midsummer malaise

I never write in my blog.  I never take any photos.  One day slips into the next and summer will soon be over.  August!  really?  It slides by so quickly while I clutch at it uselessly -- wait!  Did we go swimming enough?  Have we learned anything?  Have we struck the balance between a nice break from the too-busy school year and not going completely into a humidity induced coma?  The kids keep very busy with this and that and I love having them all around me.  Two more years with all of us.  I guess I won't go there.  Cry, cry.

I have been able to read a lot.  I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle then watched Food Inc. last night, both of which put me in a complete stupor -- what do I do now???  It will be okay, slow baby steps to organic righteousness.  I recently saw someone comment on how they hate the term "green" and at first I took a rather negative view of that opinion, but it definitely started me thinking about how the term really has become very trite and now has certain baggage, if you will.  Every article on the subject touts the same idealistic measures and pretends that it is all new and fresh.  (Don't even get me started on the How to Save Money articles ~ "#1. Stop getting $6 lattes every morning and you will save 5 million dollars a year."  But what if I don't buy lattes?)  I get all excited about organic and green things which makes me want to immediately buy some of the cool and amazing products and I wind up finding myself on some website and ordering things which a. is not saving me any green and b. doesn't seem very environmental when you take into account the planes, trains, and brown trucks required to bring me the overly packaged green products.  Why just a couple of weeks ago I joyfully opened my box of three Gorgeously Green books (if I bought all three I got free shipping on Amazon -- the savings just add up like that!) and then I got my box full of organic shampoos and other toiletries, but there must be a better way.

I also just finished The Lacuna, also by Barbara Kingsolver, (thanks mom!) and I loved it, but it made me all cranky about politics and people in general.  It did provide some insight about why people are all hesitant to be helpful and loving since I suppose that has the taint of communism.  Why can't people, on both sides of any issue, just follow the golden rule and be logical with regards to food, immigration, welfare, what have you?  That is all I ask.  Maybe I should stop reading and just watch BBC productions.  There is a lot less angst for me the farther one goes back in history and the more fictional the story.  Although, some of the things going on around us do seem to smack of science-fiction.

To calm myself down, I am reading Yearning for the Living God and it does all that and more.  Story after story of miracles and faith.  It does the heart good.  I need to be better, and I can with a little help.

So that is that.  The cicadas are loudly serenading me outside the window, the girls just got back from a bike ride, the boys are in the basement keeping cool, the husband is tying up the loose ends of a sabbatical year, and I suppose I should go buy some school supplies.  I don't want to.

reunited and it feels so good

Hooowhee -- it has been a long time since I've had a chance to write in the ole' blog.  We have been having fun with family!  First my parents came to visit and we had a great time divided pretty evenly between chilling and activity.  We went on walks, visited the Lincoln museum in Springfield (just as good the second time around!), swam, talked, languished in the heat...  Overall it was a wonderful visit and I wish so much that I could see them more often than once a year!  


The afternoon they left was followed by the arrival of 12 members of Matthew's family.  We had a very full house on one of the hottest days of the year and I was terribly worried about whether anyone could possibly get comfortable in our un-air conditoned house.  I think it was okay (crossed fingers).  The next morning we went to a steamy (humid, not sensual) rendition of As You Like It at the Illinois Shakespeare festival and marveled at the cast romping around in full costume and make-up without seeming to break a sweat.  Then lunch and the long trek to Nauvoo for three days.  It was also hot and busy there, but went by too quickly.  I was a little tense hoping everything would run smoothly, but kept telling myself to relax and just enjoy being together.  It was so fun seeing the cousins playing so easily together and I wish so much that we could see them more often than once every who knows how often!  We need to work on that.


So now we are back to just us getting the house back in order and enjoying the cooler weather that none of our guests had the pleasure of experiencing -- it's almost like God doesn't want more people moving to Illinois.

summer lovin'

It has been hot.  How hot is it?  Well, I will tell you.  One day last week I had to change my clothes three times in one afternoon because I had the audacity to vacuum my house.  I know!  I will try to restrain myself in the future.  It is just so humid, and the vacuum is like carting around a personal mini heater/oven, but it must be done on occasion so I gave in and just did it.  I was literally dripping.  Then I took a shower, but trying to use the hair dryer was a complete farce.  My hair got more and more damp until I finally had the good sense to blow the cool air.  It felt nicer, yet didn't do as well with the drying.  My carefully chosen outfits and perfect hair-dos weren't the only casualties -- the walls must have been absorbing quite a bit of moisture as well because the pictures that I so lovingly placed going up my staircase started to simply fall off the walls.  I would hear a crash and run to see yet another frame laying dented and debased in the front hallway with nary a stomping child in sight to blame for the destruction.  Velcro doesn't like humidity apparently.


