool to cool off once we get there
6:30 Either head back into town for dinner and hanging out around the plaza gorging ourselves on various desserts, or eat dinner prepared by our very own marvelous housekeeper, Alma.
8:30 Head to bed if the power goes out or play Carcassonne a few times

My kids look cute in Halloween Costumes

2008-11-01T21:24:00.001-07:00

Here is Elias the Dragon breathing fire

The kids with their personally designed pumpkin faces

The kids trick or treating with their friends

Shkuri the robot and Isaac the wizard. Ariel stayed home from work to finish the robot costume

Kickball, Meatball

2008-10-25T19:11:00.000-07:00

Passport Services is definitely one area of the U.S. government that works well. After my initial panic attack over Isaac's passport, I found out that there is a Passport Office in Seattle. Ariel and I had to take the day off work and take Isaac up to the office, but 150$ and 15 minutes later we had finished the application. We got his new passport in the mail today. Hurray for a functioning government!

Today we went to the park and played kickball with the kids and our friends Jacob and Catherine. I had thought it would be fun to play ever since I saw a group of people playing in Mccarren Park in Williamsburg, NY when I was visiting a friend in Brooklyn. I am not sure if the sport is supposed to be ironic, but we had a blast. It was the perfect sport to play with the kids - requiring no skill to enjoy ourselves. We ended up tying, and other than my accidently hitting Isaac in the face, it went very smoothly. A couple of kids playing at the park joined us. Maybe we will have some team t-shirts made next.

After kickball, we went home and I made Mellow Meatballs from Nigella Lawson's latest cookbook...this is a great recipe and very easy. You just simmer meatballs in 3 Tbs. of curry paste and a little bit of oil, sprinkle with cinammon and ground ginger, then add 1 can each of chopped tomatoes, coconut milk, and garbanzo beans, and either chopped sweet potatoes or squash and simmer for about 20 minutes. We ate it with rice.

Stupid Person of the Year Award

2008-10-20T21:05:00.001-07:00

ACK! Tonight, as I was getting some parerwork done, I was looking through our passports. Isaac's passport expired three months ago. We leave for Mexico in a little over two weeks. How could I have missed this???? I definitely remember looking at the passports when I bought the tickets six months ago. What on earth am I going to do now??? The internet has conflicting info on what exactly one must have to travel to and from Mexico. If I had not realized this until we were at the airport would they have let us through anyway???? I won't be able to sort this out until offices open tomorrow, but I have given myself a full blown panic attack in the meantime.

Weekend Update

2008-10-19T18:49:00.001-07:00

This weekend has managed to turn out just perfect. Saturday was mostly putting life together; grocery shopping,laundry, housecleaning, and budgeting etc...that I try and shove into the first half of the day. Friday evening, the girls and I attended a fund raiser for a local adoption support group. It is nice to see families we have met throughout the girls adoption. I also got my ballot in the mail! I am so excited to vote this year; in addition to the presidential election there is a close governers race and an important 'death with dignity/assisted suicide' law that mirrors Oregons. It could have a pretty big impact on the lives of a lot of my patients - and after I have thought about the law, I think I am going to vote for it.
Today, we all went to the Snoqualmie Falls area and want on a hike on the Twin Falls Trail. It was a beautiful and cold sunny day with lots of gorgeous foliage. I can't say how much I enjoyed the time spent with my family today.
Almost the best part was the kids spending over an hour on the hike back up telling the worst possible knock-knock jokes imaginable. I need to print some off the internet to tell them - they haven't really discovered the meaning of a punch line yet. Their jokes usually go something like this "Knock Knock" "Whose there?" "Banana?" "Banana Who" "I ate the Banana". Followed by hysterical laughter. It is very cute.
After the hike, we went to Uwajimaya - a really cool, huge Japanese/Asian style supermarket in Seattle's Chinatown. Shkuri and I shared some sushi and everyone else shared some cheap noodles. Our dinner cost about 9.00$ - in contrast to the hot cocoa we had at the Salish Lodge in the morning, which cost us 22.00$. The kids are now winding down while playing a video game they bought at a store in Chinatown called Pink Godzilla - which is devoted to Japanese video games of all kinds.

Embracing the Dishwasher

2008-10-14T19:08:00.001-07:00

We have a broken dishwasher in our front yard. It isn't on our lawn or anything, but it is still in our front yard, and it has been for almost a month, since it broke and Ar replaced it. Ar has definite plans to get rid of it, but hasn't quite gotten there yet. The funny thing is, in our neighborhood, nobody really cares, and it doesn't look that out of place. I used to be a little chagrined about living in what could be (kindly) called a starter neighborhood. I used to really want to live in a nice, tasteful home - maybe not a McMansion, but something that had a little charm.

Now I kind of love my neighborhood; I like that we know all of our neighbors, and that at there are immigrants from God knows where among them. I like that you can let your lawn go brown and have ten half rusted bikes on it, that kids just come over and start riding. I like that the people sitting out on their front lawn smoking in the rain wearing bedroom slippers wave to me when I get the mail. I like that there are kids playing at the park at ten o'clock at night on a school night. I could go on and on about the joys of our neighborhood, but I would imagine you get the picture.

I have been in nice, manicured neighborhoods, and there is no way to get past the fact that ours is just a lot more laid back and livelier place to be. It has taken me a bit of time to come to an acceptance of what demographic I fit in; sure, I may have ten years (and counting) of college under my belt, but I am certainly not living in Bohemian Bourgeois heaven. Thank God.

Life So Far

2008-10-12T16:36:00.000-07:00

I am now about three weeks into my new schedule; the kids are back in school, I am still working my normal job, and I have added one to two days of nurse practitioner clinicals into the mix. Elias has started preschool two days a week and Ar is working a big job that requires him leaving the house at 5:00 in the morning. I am certainly not disapointed with how busy I am; come Friday night it is all I can do to crawl towards bed. Even thought it is very hectic around here; life is pretty awesome. I love my clinicals; it is so great to be doing what I have always wanted to do, I love seeing patients. My preceptor is very good; not only is she a wonderful practitioner, but she is a good teacher. She is making the transition from "I can pretty much handle anything that happens at my job" to "I know absolutely nothing, please don't make me cry" relatively easy. The kids are settled into their school/piano lesson/play routine. Som how it is all holding together. Now that I am unfettered from most homework, I have been able to throw myself back into reading. I had forgotten how much I love to read. I haven't made it to serious literature yet; after finishing the Twilight series, I am working my way through the fifteen Stephanie Plum mysteries by Janet Evanovich.

This last week was Ariel's birthday. Last night we had a smallparty with a handful of friends and family. Ar is very happy with his new backpacking hammock (to replace a tent) I got; I don't know if it will get very far from our backyard, but he is really happy with it. The weather is sunny and fall crispy, the kids are playing outside with friends, and Vegetable soup is on the stove for dinner.

The Frontier Nursing Service

2008-09-16T11:04:00.000-07:00

I have now been back from Kentucky for four days - jet lag is waning and I am settling back into life. I spent my week there learning and perfecting my clinical skills as a Family Nurse Practitioner. Our group at Clinical Bound was especially great; there were only 9 of us and we spent a lot of time just getting to know each other. I hope that at least some of these friendships will be long term and our paths will converge again. The grind of school work has given me such tunnel vision that it took a week at Frontier to reset my
view. I came back with a much renewed sense of purpose in both my professional calling and my place in Frontier's wonderful history. I cut and pasted the story of the Frontier Nursing Service and Mary Breckenridge below; it tells a little bit about the history of her work.

Mary Breckinridge was the nation's foremost pioneer in the development of American midwifery and the provision of care to the nation's rural areas as founder of the Frontier Nursing Service.
Breckinridge, descendant of a distinguished family that included a U.S. vice president and a Congressman and diplomat, lost her first husband and two children to early death. She turned to nursing as an outlet for her energies, committed to "raise the status of childhood everywhere," as a memorial to her own lost children. She spent time as a public health nurse during World War I, and became convinced that the nurse-midwife concept could help children in rural America. After additional nursing studies and midwifery training, she went to rural Kentucky and began work in 1925. In 1928 her service was named the Frontier Nursing Service, and was for several years entirely underwritten by Breckinridge's personal funds. Designed around a central hospital and one physician with many nursing outposts designed to compensate for the absence of reliable roads or transportation, the service featured nurses on horseback able to reach even the most remote areas in all kinds of weather. Within five years, FNS had reached more than 1,000 rural families in an area exceeding 700 square miles and staff members of FNS formed the organization that became the American Association of Nurse-Midwives. Breckinridge masterminded the fundraising and publicity necessary to keep the service growing. The Frontier School of Midwifery and Family Nursing, another part of FNS, trained hundreds of midwives. The FNS hospital in Hyden, Kentucky is now named the Mary Breckinridge Hospital, and it operates today, with a new Women's Health Care Center, still fulfilling the mission that Breckinridge created in the 1920s.

SNL Video

2008-09-14T08:04:00.001-07:00

Greetings from Frontier

2008-09-06T17:10:00.001-07:00

So I am far away from home. Thursday night I flew to Kentucky for the next step in getting my masters. There are nine of us Family Nurse Practitioner/Nurse Midwife students who will spend 8 days in Hyden, Ky before we start our clinicals. Although it is very, very hard to leave home, everything has gone well. It is still summertime here and warm. We had to pass a rather brutal physical assessment test this morning - all of us students bonded over the misery and tension we went through. From palpating the skull to testing for the vibratory sense of the big toe, I passed. The instructors are keeping up a rather brutal 12 hour a day class schedule. In some ways, it is a bit like summer camp. We all hang out and someone makes us food. We have to take turns in the shower. Although I don't remember having any booze at summer camp. It feels a little bit like being in different world to be in rural, Eastern Kentucky.
One of the best parts of having to travel so far is getting to indulge in a little recreational reading. I started the Vampire Teen Romance novel, Twilight, that is insanely popular. I have gone through it so quickly, someone had to drive me into town to Walmart to pick up the next two installments. I am a little too tired to form a cohesive thought and I need to write a paper, so I better stop stalling.

Tension face

2008-09-02T19:30:00.001-07:00

I know it is an abuse of the blog format to use it to whine about ones day..but the kids start school tomorrow, I have an urgent care final and I fly cross country for 8 days of intense school training on Thursday. To say I have a lot to do would be a gross understatment. It has been a struggle all day to get things done and to try to do spend fun time with the kids. I was teetering towards overload when our dishwasher broke and prompted to drain a gallon of water all over our floor. In the same month that we emptied our savings to replace our roof and our washing machine broke. I just hope that my face tonight is not what my kid's remember while I am gone. ARRRGGGH. I hope I feel a lot better after downing a Mike's.

***Gross Parenting Comment Follows***
One question you never really want to know the answer "Why does it smell like poop in here??"

