Ordinary Time

Today I have pies (pumpkin and pecan) on the docket as well as trying to get the cranberry-orange relish made and working on a tablecloth. Children will be doing their house cleaning jobs to get the place looking decent enough to have a holiday. You get animals. A week ago, we received some hand-me-downs and in the bags was a denim jacket which fit P. She snatched it up and proceeded to cut the arms off to make a vest for herself... which she then decided to put it on Kenzie. He wasn't so sure it was his style. Then yesterday, a box from ThredUp , my newly discovered online thrift store arrived with some pants that work really well for H. (who can be hard to fit, so a huge win). The box they came in was on the floor and I was about to push it out of the way with my foot when I looked a little closer. Do you see two fuzzy ears? Yes, Nefertiti loves a good cardboard box. On to pies...

The weather has changed and it's cold. The sorting of snow gear has resulted in children standing and staring out the window incessantly wondering when it will snow and incessantly asking when we can have hot cocoa. I can't control the weather, but I can mix up a batch of hot cocoa mix. It's simple; here's how to do it. Step 1: Pay the bills. Because having bills hanging over your head is not fun and makes for a grumpy mommy. Step 2: While you are paying the bills, bribe your children with hot cocoa if they will clean their rooms while you are paying the bills. This mostly works Step 3: While you are paying the bills, realize that the thing you hate most is slowly stirring out the lumps in the mix. Decide to use the coupon Amazon sent you to try the new two hour delivery and purchase a flour sifter to make the cocoa with. Step 4: Eat lunch as a celebration for having finished the bills and for the fact that the delivery worked and you now own a flour sifter. S...

That could actually be for 13 because B. and A. I'm pretty sure have not collected their coats and such yet. Today was the day. The temperature is the in the 30's and all the gear was still stowed away in the basement with just light jackets hanging up in the mudroom. Want to see what this chore looks like? First of all, the gear needs to be brought up from the basement. I have boots, coats, light jackets, and snow pants sorted and tied into large IKEA bags. Gloves, hats, and scarves are sorted and stored in boxes. We brought up all that, plus we gathered all the coats that were currently in the mudroom and added them to the pile. I find it easiest to work in a large room, then we sort each person's supplies into separate piles. Anything outgrown, with no one left to grow into it, gets put in another pile.  Here is the beginning. Then item by item, we empty the bags and boxes. First people find what they used last year and try it on. We had good news in t...

This has not been my most productive week. My father's birthday was a few days ago and it was a more difficult milestone than I had anticipated. Bleh. But there were other things going on as well. G. finally lost one of her shark teeth. She never actually pulled it out, it just fell out of its own accord it was so loose. Two down, two to go. Not only did Y. have her first speech therapy session this week, she also had an evaluation for aquatics therapy. She loved it, which I knew she would. I was glad that I had on layers because, boy was that pool area warm. I also loved that it would take at least 8 weeks or so to have a spot open up, because this means I can continue with my plan to do one therapy at a time. Y. was not so enthusiastic about the wait because she adores the water. On top of it already being a kind of yucky week, R. had another round of seizures. They were a little different from what we have seen, but the psychosis-like behavior was back in full force. (This ...

That sounds better than playing hooky, huh? It was gorgeous, sunny and supposed to be nearly 70 degrees, so J. and I decided that what we should do was cancel all family obligations and take off and do something to enjoy the weather. We decided to go checkout a nature center we had never visited and ended up at the Crabtree Nature Center . The center had an indoor building with some animals and displays which people enjoyed looking at, and then we headed outside. There were a couple of different trails, but we stuck with the shorter one. Check out the happy looking people waiting for the slower ones. There was a children's play area with a giant spider web. Some did not want to play on the spider web. R. kept wanting to hug P. by the legs and very nearly knocked her (P.) off her perch more than once. Playing tic-tac-toe We thought this looked like Eeyore's house. G. and L. could have played here in the little stic...

I just finished reading The Last Chinese Chef by Nicole Mones. I highly recommend it if you are interested in China or food or both. It was a good story and gave me a new appreciation for Chinese food and the role that food plays in Chinese society. I enjoy reading about other countries and I enjoy reading a good food writer, and this fit both categories nicely. It makes me remember other good books I've read about food and about China, so because that it what is in my mind, that is what I'm going to talk about. This is hardly a definitive list and probably not all that I've read, just the ones I've remembered as I'm writing this. So, books about China that I think anyone interested in the country should read. (This is mainly because I really enjoyed them.) Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang. I read this for a book club that I was a member of for a while. You would think that i would be all over being in a book club, wouldn't you? Yeah, not...

Y. had her first speech therapy appointment today. I have to admit I went into it with a little trepidation. I am not the easiest person to get along with, especially when it comes to various health care providers, including therapists. Over the years, we have had the whole spectrum of experiences with various therapists from ones we have loved to one therapist whom we saw exactly once. Trust me when I say that the therapist who informs me at the very first therapy session that my presence will be a hindrance is a therapist who won't be seeing my child again and is lucky that we even started the session. See? Not easy to get along with. So Y. and I head out in the car to the appointment. She sits and colors a Cubs coloring page in the waiting room while I ponder all the ways that the next hour can go wrong, while trying to remind myself that it could possibly go right. The pessimistic side was definitely winning during this little mental dialog. But guess what? The pessimistic si...