Do you know what else doesn't like humidity?  Potatoes.  I always forget that.  Growing up in a dry climate, we always left our potatoes in the pantry and since I obviously can't do anything new and innovative, I tend to put mine in the pantry as well.  Besides, for some reason our refrigerator always seems to have excessive amounts of things that more indisputably require coolness -- like yogurt.  Who has room for a hulking bag of potatoes in there for heaven's sake?  Well, when potatoes don't like something they let you know.  And when they let you know it doesn't smell very nice.  And when they don't smell very nice your whole house doesn't smell very nice.  I thought it was just un-air-conditioned funky old house smell so I guess that it is good that there was a tangible reason.  It's been taken care of.  And there are some new diffusers diffusing.  The new smell o' the day is Charles' leftover camping stuff that someone brought over yesterday -- still sopping wet.  He got home Saturday.  Yes, that is an unforgettable scent.


On a more refreshing note, it is a mere 80˚ today and as dry as a... high council speaker.  Sorry I couldn't think of anything more dry.

one of those days

How is everyone's summer going?  Mine is clipping right along, rushing hither and thither, and lo and behold I haven't written a single thing on my calendar.  June is sitting there forlornly, completely blank, like we haven't a single care in the world.  Are we just sitting around doing nothing?  Actually no, but one would think, from the external evidence, that we were doing exactly that.  Usually I can slide through with this kind of organization, remembering things at the last minute, as it were, but yesterday it didn't work out so well.  I rounded up two oldest for a doctor's appointment at 9:00.  In the morning.  Not so early to most, but quite remarkable that we got out on time -- showered, coiffed, scented -- with a 16 and 14 year old in tow.  Also with youngest so running out the door, down the street, through the parking lot, up the stairs, down the hall, through the door, at the receptionist's desk, on the receiving end of blank stare.  Um, I will tell you their names again.  Nothing.  Oh!  Well look at that, the appointment is for tomorrow!  Won't that be nice to do that all again?  (We survived, yay!)  So back home.  Gave the big girl a job to do in the car and she decided that she just had to listen to some tunes while working so turned on the car, left it on, and when I needed to take younger girls somewhere two hours later, car wouldn't start.  Wonderful!  No biggie.  Car jumped and we are off again.  Boy gets a call while we're in the car, drop people here and there, get home again and can't find my phone.  Look all over car, ask husband to call it.  Look all over house.  Get messages on Facebook about how I'm not answering my phone :), keep looking.  Have to take oldest to voice lessons, still frustrated about phone.  Why do I keep losing things?  Wait, I didn't lose it, I simply made the recurring mistake of allowing someone to receive phone calls on it.   Boy used it last.  What would he do with it?  Drop girl off and hear phone vibrating.  Rip car apart and find it, with the ringer turned off (I didn't do that!) under the front passenger seat.  Whew!  There is something that makes me very tense about not having a phone.  Can relax again and no other disasters for the entire rest of the day!


Hope everyone else is faring well!

Assessment

What have I been doing?  I have been assessing, and obsessing about assessing.  First of all, our lawn has grubs and in other places it isn't growing.  It also is growing moss, and why wouldn't it since we apparently live in a swamp?  The rain!  It just keeps coming, and the weeds keep growing, and I have to bring all of the clothes off the line at a moments notice, and the lightning!  The thunder shakes you deep inside followed by the fire engine sirens signaling another run to put out the sparks.  And the humidity!  I cannot ever remember it being quite this bad.  Maybe this no A/C thing isn't such a good idea... no we're fine, it is quite cooling to use the body's mechanism, also known as sweating, and then let the ceiling fans do their magic.  Where was I?  The heat is making me loopy.  Oh, long story short I paid someone to assess my lawn and tell me what I can organically do to get it healthy and thriving again.  They'll get back to me in three weeks.


Secondly, I sent in my picture for a body profiling assessment at Dress Your Truth.  That only took a few days, but in the meantime I was devouring books and information online, searching madly for clues to explain me to me so that I can find my true calling and get on with it already.  After all of that wading I didn't feel like waiting any longer so I tried to cancel that assessment, but they had already finished it.  Ooh, exciting!  What would they say?  I had pretty much decided who I am, so I was prepared to be unimpressed as they told me something different.  The sceptic in me was quite sure that that part would all be hooey, but it was exactly what I had already figured out!  Wow.  So it is all very interesting and I am pretty much obsessed with it at the moment so if anyone wants to talk about it with me I could gladly blather on about it for hours.