Mother Superior Jumped the Gun

2008-08-30T18:34:00.000-07:00

My head is spinning at the constant political buzz. My Dad,who is a life long politically active democrat, likes to give me updates from the nightly news. He always seems suprised that I am already informed from having my homepage set to BBC America. I can't quite escape political info even if I would like to. It has been kind of fun to hear all of the chatter about Palin and her elevation from hockey mom to vice presidential candidate. I had heard of her previously from a profile in Vogue, where she came off as a pretty impressive woman. I don't particularly want her anywhere near the White House, but it has been fun to watch such an odd ball choice ripple through the country. It is seems to be the only exciting thing McCain has managed to do during his entire campaign.
A day doesn't go by when I don't think about how I have no idea what is really going to make a person a good president. I actually thought that our current president seemed pretty moderate and reasonable 8 years ago. (Not that I voted for him). I do think Hillary Clinton would have made a pretty competent president. I believe pretty strongly in the power of government to have a positive impact in people's lives. As a member of the lower-middle/middle-middle class, I have benefitted a lot from government help. I don't really mind paying a lot in taxes. At the same time, I do think that libertarians have some really good points about the damage that bigger government can cause. I definitely know I do not want anyone in government trying to turn America into their idea of a Christian Nation. I just have to make the best decision I can and hope that our little constitutional experiment can hold together for a little longer. Since Washington is practically a guaranteed Obama state, I am a little envious of swing state voters, who seem to matter a bit more than I do.

Had me a blast

2008-08-22T09:46:00.001-07:00

I know that I am not the only one who barely posts any blogs during August...just when I think I can't get any busier, something else pops up. The last few weeks have been all about working on enjoying time with the kids. We have gone camping in Olympic National Park and had two Japenese Exchange Students for a weekend. We got a trampoline for Hamda's birthday. I cut off all my hair. The Grandmas, the girls and I went to see Mamma Mia!! We have been enjoying watching the Olympics. The biggest event of August has been marking Hamda and Shkuri's one year anniversary as Biggerstaffs. We finalized their adoption in court. At the moment I don't seem to be able to reflect on the first year here; it's hard to imagine them not always being a part of our lives.

The kids seem to be a bit tired of summer now - they now utter "I am bored" with a frequency that was unheard of in June. I used to insist that I would never be a Mom who would want their kids to go back to school (I would enjoy every minute of my time with them), now I am really looking forward for September 3rd!!
On September 4th, I head back to Kentucky for a week of intensive courses on physical assessment and skills (learning to do a pap smear, sutures, and remove a cockroach from a toddlers ear, etc.). When I return, I am going to start my nine months of clinicals to finish up my Masters Degree. This is going to involve my normal M,W,F work schedule (which provides our family with health coverage), plus ten hour clinical days on Tu and Thu. I am very excited about my ARNP clinicals, but very anxious about working 45+ hours a week. I have not worked full time since Isaac was born, and haven't ever wanted to. Luckily, 3/4 of the kids are in school full time and both Grandmas will be there to pick them up from school. Ariel will take the kids to school two days a week and I will do the other three. The next two weeks are going to be a major race for me to finish my last course, check off my to do list, and complete all the kids back to school stuff. Such an exciting time!!
I have been thinking about all the things I can do to reduce stress and anxiety, and one thing I came up with is to stop worrying about the election. A patient went on ranting (among other things) for a long time about the evils of Obama and what he would do to this country...I kept my mouth shut about how crazy she sounded, until I realized that I have a similiar fearful response to what might happen if McCain wins. It is pretty stupid for me to feel anxious about what might happen in the future. I will cast my vote and hope for the best (which is of course, Obama) and leave it at that.

Mucho Miscellany

2008-07-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

I think we may have figured out one way to have four kids without going a bit crazy. I am facing a 40 hour work week (1/2 clinicals, 1/2 work) in the fall, and had decided we needed a housecleaner. Instead, we all started cleaning the house together on Saturday mornings...Ar organizes the kids with a to do list, I clean the bathrooms. Of course there is some whining, but the kids all get their allowances upon completion, so it goes pretty well. I am very impressed with how well the kids can do things like mopping, sweeping, and vacuuming.
Never doubt the power of the jinx. Yesterday at work, I did the unthinkable. I uttered the word quiet at the end of my shift. It had been such a great day after two weeks of being slammed. You are never to utter the word quiet in a hospital. Within a half an hour - a patient went into a-fib and likely had a heart attack and my other patient had a blood transfusion reaction (which involves a sudden fever of 103 or so and rigors so bad he was shaking his bed).
Pandora Radio is one of the best things I have ever found on the web...a friend of Ar's was listening to it at http://www.pandora.com/. You can create your own radio station by picking one or two of your favorite songs and it streams songs they think you will like. I have Clash Radio while Ar has "Wicked Cool" and "Strange Folk". It plays a lot of music I have never heard, but really like - especially songs by decently well known bands that don't normally get played on the radio. I don't know why it thinks I like Belle & Sebastian, though, because I don't.
Hooray for summer and farmer's markets. I have a CSA share and am blowing the rest of my grocery budget in an orgy of fruit and berry eating. Yum. Tonight I have been struck by the dessert muse and am going to make a raspbery-peach trifle.
Tomorrow Ar and I are taking 3/4 of the kids to Vancouver, WA to sit in on a talk by Tom Sine, who wrote The New Conspirators and started the Mustard Seed House in Seattle. He is one of a handful of people on the forefront of the 'emergent church' that are community oriented and focus on social justice. It is right up the alley of what we have been doing in our home church group. My understanding of the bigger picture is a bit fuzzy...hopefully, we will all learn a bit more. One of my favorite books written about this type of church is Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborne.
I think we are going to have an outdoor movie night next weekend. We will probably watch Howl's Moving Castle. We are trying to pick a movie that is good for kids and adults - not an easy task.

Jiang & Ling

2008-07-21T20:16:00.000-07:00

This weekend, our family hosted Jiang and Ling, two college students from Shangai who are here for a summer course. We were expecting two boys, but we enjoyed them all the same. We have one picture of them, but I happen to be taking off my wetsuit, and the picture will never see the light of day. We took them to the beach and around Olympia and had a generally nice weekend. I wish we had more room to host students more often. The weekend didn't end well, as Isaac has developed 'walking' pneumonia - he hasn't been too sick, but spent most of last night hacking ever ten minutes - Not very fun for either of us. Today, I spent my morning before work with him at the Dr.'s. After a few days of antibiotics, he should be good to go.

Swiss Family Biggerstaff

2008-07-16T23:08:00.001-07:00

(or Wynoochee River Escapist Fantasy '08)

Camping Food

2008-07-04T22:02:00.000-07:00

We are getting ready to take our 5 day camping trip to the Wynoochee River and I am planning our menu. Does anyone have any favorite camping food recipes to share? Favorite websites? We have a tent trailer and a great campfire spot, so storage is not a problem, although refrigeration is limited. Any suggestions would be great!

2008-07-03T18:10:00.000-07:00

I was planning on posting about my very lovely birthday weekend, but this week has overtaken it - and not in a good way. Ariel's work has been a little slow, so I have taken on extra shifts to help out a good friend of mine at work - she has needed to go on leave as her husband dies of cancer. Then Matcha, our six month old kitten got attacked by a neighbor's cat and ended up with an infection and had to stay the night at the vets. I was more than a little suprised how traumatizing it was to have a sick kitten.
Today, my Dad got an official diagnosis of Parkinson's Disease. It was not a huge suprise - about four months ago, I noticed he had a tremor in his right hand (combined with general slowness, and just a sense that something was off) and told him that I was concerned that he had Parkinsons. Parkinsons is a brain disease with a wide range of severity, but most people degenerate until they are no longer able to move on their own within ten years. There are definitely worse diseases to get, especially for an almost seventy year old man, but it is a bad diagnosis. I haven't totally absorbed the reality of it, and I don't think my Dad has either. Everyone pretty much knows these days will come and all I can do is try and be there and be helpful. Someday in the future, I will probably have a better handle on it all.

Solstice

2008-06-22T20:08:00.000-07:00

Summer has finally, finally arrived to the Bigg household. It has been holding out on us for way too long. Last week, the kids and I both wrapped up school - friday we went to the beach, and in true Gray's Harbor mode, the weather was grey and 50, even though it was 80 in Olympia. Surfing was great - although several muscles are protesting their winter slumber. Saturday was the kid's first

soccer game, which was very fun to watch, even though I have a strong aversion to any and all sporting events. Shkuri scored a goal! After the soccer game, we bought the first of Spooner Farm's Strawberries. Shkuri and Isaac went to play at a soccer friend's house and the rest of us went to Izzy and Ryan's solstice party. Today has been the best beginning summer day; after a run and a little garden work, we spent the day just hanging out. The kids and a few neighborhood friends ran around outside in their bathing suits all day long. Catherine, Jacob, Ollie, and Jackson stopped by for a short visit. I had to spend an unholy amount of money for my summer quarter text books, but we made up for it by having (homeade) strawberry ice cream for dinner outside with friends and family. We are finishing off the day by watching Dr. Who. Hurray for summer.

School Wrap Up

2008-06-18T10:03:00.000-07:00

It is with great pleausre that I can announce that I did pretty well on my Pediatric Final this morning!! I had a harder time in the course than I expected and was sweating it out - but all of my late night studying paid off with an 88%. This summer I will be taking courses to prepare for clinicals in the fall - and then all I have to worry about is comprehensive exams.
The kids are also out of school this week - they have a half day tomorrow, and friday we are all going to the beach for a bit of surfing and celebration. We got Elias a kite for his birthday and it will be fun to try it out. Yesterday I met with Hamda's Kindergarten teacher to see if Hamda was ready for first grade or if she should repeat K again. Happily, she reported that even with only half a year of K and only learning English in the past nine months, Hamda is ready to go on.
Now that school is almost over, I want to spend a little time thinking about projects and things to do this summer.

ESP

2008-06-12T15:05:00.000-07:00

Elias is taking a nap and the kids don't need to be picked up from school for a few more minutes, so I took the time to read NY Times online. I came across the Sunday magazine article on Equally Shared Parenting, and was quite suprised to see a description of what Ar and I already do neatly laid out and analyzed. It is basically parents who share the work of child raising and housekeeping together without fighting and nagging and with equality. I think it is quite a harmonious way to live. I imagine the article will result in the term being picked up in the media quite a bit, but I thought I would write about it anyway.
Ariel is a self employed painting contractor and I am an RN. I work about 24 hours a week, and he works somehere between 25-40 (depending on the season - he works a lot in the summer). I do morning routine and get the kids off to school. He does bedtime routine. I do most of the cooking and I do tend to keep track of dentist appointments, etc...but he does a good share of housework himself. In the fall, I am going to have about 9 months of clinicals for my masters and will have to start working 40 hours a week with every other friday off. When that time comes, we have already planned that we will do our house cleaning on Saturday mornings and everyone will chip in and do their share for the 3 or so hours it usually takes me now.
One thing brought up is that it is often difficult for Moms to let go of being in control of child rearing, house keeping, etc. That is a big joke for us - I grew up in a very unstructured house and don't really worry about stuff, while Ar is much more of a stickler. He is also really good at getting the kids to do their chores, homework, etc....something I am a bit lax at. It was fun to identify with the article, and I really feel like we have something pretty great worked out between us. We almost never fight about housework, child care - and I certainly don't feel like I am enslaved to my responsibilities as a Mom and household head.

