Beach

In the past week I've been fortunate enough to spend three days at the beach. Mostly in the rain and chill, but it didn't matter. It has been a wonderful reconnection with an old friend.

I grew up the Puget Sound area of the Pacific Northwest and I'm a beach girl through and through. This does not mean tanning on a towel! It means I can spend hours walking the shoreline and climbing logs, alone or with company and be perfectly at peace.

The first day was spent with my children at a tiny strip of sand near the boardwalk downtown. The rain was pouring and the wind was freezing cold (we had woken to snow in the morning), but my daughter had requested the beach as our destination, so way stayed as long as we could--about thirty minutes--before we were driven, dripping, back to the car. The magic was there, even in those chill conditions.

The next day we drove south as a family to Oregon where a short memorial was planned for my husband's grandmother. She passed away last fall, and her descendants gathered for a moment of silence on the shore as her ashes were set adrift in the outgoing tide of the Pacific Ocean she loved. It was my first experience with this sort of service, and it was a fitting and unique send off for a woman who had led a unique life.

After a family luncheon, we changed the kids into less formal clothing and spent several more hours exploring the beach. It was a cool, windy day, but the rain declined to fall. I loved watching my children and their cousins, my husband and his cousins, walk and talk and stare and the waves in awe. It was worth every minute of the fourteen hours we spent driving to be there.

Arriving home, we had a day to ourselves before my husband's brother and family joined us from Oregon. It was their first family visit to the Northwest and we spent a wonderful afternoon at the state park on the beach watching the starfish and marvelling at the sandstone cliffs and rock formations.

It was good for me to remember what I feel like when I'm walking on the beach. When I'm absorbed in observing Creation. It's a hugely centering thing for me and it brings both a sense of well-being and an outpouring of joyful gratitude.

Neverending Laundryyyy--a look at my dirty laundry

So, even though I promised it would never, ever, happen again . . . it did. I got behind on laundry. This is a feeling I really dislike. The quote "Cleaning while raising kids is like shoveling while it is still snowing" comes to mind these days. And there are only two of them! Well, and the two of us. I am almost at that tipping point where there is as much clean and unfolded as there is waiting to be washed, which is either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how fast I actually start folding. I'm either closer to being caught up (should I begin to fold soon) or on my way to that awful place where it is all clean and on every available surface in my house, in piles, in baskets, just waiting for the kids to dump, jump and roll.


In my house, after it's clean, it either goes into the dryer to dry or on hangers to dry. I hang some short stuff above the dryer:




And the rest goes in the bathrooms on the shower rod. I've accidentally ripped plenty of them down over the years by overloading them before my husband learned to install heavy duty ones in creative ways that would withstand my laundry habits.




It's mostly kids' clothing that hangs up. It wears better and fits longer because I do this, which means I can save it for the next kid or resell it. Multiple friends think I'm nuts for the effort, but hey. There are worse things to be nuts about, right? Plus, I have neither the space nor the stamina to do all our laundry this way and I figure we're using a little less energy this way--it's good for the planet, maybe.


After it's dry, it goes on my bed. I've tried folding it on the living room, but all it takes is a phone call or a five minute break and it's EVERYWHERE and unfolded. I remember the tantalizing smell and feel of a warm laundry pile as a child, but I'm not happy when my laundry gets mussed. Sometimes I don't know how my mother lived through the Disrespectful of Laundry Boundaries years!



Finally we get to this stage. And hopefully it ends up in drawers instead of just piles in baskets waiting for drawers . . . but it doesn't always. I don't actually mind laundry for the most part--I actually kind of enjoy doing it, but as usual with housework, there are things I enjoy more :)

In a few days I'll get caught up again I hope, and promise myself never to get behind again, I'm sure. Then there will be a story to read to a child or a walk to go on, or cookies to make and it will all pile up but I've made peace with that I think. I can live with it because if I have to choose between reading to my babies or catching up on the laundry, I want to choose them not it. As long as the clean underwear and socks hold out, anyway :)

Crossing things off the list & Early gifts

I got a box from my dad and stepmother today with a really kind note, NEW SILVERWARE to add to my meager supply and this:


Which I think is meant as a bit of a joke :) I do not buy Jell-O and my husband was practically apoplectic with excitement at the thought of making Jigglers!

Yeah me! Today I finished and mailed a project I started before Baby Bear was born. My grandma wanted to create a family history book for her sisters and children that detailed the descendants of her parents. I got so sick while being pregnant that it was all put on hold the end of 2006. I did some work on it the end of last year and then again last month when I was visiting her, and I really wanted to get it to her. We had an understanding that this would be a work in progress--a workbook of sorts for each person to make changes to and update.

Gram turns 79 on Tuesday and as I was getting her birthday presents ready to send I decided that it was time to finish the books up and send them off to her. So, this morning I printed close to 1500 pages of family group sheets and personalized card stock dividers, packed them carefully and took them to the post office. Any prayers you can spare that they arrive intact would be most appreciated! Of course there is the updating and filling out of additional details and frills like photos and copies of documents that needs to happen, but the basics are finished and I am breathing a sigh of relief!

Also today my Visiting Teacher dropped by this:

Isn't that beyond sweet? I know there are those who sniff and scoff at "treats" being part of the program, but personally, I love goodies and flowers and poems and stuff. I love that someone took a moment to think of me, I love them dropping it by and surprising me, and I love having something bright and happy and sweet on my table, reminding me that someone cares enough to take the trouble.

Home again, home again, jiggety jog

An optimist is the human personification of spring.

-Susan J. Bissonette

Well, I have now been officially 32 for a whole week. I'm not sure it feels much different than 31, but I like even numbers, so I'm hopeful that the year will be an auspicious one.

