MIT Open Course Ware

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?

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

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.....

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

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

"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

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

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.

I posted quite awhile ago about how our dog Itchy had had a seizure. Given that he is around 20 years old, we didn't think he had long to live - but he seemed to be doing okay for several weeks. Last night he had another seizure and took a turn for the worse. I am pretty suprised that he lived through the night. He is doing a little better today, and he isn't in any pain (we would have him put down if seemed to be suffering), but he is definitely dying. Neither Ar or I go crazy over our dogs, but now that we are saying goodbye, I am really suprised at how sad it makes me. He is such a good dog, and we all really love him. Isaac was having a hard time for awhile, and gave Itchy a stuffed puppy to keep him company.

Feeling sad at saying goodbye to Itchy has made me feel all contemplative...a big part of my job as an oncology nurse is to watch and help people with their dying. I love that part of my job. I know it really bothers some people, but it just doesn't scare me anymore. Sometimes there are people that I am just angry about their deaths, people that are just too young to die, or people whose families are in turmoil, which can bring a lot of ugliness.

I feel like it is a real privelege to help people and their families through it all. Dying can be pretty awful, but it is also a wonderful thing for people to be able to say goodbye to their loved ones. I hope that when those that are closest to me die, I have time to say good bye. I like my life messy, and being able to be with people when they die opens me up to so much that is real and special about being human. I don't think I am a very articulate contemplator, but that will have to do.

I am Atrayu.

I fear that this is how many of us in Washington have either felt or actually looked like in the past few days. Our family was lucky enough that our only ill effects from the big storm and flood was the loss of the internet for a few days. Today Ariel and I actually had enough sunshine to take the kids and dog for a walk...Combining that with have one big paper turned in and another test under my belt, kids in bed, and a half hour of reading time, life is starting to look up a bit. By the weekend it might even look like......

'Tis the Season

There was great celebration at our house tonight - just in time for the opening weekend of Christmas celebrations and it started to snow!! Shkuri was especially excited about her first glimpses. She has been asking about snow for several weeks now - she somehow knows that snow and Christmas just go together. Today we made and decorated Christmas cookies and tomorrow we are going to go get our tree and bring out the Playmobil Advent Calender I bought in Berlin last year. The kids watched Home Alone for the first time this evening, while I caught up with some much needed studying.
Ariel went on his annual Christmas shopping trip with his Dad and Brother. He is spending the evening with them and Isaac watching the best of The Banff Mountain Film Festival. A bunch of his Mountain Biking friends got him to go last year and he was very impressed.
I read something the other day that was hysterical - Ben Harper (the singer) was being interviewed in Outside magazine. When asked about what sports he does, he said "I have four kids. Having four kids IS an extreme sport".
In that vein...Ar and I have been dealing with a new bump on the adoption road. We knew going into this what the girls had been through....they come from a war torn region of Somalia called the Ogaden Desert, their Mother died in childbirth with a third child, and their father brought them to an orphanage, telling the social workers "he didn't know if he would make it". We also knew that young, adopted children often deal with their grief and anger in not so obvious ways. Over the last few weeks Shkuri has been expressing some rather scary rage; she completely flies off the handle at the smallest incidences. In a house with three siblings who like to annoy each other - there are a lot of small incidences. I basically deal with it by holding her in her bed until she is calm enough to talk to, which sometime takes up to a half hour. I suppose that in some ways it is progress - she does not do anything like this anywhere else, so I know she must be feeling fairly safe with us to act out like that. It is really, really hard and exhausting, however. I do feel like I am learning something from it - I think I may emerge from all this completely Zenned out. I am learning how to not get upset and react when she lashes out, but wait it out. Somedays, Ar and I feel like we are in way over our heads.

The Wives debate

The last few days, life (well, school, work, and tantrums) have been kicking my butt a bit - thank goodness for Jon Stewart and Chocolate Chip Cookies.

From Salon

From the outside looking in, family life seems chaotic and irritating. Meandering through the world like multiheaded beasts that sweat and squeal and bicker and grumble, families take up too much space, make loud, unpredictable noises and leave big messes everywhere they go.
It's easy not to want a family when you see one lumbering toward you from a distance. It wouldn't make much sense to wish for an army of little mouths that need to be fed and limbs that need to be washed and butts that need to be wiped. It wouldn't be logical to long for big piles of filthy laundry and stacks of dirty dishes and tens of thousands of necessary errands and appointments. No one daydreams about snotty faces and unmade beds and day-care bills.
And when you throw in your childhood memories, a string of mildly oppressive family activities, pesky chores and unbearable car trips, punctuated by countless little breakdowns and clashes and standoffs and shouting matches, it can be troubling, indeed, to contemplate creating a topsy-turvy emotional fiefdom of your own.
But once you have a family, all of that fades away. When you settle into the necessary rhythms of recurring Monopoly games and slow-cooker recipes and activities designed to contain the chaos of small people, neurotic worries sink into the background. Emancipated from the incessant demands of the ego, you're free to revert to your basest, dorkiest state. Conveniently, this is also the state that kids like the most: the singer of dumb songs about putting on your shoes, the aggressive landlord at St. Charles Place, the wide-eyed moron who's awed by big trucks and helicopters, the freak who'll dance to anything, from Radiohead to the nursery rhyme electronica of children's toys.

Becoming a cheerful, enthusiastic halfwit turns out to be tremendously relaxing. And while a family can feel like an unwieldy clown car with a flat tire and bad steering, most of the time, it's pretty fun to drive.

Two book recommendations

Tonight I had a bit of time to read a few chapters from Three Cups of Tea. The book is the story of a former mountaineer who dedicates himself to building schools in Pakistan. It is a very similiar story to one of my favorite books of all times, Mountains beyond Mountains. MbM is the story of Paul Farmer, a Harvard educated MD/Anthropologist who dedicates himself to ending heatlh care disparities in the world - and focuses especially in Haiti. I absolutely love two of the messages both theses books put forward. The first is that all human being deserve quality health care and education. These are basic human rights and any numerous arguments or reasons to the contrary are, quite frankly, BS. If our country can wage billion dollar wars, surely we can summon the resources to come up with decent schools and medical care for, if not the world's citizens , than at least our own.

The other thing that I admire so much in these stories, is that both of these men have gained a great deal of respect from the communities they work in - because they come without an attitude of superiority, but pay proper respect to the people they are trying to help. They both do things like learn the languages of the people they work with and make efforts to work with local leaders.

I could go off on a little soap box for quite a while....but won't bother. We are all going to sit down and play a board game before the kids sit down to bed. We are having such a great day - Ariel worked this morning while I braved a combo of spin class/swimming lessons/house cleaning/Farmer's Market with the kids. This afternoon when we were all together and we hung around and read and played games. Somehow the kids all managed to get along - I am extremely thankful for days like these.