New Position

2008-06-10T12:51:00.001-07:00

I have just tacked on one more thing to my already busy schedule...I just accepted a position as a on-call Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner at the hospital were I work. I will probably take 1-2 on call shifts a week, and will only have to come in if needed, which will probably not be very often. I know it is a rather uncomfortable subject, but I am very excited and interested in the position and in forensic nursing in general. My job is to obtain evidence and advocate for any person that comes into the ER after a sexual assault. I know a few people who already do the job and they feel it is a very rewarding, and doesn't add up to much more than ten hours a week. I will be on-call only at night, so the kids shouldn't even know I am gone. I can't wait to get started with the training. When I applied, a few people asked me how I could possibly stand doing that job, but one of the things I love best about nursing is the philosophy of compassion...it is never my job to worry about fault or blame when it comes to a patient, it is my job to help them recieve the best care that they can and be treated with kindness.

2008-06-06T21:20:00.000-07:00

This week I squeezed in some time to start a course on Modern Poetry through Yale's online courses. Unlike the MIT courses, it has audio/visual lectures. My inner nerd was soaring with happiness. I listened to the first lecture on Robert Frost. It also inspired me to write a little poetry myself (yes, I know it is bad)

The perfect ending

to a long, stressful week

Sleeping Children

Cheesecake

and a New York magazine

Ahhhhh

Chateau Envy

2008-06-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

I had the kind of day today that left me full of the joy and excitement of the kids. I was worried it was going to be really stressful, but somehow the day cleared up and we all had time to enjoy ourselves. Ariel got rained out of work. Piano Lessons got cancelled. None of the kids had any cavities at the dentist. We got to start the day with whole wheat banana pancakes and end it with our soccer orientation meeting. I cannot tell you how happy it made me to find a local soccer club where all four of the kids can play at the same time in the same place. On our way to the orientation meeting, Isaac, Shkuri, and I had a nice little chat about the presidential election. They both decided they wanted Barack Obama to win (with no prompting from me, really!)

It is the sort of day where I start to envy Angelina Jolie. Not for Brad Pitt or the paparazzi, but the whole being able to afford a jet set life style while having a whole passle of kids. At least part of the time, I would really like to have/adopt a few more kids. (There are also days when I wonder why I have kids at all) Having a big family is awesome. Our house, however, will not fit any more humans in it. I also don't know if we could afford piano lessons and soccer for many more kids. I definitely know we couldn't afford to go on vacations to France or Vietnam or Mexico if we had any more kids - which are all things that I would like to do as a family. Mostly though, I love having a big group of kids, I just kind of wish I could do it in a ten bedroom chateau in the French Riveria.

Reunited

2008-05-26T19:26:00.001-07:00

I flew back home Sunday night and made it in around 7 PM after a pretty much effortless airplane trip. I always imagine the worst is going to happen, so when all goes well I am very pleased. The Delta jet I flew back on had a cool trivia game on their personal computer that made the trip that much better..against 39 of my fellow fliers, I came in 1st on one round, and in the top 5 the other.
I didn't take one picture the entire time, so I only have narrative to supply. The first three days I was with my friend Nara and staying in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. She lives in a great neighborhood that is just being gentrified, but is still mostly Polish immigrants. I mostly followed Nara around like a puppy dog for three days - for some reason I had no will to do any sightseeing and was happy to just walk around. We ate some really great food, I got some studying done, and saw several areas of Brooklyn I hadn't seen before; Carroll Gardens, Williamsburg, and Park Slope. We met up with my friend Alieda at Momofuku Ssam Bar, which is quite the trendy place to eat, and we later agreed that all the serving staff seemed to be on cocaine. We did attempt to go to two museums - PS1 and the Lower East Side Tenament museum and couldn't get into either, despite a long trek in the rain. We hung out at their neighborhood bar, Habitat, which happens to be the only bar I have ever been in and really enjoyed myself. Thank you to Chance and Nara for being such great hosts!
On Thursday I took the Greyhound bus from Port Authority to Hagerstown, Maryland where Jocelyn was getting married. The bus provided some really fantastic people watching, not the least of which was a woman who seemed to be the absolute living embodiement of all things Conneticut. The whole trip was about 7 hours long, and I really had a great time in a strange way.
Friday and Saturday was taken up with all things wedding - and I had so much concentrated fun, it is hard to put it all together. I was like a sorority girl on spring break (sans anything skanky), not a married 30 year old mother of 4. I stayed up all night and danced and spent a lot of time with old and new friends. I even made a 5 am waffle house run with a friends from high school who had flown in. I give big kudos to Jocelyn and her parents. They threw one awesome wedding; I don't think I saw one person who wasn't enjoying themselves the entire weekend. I will post some pictures of me as a bridesmaid when the photographer puts them together. It was such an incredible change of pace for me, but it was fun to get home too. Ariel did an amazing job and had almost no problems at all. Everyone was happy to see me and the kids made me a big welcome home poster.

The only near misshap the entire time was when Ariel mentioned he hadn't seen Tess in a few days, then suddenly dissapeared out the back door. He had realized that he had not seen Tess since he closed the crawl space cover outside, and lo and behold she jumped out as soon as he opened it. I guess she is a pretty decent survivalist. Today I had to jump back into life as I know it, and face a few semi unpleasantries that I had put off while I was gone. I also have a rather bad case of jet lag/sleep deprivation/party hangover to get through. It is very nice to be home and be reminded how great my family and my life are.

Sayonara

2008-05-17T16:15:00.000-07:00

I am trying to get a bunch done this aftertoon - and spend a good day with the kids, because I am flying to New York very early tomorrow morning. I will be in NY for a few days with my fabulous friend Nara and then I am going to my friend Jocelyn's wedding. A few years ago I announced that I planned on taking off once a year for a week myself - and that Ariel was more than welcome to do the same if he wanted. It was not so much to get away from home as it was that I really like to travel, and going anywhere with a big family is really expensive. A little over a year ago I visited friends in Berlin and Poland, and next year I have my eye on a volunteer vacation in Asia. The kids are now old enough that I no longer feel like my arm is aching when I am away from them, but it is still very hard. I am fine until a few hours before the flight and I start crying, convinced that someone is going to die before I get back.
Ariel is glad that I am leaving while the kids are asleep this time, as the kids are a little bothered when their Mother has a breakdown in front of me. Ariel is going to take the week off work to hang out with the kids, and I know he will do a fabulous job. I only worry about someone dying - and a little bit about who is going to do the girl's hair. I appreciate so much having the freedom to go off every once in awhile, and I know that Ar is going to be very worn out by the time I get back.

Neuro

2008-05-15T20:50:00.000-07:00

Over the last year or two, as my involvement with one church has ended and I have yet to find a new one, I have thought some about what religious tradition (if any) I want to participate in. Tonight I was talking to my father in law and he brought up a David Brooks column in the Times on neuroscience and religious belief. Brooks summarizes what facts neuroscientists are excavating about the human brain and religious experience.
"First, the self is not a fixed entity but a dynamic process of relationships. Second, underneath the patina of different religions, people around the world have common moral intuitions. Third, people are equipped to experience the sacred, to have moments of elevated experience when they transcend boundaries and overflow with love. Fourth, God can best be conceived as the nature one experiences at those moments, the unknowable total of all there is."

I am working on getting a handle on how I feel about my personal beliefs, but so far I am not really able to articulate very much. I so enjoy reading about my peers and their beliefs, I hope some day to participate more. I know that enlightment may take awhile - especially considering the complete lack of contemplation time in my day to day life.

The Magic Flute

2008-05-09T11:08:00.001-07:00

After a few days of what felt like hard labor; wednesday I worked a 12 hour shift, and Thursday was a blur of errands and house cleaning, I am enjoying some down time. Spring has officially arrived to the Northwest this week. Ariel and I took Hamda and Elias to the park this morning when we dropped the big kids off at school, and then we set out to garden. It feels so wonderful to be spending chunks of time outside again; my poor garden is so neglected, I am having to excavate it from knee high weeds and grass. It was fun to get out and poke around my garden again; my lilac and all my fruit trees are blossoming nicely. The rhubarb must have loved this dreary winter - I have never seen it looking better. The kids are the best part about gardening. They love to help dig and screech with delight at every earth worm and potato bug they uncover.
Last night we sat down to watch a movie - Ariel had gotten Ingmar Bergman's stage production of The Magic Flute (In Swedish! With Subtitles!). I couldn't believe he had gotten that - I am quite ambitious about trying to get my kids to absorb high brow stuff, but I thought he was a bit off his rocker. We only watched the first act, but they were defintely into it. It might be because they had spent the entire day after school biking and running around and were too tired to be bored, but they were asking about watching the second part this morning. Go Figure.

Travels with Tommy the Tent Trailer, Chapter Two

2008-05-04T20:31:00.000-07:00

This chapter covers our brief forray into Humboldt Redwood State Park at the very end of our hellishly long, fourteen hour drive on our way to Mendocino. This is the day Elias had to make nine bathroom breaks at the worst moments possible, and that we almost ran out of gas on the dark, isolated highway one. The bulk of the pictures are from Makerricher State park - an absolutely gorgeous stop where we spent most of the day hanging out on the beach. Ar got some great pictures of the kids looking wild and happy - the way I like them best.

Travels with Tommy the Tent Trailer, Chapter One

2008-04-29T22:46:00.000-07:00

I do understand that watching someone else's vacation slides is about as exciting as folding laundry, but I hope someone out there finds this first chunk of our vacation slides enjoyable. Or at least think that my children singing Sons & Daughters is cute. If nothing else, please appreciate the 30 hours of my husband's life that went into them. I will post more with a bit more of narration in the future.

You might be a nurse if.....

2008-04-29T21:16:00.001-07:00

Okay, these lists are a little bit obnoxious, but the kids have nearly caused Ariel and I to run away from home today, and all of these things are soooo true about the nursing profession, and perhaps will give a little insight into my day job.

You have the bladder capacity of five people

You have your weekends off planned for a year in advance

You believe that unspeakable evils will befall you if the phrase, "wow, it is really quiet" is uttered
You have ever restrained someone and it was not a sexual experience

You get an almost irresistible urge to stand and wolf your food even in the nicest restaurants

You are the only one at the dinner table NOT allowed to talk about your day at work.

Your family members must have a fever of at least 105 or be missing a limb with active bleeding in order to receive your sympathy.

You would like to meet the inventor of the call light in a dark alley one night.

You find yourself checking out other customer's arm veins in grocery waiting lines. (Wow! I can get an 11g in that puppy!)

You want to put your foot through the TV screen every time you see a nurse on a soap opera doing nothing but talking on the phone and flirting with doctors.

You know the smells of different types of diarrhea

You check the Caller I.D. on your days off to see if anyone from the hospital is trying to call and ask you to work.

You notice that you are using more 4 letter words than you didbefore you started nursing.

You avoid unhealthy looking shoppers in the mall for fear that theywill drop near you and you'll have to do CPR on your day off.

