Various and sundry

It has been a while since I blogged something substantial.  As I think I may have mentioned, Sarah and I were writing novels last month.  I ended up having to write the final 10,000 words on the final day.  That taught me something, and no, it wouldn't be the obvious.  It taught me that, properly motivated and with the right tools, I can really write.  I haven't looked over it since Sunday because I want to give it a rest and see what it's really like when I go back to edit.  I still think that last year's novel is better than this one.  This one was way too painful to write.

Tuesday afternoon, Neighbor Lady called me and said, "I think that Son #1 broke Son #2's arm.  Could you come over?"  (I am making them sort of anonymous, if that isn't perfectly clear.)  After audibly gasping and telling the children to "STAY HERE!" I ran next door.  The arm wasn't as bad as I had feared (compound fractures were going through my head) but it was clear that he was hurt in some way so I wrapped his arm to his side in an Ace Bandage and Neighbor Lady took him to the doctor.  I stayed in her house with her babysitting girl and Son #1 who was mortified that he had done that to his brother (especially since he did it trying to drag said brother out of the bedroom of Son #1).  I called the house and told the twins to come over.  Eventually everyone but Abby drifted over for one thing or another.  The good news was that the arm of Son # 2 was not broken.  The elbow had been pulled apart and they needed to put them back into place.  Which took 2 tries (that was the bad news).  In the mean time, Son # 1 introduced me to the wonder of Wii.  And it was very fun.  And I had a sore arm and shoulder for two days as a result of playing Wii Tennis over and over.  And then Son # 1 got in trouble with Mom because he apparently wasn't supposed to have the Wii on during the week.  Ooops.  Gotta remember and obey those rules (which he has had trouble with a lot, especially with regard to stuff he does with us).

We had a fabulous Thanksgiving with my brother and his family.  I haven't seen him since Thanksgiving two years ago.  The two older girls have new puppies and we got to enjoy them.  And even better, they don't run away like Lucy the Wonder Dog, who was insanely jealous of her new cousins.  I got some pictures, but none of the food (we had a more traditional Thanksgiving this year because I love my sil and she's not much on ethnic foods) and few of groups of people.

The day after Thanksgiving we played board games.  I had bought 2 new copies of old favorites because the twins had destroyed the others (Yahtzee & Scrabble) and a new one that I'd seen recommended all around (Apples to Apples).  While I couldn't tempt anyone to play Scrabble with me until a couple of days after the family left, when Friend Husband finally threw me a bone and played with  me, we had big fun playing Apples to Apples & Yahtzee. 

Oh, and I almost forgot the morning!  Abby and Aunt Amber have a tradition of making us monkey bread to eat for breakfast, so they did that.  It was too yummy!  And since Friend Husband didn't wake up early enough to suit my tastes, I put another female in bed with him to convince him to wake up.



He woke up much quicker after Daisy visited him.



A duty well done.





Two of the cousins are the same age, as they were both born in 1999.  Cass is about 5 months younger than Abby but at least 2 inches taller.  I also thought their feet looked fun together (both were running around barefooted, naturally).



One finished monkey bread.



This is Cass and sweet Dolly (well, Dolly is the dog)



This is sweet Daisy and Autumn.

Friend Gina brought it to my attention quite inadvertently that teachers generally receive gifts this time of year.  Yeep!  I've not done it before!  So I worked hard to get some cardamon bread baked as teacher gifts yesterday.  Here are a few pics of that, without the finished product, sadly.



I thought this looked interesting.  You braid the bread from the center out.  Abby wanted to know why it was that I was posting pictures of bread dough.



Twisty braid and finished braid.



All the loaves during the final rise.

Well, I've been messing around with this for a while and need to get moving on my laundry debt and housecleaning.  Bleah.  I hope I haven't totally lost you all.  I've been trying to revisit blogs but I also have a major blog debt so that's a little difficult too.  :-)

Thursday Thirteen # 68

 

Thirteen pictures I wanted to put up yesterday but dared not to stress the boundaries of Wordless Wednesday   The first few are some shots from the girls' Performance Night and Art Show a week ago, Friday. 1.    Abby's version of a Keith Hering-type picture, behind the snack line.   2.  Rachel with her clay alien.   3. Dave in front of someone else's KH drawing.   4.    Rachel in front of her Keith Hering drawing.  (Yes, they were life-sized.  It was really cool to see all of the art work on display.)   5.    Abby, in front of hers.  Now, Abby has had this thing lately about not wanting "to look stupid".  That's why she won't let me post a picture of her on the I-net with her glasses on.  And she didn't want me to take a picture of her in front of her picture because she thought she'd look dumb.  But when she went and did it, she looked great!  No tellin' with that girl.   6.    After the performance and fellowship time, a bunch of us left the overcrowded snack area and camped out in a newly-carpeted area adjacent to some other place that they're building next to the snack area.  A bunch of other children came out and soon there was a vigorous game of "Duck, Duck, Goose" going on.  Soon there were close to 25 children playing, from my young people to teens.  It was such great fun to see them all playing so well, having such a great time, and being supportive of each other.  Made me teary even.  This is not a good picture of it, but it was difficult to get any sort of a picture, so this will have to do for memory's sake.   7.    This is what my little schemer did to the pumpkin pie I made and hauled to my sil's house for Thanksgiving.  I think they called it "David's finger pie" the rest of the trip.   8.   This is Sarah at Thanksgiving, doing what she does best.   9.    Here are all the cousins at Thanksgiving.   10.  We had a great time at Bounce House the day after Thanksgiving.  This shot doesn't do it justice, but I thought it was pretty fun anyway.  The photo from last week of Keziah and the little blonde girl (my niece Chloe) was from Bounce House.  Even we adults got into it.  I'm still nursing the scabs I got from plastic burns going down this yellow slide.  (Hint:  They tell you not to go down face first for a reason.)     11.    This was a very difficult photo to take.  It is of Abby, crashed on the living room floor, with  my brother's cat, Gidget resting atop her.   12.    This is me, bringing my niece ,Autumn, over to the Dark Side, er, I mean, teaching her how to knit.   13.    And finally, my sil's lovely Thankgiving place setting.  She's just so cool, I love her to death.   And that's a wrap!