The five person dog leash

Conversation overhead at my house tonight; MOM!! Elias is eating candy!!. No - he's just eating a crayon. (Insert whiny voice) MOM, I want some.

shpilkes

I read a great term that really describes me - I am shpilkes, a Yiddish word for "ants in the pants"...which is why I have been fantasizing a bit about joining the foreign service as a nurse practitioner and schlepping my family around the world. Since any actual decisions to do so are a long way off, it is a nice little fantasy that makes me happy. Here is a list of cities where Foreign Service Nurse Practitioners work.

Abuja, Accra, Ankara, Asmara, Antananarivo, Beijing, Bucharest, Budapest, Baku, Bangkok, Bogota, Brussels, Colombo, Conakry, Harare, Havana, Hong Kong, Islamabad, Kabul, Kampala, Kiev, Kathmandu, Kigali Kinshasa, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, La Paz, Lilongwe, London, Managua, Manila, Maputo, Mexico City, Monrovia, Moscow, Nairobi, Ndjamena, New Delhi, Niamey, Ouagadougou, Prague,Pretoria, Quito, Rabat, San Salvador, Santo Domingo, Sarajevo, Sofia, Tashkent, Tel Aviv, Tbilisi, Tegucigalpa, Tirana, Tokyo, Tunis, Vienna, Yaounde, Yerevan, Ft. Lauderdale and Washington, D.C.

Pediatric Heptologists

Uggh. I woke up with a very nasty cold - which unfortunately coincided with my working a few extra days to cover someone's vacation at work. Ariel has been staying at home with the kiddos. I really hate having to work with a cold...partially because I really just want to stay in bed and partially because I really should not be around a lot of our immune compromisde patients. We have a small department, however, and if I am out sick there really isn't anyone to cover me. I just wear a face mask and wash my hands constantly. My cold gave me an excuse to just come home and sit down (well, and study ear, nose, and throat disorders) - the dishes are going to sit dirty in the sink for now. We watched a Japanese Anime movie called Sprited Away - we were all totally transfixed. I thought it might be a little scary, but the kids were fine.
We also went to see a pediatric hepatitis specialist for the girls yesterday. I didn't even know if they would treat kids with Hep C - but it turns out she will. Whenever we are ready, we can start the treatment. Unfortunately, the treatment is an interferon shot once a week for an entire year - plus monthly labs to monitor progress. I am not thrilled about starting the girls on such a treament, but the Dr. said that they handle the treatment much better than adults with the added bonus that treating it when they are young would mean that they may never suffer liver damage. I have a couple of patients who get interferon (it is a type of chemo), and they said it makes them feel like they have the flu for a couple days after each shot. The alternative is not great either - that they might get sick enough to have liver failure and could need a transplant. Luckily, she was totally supportive of us waiting a bit longer until we feel ready - and maybe the girls could understand a bit better.

War and Peace

It has taken me almost two years, but tonight I actually finished War and Peace. It really was an amazing book - although I think I only absorbed about 1/10th of the book itself...someday I hope to read the new Volkonsky and Pelvear translation, which is suppposed to be much better than Garnett's - but for now I will settle for having read it once. I love Tolstoy, especially because he writes about family better than any one else.
I got to finish the book because Ariel is back from his film festival orgy - last night he stayed up for All Freakin' Night to watch ten hours of B-Horror flims. It is the capstone of the film fest and is always sold out. Ar said it started out a lot more fun at midnight. While Ariel tried to recover today, I took the three oldest kids to Seattle for my niece's bowling birthday party and for dinner with friends.
The bowling party went much better than I thought it would - I don't tend to get along that great with my sister and I often find kid's birthday parties very overwhelming and stressful. The kids all had a really good time and Shkuri even bowled one strike.
After the party we swung by the neighborhood I grew up in, Columbia City, to pick up some Ethiopian Food. When I lived there in the 1980s the area was quite ghetto, but now it is gentrified enough to have lots of charm and amenities, but is still incredibly diverse and maintains an exciting vibe. To bad my parents sold their house there for $40,000 ( probably worth ten times that now). Dinner at our friend Eric and Laura's was also really great - I just don't think there is much better in life than good company and yummy food compounded by happily playing children. I think Tolstoy would probably agree.

A widow for ten days

About an hour and a half ago, I was planning on posting how great the kids have been today. Barely an argument or a mishap between them. Their school conference was today and both S and I are doing very well in first grade. Well. Ahem. Let's just say I can't write that anymore. See, Ariel usually 'does' bedtime while I get to studying. The kids do pretty good in listening and obeying him.
Ariel has spent every night going to the Olympia Film Festival - sort of a combined vacation/birthday present. I am at home doing single parent duty. I am very happy for him to go and enjoy himself - I like my share of odd films, but eight hours a night of Oly Film movies are way out of my league. Bedtime is testing all of my reserves....it seems that every night one child will not do anything I say. Tonight it was Shkuri. She didn't like the book I read. I put too much toothpaste on her toothbrush - and she most certainly did not want to go to bed. She is very stubborn and defiant when she gets in a mood like that, and I am afraid I was reduced to frothing at the mouth when she continued to turn on the light after I shut the door. At this very moment, she is yelling at me to screw her lightbulbs back in - but I think I have finally won this round.
In my quieter moments, I happily imagine myself as uber-Mom, who never loses her temper and always serves her children organic food and reads them Proust at bedtime (in the original French, of course). I am really hoping that all of this is providing some great character building (for me, as well as the kids)

Ian Mcewan

Since my favorite movie category of all time is "gorgeous star crossed lovers in a beautifully photographed historical setting with a broody British guy" - I was thrilled to see the preview for Atonement. I had heard of the book before but wasn' t very familiar with it. In anticipation of the movie, I started reading the book and it is absolutely delicious. It is so nice to read a novel that isn't trying to hard too be anything more than a well written story. I read 130 pages last night instead of studying - so today I am getting my homework done first.

"It was a great responsibility taking care of so many ducklings, and it kept them very busy"

Recipes

Like a great many people out in the world I am on a constant quest to eat healthier and get my kids to eat better...I am also a bit of a glutton and a sugar addict, which don't always mesh too well. This weekend, however, I made two recipes that I absolutely love. An even bigger bonus is the kids loved them and they passed the health meter. They make me feel better about the amount of halloween candy flooding into my house right now.

