5 years

Five years ago I posted my first blog post ever, here at Xanga. I have had blogs at Homeschool Blogger and Blogspot but this one I've kept up with for five years.

It's hard to believe.

Five years ago tomorrow, my mom had just been gone a few months. Maybe 4. We were in the middle of the adoption process for a little girl from India. Obviously that adoption did not go through and we adopted twins from Ethiopia a little over a year later. Looking back, I know I was in a pretty deep well of depression when I started this blog but I did not exactly start it as a journal. I started it as a way to let my in-laws see pics of the children. To my knowledge, I have never been able to tempt them over to see this. Probably a good thing.

I have met so many wonderful people here (and through Blogspot), and gotten to know better so many people I already knew. I am so very blessed that I haven't had a really bad experience with this blog except when my sister was stalking me through it. And that's her deal, not mine. Most of the time, I've felt loved and supported and have very much enjoyed my time here writing.

Obviously, I have not been spending so much time over here lately. I prefer the interface at Facebook for a lot of things. Xanga has changed some to incorporate Pulse, which is a little like a status update on FB, but I usually don't bother to change my Pulse here when I change my status update there. I think I'm getting lazy. But I do like the comments, of course, and I still like logging on here and seeing what everyone is up to. I generally check here before I call anyone, just to make sure I'm caught up!

All this is to say, I've had a swell time here...thanks for 5 lovely years, Xanga!

And since pictures started it all, I will put my latest favorite picture of the cat on here. Understand that the kitty has been confined to the cone of shame for weeks now, because he continues to bite on his tail. But occasionally we will take it off so he can groom himself and scratch his itches. You know how good it feels to scratch an itch you've had for a long time? So does Aragorn.

Photo randomness and text to explain my absence

Friend Husband is requesting my presence for the grand and massive cleaning upstairs so this will be quite terse.

It's been a beyond-busy week. Of course, the first week of school usually is, but we also had other stuff to take care of (dentist visit, vet visit, etc.) And it was a hair-do week (we only do Zi's hair about every other week) so it was a busy one. Here we go:

The twins apparently have very bad teeth. Or bad enamel, or something. They've had 6 cavities between them in the last 6 months. This was the first time that David had a cavity and he did not deal well with the situation of filling said cavity. Of course, I'm sure it didn't help that they found 2 more while he was in the chair to have one filled. He was not at all affected by the laughing gas they gave him.



Zi didn't need laughing gas but they gave it to her anyway because they didn't believe that anyone related to David could be as calm and helpful in the chair as she was.



One day I taught David how to bring back our massive trash can after the trash guys have emptied it. He thought it was great fun. I doubt he will in a few years.



That was the day that we redid Zi’s hair. It exhausted us so much that we fell asleep on the couch afterward. Some enterprising sister captured the moment for posterity.

We also had to take the cat & dog to the vet. Together. For the first time. Added to the beauty of that experience was the fact that Aragorn’s cat carrying case was decimated by unknown culprits a few months ago. I reallllly didn’t want to shell out for a new case so I improvised.

Ari was not so impressed but the twins really thought it was a good time.

Please note that I did not in any way encourage this behavior. It is, however, difficult to convince the twins that crawling into a cage is not cool.

Yesterday was a wonderful day in our world. Rachel made the decision to be baptized. We were all over the moon, of course. I tried to get a picture but the camera did not cooperate.

The camera did, however, want to make a photo of Keziah in her brand-new get-up (the glasses and purse, not the dress) talking to sweet Friend Adalyn after the services and the baptism.

And that brings us to today, Labor Day. A day when most people sleep in, take the day easy, and mourn the end of summer. Instead, I got up every hour or so in the night (Keziah wasn’t feeling well, someone called at 3:30 AM, then hung up before we got the phone) and then finally got up somewhere between 5:30 and 6 to go downtown to pick up veggies for the co-op. Friend Husband accompanied me and had a swell time. This was the result.

And speaking of Friend Husband, tomorrow is his birthday (happy birthday, Honey!) and we’re celebrating this afternoon. If we can get the house cleaned, flea-bombed, get to the grocery to get stuff for his chosen meal (Indian food and chocolate lasagna cake), and get home to make it. And that is why I must bid you a fond and hasty adieu. Have a fun day, everyone!

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Ok, so that was Monday. Now it is Thursday and I may actually get this thing online. It’s been quite the action-packed week. We did, in fact, celebrate Friend Husband’s birthday on Monday, all but the gifts, which he opened on his actual birthday, Tuesday. Then yesterday was the first day of our enrichment classes. We were there from 9:45 to about 3:30. The twins and I were wrecked by the end of the day. David and I came home and took a nap. I help out with child wrangling (ah, my talents are finally coming into use!) and then with a Five in a Row class that the twins are taking. They are so very thrilled to finally “be in class”. The teacher is a friend of mine, also a homeschooling mom who’s adopted internationally.

