Christmas '08

    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.

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Peanut Butter Cups

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Greetings from Frontier

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

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

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

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

1. 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.
2. 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).
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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

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

(or Wynoochee River Escapist Fantasy '08)

Camping Food

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!

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.....

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!!!

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

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...

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.