Golden Lentil Stew


2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, finely chopped
1/2 cup dried chickpeas, soaked in water overnight
8 cups homemade or low-sodium store-bought vegetable stock
4 cups water
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons finely chopped fresh cilantro, plus 1 tablespoon coarsely chopped
3 teaspoons coarse salt
4 celery stalks, finely chopped
4 ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 cup yellow lentils, rinsed
1 tablespoon tomato paste
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
1 cinnamon stick
1/2 teaspoon sweet paprika
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
5 ounces orzo or vermicelli, broken into pieces
1/2 cup chopped, pitted dates
2 tablespoons coarsely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, plus whole leaves for garnish
1 lemon, cut into wedges

Directions Heat oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, and cook 5 minutes. Add chickpeas, stock, and water, and simmer until tender, about 45 minutes. Mash garlic, finely chopped cilantro, and salt into a paste. Add garlic paste, celery, tomatoes, lentils, tomato paste, lemon juice, and spices to pot. Simmer until lentils are tender, 30 to 40 minutes. Add pasta and dates, and cook, stirring occasionally, until pasta is al dente, about 10 minutes. Stir in coarsely chopped cilantro and parsley. Garnish with parsley leaves, and serve with lemon wedges.

Morning Glory Muffins



4 cups all purpose flour
2.5 cups sugar
4 teaspoons baking soda
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon salt
4 cups (550 g) shredded carrots (use the food processor)
2 granny smith apples, shredded
1 cup raisins
1 cup chopped dried fruits (I used cranberries and kiwis) or chopped pecans
1 cup sweetened flaked coconut
6 large eggs
2 cups vegetable oil
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350ºF (175ºC) and prepare muffin tins by greasing them or lining them with paper cups.In a large bowl, mix well togther the first 11 ingredients.In an other bowl, whisk together eggs, oil and vanilla extract.Pour the eggs/oil mixture on the flour/fruits/carrots mixture and stir just enough to moisten the dry ingredients combine. Over-working the batter affects the quality of the finished muffins.Spoon batter in prepared tins filling them up to the rim. Cook in batches for 25 to 30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.

Five Years fro mNow

I had a false start on a blog I tried to publish with pictures of the kids and I making muffins and carving pumpkins with Ariel last Sunday...but, alas, I can't get the stupid pictures to upload off the camera. I am just going to have to wait for Ar's help. This last week has been a bit of a bear...we have been way understaffed with several people off and there is a constant pressure to work more days. When there isn't, there is usually two hours of overtime per night. Today is my four day weekend stretch - so I got to do lots of lovely things; I took a nap with Elias and Hamda, and walked them to get hot chocolate after school. Now they are all playing at the park in the sunshine. I really like it when I am able to unwind. Shukri and I are going to make meatballs for dinner.
I really enjoyed posting about my homeschool thoughts - so I thought I would post about another internal debate I have going on. I have been talking to Ar about where we see ourselves in five years...I feel like there are three real choices for us, although I am definitely open to other opportunities.
1. Stay in Olympia. We like it here. Our families live here. It is a good place to live - although we will probably need a bigger house by the time the kids hit their teen years. It is our hometown, though - which has its advantages and disadvantages.
2. Move to Portland. I love Portland - and it is a bit more affordable to live than Seattle. There are also a lot of good jobs for NP's in Portland. Every time we go, we wander around the Laurelhurst neighborhood were we would like to live. Ariel doesn't think he would have too much trouble starting up a new business down there.
3. Look for jobs abroad. I have always wanted to live abroad, and I do think that sometime I will. Ariel lived in the Phillipines when he was young and it was a great experience for his family. Both the state department and the U.S. military hire civilian nurse practitioners and post them around the globe - this is pretty close to my dream job. The question is more if the time to do this is sooner or later.

I like having choices - it is fun to think about all the possibilities, especially since all of them really would be nice. I can't get too secure - because the last place in the world I would have imagined being ten years ago is living in my hometown, a married Mother of Four.

Bluster

It is very, very windy in Oly today. I spent the morning being busy with kids...but the afternoon I got all to myself!! Elias has a cold and conked out and Hamda spent the afternoon playing with her older cousin who was at Grandma Ruth's house for the day. Hamda loves the extra attention and being doted on. So I whiled away my spare three hours by watching this movie:


and finishing up this book:

I cannot describe how much I LOVE to be in my house all by myself. The movie wasn't too bad - not great, but a very good movie for enjoying alone.The Eyre Affair, however, was just the perfect book to read when you are a bit tired and nice and warm - I got to finish it up today. Even though I only have 100 pages left in War and Peace, I could not tear myself away. I cannot wait to have pick up the next one. Tonight we are taking the kids to the library and a thrift store to pick out halloween costumes. We have been really enjoying all of our little fall rituals. This is a very nice time of year, and cabin fever hasn't set in yet.
I want to thank my very wise friends who gave me great input on the homeschooling/public schooling issue. I really appreciated what everyone had to say and it made me feel a lot better about changing my mind....

Uncharted Territory, Part II

One could probably tell that I have just started a new quarter and am really having a problem with procrastination by the number of blogs I have posted lately...but I have spent a lot of time contemplating a big choice. Ariel and I have always planned on homeschooling our kids. Ar was homeschooled all the way through school and it turned out great for him. When Isaac was two or so, I became very inspired by a book about Classical Homeschooling.
Now I am quite suprised to find myself very unsure if I want to homeschool at all. I sent the kids to school this year partially because I felt overwhelmed by having four kids, let alone trying to homeschool them. I still love many things about homeschooling - but I am also really pleased (so far) with our local public school system. The other thing that I didn't figure on four years ago was that I may not be the ideal homeschool Mom. Ariel's Mom was a wonderful and patient teacher who was very happy to stay home with her kids for the 20+ years it took them to get through school. I tend to be a bit over extended (hmm...to put it mildly) and am not so sure that homeschooling four kids is one of those things you can just fit in, like graduate school :).
Luckily Ariel and I don't have to make any decisions now. The kids seem to be thriving where they are, but the question is looming in my future: To homeschool or not to homeschool?

Uncharted Territory

I am veering off into uncharted parenting territory today....so much of my parenting to this point has been damage prevention. "Make sure the kids don't fall into the pool, don't let them drink the draino" kind of parenting. Isaac is a pretty emotional and tightly wound little guy - and I knew he has quite a temper, but I wasn't too worried about it. Today he gave Hamda a nosebleed during a tussle they were having and he verbally lashed out at a girl at school and made her cry. Both times he just got really upset, lost control, and was very remorseful about the consequences.
Somehow I feel I have crossed a point with his temper that I really need to try and teach him about why he can't just act out when he loses it - as opposed to saying "Isaac don't hit your sister or you will be punished by _________." I am not completely sure how we are going to handle this issue....it definitely feels like a new, more complex kind of parenting. I hope some wisdom comes to me during the night!