When I take group pictures, a lot of times I’ll end by telling them to “act goofy”. These are usually my favorites.

And to end the randomness and get back to my life, here is a partial picture of our beautiful newly sealed driveway. We get to park on it, walk on it, and play on it this afternoon. Friend Husband and I are both relieved to have that and the deck resealing behind us. Yay!

Have a lovely day/week/month, however long it takes me to get back on here!

Wordless Wednesday

A photo which is not going to Ethiopia in our yearly reports...

Wordless Wednesday

Monday Memories

Whew!  Well, that was fun!  Did y'all have good New Years celebrations?  I was conked out as 2008 rolled in, as I had planned since I had to drive to Knoxville the next day.  We had a nice leisurely breakfast, then drove to spend the rest of the week with my sil, St. Amber (just kidding, after the Thursday Thirteen last week, I'm sure y'all think I'm nuts), and the girls.  A good time was had by all.

One of the fun/cool things we did was to stay up late talking.  I think that Amber and I must not get too much adult interaction, ha ha!  The last night we were there, all the larger girls and the two moms were in the living room, reminiscing about all sorts of wild and scary things.  The girls enjoyed hearing stories about themselves (and their cousins) and we got to share a warm family time.  Then we yakked it up after they went to bed.  It was truly a wonderful end to a lovely trip.

And today I was cooking Indian food and thinking about my garden from this summer.  At least at the beginning of the summer, I cut and dry a lot of herbs for use in the summer.  There wasn't enough rain for any decent basil this year, so that was a no-go, but my lemon balm and mint crops were outstanding.  One of the recipes I was making called for mint powder, so I went looking for my mint.  Generally, after the herbs are dried, I put them in old spice bottles from an old set that Friend Husband snagged me at a garage sale.  I was hunting up the mint and found a likely bottle, although it smelled like it had been sitting perhaps a bit too long.  I shrugged and started putting pinches of it in, grinding it up in my fingers as I let it sift down into the bubbling chick peas.  Then I suddenly realized that it wasn't mint I was putting in there, it was lemon balm!  I figured that I hadn't put enough in to make a difference so I went, found the mint, and proceeded to pulverize some of that into the stew.  As I did so, I thought about my herbs and how much I enjoy playing with them, cutting them back, drying them, using them, giving them away. 

It was a neat thing to remember, even though it's not freezing cold here in the midst of winter.  In fact, it may have gotten up to 70º F today.  We enjoyed the springlike weather as much as we possibly could, playing outside and opening all the windows to air out the house.

However, this is the story I want to share for Monday Memories, because it is one that my girls shared Thursday night and got us all to cackling.  Perhaps I should have stayed with the reminisces about parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, and mint, but this is one of our favorite stories about our cat, Aragorn.

When Aragorn was a younger cat, the vet suggested that, alongside his cat tree, we set up a bird feeder.  Dr. Clemons thought that it would be interesting for Aragorn to sit on his cat tree and watch the birds on our big picture windown out back.  We also thought it would be interesting, inveterate bird watchers that we were then, so we put a little feeder up on the window.  It wasn't long until the birds found it and were helping themselves to the seed on a regular basis.  And Aragorn was, indeed, intrigued by the birds outside the window.  So intrigued, actually, that he forgot that the birds were outside the window.

I don't know what possessed him that day, or why that one bird was so interesting.  It looked like any other bird that had visited over the course of the week or so that the feeder had been up.  We were all in the dining room, where the picture window and cat tree are and, as the novelty of the feeder hadn't worn off, we were all watching the birds at the time of the event.  For suddenly, Aragorn leaped from his high perch to thunk against the window, right where the bird feeder was.  Of course, the birds flew away (and indeed, we didn't have much luck luring that particular kind of bird again) but the embarrassment was not quite complete for our intrepid cat.  Instead of being able to slink away to nurse his wounded ego, he first had to undergo the supreme humiliation of falling into the wooden umbrella holder (under the picture window), extricating himself, and then slinking away.  It took him quite a while to get over that, I think.  We didn't see him for some time.  Of course, we didn't really mind, as we were laughing so hard, we might not have been able to see him anyway.  Poor Aragorn!  I hope he's forgotten it, but the girls haven't because they shared the story with their cousins last week, in and amongst the hails of hearty laughter.

Wordless Wednesday

Breaking news: Abigail got glasses right before Thanksgiving but she refuses to let me post pictures of her utter cuteness on my blog. She thinks she looks stupid even though she's just precious and adorable.