Procession of the Species

2008-04-27T20:19:00.000-07:00

Saturday was Olympia's Annual Art walk and Procession of the Species. It is always a blast and makes me happy to live in Olympia. The parade is basically a bunch of people dressed up in homemade animal costumes who then dance around. Some people make better costumes than others. The kids all get chalk to draw on the streets, and Aimee paints their faces.

The weather was cooperative this year, and our friends came down from Seattle to join the festivities.

Today we went on a five mile hike and and managed to survive 2.5 hours of the kid's whining about the hiking. Ariel finished the home movie of our trip and I hope to post it soon- I know my viewing public cannot wait to see our slide show!!!

A few reviews

2008-04-24T20:52:00.001-07:00

Originally, I had wanted to do a blog post on things I liked that started with the letter L, but I had to expand my horizons.

I had read Lolita in high school and didn't enjoy it at all. I reread it on the California trip and was completely mesmorized. Nabakov is such an extraordinary, talented writer, and the rather infamous plot reveals a story on so many levels. When I first read it, I could not get past the obvious story; the abuse of a young girl by a pedophile. The novel is also the hidden story of Dolores (Lolita is Humbert's nickname for her); the horror of what hapens to her is only revealed in the tiniest details. Humbert (the narrator) believes that everything he does is justified by his deep and truly felt "Love" for the young girl. I read somewhere that the story is about the subjugation of one human being by another because of an ideal (which is one of the most dangerous talents that humans have). That is a pretty pitiful review, but I cannot recommend the book highly enough. I was especially suprised to read that N wrote at least some of the book while collecting butterflies in Ashland, OR. I was also quite pleased that I could identify a literary reference to an Edgar Allen Poe poem in the book.

Lars and the Real Girl was a much sweeter and good natured movie than I anticipated. Ryan Gosling is a very impressive actor for taking such an odd role and making it such a lovely story. kind of wanted to give him a hug through most of the movie

I thought the movie was decent, but I LOVE the sound track to the Darjeeling Limited. It's weird mix of 70's Rock, French pop songs, and Indian music is great. I have been listening to it for days and the kids love to dance around to it.

Girl's Rock is the Documentary we took the kids to tonight. It is about the girl's rock n' roll camp run in Portland by the former bassist for Sleater-Kinney. Although taking four young kids to a movie always involves questionable logic, you can get away with a fair amount of rowdiness at the Olympia Film Society. It definitely made me feel quite hyped up about having strong and bold daughters. It was also very cute to see Elias spontaneously head banging during the performances.

Happy Earth Day/Anniversary

2008-04-22T21:39:00.000-07:00

Happy Eighth Anniversary, Ariel. It has been a real pleasure to hang around with you for the last ten years. I think you are pretty great. I was going to write out a list of ten things I really like about you, but instead I will just tell you while I try and coerce you into watching an episode of Battlestar Gallactica (you get a free pass to make fun of it, too).

Bigg Big Trip Day 2: Mendocino

2008-04-17T22:18:00.000-07:00

After leaving Ashland, we headed into California for the coast. Blindingly trusting Google Maps, I had a route where we drove through Northern California and over to Mendocino all set out. We knew it would be a bit longer of a day, probably about 8 hours. We quickly figured out that the first four hour portion through the Salmon River area was going to be way, way longer than that. There was no turning back and we enjoy the beautiful isolation - even after we got through a pass that said "Trailers not recommended". It was too late to turn back at that point, or the stopping point when we got out of the car only to hear Ruth comment that she thought the burning smell might be our breaks.

After close to eight and a half hours driving on this route we got to drive through the Redwoods. They are very big and pretty, and we headed into the coast. Shkuri got car sick on the windy roads, and Elias had to pee ever 45 minutes. We have no idea what was going on in urinary tract, but we have 8 or 9 pictures of him peeing at various back drops to prove it. For some reason, I told Ar that I didn't think we would need gas as we were only 20 miles from the next town. If I ever say that to him again, he has strict instructions to punch me in the face and get gas anyway. By the time we hit the coast, we had been on empty for about 20 minutes, it was pitch black, and the quaint little town's only gas pump had been closed for hours. After begging a half gallon of gas from a very nice elderly German man who ran a B& B we managed to make it another 15 miles to a gas station. I am pretty sure that the words "Thank you Jesus" were repeated several times.

The next morning we woke up and spent the day hanging out at the beach until noon. Mackericher was worth the drive, and is a really lovely spot. It is a little bit wild like the coast in Washington and we spotted a few seals.

We made it to Mackericher at close to ten o'clock, fed the kids some fruit loops and called it a day. ( I do not have a clue why the second half of this is underlined and am not good enough with html to figure it out)

Home Again

2008-04-13T20:36:00.001-07:00

After a 17 hour drive home, we pulled in this morning about 6 am. Mostly I can say I am extremely impressed with Ariel's ability to stay up all night and change blown out tires. I have an extremely capable husband. I am much less impressed with google maps time estimates.

Here are a few of the pictures from our trip. We spent about five nights camping along the coast in Mendicino, Santa Cruz, and Santa Barbara. We then headed inland to Disneyland for two nights/one day and visited family in Stockton. The trip was fantastic; everyone had a great time. The biggest suprise was Disneyland. Neither Ar or I had much enthusiasm for going, but thought the kids might really like it. Disneyland was fantastic - we all had a wonderful day and stayed from 9am to closing at 11pm. I will post some more pictures and stories in the next few days, but sleep is to strong a siren call right now to post more.

Ashland

2008-04-04T08:40:00.000-07:00

After a somewhat clausterphobic but uneventful 8 hour drive from Olympia to Ashland we arrived at our campground. My first thought was "this place is really run down"...luckily, I have kids to see for me, and they went bonkers over the very wobbly merryground in the camp's "park". E promptly fell off and scraped the entire right side of his face up. After a quick pasta dinner, we went into town for ice cream. The weather was a little cold but very sunny, and Ashland, OR is really wonderful medium sized town. It is best known for it's Shakespeare festival, but Southern Oregon University is here as well and Ashland is just the sort of crunchy, granola BoBo paradise that I love. There are a lot of coffee shops, trees, and tastefully restored older homes. After ice cream, we found a great park with a fantastic rope climbing tower that I will post pictures of soon.

Since there is WiFi at this campground, Ariel and I got to watch the Daily Show while everyone else was asleep. This morning when we woke up, there was still frost on the ground, and we were very slow to get out of bed. The kids celebrated by having a watergun fight in their shorts and sandals and then, shockingly, complaining that they were cold.

Today we have another 7-8 hour drive to Mackericher State Park near Mendocino. We will switch over from I-5 to 101 and go through the Redwoods. I finished Better by Atul Gawande and am going to start in on my Pediatric Text Book and Lolita until car sickness and curves force me to stop. Better was a wonderful book - it was a series of essays he had written on medicine focused around the ideas of how it (and humanity in general) can be better. The concepts include diligence and integrity. I had read some of the essays before in the New Yorker, but I still enjoyed reading them again. One of my favorite chapters was on the clash of medicine with birthing traditions. I hear a lot about the damage that obstetrics has done to women in the medicalization of birth through my midwife friends, but he did a wonderful job of making me understand that medical reasoning and the conflict of seeing labor and delivery as a craft vs. a science.

The bags are packed

2008-04-02T19:01:00.000-07:00

This is about all I am thinking about now...the Big Bigg Road Trip '08 is about 12 hours from being underway....the amount of prepatory work is rather overwhelming, but I think it will be worth it. I hope I can get the chance to post while we are on the road. Right now the only thing that really worries me is fratercide and car accidents!

Happy 7th Birthday Isaac!!!

2008-03-31T21:57:00.000-07:00

Here is Isaac at his seventh birthday party with two siblings and a cousin. His Dad made him a Ben Ten Cake and a Hand Puppet Theatre. I really love our low key family parties.

James and the Giant Peach

2008-03-29T21:15:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I got to do something with the kids I had been hoping to do for a long time. We went to see James and the Giant Peach performed by the new Olympia Family Theatre. I have really wanted to try taking the kids before, but had been prohibited by the cost of the Seattle Children's Theatre (30$ a ticket as opposed to the OFT's 8$). They did a wonderful job and the kids were transfixed for about 80% of the show. I can't wait until their season next year.

Elias has been doing the funniest thing the last few days. When he is trying to get away with something naughty, he irately "Mom, Stop Looking at Me"..as if that would be enough for me to not notice he was climbing the refrigerator to get to Easter Candy. Tomorrow we are going to Blintzapalooza in the morning. I have never been, but it sounds very promising - a fundraiser Blintz and used booksale at the Jewish Temple in Olympia.

A true Olympia moment; while browsing Craigslist, I saw an add for wanted housing that read, "Clean, quiet anarchist $350.oo"

Aaahhhh...

2008-03-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

I finished my last final on Tuesday and passed..so I can let a bit of a sigh of relief out. I was actually able to read a book. It wasn't a great book, and it only took me the better part of four hours to read, but it was a book and it made me happy. I was planning on taking my final today, but sped it up because the kids had their school conferences today and would be home. I am glad I did, because last night at work was rather hellish and I had two hours overtime. They are all doing quite well in school; Hamda is starting to catch up to her classmates in Kindergarten and both Isaac and Shkuri are at or better than grade level in their classes. It was fun talking to I and S's teacher; I tends to run through his work without following directions and gets very mad when he has to do it over again, while S is a major perfectionist and is furious if she get's anything wrong. They are such polar opposites, and it will be a major duty of my life to help them channel their strengths and weaknesses for good. After conferences today we went swimming - it actually snowed last night and they have to get out of the house for awhile every day.
This morning I had a chat with my friend Rene that was really applicable to a choice that is looming ahead in the near future. Rene and I are both rather pathologically compelled to always be changing something; for me that has meant going to grad school and having so many kids and always planning some trip. She has changed careers, made several exciting moves, and has just returned from a trip to launch her career in Europe. While I absolutely love this about us, it also has a major impact on those around us. For example, I have been ogling a house that I happened to see for sale for almost nine months ago. Most people would say, huh, I like that house. Not me. I call the real estate agent and get a tour. Then I don't do much of anything, because the property is way, way out of our price range, and we are always remodeling something. Right now we need a new roof and don't have any trim in our house, making it almost impossible to sell. Well, the real estate agent contacted me and said "if you still like the house, the owner wants all offers, since they have moved and the house is empty". So I wrote him back, telling him the ridiculously low bid that we could afford - and that there was no guarantee we could sell our house. He wrote back and said the owner wanted to meet with us and "see if we could work something out" and was interested in just trading our house to him so he could rent it out. We are going to meet with him on Sunday. I am more than a little freaked out about this - I thought there was no way we would ever hear from him again once I offered 250,000$ less than the asking price on the house.
We have a lot of things to work out if we do move (like do all the grandparents want to move with us??) but this house and property may be worth it. The house is older and a little beat up, but is twice as big as ours and it is on five acres with an orchard, two acres of woods, a large garden with a green house and a tiny sliver of muddy puget sound waterfront. It is also only ten minutes from downtown Olympia in a really beautiful area that Ariel and I have always loved. Luckily, Ariel is rather used to me, and even though he would never be nuts enough to go and make offers on a house when he wasn't really ready to move, he is happy to accompany me. We will see what happens.
Now that school is finished for the quarter, I am working on getting stuff ready for our California trip next week. At the moment, that involves me musing on what books I want to take. I am decided on Lolita and Better by Atul Gawande (he is a surgeon and an amazing medical writer for the New Yorker), and we have Tom Sawyer and Tortilla Flat by John Steinbeck on CD. By Sunday, I will probably start thinking about things like maps and first aid kits and clothes.