The two oldest are at camp for the week so it is quieter and I can't just run out the door without baby any old time I want.  What the...?  (As Miss Ibby would say, so cute every time).  I miss them (and not just for what they can do for me).  And they are having to sleep outside with all these crazy storms roiling around -- yikes!

and the livin' is easy

Summertime, summertime, summer, summer, summertime.  Not much time to blog, blog, blog, but having a delightful time.  Ella went to Youth Conference late last week and it was so different being with only our three youngest.  Such a change in the dynamics and we actually had some time alone in the evening.  On Saturday we fetched big boy from the airport and had a full report on the BYU basketball camp -- definitely a great program and a hit with our guy.  He talked the whole way home with a full report on everything from hiking with his lovely cousin up Rock Canyon on a drizzly afternoon, to the amazing-ness of cookie dough milk (?) from the creamery, to the fact that his team won the whole tournament.  It has been incredibly rainy and humid in these parts (muggy, muggy, good for the skin; muggy, muggy, GREAT for the skin -- my new mantra) and the weeds are commanding quite a bit of my attention.  The garden is coming along and some fresh picked chard accompanied my poached eggs for breakfast this morning.


Also, Charles started an online math class (because he is utterly and completely mortified to be in Algebra 1 as a freshman, which is totally my fault since I homeschooled him in 6th grade, not realizing that that was THE definitive year in which the die of the rest of his life would be cast, but now do realize after receiving his schedule a few weeks ago for his entire high school career (?), which he handed over very reluctantly along with some comment about how he hadn't shown it to us earlier because he didn't want to hear about how he'd be living in our basement as an adult, and how the schedule was cast in stone and there was nothing we could do about his loser future, but after making some calls found that he can indeed catch up in math, which is his best subject, and therefore also be in the honors science class and more than likely someday get into college and having a run-on sentence like this is completely acceptable since I framed it in parentheses...) so he will be on the computer for about six (!) hours a day and I won't be seeing much of my beloved and ridiculously large computer screen.  Do you think I should go get myself a laptop?


Along with not writing, has been a lot of not reading blogs which makes me sad.  I always find so many interesting things to read!  I was recently reading how my newfound blogging friend Jen made her own deodorant -- that is something I need to try -- to go along with my baking soda hair.  I haven't used antiperspirant for years, since I first read about the harmful effects, and have had various levels of luck with different brands of more natural deodorant.  As my children have gotten older and deodorant is required in their P.E. class, I especially didn't want them rubbing aluminum directly into their lymph nodes.  My 14 year old son does not approve, in any way, of my no aluminum rule and overcompensates by using an inordinate amount of body spray -- one can even smell it outside as it wafts out of the fan vent into the yard.  What is in that stuff?  It can't be good.  I wonder how frankincense would go over with him as a natural alternative?

Chicago!

Last week we took Charles to the airport to fly to Utah - alone!  It was our first time to send one of our babies off by themselves, but I suppose that he is old enough and he is certainly big enough.  Since his flight was in the morning we went up the day before and spent the night with Hiroko.


First stop:  The Field Museum

We had bought a pass last year on my birthday because it was cheaper than paying for everyone individually so of course we had to try to use it again because we're frugal like that.

Thank you Vanna!

Oooh, a wooly mammoth backpack -- a must have for any two year old boy.

When Charles sees the camera come out, he immediately turns around

Then off to the Art Institute:

We ran into our old friend Michael on the street!  How amazing is that!  He is so cute.  Matthew also spotted and chatted with a former student.  I am quite sure we couldn't find someone we were expressly trying to find on purpose in downtown Chicago.

Our first stop was the Modern wing with cool sculptures and rooms filled with plain white canvases.  After reading the paragraph of how the white changes with the light, Charles observed, "It is kind of like 'The Emperor's New Clothes' with everyone trying to see nothing." 

Curses!  Foiled again!  Another back shot as they watch an installation.

Our favorite part is downstairs where the kids can touch things...

and we can gawk at the miniature rooms.

Such a good museum goer!

After closing we stopped to enjoy some jazz on Michigan Avenue

and romped through Millenium park

We followed the sounds to find more music in the park

And finished our visit the next morning by visiting a very cool mall -- Ella was in heaven!