About three weeks ago, my husband started in on the "what do you want for your birthday" line of questioning. I, of course, have a long list of fun stuff I'd like, but I wasn't really craving anything for this birthday, so I hemmed and hawed. He continued to pester me for a week oer so and then finally said, "Hey! I know what to give you for your birthday!" at which time I of said, "What?" and then he said, "Let's go visit your mom and grandma!" So we packed the car last Saturday and drove through a few states and arrived at my Gram's house.

From the time I was eight, until I hit twelve and began to spend my summers at dance workshops (and occasionally after that), I went all by myself to stay with my Gram and Grandpa for a few weeks. My Gram has always been a special and important person to me and I really wanted her to meet Baby Bear and get some 4-generation photos of us with her.

The trip was an adventure from the start, since my little corner of the Northwest decided to have a terribly uncharacteristic late March blizzard! The roads were crazy because of the weather and so it took us almost 3 hours longer to get to half way than it usually does (including the stop to help stranded motorists on the freezing, slushy mountain pass), so we ended up at a Best Western in the the middle of nowhere at about 1 in the morning needing to rest.

These people had the BEST Continental Breakfast I have ever eaten at the sort of non-sleazy-but-still-cheap motel I generally stay at while travelling! Seriously, I should have taken pictures of those Belgian waffles. Yes, that's right, I said Belgian waffles. What is cooler than Belgian waffles at a Best Western? Belgian waffles at a Best Western you can make yourself! They had this nifty batter dispenser and a restaurant-style waffle maker that I now covet (in a healthy way of course). The batter tank dispenses into your paper cup the perfect amount of batter, and then you pour it onto the waffle maker, do this fancy twisty-turny thing to the handle (and yes, I stood there and stared at it for an extra 2 minutes before I figured out the twisty-turny thing the first time) and when the thing beeps, you open it and voila! Perfect golden Belgian waffles! I was enthralled as you can probably tell.


The rest of the trip was great. We went to the zoo, shopped, visited with family, ate at my favorite fast food restaurant which they do not yet have within many hours of my home, worked on a some genealogy projects and got some awesome 4-generation photos with me and the kids and mom and grandma. Princess got spoiled, Baby Bear grew hair, I got two birthday cakes, and my husband got to see huge amur tigers close enough to touch (if it wasn't for the tiger-proof Plexiglas between him & them). All in all, it was all good.

"In my opinion, the teaching, rearing, and training of children requires more intelligence, intuitive understanding, humility, strength, wisdom, spirituality, perseverance, and hard work than any other challenge we might have in life." - James E. Faust

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Think so? The last few days have definitely been a challenge. Baby Bear has hit a growth spurt I suppose and wants to a) eat or b) cry. I'm tired, I am overwhelmed and my house is dirtier than it has ever been in my whole life. Calgon, take me away. My husband took one look at my face when he came home for lunch and asked if I needed my passport :)

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His 8 week check-up on Friday weighed him in at a whopping 14 lb 5 oz and almost 26 inches long. Princess' 4-year check was a week ago today and she is considered tall, but both are completely and absolutely healthy from the doctor's perspective, so that makes me happy and relieved. Our new pediatrician is wonderful. He is one of the very best doctors I have ever had for anything! He listens, he's not in a rush, and he treats us all (even the kids) like actual people.

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In four weeks we have family coming to visit for Baby Bear's blessing day. This is not a christening (we don't do that in our church), but more of a name-giving ceremony and a bestowal of gifts (blessings). It sounds like we will have a house full and more! So far the RSVP list include my mother & mother-in-law, and the family of my husband's oldest brother (4 kids, 2 adults). Probably we can also count on my sister and her boyfriend, my brother, and my dad and his wife. Remember me saying my house is dirtier than it has ever been in my life? I shouldn't be blogging. I should be scrubbing. And sorting and shelving and throwing junk away! If I spent all day every day on this house I am not sure it could be ready in time. This is one of those moments I am tempted to sell my soul for the means to have a maid!

Doing What You Have to Do & Princess' Birthday

"Perhaps the most valuable result of all education is the ability to make yourself do the thing you have to do, when it ought to be done, whether you like it or not; it is the first lesson that ought to be learned; and however early a man's training begins, it is probably the last lesson that he learns thoroughly."

Thomas H. Huxley
English biologist (1825-1895)

True, isn't it? I didn't get lots done yesterday and at the end of the day, when my daughter was hungry and the baby was napping and the cable guys had been here for a couple hours and my husband needed to be picked up from work, the last thing I felt like doing was being "fun". Yet that is exactly what my family needed me to be. It's interesting that we usually consider the thing we "have to do" as something unpleasant, when it is sometimes a thing we wouldn't mind doing if we were in a better mood or had more energy.

So I did what I needed to do... I packed the kids in the car, stopped to grab dinner at the drive up window of the hot dog stand, picked my husband up and took them to the park. We ate, we played on the jungle gym (yes, all of us - mama even went down the swirly slide), Princess ran through the sprinklers in her new butterfly swim suit and then we headed home. Laundry and dishes and mess still abound, but we all went to bed happy.

Yesterday we decided on a date for Princess' birthday party and reserved the shelter at the park we ate at last night. Today I made my order from Oriental Trading for games, prizes, goodies and decor, including the treasure chest pinata! I also made the guest list and we decided to do messages in a bottle for invitations. I am excited and so is Princess. Usually our parties are not this "store-bought"... but I need the help this year and the shopping is fun :)

Today is her actual birthday and this morning when we woke up I told her the story of her birth as I usually do. Tonight we'll have Hawaii BBQ take out, make a Hawaiian Cake and give her a few gifts, including the coin collecting supplies papa picked out for her on his lunch break today :)