The last day of the year

What Rebecca likes in her water

Rocks

(the cold clear kind)

Merry Christmas

Tradition

Tradition dictates hamburgers for dinner.

Igloo

Freezing

Lar just scorched sugar in a pan, and the house reeks of char. He's opened all the windows, turned down the heat, and is running two fans full blast to air out the smoke. It's as cold as when the power goes out, but louder.

Home help

Alex has been so great about affixing stamps and address labels to my Christmas cards, it's like having a secretary. Too bad he can't pay bills and call the electrician, too!

The Christmas Wish/To Do List

Since this list is most unlikely to do anybody any good, least of all me, I post this as a list of dreams and desires, and possibly a checklist for leisurely days. If it helps you in your shopping, even better.

--A shredder
--A medieval calendar (castles, cathedrals, illumined manuscripts)
--Printed annual reports from the Portable Antiquities Scheme in Great Britain, which can be downloaded here. (I keep signing up but they never send me anything.)
--Pajamas which are not 10 years old and 5 sizes too big. (Remember those baggy years?)
--Clogs for dancing
--Closet shelves--after all, they're so close to done!
--Box of chocolate pecans--they're my power food!
--CDs by Loreena Mckinnett (who I have discovered only about 5 years since my sister told me I would like her) or "House of Church" by Patty Griffin
--a printer that doesn't accordion my printouts
--King's College Nine Lessons and Carols, and the "Dancing Day" carols by John Rutter

--Mending on the Sally bibs

--Dry cleaning my sweaters
--A new phone--oh, wait! Got that.

Last Year's Christmas List

Last year's list was a wish list--or was it? Check out how many of these things came through for me.

--a medieval calendar such as castles, cathedrals, cottages, or illuminated manuscripts (but not fake medieval castles!)

I found a lovely castle calendar. Most of the castles were even medieval! Must add to this year's list.
--new washcloths

Lots of lovely white washcloths from my mother, which still look almost new. Even better: Alex has learned to fold them (often in origami).
--a new sweater (cardigan?) to add variety to the blue/orange routine I've been in since a certain Ann Taylor shopping trip

My sisters guided me through the process of acquiring a red and pink sweater, plus two more sweaters in Chicago which were on sale and very useful on a day we all forgot our raincoats (you'd think, being from Seattle, we should have known better)
--Smartwool socks with no snowflakes on them

Laramie has continued to buy me Smartwool socks on occasion, so my collection grows.
--any Cambridge Singers CDs (except their "Best of"), especially Christmas music.

Not yet. On the other hand, I got industrious and copied the Christmas music I do have onto my IPod, so it's easier to listen to.
--a microwave that works with our venting system (our old microwave still operates, but the door doesn't open.)

Erik unscrewed the microwave so we could all look at it, Laramie showed me how to order the part, I ordered it, and Lar fixed it. Even better than buying one new! Additional bonus: I hired somebody to airseal the old venting system so it no longer spews steam into our attic.
--also a King's College Nine Lessons and Carols, and the "Dancing Day" carols by John Rutter

Still haven't bought it. On the other hand, I did hear Dancing Day carols in two Christmas concerts this year.
--a finished fence

One of the year's best accomplishments! I traded piano lessons for fence construction, so after Laramie finished the fence panels he and our friend put up the gate with trellis. It's beautiful. Of course, the men decided to put the latch on the inside of the gate, so it only took Rebecca about two weeks to learn to open it. But she can't yet get through my improvised climbing-rope-and-carabiner lock. Rebecca does not seem to have realized that she can still escape around the other side of the house.
--a new bedroom closet

Laramie designed a gorgeous rod and shelf system, and our friends helped with a lot of the painting and planning and arguing (apparently a necessary part of design). Our clothes hang in neat rows on thin, fuzzy hangers (recommended by a professional organizer). Still needs shelves, though.
--an organized storeroom

That one was a pipe dream. But at least I don't think the storeroom got much worse.
--the new Shannon Hale books (Forest Born, The Actor and the Housewife)

Andrea gave me the book Forest Born, which may have been the last Christmas gift purchase of the season. And now I can order The Actor, which I had forgotten about, from my libary. A happy occasion.
--help organizing my children's art scrapbook

It wasn't help that got me going on this one, but a scheduled project evening. I took all my papers over and stuffed them in page protectors in notebooks. Hurrah!
--my kitchen wired for sound (why do electricians keep bailing on me?)