Rocky Mountain Candy Company

This is my wonderful husband (in the front) eating a mudslide candy apple in Seattle. Since Tuesday is his 33rd birthday, we went to Seattle to celebrate with his brother, Jon (picture below), and his wife, Ranae. During a 12 hour span, he ate 12 pieces of Turkish Delight, this Candied Apple, one piece of cheesecake, two different pieces of chocolate cake, and a half dozen minatuare donuts. He has a bit of a sweet tooth. He did resist the chocolate dipped twinkie, however.

Finished!!

I just wanted to proudly announce that I have officially finished both Women's Health and Pharmacology...my hardest term of grad school yet. A little Hooray for me! Now I will celebrate by taking my kids to school and going to Costco :).

Crystal Cove

I started my day by trying to reserve this lovely cottage. It is in Crystal Cove State Park in Southern California. From what I have read, the park has preserved a historic, non developed California coastal area with only a handful of restored cottages on the beach (for a reasonable price). They are also very popular, and despite trying to reserve it at exactly 8 am on October 1st (the earliest possible time) - I missed out. It was already booked. Ariel and I are thinking we might rent an RV and travel down the coast surfing and hanging out on beaches with the kids this spring - but I had really hoped to get one of these cottages.
Today was my first day back at work. I wasn't totally certain how I was going to feel - but I ended up being very excited. It was great to be back and I really, really like my job. I try to stay far, far away from any working Mom/Stay at home Mom debates, but I feel very lucky to have the best of both worlds. I get to enjoy my job and still spend enough time at home that I feel very in touch with my kids and can keep a good handle on all things domestic. Of course, it certainly isn't a flawless system, but it works for us. Ar didn't work today because of the rain and he spent the day hanging out with the kids. It was very nice to see some of my patients after a long absence. One of my long term patients has found that she is in full remission from her lymphoma, while another wonderful single Mother in her early forties is starting to lose her battle with leukemia. It is such a privelege to be part of both of their lives.
I also found out that I passed Women's Health - which is considered the hardest course by many of my fellow FNP students. It is great to have that behind me - and I am waiting to hear about pharmacology any day.

Zodiac Sign

I have never, ever even looked at a horoscope - in the church I was brought up in, that was just something you didn't do. So when we had a friend visit who is very into it and said it was dead on almost all the time, I was curious...so here is mine that I got off an internet site....I must say it is a little crazy how dead on it is.
You were born with the Sun in Cancer and the Moon in Scorpio. Your inner nature is more natural, sensitive, easy-going, and frank than your personality would indicate. You were born with the potential to live life simply, solely concerned with satisfying your pleasure-seeking impulses. Others may view you as a very firm, self-reliant, determined, and strong personality. You are clear and abrupt, energetic, positive, and capable of carrying out projects that involve hard work and dedication. On the same level, you are also fond of the good things of the world. Your personality is irritable and you may be subject to fits of anger.

Projection

Ariel got himself this new toy...he has wanted a projector for a long time and we finally bought one (I call it his birthday present, but he won't). We are planning on getting rid of the television set and accompanying accesories soon. The projector works great and it is kind of fun to have a large screen that pulls down from the ceiling rather than a big and clunky t.v. Ar is also very excited about showing movies outside in the summer time. We had some friends over on Friday to watch a Mountain Biking video, including my friend Natalie who bikes with Ariel. She is one of the most hard core atheletes I know, and I am a bit in awe of her toughness. She always has some major injury and shrugs it off or mentions that she ran ten miles that morning. I did my best to be a jock by going to a spinning class with Catherine. I was very proud of finishing the class when the instructor told me "Wow, your face gets really red when you work out".
On Friday I went to see the house I have been obsessing a bit over....I feel a little dishonest for wasting the real estate agent's time, but it was still fun to see it. It helped kick me in the butt a little bit to stop dreaming about what is better and bigger and appreciate how nice our house is (even if it is small for our little clan) and how great it is not to have enormous mortgage payments.
I am writing this tonight while Ariel puts the kids to bed...we had a wonderful time at the beach today. The waves were pretty lousy, but it was beautiful, sunny, and warm - and the kids had a blast. Unfortunately, they are also completely exhausted and are in four different states of complete breakdown. I really enjoy watching Ar put the kids to bed - he does a wonderful job.
I wanted to finish up with a bible verse that was read at Church this weekend that 'spoke' to me...I am not a fan (to say the least) of quoting bible verses to prove a point, but there is something very beautiful about Philipians 4:8-9
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing what you have learned and recieved and heard and seen in me. Then the God of peace will be with you.

Calico

Today was the first day that fall seemed to descend on us.....it was drizzly, gray and a little bone chilling. So we did the natural NW thing and headed to the beach! The girls have never seen the Ocean before and they jumped right in, despite the cold. We didn't take pictures, but it is safe to say that we were one very dirty, cold, and wet family when we left. I got in an hour or two of pretty decent surfing. Now that it is kind of cold, the families have seemed to dissapear from Westhaven State Park and only the young, carefree and often scruffy looking surfers are left. They look at us a bit like we are aliens when we haul our family of six around - or maybe it is we make so much noise they just can't look away.
We got another possible new addition to our family...a lovely, skinny and frightened calico kitty wandered into our yard this morning. I think we might be keeping her - the kids are very excited and I have started calling her Tess. We will see if she doesn't run away in the next few days. I think we need to put the kibosh on new inhabitants...we are up to four kids, two parents, two dogs, a cat, a fish, and a preying mantis in a 1400 sq. ft. house - that doesn't even include the grandparents living in our (remodeled) garage. I worry that it is getting a bit ridiculous to have this many living things under one roof.
Finally, I have spent my fair share of time reading Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert this weekend. I highly recommend it and have gotten very absorbed in her story -even if I was hesitant to read the book at first.

Itchy

Our lovely dog Itchy had a seizure right after dinner. I know that he is about twenty years old and is blind, deaf, achy, and cranky, so he doesn't have too long to live. But still, I am so upset at the thought of him dying. He is such a great dog and we all love him. He has arthritis pretty bad and can no longer go on walks. For awhile we took him in the wagon, but he didn't seem to like that much. He will still faithfully accompany me to the mail box even though it takes him twenty minutes to get back. Plus, he likes me best - and who doesn't like to be loved best? He seems to have recovered okay tonight and is up and walking again. I am not particularly sentimental about animals, but I really love this dog and I am really going to miss him.

Champagne wishes....