Easter Day

2008-03-23T21:15:00.001-07:00

I am certainly glad it is Sunday night, because this weekend has been quite the whirlwind. On the sly Ariel bought tickets to see Henry Rollins at the capital theatre downtown. While I knew a little bit about him (he is the former lead singer of the punk band Black Flag and now tours the world talking/ performing spoken word) I wasn't that excited to go. Aimee owed us some babysitting, so I went and I am very glad we did. He was really incredible - he spoke for three hours non stop and he is a very intense guy. Ariel and I and our friends Jacob and Catherine all really enjoyed his talk. He told stories of his travels (he was in Islamabad when Benazair Bhutto was assasinated and basically travels to the most dangerous places in the world and walks around to meet people), his thoughts on politics (pretty standard liberal), and Iraq (he has spent extended periods of time on USO tours both in the country and with veterans in hospitals). Anyway, it was a very enjoyable, exciting, and thought provoking way to spend an evening.

The rest of our weekend was spent getting ready for Easter dinner - we host Ariel's family for Easter every year, and it basically takes us all weekend to get ready and clean up after all 26 people come and go. Everyone really seemed to enjoy themselves and the Easter Egg hunt is always a pretty big hit. Luckily, the torrential rain let up enough for us to spend ten minutes running around. It was especially fun to help dress the girls up in the Easter dresses....there was something very special about the process that made me feel even more like the girl's Mother. Now all is said and done I am quite beat, and I am really looking forward to finishing my last final on Thursday.

Caden Free

2008-03-20T15:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to my BIL's website with pictures of baby Caden. http://www.jonbiggerstaff.com/photogallery/photogallery2.html We drove up last night to Kirkland only to find that the labor was probably going to last a lot longer than we thought, so we loaded back in the car to go home. After about ten minutes on the freeway, we got a call that the Dr. decided to do a C-section because of cord compressions, so we headed back to the hospital in time to meet Caden after all.
It was a little strange, because the circumstances of the delivery were very similiar to when I had Isaac and ended up having a c-section because of fetal distress. Although it was nice for Jon and Ranae that she already had an epidural and he was able to go into the OR with her. In my case, I was attempting to go natural and things started to go bad quickly - there was a great deal of rushing around, they wouldn't let Ar in the OR and the anesthesiologist was running late, so they had to do part of the operation before they put me out (I feel my great claim to toughness is having had part of a surgery without any anesthesia). In the end, everything turned out great in both cases and beautiful healthy boys joined the Biggerstaff clan.

After getting back this morning around 4 am, I slept for a few hours, got the kids to school and somehow managed to score a good grade on my Care of the Childbearing Woman Final (Thank God for Coffee!!). At some point tonight, I know I am going to collapse in a heap, but it was all worth it. Tomorrow we are driving the kids up to meet their new baby cousin, and they are very excited.

Shiny, Happy Person

2008-03-19T20:04:00.000-07:00

Today has just been the most wonderful day - After taking most of the kids to school, I was able to go swimming with my Dad at the Y. I have been trying to get him to go for awhile. Then I was able to ride my bike to work in the sun...only to get there and find out they didn't need me and get to ride my bike back. With the extra hours, I was able to be a good mother - I somehow had reserves of good will to make a mocha-walnut bundt cake with all four of the kids and maintain some control. I got to read books with all of them and helped Isaac clean up his room. Now I am headed up to Kirkland with my in-laws because baby Caden's arrival is imminent tonight! (My SIL is in serious labor at the hospital and Ar is good with seeing the baby this weekend)....which is kind of a little funny, because I am taking a final in care of the childbearing woman tomorrow. I am planning that the car ride up and waiting at the hospital will provide lots of extra studying time :). After a rather long and challenging winter it is great to have such a wonderful day!

4 Biggerstaffs and a Bison

2008-03-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

We took advantage of some decent weather and our annual pass and went to NW Trek for the first time this year. NW Trek is a zoo/animal park that focuses on Northwest animals like Cougars, Bears, and Moose. For me, it was an excuse to let the kids run around outside. The above pictures is Isaac and Hamda on the tram tour, the picture below is the Bison that they are staring at. NW Trek is pretty standard Field Trip fare for local school kids, but it was pretty empty on this Winter Sunday. The hour ride out was also a great time for me to get some studying done - the kids mostly conk out in the car.

At home, Shkuri and I finally made spring rolls - the rolling could use some perfecting - but I think they turned out great! Everyone but Elias liked them. He kept on saying "I don't want dinner, I want food". I am going to try and tackle Sushi soon.

The kids are watching one episode of The Muppets before they go to bed, and I settle down into study. I was hoping to go until midnight, but I am out of sugar, so I am not sure if I will make it. I am also going to have to turn off the internet, as the blog, Stuff White People Like is way too addictive and a wee bit humiliating. I was thinking of posting some thoughts about religion, but I think I will leave that to another time. A friend from church, who tends to be a bit into religious fads, has spent a lot of time talking about Ekhart Tolle - and I can tell you I am definitely not impressed with a couple of interviews I have seen.

Flight of the Conchords

2008-03-11T22:28:00.000-07:00

Because it is coming to finals week. Because I am too lazy and tired to come up with a real blog post - but too tired and lazy to stop watching You tube

Sushi & Spring Rolls

2008-03-08T08:42:00.000-08:00

Today, the kids and I are going to hang out in the morning while Ariel goes Mountain Biking. On Saturdays, the get to eat cold cereal and play video games for one hour - then I think we will go to the park and the library. I am coming upon my finals weeks - and I am going to have to start digging out some major reserves of time from somewhere. I have kind of been squeeking through this quarter, which won't fly for the finals. Usually, I just stay up late, which has been failing me of late. Even with coffee, I find myself just staring at the pages and not retaining anything. Yesterday Ar took the kids for a walk at the nature trail while I studied at a coffee shop for two hours - I really got a lot done outside of the house.

Another thing I accomplished this week was putting together a menu for the week. I have been working towards a weekly menu for awhile. Trying to feed our family with healthy, decent food for a week is quite the art. I splurged on a new cookbook that has had a bunch of great ideas; How to Cook Everything Vegetarian by Mark Bittman. We aren't vegetarians by any stretch, but I really like trying vegetarianish meals. When my finals are over, I am going to make a major effort to make spring rolls and sushi. I love both of these dishes, but have a major defect in my ability to wrap foods, so haven't successfully made them before.

hematocrit & hemoglobin

2008-03-04T18:14:00.000-08:00

My co-workers and I have often joked that as oncology nurses, at least we have job security. Something weird has happened lately, though. People have stopped gettting cancer in Olympia. In my infusion department - we used to have an average of 20-25 patients a day. Tomorrow we have six. We are also affected by the a change in medicare that lowers the threshold hematocrit & hemoglobin when they will pay for a blood transfustion, which also cuts into our business. It isn't just us, though, I am told that our local oncology practice is hurting for patients. It is certainly good news for all of those people not getting cancer, but still it is a little weird. I am also getting a little nervous for my job security. I happen to have one of the nicest nursing jobs in the hospital and I would really, really hate to see it go away.
On Sunday, we went and bought a 95 Jayco Tent Trailer. It is big and cozy and more than a little beat up, but it cost only a bit more than it would cost to rent one for the week, so it will work. We are starting to plan our summer camping trips already. I think we are going to reserve a week at the family campground in July and make it open to any friends that live nearby to come and hang out with us. Fishy met an untimely death yesterday - the circumstances were suspicious, although nothing could be proven.

Potager

2008-03-01T22:06:00.000-08:00

Today we got out and actually did a small bit of gardening - Hamda, Isaac, and I weeded one raised bed that is going to be Isaac's this summer. I also sent in the deposit to do a CSA. I haven't done one for two years, but I was looking forward to joining again this summer. One of my great dreams in life is to have a potager (the French word for Kitchen Garden). I know exactly what it would look like; lots of raised vegetable beds, an orchard, and a fruit garden. I have absolutely been in love with them since visiting the Hamlet at Versailles (even though we went in January).

The first three years we lived at our house, I did my darndest to turn our little 1/4 acre plot into a replica of a potager. Now I know that that was really stupid of me. My garden of my dreams requires a full time gardener who knows something about pruning, and mulching, and composting -which I don't. Now I wish I had a gardener to do about 90% of the work, and I would be thrilled to pitch in the last 10%. Until then, I am going to keep the garden simple this year, and not stress about what it isn't. I want to enjoy doing it with the kids, too. They each have one bed, and I am going to let them pick and plant what they would like.

Baby Shower

2008-03-01T09:48:00.000-08:00

My sister and brother in law are about two weeks away from having their first baby, Caden Free, and last night we went to their baby shower. I am very excited about a new cousin in the family, but I was a little aprehensive about spending the evening with people from their church home group in a weathly suburb of Seattle. I actually almost had heart failure when we walked into the house where the party was - facing three hours in a completely white house with lots of glass and my five and six year old (Elias and Shkuri stayed home with a grandma) made me very nervous.
Despite being a little anxious - everything went great, and I really enjoyed myself and Hamda loved all the attention she got (Isaac spent most of the night playing with his yo yo behind the couch). Ariel and I spent awhile talking to a couple that have just started the process to adopt children from Africa. I even really enjoyed the long group prayer session that they had for Jon, Ranae, and baby Caden - it was obvious people really cared about them and were happy for this time in their life. We are all so excited to meet baby Caden and can't wait for his safe arrival.

Auto Loans

2008-02-23T20:48:00.001-08:00

So after about a year of planning and debating, and one rather overwrought day, we are proud new owners of an auto loan. This loan comes with a very nice 2005 Toyota Sienna. We have been planning on getting a larger car for a long time - and the newer Siennas have 8 passengers, which was a big selling point. Ariel and I have never had a car loan before and aren't thrilled about it...but we basically discovered that we weren't going to get anything with less than 100,000 miles on it for a price that seemed reasonable to us, so we just went for it. There aren't that many cars out there that can handle a family of six, a bulldog and room for a Costco grocery shopping trip. At least the van has just about everything in it we could want and it gets 25 miles to the gallon. I am trying not to think too hard about the difficulty of maintaining a middle class lifestyle in America without going into debt.

Faux Spring

2008-02-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

Thursdays might be my favorite day of the week...I always start them in doing my big house cleaning of the week, and it feels so good to have a clean house. I always make a dessert and we watch a movie on the couch together (usually the only family movie we watch all week) Tonight it was James and the Giant Peach and chocolate cake. I highly recommend the Sicilian Pasta that I made tonight for dinner from 101 cookbooks; http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/000146.html (I can't make the link work, you will have to cut and paste if you want the recipe.