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What we've been doing...

You Are Thanksgiving

You are a bit of a homebody who enjoys being in the company of people you love. It doesn't take a lot to make you happy. You're enjoying life as it is. You have many blessings in your life, and you are grateful for each one. You believe that life is about what you *do* have. You feel like you have enough of the good stuff. What makes you celebrate: Family, friends, and the changing of the seasons. At holiday get togethers, you do best as: The host of the party On a holiday, you're the one most likely to: Spend so much energy preparing that it's a full time job

What Holiday Are You?

Have mercy

Currently ReadingBitter SweetsBy Roopa Farooki see related

Man, it's been a day! I don't know why I get off on these wild hairs right before big events or big holidays, but I do. One year I decided it would be the perfect time to paper the kitchen, right before we were having a bunch of people over. At least I'd be assured that I'd get it done, right? Of course right.

Today I had some goals. Too many, I guess, to be honest. I wanted to go to the grocery to get the stuff I needed. Naturally, they were out of pie crust, which I don't need because I know how to make pie crust but I thought it would be fun to not have to. They had everything else I needed, though, so that was good. Sarah took mercy upon me and came with me and the twins. On the way, I dropped off two Freecycle packages (they were on my way, so it was not a big deal). I also planned to go to Sam's and get a veggie tray but never made it there. We will need to stop there tomorrow.

Once I got home and the day was so stinkin' warm, I decided to buck up and mow the grass. It dearly needed it, and it would help with the leaf issues so important to my life this time of year. (For the uninitiated, we have 4 huge old trees-oaks and maples- that drop around a ton of leaves on my front yard every year. Once those are raked up and put in the back to decompose, my neighbors' trees dump. I usually devote 6 weeks of my fall to messing with leaves.) So I mowed the grass. It looks quite nice now and we don't look quite so much like white trash.

After that, I got two more Freecycle packages ready and on the porch swing for pickup, and then decided that it would be the perfect time to pull up my scraggly old garden plants and pick up the weeds and grass from the garden as well. I mean, how often is it 70º F on 11/20? Not too terribly often, in this neck of the woods, let me tell you. I finally gave up on that when it started getting dark and the small people who live in my house were unreasonably demanding dinner.

I got out of taking Roderigo and Harry (the fish) to the fish-sitters because Friend Husband decided he needed a break from his day-long project and took mercy upon me.

What did I not do today? I did not bake pies. Remember yesterday when I said I was going to bake them? It was never a convenient time to do so so I did not. Nor did I do it today. I did it tonight.

Friend Husband took the girls to the library tonight because if you know anything, you know that we can't ever survive a holiday without an adequate supply of new books. While they were gone, I took my pie crust makings out on the front porch and pounded them together while enjoying the lovely night. It was so cool. Then I came in and made 2 pecan pies, one Dutch apple, and the crusts for 2 pumpkin pies. I'll have to do the pumpkin in the morning. I'm pooped. I feel like my body could separate from the waist down at any moment.

Seems like there was something else I was going to say. Oh yes. Happy birthday to my best OLD friend, Ann-Marie, who will probably find some way to get me back for this. Sadly, she is blogless (to my knowledge) so I cannot further perpetuate my mischievous trick by sending you over there to say happy birthday. This will have to suffice. I hope it was a perfect day for you...you deserve it, my friend!

And I hope that all of your Thanksgivings are lovely, that your food is perfect, that the cook doesn't have to do dishes, and that no one gains an ounce from the experience!

What part of 'Muhahahahahahahahahaha' don't you understand?

The girls think we have this week off.  Well, we do have it off from schoolwork, that much is true.  If I have to work, though, so do they.  So today they're going to put away the graded papers that they haven't filed since September.  Then they're going to clean their rooms.  I will grade, do laundry, and then perhaps clean my own room.  How about that?  If I have time, I'm going to start baking pies and bread.

BTW, thanks for the well-wishes about the program.  I found it, of all places, in the trash.  Do you see my eyes rolling?  Honestly, I don't think my novel is so bad that the word processing program has to put itself into the trash to prevent my further use of it.  I wrote all day Saturday.  I think that I wrote about 10,000 words between Friday morning and Saturday evening.  My right arm hurt all the way up to the shoulder.  But I'm at 34,369 words!  Yeehaw!  I need to do some writing this week to stay ahead of the game but after how I felt last week (that would be 'hopelessly behind'), I'm happy to be back in the running.

What else?  Not much, just getting ready for Thanksgiving.  I'm debating whether to attempt to buy a new digital camera before then but I will probably hold off and just use the disposable 35 mm we have left over from camp this summer.  Anyone have any opinions on digital cameras?

Gotta go man the whip.  I'm sure they'll be just delighted to clean their rooms and the schoolroom (not!)  Some days it just doesn't pay to chew through the restraints.

Happy Thanksgiving week!