I kind of want to move. I don't actually want to move, but I want to be in a new house. For all of our married life Ariel and I have been involved in a church that lived closely together in a normal suburban neighborhood to gain a sense of community. Unfortunately, that has basically gone kaput. Our reasons for living here are dwindling as our friends move away. We also wouldn't just be moving us but both of our parents with us when we go and selling both our house and our rental to move, so I am not really in a hurry to go anywhere unless it is really special.
The problem with wanting to move is I have started looking at properties, and am finding houses that I really, really want to live in. My favorite house of the moment is on five Waterfront (Sound) acres in South Bay - a really beautiful area near where we live now. The house is nothing great - but it does have a Mother in Law apartment, Six bedrooms, four baths, a fruit orchard and two acres of forest. I am in love. The only snag is the house is twice as much as the highest amount of money that Ariel and I could fathom paying for a house in this lifetime. Sniff, sniff.

Michael Chabon

I was going to post about last weekend at the Harstine Island cabin and Isaac and Shukuri's first day of school, but it seems so far away...the stars are alinging for me to have a beautiful evening. Ariel took the boys to camp one night at the Wynoochee River, and I stayed home to study and hang out with the girls for a night and go out on Sunday. The weather is beautiful and I am going out for a walk, and then we will all come back and watch Ugly Betty, which just came out on Netflix. I have the rare multi-tasking gift of being able to study while watching t.v. It drives Ar crazy, but we all have to have our talents. I also got the Yiddish Policeman's Union from the library and can stay up until 2 in the morning reading because Ar isn't here!! What fun!!
On other happy notes, my friend Nara called from her new perch in Brooklyn and my friend Izzy shared some fabulous news that makes me incredibly happy.

My little sous chef

My life as a Mom of four means each day is it's own roller coaster. We started off the day by going to the park and the lake - which went well. We then had to give the girls medicine for Girardia. Even though we got the medicine mixed into a chocolate syrup, Shkuri was not too happy about taking it, which made for a rather stressful ten minutes as I gave it to her in the syringe and had to hold her so she didn't spit it back out at me (at $30 a dose, she was not going to spit it out).
Today was pretty hot for Olympia, and we played out in the yard in the pool for most of the day, with a brief respite of watching Cinderella for quite time. My very lovely friend Izzy stopped by for a few hours and braved my family for a few hours. Shkuri and Hamda helped me make dinner. They love, love, love to help me prepare food and chop above all else. Normally, I wouldn' t let a six year old anywhere near a knife, but last week I looked at my side to see Shukri chopping away like a trained Parisian Sous Chef. I keep a close eye on her, and she makes cooking dinner fun. I have tried to get the boys to help me - Isaac isn't interested and Elias is still a bit young to do much.
After dinner Isaac was a bit wound up and had gotten in trouble, so I sat with him and read for awhile. We are reading about Ancient Egypt and were reading some Egyptian mythology when I mentioned to him that he was going to start piano next week when school started. He asked me why Shkuri wasn't taking piano, and I told him I thought he would want to do it alone. He told me he thought Shkuri would really like them and she should take them to. I was very excited to hear that - he isn't usually very open and nice to her, and this gave me hope! Tonight I am looking forward to walking to the coffee shop for iced coffee and then plunging into studying .We are going to be at the cabin for labor Day weekend and I have to take a pharmacology exam on cardiac medications before we go (I am in a distance program, and can choose my own dates). Uggh.

My Life So far

So I am finally, truly getting around to putting some pictures and a recollection of the last three weeks. Here are some pictures from Addis; Hamda on our first night together, the girls, Sister Carmela, and I at Kidanet Mihret Orphanage the day we left Addis. The third photo is Shukuri on a rock at Sodoret Hot Springs in the Rift Valley (our one day trip)
This Picture is us at Ritmo House after we got our hair braided. Normally, I abhor any caucasian having their hair braided ala Bo Derek, but the girls thought it was great, and my limited amharic prevented me from explaining I only wanted one braid to the hairdresser.




This is Jonas at Mary Famm, the small cafe right around the corner from our guest house. It was a three table hole in the wall cafe were local guys gathered to watch satelite t.v. Jonas was wonderful to the girls and made some of the best macchiatos I have ever tasted. Ethiopians take their coffee very, very seriously.





Our families time in Addis was almost beyond description. We met the girls the first day we were there. They were at an orphanage run by two nuns, Carmela and Lagarda who are in the same order as Mother Theresa. The orphanage was nice and fairly modern - although there were 150 kids, so it was definitely a busy place. I was prepared for things to be very rough, but right from the beginning Ariel and I felt very attached to the girls. Hamda started calling me Mommy right away, and neither of them seemed too upset leaving the orphanage. We only stayed for a little bit of time. We returned on our last day to say goodbye. We had a social worker help translate for the girls and let them know that we were only going for a little bit, and we were not leaving them there.
On the last day, we were very suprised to be given pictures of the girls with their father and a picture of their mother. The girl's father was Ethiopian, but they lived in Somalia in the Ogaden desert. The Ethiopian Army and Somalian militia there are in a constant state of war. The girl's Mother died in childbirth and their father brought them to Ethiopian Social Services office because he was too sick to care for them. We have our suspicions that he had AIDS, but we will probably never know for sure. It is very common for orphans to have living relatives, This was not our case, since there father lived so far away.
The rest of our time in Addis was spent doing a few small things, going to the Embassy and taking one day trip. There isn't a great deal of tourist spots in Addis, but it is thrilling to just be outside. Our guest house was in a middle class neighborhood a bit away from the city center. The streets were washed away because of the rainy season and we didn't walk too much since everything was mud. One of our favorite things in Addis was eating at Mary Famm and seeing Jonas. People would walk in and ask us questions about the girls and America. Another great thing about Addis was the religous diversity. From our house, you could hear the muslim call to pray five times a day. We talked to Muslims, Catholics, Protestants, and Ethiopian Orthodox. There is no segregation in the city and everyone says they get along fine.
We did a bit of shopping around the city, although the girls got very overwhelmed quickly because we attracted a lot of attention from beggars and sales people. We visited Layla house, the orphanage our adoption agency runs. We spent an afternoon at the U.S. Embassy getting the girls visas. Everything went very smoothly for us, although another family adopting a young girl at the same time as us had a lot of problems. We ate an inordinate amount of Injera, and took the girls to a few American style restaraunts, which were too fancy for us. One day we went on a two hour drive to the Rift Valley, where humans are first thought to have evolved. We went to a lake and Sodaret hot springs to take the girls swimming. When the realized what we had planned they refused to get out of the car. Ethiopians don't do much swimming. We did get to see some friendly monkeys, which thrilled Ariel. Mostly we just hung out and wandered around. By the time we left we were very comfortable with the girls and they seemed very happy to be with us. They loved hot water baths and learned to use a flush toilet. They were silly and very giggly. After we put them to bed at night, we could hear them singing and chattering away.