Every February, WA gets a little faux-spring. For a week or two the weather pretends that it is warming up and the sun shines. It never fails to end in a nasty weather spell, and I never fail to think that spring is here. I am itching to get out gardening. This year I am going to give each of the kids a garden bed and help them plant and plan it. Hopefully this weekend I will start to attack the weeds. I am a great planter and a rather mediocre gardner. I am hoping having the kids involved will make it really fun. Tomorrow I am going to take Matcha to Isaac and Shkuri's class for show and tell.

In the last two weeks, Elias has developed a little bratty streak. He has started doing all these little boy things; like copying what people say, or sticking out his tongue when he is annoyed. Sigh. We are working with him to stop being rude, but I fear there is no going back. I must say that there is always a little heartbreak involved the first time your almost 4 year old sticks out his tongue in defiance at you.

Stephanie Powers

2008-02-19T21:07:00.000-08:00

Today was the first day in about two weeks that hasn't felt crazy and off kilter. I felt like I finally had time to get everything done I had to. It is very nice to not be feeling stressed. I went on a walk with Isaac and Chester (there was actual sunshine involved) and he talked non stop about video games - my participation wasn't required much. It is such a weird feeling as my kids transition to being fully their own person..the whole separation process as a kid goes from being practically an extra limb to being independent is pretty interesting. We also got rid of a lot of their old toddler toys today. We have a lot of cool puzzles and stuff that are now to babyish for them - even Elias has outgrown them, sniff, sniff.
I read something exciting - Stephanie Powers, author of the excellent book "A Problem From Hell" that takes a deep hard look at American association with twentieth century genocide, is a foreign policy advisor to Obama. It wasn't exactly an easy book to read, but she does a great job of presenting human rights in a very straight forward practical matter. I am a 100% behind a foreign policy where human rights is supported in a clear, practical manner and isn't dismissed as being about soft, bleeding heart liberals. I believe America would be a much stronger country and the world would be safer if international human rights were at the core of our foreign policy. Then again, I am a bleeding heart liberal.

St. Valentine's Day

2008-02-14T18:49:00.001-08:00

For some reason, I was wide awake at 3 AM this morning...instead of tossing and turning I woke up and managed to clean most of the house, study, balance the budget, make campsite reservations for our CA trip and watch part of a BBC miniseries (yeah Netflix Instant Viewing!!) before I would normally wake up. It was actually really fun - until about 12:30. Ariel got me a great Valentine's Day gift, a small box of artisanal chocolate from Bakery Nouveau in Seattle. Yeah for smart husbands!! Then this afternoon, he let me sleep for two hours, even though I woke him up vacuuming at 6 am. I know it involved some self preservation on his part (no one wants to be near me when I have only had three hours of sleep)...but it was still an awesome Valentine's Day Gift. I won't spend too much time gushing (Not the Biggerstaff way), but I am so glad to have Ariel to share my life with, he is really an incredible person.

At lunch time, Ariel and Elias and I went to an Indian Restaurant and then we took Elias to Wind Up Here, our local toy shop to buy Elias this puzzle. I think it says a lot about him that he loves puzzles and he had really outgrown his smaller ones. He spent all afternoon putting together this 100 piece puzzle - and just look at his proud grin!!! For my part of Valentine's Day I made Ariel's dinner request and I am going to attempt to make Chocolate Martinis later.

I am continuing to slog a bit through school -I have to retake one of my midterms. Today I read an article and wasn't suprised to see I had most of the symptoms of mild Seasonal Affective Disorder. I think I am going to make a bit more of an effort to walk outside and see if that helps. Spring cannot come soon enough this time of year!!

Real Time Blogging

2008-02-13T18:06:00.000-08:00

Please feel sorry for me. I am stuck in the basement of the hospital sitting through 8 hours of computer charting education. I don't have any great computer savvy skills, but I am way, way ahead of the rest of the class. I am also biologically incapable of sitting still. All I ask is for a little pity.

Ten Year Old Tent Trailer

2008-02-12T18:50:00.000-08:00

Today Ariel and I were discussing what we wanted to do with our tax return. One advantage of having four kids, a mortgage, and some student loans is that tax season is very kind. In a conversation that we have had over and over again, Ar asked why it is we always want to have something. I have never had a very good answer for him...I just chalk it up to the human condition. I like to congratulate myself on being pretty low on the consumption totem pole, but the truth is I can always reel off a handful of things big and small that I want on any given day. At the moment, what I want is a ten year old tent trailer from Craig's List to use for camping trips.
Ar also asked why we just can't be satisfied with what we have - I still didn't have an answer, but I can think of two things I was very satisfied with today. I actually had time to take a nap with Elias, which is at the top of my all time favorite moments with the kids. Elias got the kitty to lay down with him, and the three of us slept all curled up for an hour. It was wonderful. I am also really happy that Ar and I are both at a point were we work part time - he works a bunch in the summer, and ends up working about ten days a month in the winter, and I work 20 hours a week year round. We might not be raking in money, but this is what we have always wanted for our family and it is really great.

Tess & Matcha

2008-02-11T08:14:00.000-08:00

So we settled on Tess (for Mom) and Matcha...Masha some how became Matcha (Japanese Green Tea Powder). The kids absolutely love the kitten. Tess is staying pretty tightly holed up in our bedroom, as she does not like Chester, our bulldog, at all. Hopefully she will come out soon.

Help us Name our New Kitties!

2008-02-09T15:17:00.000-08:00

In what is becoming a Biggerstaff tradition of doubling up on adoptions - Ar brought home two cats from his shelter foray this morning. They are secured in our bedroom for now, which is too dimly lit too get a good picture, but I will post pictures soon. We adopted the kitten we had planned on adopting - as well as her 1 year old mother (with quite a bit of prompting from the shelter). Now we have to pick two names....Both of the kittens are girls, so Pierre is out, but I am pretenious enough that they must have literary names. Here are our following finalists, so please weigh in on your favorites, or new suggestions.

Tess (Tess of the D'Ubervilles)

Lyra (Golden Compass)

Kate (Taming of the Shrew)

Franny and Zooey (Franny and Zooey)

Portia (The Merchant of Vencie)

Charlotte and Emily (The Bronte Sisters)

Hero (Much Ado About Nothing)

Masha (War and Peace)

Goodbye, Part II

2008-02-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

Today we buried Itchy. We didn't have any laid out plans, but it somehow seemed the right thing to do -so we told the kid's school that they had a funeral to go to, and drove out to the Wynoochee River and buried him out at the family campground. Aimee, Ariel's sister came to, as Itchy was originally her dog when she was a toddler. I was really glad we did. It felt like a good way to say goodbye, because he really loved to ride down the river on an innertube with us. Ariel didn't get too visibly upset - but when he made a little casket with handles, I knew how sad he was that Itchy was gone. It may seem like we over did it a bit - but we are not a family who over sentimentalizes our pets.
Now there is serious talk of getting a kitten this weekend. Ariel wants a Maine Coon because they can grow to enormous size. We spent a bit too much time on Pet Finder and I know that I want this kitten, which is up for adoption at a Seattle Animal Shelter. I want to name him Pierre.

Goodbye

2008-02-06T11:54:00.000-08:00

I wasn't sure what I wanted to write about it, but Itchy finally died this morning. He had multiple seizures during the night and stopped breathing about breakfast time. We are all really going to miss him, he was a really wonderful dog. He was about 19 years old - and had been with Ariel and I for our entire life together.

Deciding Vote

2008-02-05T17:38:00.000-08:00

I know Washington's primary isn't until next week - I was going to go to the Caucaus with my Dad on Saturday, but I have to work - but I decided to vote for Obama in our primary. We do absentee ballots, so I filled it out today. It basically comes down to buying what Obama is selling. I think Clinton is an extremely compentent person, and I think she is very capable of being a good president, but I find myself swept up in the possibility of Obama. My mind was really made up when I read the Atlantic Monthly's "Why Obama Matters". The possibility of something new going on in America is very, very exciting, and I am ready to sign up. I am not 100% certain about how I feel about all of his policies - but I also am not stupid enough to think that the policies trumpeted during an election year will bear any resemblance to actual legislation two years from now. I am also nervous because Carl Jeffers, one of my favorite political commentators, thinks Obama doesn't have a chance in standing up to McCain in the election. I certainly believe that the next administration is going to start making some important changes to health care, and I think it is inevitable no matter who is in the White House. I am a little embarassed by making such a decision based more on emtion than analysis - but I think when it comes down to it, so does everyone else.
On completely unrelated family news, Ariel and I discussed piano lessons today. The older kids are taking them - with some whining, but overall they enjoy them and I am impressed by their progress. Our discussion was how long piano lessons should be mandatory - any thoughts?

Chocolate Martini

2008-02-04T20:33:00.001-08:00

On Thursday, Ar and I went on our semi-annual date night (It isn't quite that rare :). We went to see U2 3-D at the Seattle Imax Theatre, ate dinner at Wild Ginger (with our Christmas gift certificate) and tried a chocolate martini, then went to the Decemberist at the Moore Theatre. The Concert was fantastic. They were truly excellent performers and it was very fun to see all the instruments they played during the concert (A Cello! An Organ! An Accordion! A Base! A Grinder...and several others I didn't even know what they were). They have traveled even farther up my favorite bands list after that concert.

On Sunday we went to my Aunt and Uncle's house for their SuperBowl party. I take personal pride in my complete disinterest in football. I was looking at the party as a good opportunity to see my family, watch a few episodes of the Office with my cousin Trisha, and study endocrinology. I actually enjoyed the last twenty minutes of the game more than I have ever enjoyed any other football game, even if I was sort of semi hoping the Patriots would win. I did live in Massachusetts for four years, after all.

I am enjoying a bit of a break this week. I am taking Advance Cardiac Life Support classes (It is even less exciting than it sounds) this next weekend and get to take this week off in comp time. I am planning on enjoying the extra evenings I get to spend with the kids.

King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters

2008-01-29T22:09:00.000-08:00

Christopher Guest only wishes he had faked this documentary before it got made.

CD of 2007

2008-01-29T20:42:00.000-08:00

For the past six years, Ariel and I have put together a CD of the year; compiled mostly of our favorite songs we heard for the first time that year, but they may also include songs that had particular meaning that year - or remind us of something during the year. Here is our list from 2007. If you know us particularly well, you can guess which person contributed which song - sometimes there is great debate over certain songs.

