Ordinary Time

I think I am working my way back to joining the land of the living. Of course, you know that peppy, upbeat blog post about finally getting life back under control? Well, yeah, not so much. It's amazing how quickly order is lost when mom is down and how long it takes to get order back under control. Let's not even mention the word laundry. I did want to share one highlight from being sick... discovering the goodness of my new hot lemon drink. Last summer, we were given a windfall of dozens of fresh lemons. Not even with the number of people in the house and the amount of cooking we do, could we use them up before the spoiled. Since I was deep in the midst of my avoidance food preservation time, I decided to try dehydrating some of them. Here is what they ended up looking like. TM likes to just eat them as is, and I've used some to cook with chicken, but by far the best use of these things is to make hot lemon tea. I throw three slices of dehydrated lemon in a mug...

I don't mean to take offense, really I don't. But sometimes I see something someone has written and I realize that there are some assumptions about large families that are just not true. And since they are assumptions that are not totally complimentary to large families, I feel compelled to respond. What comment has my cold-addled head reeling even more than it already was? Well, it was the question (my paraphrase), "Are there any families out there who adopt just so they can have a child (I think we only want one), or is it all families who are doing it as a mission project?" My trouble is the implied dichotomy. Small families = having children because they want to be parents and desire the child versus large families = adding children out of a sense of duty because they already have enough children. There are all sorts of problems with this assumption, the biggest of which it is just plain wrong. Now I know I am constantly nagging at preaching to you to conside...

but barely. I seem to have come down with the horrible head cold that has been travelling through the family. Y. is down for the count as well. Writing will resume when my head stops pounding. I did completely rewrite the "About" tab up there at the top of the blog before I succumbed if you need something to read.

A.'s 18th birthday was Saturday and we celebrated yesterday. Everyone was able to make it but B., who sadly had to work. It was quite the extravaganza. L. got it into her head that what was needed was a show produced in A.'s honor, so that is what she organized. The day before, she wrote "scripts" and passed them out to younger family members and then spent a good bulk of Saturday rehearsing with her cast. There was much carting around of the scripts and talk along the lines of, "I have to learn my lines!" and "Have you learned your lines yet?"  Ultimately, due to attrition, L. ended up with just Y. and K. in her cast. G. decided her life's goal was not to play the pizza delivery boy and opted for audience member and H. decided she would rather run lights. R. made an excellent audience member. Finally, A. and friends arrived and the show could be put on. Tickets were created and held and the Will Call window and seats were arranged. (You k...

The haze is starting to lift and I feel as though I'm finally coming up for air, to mix my metaphors a bit. All through this last adoption process, my anxiety over paperwork was extraordinary. It was a real fight to get any of it done, and I never, ever felt as though I was on top of it. I certainly wasn't my typically organized self, and that probably bothered me as much as anything. As travel got closer, the inability to focus grew. My desk piled higher and higher and I always felt as though I was one lost piece of paper away from disaster. Then, adding my dad dying a week before we left, made the whole thing even more difficult. It is nothing short of a miracle that we were able to leave and bring home our new daughters with only a slight paperwork mishap. Even after we got home, the jet lag, then the dog dying, and the transitioning of multiple people took precedence, and once again we were pretty much living moment to moment. Just as I thought I had gotten a handle on li...

Today was our day to head downtown and see the member's preview of the special Terra Cotta Warrior exhibit at the Field Museum . This was such a fantastic deal for us. Not only did we get to see the exhibit in a calm and uncrowded atmosphere, but it was a real family deal and all children in the immediate family were included at no cost. (This is increasingly not always the case, so I feel the need to really thank museums when they have true family membership deals.) J. was even able to take off from work to come with us, a double treat. We arrived in plenty of time, so there was the mandatory visit to Sue, the resident T-Rex. Plus, there was a chance to hold real, honest-to-goodness, prehistoric dinosaur poop. Who wouldn't turn that down? H. with prehistoric poop (and R. peeking out behind.) Then it was time to head to the exhibit. We also had P. and TM with us, but they decided they would rather play photographer than be photographed. The exhibit was ve...

Now there's a comment I hear fairly regularly. I always wonder out loud what it is they think I'm doing, because much of it is not rocket science, nor am I painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling while raising my children. So since today was a fairly average day, in terms of activity and amount accomplished, I thought I would share what I've done, thus disabusing everyone that Super Woman lives in my house. (I kind of wish she did, as I'm sure she could whip through the vacuuming pretty quickly.) Here is what I have done today, so far... Started the school day by reading our chapter in the Bible. (We're going straight through and we are up to Numbers. Yes, Leviticus was a slog. Yes, I need to get some commentaries to make sense of some of it.) Did some school, including algebra, "The Road Less Traveled", beginning reading, penmanship, French, grammar, and reading a big chunk about painting in the high renaissance. We had a late start, so it wasn't ou...