Now we have been home for two weeks and it has been pretty hard. I think the girls are doing as absolutely well as can be expected, but it is still rough. We had to go to the Dr. , which was not fun at all. I registerd Shukuri for 1st grade - our local school has excellent ESL programs. We were going to send Hamda to Kindergarten, but she is definitely not ready. Hamda is pretty clingy and throws rather frightening temper tantrums. They are learning English quickly, and I am learning a bit of Amharic. They do not like our dogs. Elias is doing really well, and doesn't seem to have any problem with new family members. Isaac is having a harder time, but we are trying to give him lots of time and room to be upset and work through stuff.
Things have gotten easier the last two days as we settle in as a family. I am trying to be very patient with everyone - which isn't by biggest virtue!! I am realizing that one of my children is always going to be mad at me, no matter what I do. It is a lot of work to have four kids six and under!! I am off of work until the beginning of October - but frankly I miss it a little. I am struggling through Women's Health and Pharmacology for school. On numerous occasions the last few weeks, I have worried that I made a terrible mistake and that I am completely bonkers.
One question I have been asked a couple of times is whether you can love an adopted child as much as your own, and I didn't know what to answer. Now I can feel I can answer with a loud YES. I am suprised at how little difference there is between my feelings for my boys and our new girls. They are such wonderful, happy, beautiful children. I am tearing up as I think about how lucky we are to have all of them. I promise to post more pictures soon and I look forward to introducing them to all of our friends and family over time.

Landing

I had intended to do a day by day blog of our trip in Addis, but now that we have been home for four days, I realize that is just not going to happen. In summary, Ariel and I had a truly amazing time in Addis. I was trying to prepare myself that I wouldn't neccesarily love the girls right away, but I did. Ariel and I fetl close to the girls right away, and they called us Mommy and Daddy and our guest house (a little rental house for adoptive parents) was filled with laughter all the time. We also really enjoyed being in Africa - Addis is a very big sprawling, chaotic city, but everyone we met was lovely. Almost everyone fussed over the girls - and what new parent doesn't love that?
Our flight home was brutal - I don't want to see a plane for a long, long time. The girls did as good as can be expected, considering the 31 hour fly time. Extra special thanks goes out to my MHC friend Margaret who saved us from an 8 hour layover at Dulles by giving us showers at her apartment and taking us around to Reston, VA and Washington D.C..
Now we are home and the going has been a bit rough. Ariel is back at work, and I am on leave for another six weeks. Shukuri is doing wonderfully, but Hamda is having a bit of hard time. We are finding that she is really more like a two year old than a five year old, and is very needy. I am doing my very best to be very patient and firm, but it is especially tough with the language barrier. Today we spent three hours at the Dr.'s and the lab and I am feeling especially overwhelmed.
I am really looking forward to getting to see our friends again and getting life settled down into a routine. Considering all that is going on, all of the Biggerstaffs are doing well, but it taking a lot of adjustment for us.

Addis

So far everything in Addis has been going amazingly well...after a unpleasant airport stay/flight from Rome, Ar and I got in. After a few hours sleep at Ritmo House we went to pick up the girls at Kidnet (KM) their orphanage. Hamda, the younger one started off everything by jumping it my arms, grabbing my neck and repeating Mommy over and over again. Shukur has been a little more quite, but they are both wonderful. They seem to be perfectly healthy and couldn't be better behaved. Their are no words for how amazing our first day together has been. They only speak a bit of English, but we spend a lot of time laughing. They are starting to warm up and chat and play around us. I can't wait to post pictures! We are really enjoying Addis as well - it is a bit awkard constantly being followed by people who want/need things. I think it bothers the girls a great deal when people come to our car to beg. I have many more stories to tell that will just have to post later.

Ciao

Friends and Family,
I dont have pics to post yet, but Ar and I send our greetings from Rome. We arrived here safe and sound and so far everything has gone lovely and smooth. We currently are attempting a death march to all the must do touristy sites of Rome through 95 degree weather with 95% humidity. We have seen the coluseum, pantheon, and the vatican as well as eaten some good gelato. Back at home, the boys are doing well too. Ar is taking lovely pictures that I will definitely post later. Ciao.

As I lay awake...

After a long day of getting things ready to go...Ariel has completed the girls room and Aunt Aimee has painted the ceilings with clouds, I have done laundry, packed, put the new Harry Potter in my carry on bag, and bought Off. Last night, we watched the Cave episode of Planet Earth (we watch one every Sunday, they are amazing) and then Ariel and the boys slept in the tent in the backyard, and I lay awake thinking. A lot. I should have written them down but this is what I can remeber thinking about....
Our plane is going to crash into the Atlantic
The boys will get bubonic plague while we are gone
We will get bubonic plague while we are in Ethiopia
Ariel's brand new laptop and beloved camera will be stolen in Rome
We will get in a car accident on the way back from the airport
There will be a huge earthquake in WA when we are gone
We will get in a car accident in our taxi in Rome
The girls are going to scream for the entire 31 hour flight home
The boys and the sister's wont get along
The boys will never forgive us for leaving them for ten days.......

The list goes on and on. I think I should stop thinking so much.

It came in the mail today...

As I said in my previous post, I have been in a state of worry and fear over our imminent departure to Ethiopia. Then this came in the mail. This is a picture of 'The Sisters' as we have taken to calling them, getting their gift packages from us. Those are their photo albums we sent them of our family and house. Would you look at those smiles? Those are my daughters. I don't know if anything could be better.

In other random news for the day, Ariel ordered his long awaited laptop for his business - and I get a free IPOD Nano in the process.

I also tried an experiment with the boys. I tend to be extremely cranky around dinner time. The kids are usually wild and I get very annoyed in the process of cooking. Tonight, I tried including them in the process - I was making Cauliflower Dum (from Mangoes and Curry Leaves). Isaac helped add all the ingredients to the sauce and Elias pressed garlic and then onions through the garlic. The difference between the two boys is hilarious - Isaac is exactly like me and can't concentrate on anything for six seconds without jumping to the next actvity. Elias, in contrast, merrily spent a half hour pushing garlic and onions through a press with great concentration. I am definitely going to try and cook with the kids more in the future. It is definitely worth the time.

Countdown

We are now in a countdown for the last week before we leave -I find my mood has suddenly changed. I have gone from pure excitement to being down right scared. It doesn't help a lot that many of my patients at work bombard me with "Four kids. That's insane" until I actually begin to think it is. One of my favorite sayings ever is "One must do what one fears". I hope this is no exception - We are so incredibly thrilled to be bringing these girls into our family, I certainly don't want to let a little fear get in the way.
The truth is, however, that Ariel and I have no idea what it is really going to be like. I figure the best thing is to just jump in and be ready for whatever comes. I have been to Uganda before and lived in an orphanage in Mexico, so I think I have some understanding of what to expect. We will be staying at Ritmo house, which is run by the orphanage there for adoptive families. We will be in Rome for three days and Ethiopia for five. We have reservations at hotels, our planes tickets our booked, the girl's bedroom is almost ready.
One thing that has been the last couple days is looking at other blogs of parents who have been there - they pretty much universally declare it is the most amazing thing they have done in their lives, and that is very encouraging. If we could only somehow manage to eliminate our eight hour layover at Washington National coming back from Ethiopia, I might be down right optimistic.