Hard Sun - Eddie Vedder

Radio Nowhere-Bruce Springsteen

I told you I was Trouble-Amy Winehouse

Daughter-Loudon Wainwright

O Valencia-The Decemberists

New Slang-The Shins

House of Cards-Radiohead

Little Boxes-Weeds Theme

Read my Myind-The Killers

The Underdog-The Spoons

All I Need-Radiohead

Wish You Were Here-Pink Floyd

Shut Your Eyes- Snow Patrol

Icky Thump-The White Stripes

"Beware of all activities that require new clothes"

2008-01-28T22:21:00.001-08:00

I bought this dress in lilac yesterday - one of my oldest friends, Jocelyn, is getting married, and I am going to be a bridesmaid in May. Jocelyn happens to be the only person that I maintain a friendship with from high school and I am really happy for her. She is another of my friends who I am so inspired to watch her life evolve; she is a Dr. and a Captain in the army. I am very excited about her wedding - I am going to get to go on a little vacation (to Hagerstown, MD), maybe see some friends in NY and enjoy her wedding. I normally get rather nauseated at the prospect of weddings, but I think the outlook is good; she isn't having a bachlorette party, the dress I am buying is not ugly; and having met enough of Jocelyn's family, I have great faith that it is going to be fun.
We took the kids to the zoo yesterday and had an absolute blast with our friends Eric and Laura. It was cold, but sunny, and everyone seemed to be enjoy themselves. Somehow the kids got snowed out of school today, even though there was only about 1/2 inch on the ground. Ariel managed to survive the entire snow day while I wiled away a few hours at work.

6:42

2008-01-25T18:28:00.000-08:00

Tonight I am beat. After reading to the kids, I am turning them over to Ar so I can coccoon off and study. And drink diet coke so I can stay semi-comatose. I traumatized the kids a bit today - I recently turned in an assignment with absolute minimal effort put in, and got called on it by my teacher...I was feeling a bit overwrought anyway and started to cry. I don't cry very often and it was very sweet to see the kid's reaction. They were pretty upset to see me crying and Hamda approached me in a wide eyed state looking very worried. Since most of the time they act like I am their major domo, I forget how much they depend upon me to be okay and in charge. I assured them I was okay and they all moved along.
I also visited Shkuri and Isaac's class today to bring chocolate chip cookies. It is really fun to see them in that setting - even at 6 years old they have their own lives and their own world. At least for now, they were thrilled to have me come to class. I chatted with their teacher and Isaac has now completed his first grade reading assignments, and Shkuri is not far behind.
After reading and liking an Ayelet Waldman article I mentioned in a previous blog, I went and read a bunch of articles she had written for Salon.Com. I identified with a lot of what she said. I especially appreciated her summary of her writing themes. She basically writes about what a Mother owes her children...what sacrifices are necessary for a mother to make for her children to do well? What is she allowed to keep for herself and still qualify as a good mother?? I think these are such excellent questions - not just for Mom's but for others to think about.
I also want to highlight a little hurrah to my friend Rene...before she is 30, she is fulfilling what is probably on everyone's life long to do list - running off to live in Marsailles to see if she can make a career and a life for herself there. Life is all about taking chances and leaps. I am so excited for her and can't wait to live a little bit vicariously through her and her experience. Also, to warn her that if she stays I am visiting sooner or later. I won't bring all the kids, though.

To add too much information to my woe is me post; not 20 minutes after finishing the above post we had an incident involving a stomach virus and an only mostly potty trained 3 year old that rivaled the Rota Virus (if you don't know what that is -count yourself very, very lucky) incident of Puerto Vallarta Vacation 2005. In the list of parental duties, body fluids fall strongly on my side (I am a nurse after all), so I broke my studying vigil to clean up (and write this post). Yuck.

No Visual Included

2008-01-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

Upon getting out of the shower this morning, Hamda handed me my cell phone and said.."I took a picture of Elias's booty". She then showed me the camera, complete with a picture of Elias mooning the camera. For the record, none of my children have ever seen a movie or t.v. show where someone moons - they came up with it all on their own.

Bad Mom

2008-01-23T23:10:00.000-08:00

I think about being a bad Mom a lot. I especially thought about it today after a conversation with a friend who recently adopted a baby boy who may be the most loved child on the planet. She was driven from a Mommy and Me meeting (her first) today because she admitted she went back to work (for 2 days a week!!) and was met with semi veiled hostility in comments like, "Oh, I cannot imagine how you could possibly leave him at all" and "I haven't yet left my son to go on a date with my husband - and he is two years old". I then read a great column by Ayelet Waldmen (http://bad-mother.blogspot.com/) on the cult of the Bad Mommy (Britney Spears is the current incarnation) and how Mothers are not allowed to be anything but 100%, completely selfless.

Maybe it is because I have four kids under the age of seven who will gladly take all I have to give until I am nothing but a stump, or maybe because the feminist in me doesn't like to see women tearing each other apart, but I really, really hate competitive mothering. I think we all know what it looks like - and that it has very little to do with how good a parent we are - but everything to do with wanting to feel like we are a good parent, or at least a better parent then our neighbor. I know I want assurance that I am doing a good job with my kids and that I will be rewarded with four upstanding neurosurgeons who buy me Mother's Day Cards - but I am not going to get it.

Hmmm. There is a good reason that I don't post commentaries on my blogs very often, but I feel a strong sense of outrage at the pressures that fall on moms. The more I let go of my ideals of the kind of parent I should be, the better parenting gets. I kind of want to shout out, I am a Mother - not a Martyr!! And my kids sometimes watch more than an hour of television a day!

Sushi

2008-01-20T14:52:00.000-08:00

Today Ariel and I were supposed to be taking the kids to the zoo, but on Friday a Dr.'s office complained about him working on their building during office hours, so Ariel is forced to work today. I was just planning on hanging out at home with the kids, but Ariel forgot something at home, so we all loaded up on the car, and drove the half hour to his job site. In exchange for the favor, I am going to see Juno with my Mom when he gets back tonight.
On the way home, we went on a wonderful woalk in Steilacoom, one of the most beautiful little towns in Western Washington - as well as home to the State's only mental institution for the criminally insane. I have pretty unpleasant memories of my clinicals there from nursing school. Somehow we managed to get a few hours of bright sunshine as we walked along the bluff above the sound - the Olympic Mountains were out in full force.
Our final stop was at Trader Joes...which I love to go to when we are in the Tacoma area. TJ's did not make their carts or their aisles in mind for people with four children, but I love it all the same. At the moment I am happily munching on their California Rollls and Early Grey Tea. The kids wore themselves out on the walk and have settled in for a movie. They did really good on our whole trip - although it proves to me how old I am, because I cannot fathom how they can spend way over an hour in the car laughing hysterically at fart noises.
It has been very nice to day to just focus on the kids. Yesterday I bunkered down and spent about six hours studying. I have a monstorous cardiac chapter (my least favorite subject) to get through and I managed to get a little ahead of my readings. I have a long to do list for next week; I have to start hacking away at taxes and financial aid forms as well as buy a bridemsaid dress. Ariel will be home tomorrow with the kids.

On a Winter's Day...

2008-01-17T19:16:00.000-08:00

Hamda had some teeth bits pulled today - so we spent a big part of the day on the couch together. She did great and has perked up quite a bit now, but for awhile she was pretty droopy. While we hung out on the couch, I spent time outlining the California trip - thanks for all the suggestions. I think we are going to borrow/rent an RV from someone I work with and focus mostly on State Parks. Our trip outline goes something like this

Day 1: Drive to Ashland, Oregon

Day 2: Drive and Stay in Redwood National Forest

Day 3: Stay at a State Park near Santa Cruz

Day 4: Santa Cruz again

Day 5: Gaviota State Park near Santa Barbara

Day 6: Gaviota State Park near Santa Barbara

Day 7: Drive to Disneyland

Day 8: Disneyland (for the kids :))

Day 9: Yosemite

Day 10: Stockton to visit family - then a long drive home

While I was online trip planning, I checked out airplane fares to Puerto Vallarta. A few years ago we went to Yelapa, Mexico outside of PV and loved it...we have been hoping to try Sayulita next. It is supposed to be a medium sized fishing village with great surfing - no big resorts. I found tickets for $230 (+taxes) and ended up buying round trip tickets for our entire family to go to Sayulita next November. I am very, very excited about all this trip planning.

Harstene Island

2008-01-15T20:03:00.000-08:00

We spent our weekend at the Harstene Island cabin with my in-laws. The cabin is a wonderful place (we spent our honeymoon there). It belongs to Ariel's cousin, who inherited from his parents - he maintains it and doesn't want to get rid of it, but almost never uses it himself. He makes it available for us to use. It's like a vacation home with all of the benefits and none of the hassles. Harstene Island is located about an hour south of Olympia on Puget Sound - there is basically nothing there except for a handful of houses and a small marina. I think it is just as beautiful as the San Juans, although it is completely under the radar. The cabin is in a small gated community with beaches, nature trails, a pool, and tennis courts. The cabin itself is a small A-frame built in the early 1970's and nothing has changed since then. There is three inch orange shag carpet and a woodstove and stuff (like magazines, random taxidermy animals, and fishing poles) that hasn't been moved in thirty years. I really love it just the way it is. We all sleep upstairs in the sleeping loft.
The cabin is especially great in the winter; the island is pretty deserted and things to do are limited to; eating, reading, walking in rain gear, watching movies and playing games. Oh, and the kids spend endless hours sliding down the shag carpted stairs in their sleeping bags. We watched Pirates of the Carribean 3 and I spent some time studying and reading two really good books, The Secret History of the War and Cancer and a biography of Tolstoy by A.N. Wilson. On Sunday there was enough sun to walk Chester for two miles. We had a fantastic time and I came back pretty ready to start tackling normal life again.

New Kid Pics

2008-01-08T08:12:00.000-08:00

After putting up these photos the first time, it was brought to my attention that some people out there might not know my kids.....Isaac, 6, is our oldest - and he is a lot like me. He is generally pretty amiable and fun, but he is also pretty tightly wound and is quite the little dreamer. He loves to play video games. Shkuri is also 6, and is a force of nature...she is bold and seems to be good at everything she tries. She has a quick temper and wants everything to be fair and just all of the time. Hamda is 5, and seems to always be wearing a grin. She is very sweet natured, but has quite a steely inside - if she has made up her mind, she will not be easily commanded. Elias, 3 1/2, and Hamda are the best of playmates - they play together all day long. Elias is now about 80% little boy and 20% baby still. I cling to the baby that remains. He likes things very ordered and gets along well with all of the kids.
Tonight I was finally able to see Atonement. It is a rather devastating story - I had read the book and loved it and found the movie a very good adaptation. I had made up my mind to post a poem every Tuesday on the blog again, so here is When You are Old by Yeats.

WHEN you are old and gray and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face among a crowd of stars.

Help us Plan our Road Trip

2008-01-06T13:32:00.000-08:00

We are going to California on a road trip during the kid's spring break the first week in April. Normally, I have trips planned out a year or so ahead of time, but I am a little confounded with the California trip, and I hope to seek wisdom from all of you.

So far, we are either going to drive or rent an RV and stay at campsites. We are going to visit some family in Stockton. Ariel and I want to do some surfing - which means nice little gentle waves and a beach where the kids can play. We may go to Disneyland for a day, or we may not. I am impressed with the Costa Noa resort in Pescardaro. We are not sure about whether we will spend more time in Southern or Northern California. Most important, and at all costs, we must pick places where we can hang out with the kids comfortably. We are usually much happier in hippieish places, as I tend to get hives when surrounded by blond, thin rich people. I welcome any and all recommendations or thoughts!!!