Snow day

One of my favorite parenting stories of all time comes from David Sedaris. I cannot tell you how often I think of his retelling of the snow day home from school, when midway through the day, his Mother lost it. She bundled all five of the Sedaris siblings up, threw them out, and locked the door. They stood outside the house for awhile, watching their Mother drink a glass of wine. Eventually, they tried to convince their youngest sister to lay down in front of a car, in order to be let back in as well as to punish their mother for her banishment.

My Immune system is ready

Tuesday Ariel and I had the great privelege of getting six immunizations each. While it is not as bad as getting Yellow fever, polio, or meningitis, it is still rather depressing. Especially when I think that it cost $900 - and isn't covered by insurance. It hurt and made me feel pretty sick the next day - but now it is all done. I will have something to hold over the kid's heads next time that I take them in for their shots.

Today is much cooler than it has been all week - so we have all been enjoying a fun day of going to the park and eating popsicles. Tomorrow I am not working, so we are all heading out to the Wynoochee River. Ariel's family owns ten acres along the river - there is a covered dining area, a big stove, and outhouses. Ariel and I got married there. We are going out in the evening to sleep on the beach...after eating enough S'mores to make myself sick. It should be perfect, except I really am going to have to take either Contraceptive Technology or Pharmacology (my current text books for school) to justify the night away.

We are going to Rome..

and it is going to cost less to go for a weekend in Rome on the way to Ethiopia than it cost for Ariel and I to get our six immunizations today (each). We were hoping to find tickets that allowed us to have a short layover, and today our travel agent told us she had found some for just a bit more than the straight shot was. I am trying to hold back and not use as many exclamation points in my blog writings, but this time it was hard. Anyone have any suggestions for places they loved in Rome? I understand that Rome in August is going to be very hot, and crowded with tourists and is a terrible time to visit because all the Romans are on the coast enjoying their European vacation pay - but I can't be too picky.

We have a date!

We have an official embassy interview date of August 8th. This means we will be traveling to Ethiopia (via a weekend in Rome, hopefully) and picking up the girls by August 5th and returning home August 11th!! It also means that I will be missing my friend Nar's wedding, but I think she will forgive me.

It's 90 outside!

Things I do not like to do when it is hot:

• Exercise
• Garden
• Laundry
• Cook
• Study
• Take the kids to the park (no shade!)
• Run Errands

Things I like to do when it is hot:

• Drink Root Beer Floats
• Sit in the Shade
• Nap next to a fan

Hero Worship

When I grow up I want to be Rory Stewart. I read his books, The Places in Between and Prince of the Marshes last year and was thoroughly impressed. I especially liked The Places in Between, his account of his solo walk at 27 across Afghanistan, in the winter. I didn't know much about him until I read an article about his life today.

He is just a fews years older than me, but has led the kind of lifeI have always been very envious of; an upper class Scotsman he was raised all over the globe, attended Oxford, worked for the British Foreign Service and has been employed as a writer, diplomat, tutor for British Princes, and a daring adventurer. Now he works in Kabul trying to help Afghani's restore a bit of their city and countries former architectural and cultural glory.

I have had to come to terms with the fact that I simply am never going to be a British upper class adventurer, but I can still indulge in a little wistful thinking, can't I?

Now that I am Thirty..

Now that I am officially thirty, I thought I would post a list of things I must do before I turn forty...but I couldn't come up with much for my next decade. My twenties were way fuller than I could have imagined - I got married, domesticated, had two kids (almost four), I have gotten to travel a ton, graduated from college, and am in graduate school to become an NP, which has always been my long term goal. Ten years ago I probably would have guessed that I would be living far, far away from Olympia and a MD - but my life so far has been way better than I could of guessed.
So in looking forward, I really don't know what to except. My one big goal is that we live abroad for at least one year, or somehow configure our lives so that we can spend one month travelling every year. There are lots of books I want to read, things I want to experience, but I am not to worried that I will come up with some way to make it exciting. If I lack excitiment in my thirties, I can just think long and hard that I will be the parent of four teenagers ten years from now. Yikes.

Birthday Party

Saturday evening was my thirtieth birthday party/adoption shower. It was really lovely and wonderful - we ate a lot of ice cream and cupcakes, chatted until late in the night and generally had a good time. Thanks to the great generosity of my friends and family we are now $1000 closer to paying for all our travel expenses and now have lots of clothes, linens and a very cool doll house for the girls. I feel very, very lucky to be surrounded by so many great people. Ariel also made a very close facsimile of my dream dining room table from Crate & Barrel - he took four hours, a $50 piece of plywood and made the beautiful table top that you see above - it sits on our old dining room table and can seat ten. I am still celebrating my rather self centered birthday countdown. Ar finished a big job today and I don't work, so tomorrow we are heading out to Westport to surf away the beautiful day.

For any of you looking for a film recommendation - we just finished watching The Long Way Round - Ewan Mcgregor and Charley Boorman made a documentary of their motorcycle trip across the world from London to New York - going East. It was fantastic - and would have been perfect, except their fondness for the F-word made it strictly late night viewing in our house.

Ikea Couch Real Cheap

Last week Ariel decided that he could no longer tolerate our half mangled Ikea couch. It did not stand up well to our children...since we have less than no money due to our adoption, he somehow had to come up with a new couch that cost very, very little - but was still better than what we have. This led us to Craig's list and a near miss of my dream couch; a red Pottery Barn sectional for 200$. We finally settled on this nice looking big sectional and rented a U-Haul to drive fifty miles to pick it up. After finding out that the rental truck wasn't really 20$, but in fact charged $.60/mile I wasn't super thrilled - I was pretty okay with our decrepit Ektorp.
After going through a seemilngly very long drive to get to the seller's house - I was not going to leave without a new couch. The good news is the couch is in good condition and is a very nice, high end big, comfy couch - the bad news is it is pretty ugly. It has a very weird grey/tan quilty pattern that doesn't match at all with what little aesthetic I have. Combine that with getting lost, almost running out of gas, stopping at a very sketchy gas station, and letting Isaac eat an entire bag of sugared gummy worms - and it made for a VERY memorable evening. But now our new, somewhat ugly, but still very nice couch sits monopolizing our living room. I figure at least I won't feel that bad as our children slowely destroy the couch over the next several years.
Anyone want an Ikea couch for real cheap? Must Pick Up.

Happy Father's Day!

I just wanted to say that this is my husband, who is one of the best fathers I have ever met. He gets his kids breakfast in the morning and sits down to watch cartoon with them....he puts them to bed every night after reading them a story...he spends seven hours baking them birthday cakes....he draws Big Wheel racing courses in our cul de sac and spends hours racing around with them. He is fun, and loving and wonderful. it is truly a pleasure to get to watch him be a great Dad.

We Love You and Thanks for being you! - Mary Ellen, Isaac, and Elias

June Birthdays

Ariel has a tradition of making really fantastic birthday cakes for the boys...June 7th was Elias's 3rd birthday and Ar made him a train cake. Everything you see on this train is completely edible - it even has candy tracks. Sorry the picture is to small to appreciate it fully - I am still not very good at this photo shop thing.






My birthday isn't until the 27th - but Ariel bought me this very snazzy wetsuit last time we went surfing. He didn't even tell me that it was all mine - I just thought that the surf shop had really upgraded it's rentals. Ariel is winning kudos left and right.

Isaac is done with kindergarten next week, and any day know we will learn our travel dates to Ethiopia. If you haven't already recieved an invite (and you live in Western Washington) my 30th birthday is now an adoption shower - and we would love for anyone we know to come!

Calgon, Take me Away

Since my to do list today includes writing a paper, studying for a test, putting away a pile of laundry so big it makes me want to cry, and convincing my lovely two year old son that peeing on our elderly dog is not even a little funny...I decided that what I really need to do is write a blog.

I picked up a Lonely Planet about Ethiopia and now have a much better idea of what to expect in our July trip to Addis Ababa. There are some neat sounding ethnological/historical museums, a giant outdoor market (the largest in Africa) with lots of pickpockets, yummy restaraunts, and thanks to Ethiopia being the place where coffee was first discovered and having been occupied by Italians - lots of great coffee shops. And it is not a malarial zone, which I am really, really grateful for since a previous round of antimalarial medication left me somewhat unhinged. Best of all, of course, Ethiopia is were our soon to be daughters are living. Since we have found out that we only need to be in Addis for five days, I have decided that Ariel and I will be spending 3 days in Paris on our 'layover'. This will our first and probably only vacation until our kids reach adulthood -so I am seizing the opportunity.

All this thinking about trips has got me making mental lists of trips I want to take as a family -and what better thing to do with a mental list than post it on the web??

• Take a train trip across Canada from Vancouver to Nova Scotia - with stops in Banff, Montreal and Toronto



• Taking our entire extended family to Saladita, Mexico for a few weeks, where we can surf this wave and speak spanish.



• Spending two weeks somewhere in Italy - maybe Cinque Terre, maybe a farm in Puglia


• A month long camping trip down the California Coast

Thirty Books for My Thirtieth Birthday

I love books beyond just about anything else (non-living) in my life. Since my thirtieth birthday is coming up (June 27th), my MIL suggested that I write out a list of thirty books I would like to own, but don't. It was really, really fun and a huge waste of my precious time :). So I finally finished the list, and here it is.

1. Virginia Woolf The Waves
2. Virginia Woolf: Women and Writing
3. Virginia Woolf: The Virginia Woolf Reader
4. James Joyce: Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
5. Vladamir Nabakov: Speak Memory
6. Mark Twain: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
7. Jorge Luis Borges: Collected Fictions
8. Jorge Luis Borges: Aleph and Other Stories
9. Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
10. The Complete Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway
11. Spoonful of Ginger by Nina Simmonds
12.A problem from hell –Stephanie Powers
13. Crime and Punishment – Dosteovsky translated by Pevear/Volokhonsky
14. There is No Me without You – Melissa Faye Green
15. Middlemarch by George Eliot
16. A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani
17. The New Book of Middle Eastern Food by Claudia Roden
18. The Complete New Yorker on CD ROM
19. The Complete National Geographic on CD ROM
20. The Proper study of mankind by Isaiah Berlin
21. The complete poems of Emily Dickinson
22. Stories of Anton Chekov translated by Pevear/volokhonsky
23. The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
24. Plutarch’s Lives Vol. 1 of The Modern Library Classics
25. Harry Potter; Books 1-5 and book 7
26. Ahead of All Parting: The Essential Poetry and Prose of Rainier Marie Rilke
27. The Portable Walt Whitman
28. The History of the Ancient World by Susan Wise Bauer
29. The Isles, A History by Norman Davies
30. The Polish Way by Adam Zamoyski

Fishy and Sharky

We added two more vertebrates to our family. Two nice little gold fish that Isaac named, you guessed, Fishy and Sharky. I would post their pictures, but I am supposed to be writing a paper. Isaac has wanted fish for awhile, and one day, I just gave in. My biggest concern is how two tiny fish in a 3 gallon tank manage to stink so bad. We have a filter. They had all clean water. Yet, after only a few days, the tank is murky and smells terrible. I also know that I am not going to clean out that stupid tank after one week.
On Friday afternoon I had my first patient have anaphalyctic reaction to a chemo. I started his very first dose of chemo and five minutes later he was not breathing, or moving, and his heart wasn't beating.
It is funny in t.v. shows (I am think of House, in particular) anaphalyaxis is very dramatic - the patient clutches at their throat, and maybe gets a scream out. This man just slumped over. After our code team descended and took over, though, he revived and was able to leave the hosptial two days later, about the same time I stopped shaking. I am proud to say I did what I was supposed to and didn't completely lose it, though. I can now put, "made it through a code" under my accomplished before I turn thirty list.
Tonight Ariel and I pick up my parents from the airport, where in their mid sixties, they are returning from their very first trip abroad. They went to Austria, Switzerland, Germany, and Italy for two weeks.

Sooner, Rather than Later

I have been horribly impatient my entire life. I get things done as soon as I can, and am ansty when I have to wait for someone else. So it is no suprise that I dragged Ariel through the adoption paperwork at warp speed - that's my way. Everything only started with Ariel saying last December "Maybe we should think about adopting". At the start of the process, we were told probably 12-18 months, which meant no sooner than this winter.
Now, because of my quickness and deciding on the girls who are already avaiable, we have been notified that we can expect to travel to Ethiopia in July to pick them up. JULY! I am incredibly excited to have them come home with us, but I am in no way ready. Imagine if you were expecting a baby and then got told, oh BTW, your baby is really due three months after you concieved her. So now Ariel and I have some serious scrambling to do - bedrooms, clothes, oh - and money to fly us all to and from Ethiopia by JULY. Yikes.
I think that we are going to resort to sending out letters letting people know what it is we need help with. We have kind of resisted doing this...who doesn't get a little annoyed by a letter asking for stuff? What do you think about the whole letter fundraising thing?