2008-01-03T23:19:00.000-08:00

Can I just say that I am pretty excited about Obama's big win in Iowa? I am also a bit suprised that I am excited.

888

2008-01-03T17:05:00.000-08:00

Knocking around the blogging world is the 888 Challenge: Pick 8 books in 8 categories to read in 2008 (Six overlapping books are allowed). I don't even pretend that I am going to read all of these books in 2008, but it was fun to write out the list.

Books to read with the Kids
A Children’s Greek Myths
The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
A Children’s Odyssey
A Children’s Illiad
Little House in the Big Woods
All of a Kind Family by Sidney Taylor
The BFG by Roald Dahl
Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary

Americana
O Pioneers by Willa Cather
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn*
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
Moby Dick by Melville
Walden by Thoreau*
Slaughter House Five by Kurt Vonnegut
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac Mccarthy*
Cannery Row by Steinbeck

Non-Fiction
Tolstoy by A.N. Wilson
A Secret History of the War on Cancer by Devra Davis
The Voyage of the Beagle by Darwin
Walden by Thoreau *
God’s Playground: A History of Poland by Davies
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton*
A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn*

Poets
John Donne
Yeats
Ted Hughes
Emily Dickinson
William Carlos Williams
Lord Byron
Seamus Heaney
Pablo Neruda

Short Stories
Chekhov: The Complete Short Novels
Carried Away: A selection by Alice Munro
The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty
Walk in the Light and Twenty Three Tales by Tolstoy
The Complete Shorter Fiction by Virginia Woolf
The Aleph and Other Stories by Jorge Luis Borges
The Complete Stories by Kafka*
Short Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers

Books that I am Afraid Of Reading
Ulysses by James Joyce
Herodotus: The Histories
To The Finland Station by Edmund Wilson
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt
Lolita by Nabakov*
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
As I lay Dying by Faulkner
Russian Thinkers by Isaiah Berlin

Religion
Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton
Islam: A Short History by Karen Armstrong
How to Read the Bible by James Kugel
Walking on Water: Reflection on Faith and Art by Madeiline L’Engle
Seven Story Mountain by Thomas Merton
Why Christianity Must Change or Die: A Bishop Speaks to Believers in Exile
The Power of Myth by Joseph Cambpell
The World of Tibetan Buddhism by Dalai Lama

European Fiction
Ulysses by James Joyce*
Madame Bovary by Flaubert
The Master and Margartia by Bulgakov
The Mill and the Floss by George Eliot
Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
The Jeeves Omnibus by P.G. Wodehouse
The Complete Stories by Kafka
The Idiot by Dosteovsky

Holiday Post

2008-01-01T10:56:00.000-08:00

I certainly had planned on putting up a blog before this about all of our holiday activities...but now it is New Year's Day and they are all coming to a wrap up. The entire Christmas Season has been wonderful at our little house. Somehow it worked out that there wasn't much stress, but a lot of time just spent being a family and having fun. I have gotten asked a lot of if the girls understood their first Christmas. Uh, yeah. You can sleep well at night knowing that Hamda and Shkuri had no problem adjusting to an American Chrstmas. We had three different family parties and then spent Christmas day walking between our house and Mike and Ruth's (My in-laws). I was pretty proud of the presents we got the kids - just about everything was either used or bought locally - and they have played with it all. We have spent a lot of Christmas break just playing board games or their Nintendo Game Cube. Here are the kids playing a vintage game of twister on Christmas Eve.

Here is Elias in his Superman costume present on Christmas day:

Here are the kids putting together their jig saw puzzles that Ariel made them from pictures of themselves. They are very, very cool and I am extremely impressed by his toy making talents.

I have so many wonderful memories from this Christmas time. It was so great to just hang out with the kids at home without anything hanging over our heads. If you ever have lost any Christmas magic - just spend a few hours with some five and six year olds. Ariel didn't work much at all for the last two weeks, I only had to work my usual part time (and no school work!) and the kids didn't need to go anywhere. We slept in almost every mornin. We spent many great hours with friends and family. I beat Ariel at Carcassone after about twenty tries. I made Creme Brulee for eighteen people - and nothing went wrong. Much to Ariel's disgust, I spent a lot of time obsessively watching BBC's Robin Hood with the kids. Among my favorite presents was the Volkonsky translation of War and Peace (I have been waiting seven years for it to be published), Buffy the Vampire Slayer comic books, Decemberist Tickets, and this T-shirt from Aimee:

Last night we played some games and watched Moulin Rouge. Today we are off to spend the day with my Aunt Pat and family in Seattle...I have my list of resolutions all ready for 2008, but I won't divulge them to a soul. Ariel says his only resolution is never to watch another episode of Robin Hood again. Happy New Year!!

MIT Open Course Ware

2007-12-21T19:44:00.001-08:00

It is entirely possible that I have blogged about this before and can't remember...but I have spent a bit of time looking at yet another very exciting website. MIT has put the syllabus online for pretty much all of their courses at http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm through MIT open course ware. This means you can basically take any of the courses that MIT offers. Say you wanted to teach yourself Differential Equations?? You could go on, download the course, buy the textbooks and take the test that MIT students have to to take. I remember coming across the site about six months ago and thinking it was very cool - but I haven't really taken a look at it until now (because I was too busy with real school). I think any nerd like me couldn't help but get very excited about the possibilities of self education through this program. It makes me feel all warm and tingly inside. Tonight, I downloaded both Major Poets and Introduction to Cancer Biology.

On the homefront, we are all getting very geared up for Christmas; my family is coming over on Sunday and then we will spend Christmas Day with Ariel's family. Ariel has been reading the Christmas story to the kids each night and then letting them open up a stocking stuffer. If I can get off in time, I think I am going to take the kids to the local Methodist Church's Family Christmas Service. We don't have a regular church and I happen to be missing some of the traditions this year.

Whom to Vote For?

2007-12-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

I passed my final exams, the kids are asleep, and thanks to a brilliant suggestion by my friend Matt to use Google Reader, I am finding myself with an extra twenty minutes today. I am going to use that time to contemplate my choices for president - and I hope, maybe to start a bit of dialogue about what others are thinking.

I need to start the sorting of my thoughts with total honesty; in the deepest, darkest recesses of my heart I really want to live in Sweden. I want everyone to have quality health care, I want children in inner-city schools to have AP and music classes, I want poor elderly people to have decent housing, I want prisoners to have gardens, and I want to cut our military-industrial complex to help eliminate poverty and build schools throughout the entire world. I am also completely comfortable with the idea of being taxed like crazy to pay for it. I also understand that this isn't going to happen anytime soon, and there may be a lot of really good reasons why it shouldn't - but it is still what I want.

So whom should I vote for? There are a lot of things that come to mind right away. I want someone who I feel is competent, and who I don't think would make me nauseated every time I heard them on television. I am trying to separate out my emotional reaction to individuals and see a bigger picture. I really like some of the policies John Edwards has put forward. I feel a little fluttering of inspiration in my stomach when I listen to Barack Obama. I think Hillary Clinton could be a very competent president (and she's a Seven Sisters Alumna, too), but there are a lot of buts to the idea of her as a candidate. I kind of secretly love Dennis Kucinich. I have been pretty impressed by both Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee at times.

While my Dad is a major political junkie, I get worn out very quickly, but I still am excited about the coming election, especially if I can avoid watching any campaign commercials.

A breather

2007-12-17T22:22:00.000-08:00

School is finished for three weeks. I found out that I got on A on my evil, hated research paper. I don't yet know the results of my final - but I think that karma is lining up for me. In the meantime, I feel as if I have a bit of breathing room - and I am loving it. This weekend I didn't have to study, I slept in until 9 (Thank you Ar!) and ate a lot of Christmas goodies. We went to Ar's family Christmas party. I baked bread and made soup and our lovely friends Ryan and Elizabeth came over to eat it. I watched an entire DVD of Veronica Mars (judge not) and have begun to contemplate my presidintial choices. I read an entire New Yorker. It was wonderful. I don't think I realized quite how stressed and tired I had become until it was over. Above is the picture of the Isaacson cousins at the family Christmas party.

Sing O Muse.....

2007-12-16T12:28:00.000-08:00

My Sister in Law, Aimee is a genius. I have known her since she was a dreamy ten year old, and I cannot believe how talented a cermacists she is. She made all of these projects for her community college ceramics class after only one year of classes. She has just the amazing combination of artsiness and a detailed perfectionism that makes her work incredible. I hope these pictures do her project's justice, because they take my breathe away, they are so good. She is going to have her own solo show sometime in the next year, hopefully.

I am actually the model for this one - which is why I consider myself her muse, although that may be a bit of stretch. I cannot wait to see what she produces next, or what her future will hold.

If you are interested in purchasing any of her work or commissing something, just let me know.

Pop Quiz

2007-12-15T10:16:00.000-08:00

Which thing makes a day the least fun;
1) Having to take a really tough final and not knowing how you did
2)Having a not-so-great day at work afterwards
3) Getting a call from the ER saying your Mom is there (she is totally fine, she just had some chest pain that turned out to be pleurisy)
4) Coming home, trying to make a margarita and spilling the entire jug of mix all over the kitchen??

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

2007-12-12T21:25:00.000-08:00

"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God Damn it, you've got to be kind."
- Kurt Vonnegut

O Valencia

2007-12-11T20:57:00.000-08:00

I think I have blogged quite a bit what a slog the last few weeks have been - but tonight I felt like I had a breakthrough. Instead of being cooped up at home, I took the kids to the local Y to go swimming. Ar thought I was stark raving mad to take the four kids myself - but it ended up being a blast, and on the way home we sang Old Macdonald at the top of our lungs. Then they actually went to bed without protesting too much (although I can hear them whispering very loudly to each other)....now I am embedding myself in front of the computer to finish working on my evil paper. I decided to post the video for The Decemberist's O Valencia. I have been playing this album the entire time I work on my paper. It is by far my favorite album this year (well, it came out last year, but I am not very hip, so it's okay)

Last year's Christmas Pictures

2007-12-10T19:38:00.000-08:00

Hmmm...I was really hoping to have our new family Christmas card pic's to post today, but Ariel's business Christmas card from last year is just going to have to do. We were going to take the pictures on Sunday at the zoo, but it snowed, and we didn't make it. I didn't leave the house or my sweats the entire day. In the end, it all worked out for good. We had a wonderful day at home, the kids had a blast in the snow, and I managed to finish the rough draft of my major nursing research paper. At one point, I actually liked the subject I had chosen (prenatal screening for major depressive disorder), but now I consider it an evil beast that I must kill. It is due by Friday, so I have a few days to polish it up and turn it in.
After the paper and one test, and I am home free until after Christmas break :). I am already salivating at the books I want to read, and fun I plan to have with the kids.

Today at work was very slow...and so I wasted a bit of time on the internet. One thing I came across was the National Outdoor Leadership School's Wilderness Medicine Institute. I really, really hope that some day I can go to some of it scares me. I no longer freak out about people not breathing, or A-Fib, or vomit, thanks to plenty of experience, but I want to run away if there is a major injury invovled. Wilderness medicine training seems like a great way to start to get some experience.