Actually, it was only the one electrician, and he's still bailing on me. (Of course, I had to put the work on hold for attic work after our botched State Roofing job.) But I have made more phone calls, and hopefully will get this in early next year. Plus Lar got me a little sound system that can play an Ipod (which he also got me, and which I finally loaded with music) and sound files from a computer, so that's fun too.
--nylons

Bought some eventually.
--a year's supply of chocolate pecans (hey, it's for food storage!)

Got one, need another one
--a big whiteboard for the hall to put postcards and kid pictures on (but I ought to paint the hall first, and if I paint the hall we ought to paint the living room, but we shouldn't do that until we sand out cracks and fix the sheet rock...)

Mom gave me the white board, my friend helped me paint the hall (five times, because we kept having problems), and Mom put it up. I filled it with photos the first day. Now what do I do?

It looks like I did pretty well this year after all. Thanks everybody for last year's gifts and labor. What a relief it is to have so many of these taken care of!

If Mommy and Daddy were reading the same book

Katherine says it would be

Harry Popper and the Chamber of Penguins

I'm in charge

On the way to the post office, Alex grabs the stack of Christmas cards. "I'm in charge of the cards!"

Rebecca puts on her coat and finds cat playing cards in the pocket. "I'm in charge of the cat cards!"

Children's Choice

"What do you want for dinner?" I asked my kids, and started listing our leftovers. "Rice? Rice and curried chicken? Mashed potatoes? Mashed potatoes with cheese on top?"

"Mashed potatoes with Craisins and raisins," Alex answered.

So Alex had mashed potatoes with Craisins and raisins for dinner. Rebecca did too. Katherine made herself a peanut butter and honey sandwich. Laramie got out some honeycomb, so Alex scraped off a bunch and I piled it onto toast, which we topped with more Craisins and raisins. (And unlike many natural-food fanatics, I will cheerfully admit that yes, that treat was PACKED with sugar.)

Who says we don't cater to our children's whims?

Katherine invents a word

"Fantastinating!"

When Becca's Mad

--Bites washclothes
--Bites her toothbrush
--Throws her toothbrush
--Bites the bathroom rug
--Spits on you (and gets even madder when she misses you and hits her leg instead)

Things That Take Longer to Prepare Than To Enjoy

--Rocket launches
--Chocolate mousse
--Snow clothes

Snow

Roofing Company: "Are you happy?"

Several months after State Roofing neglected to increase ventilation during our roof replacement last year, we found a leak in the roof and dampness in our attic. "I wish the foreman had called me," the State Roofing owner muttered, shaking his head as he inspected the damage. "He didn't know how to run the calculations." (Now you tell us? After you sent this foreman out to answer the question of whether we needed more ventilation?) Although they did install the venting and fix the leak, they refused to cover even a portion of the costs we had incurred. I personally spent hours crawling around and inspecting it in during the freezing February days, pulling out wet and moldy insulation.

Fast forward several months, after polite but fruitless meetings to request damages and several exchanges of letters with said owner. Suddenly, a lady in State Roofing's marketing department calls us. "Are you happy with your recent roofing job?" the lady asks. I assure her that we are not happy, that we not received reimbursement, and by the way the company had never replaced a section of broken plywood the owner had promised to have fixed immediately. (In February.) "Oh, really?" she gushes. "Let me give you the number for scheduling that." (Which, already drowning in the futility of the whole enterprise, I didn't do.)

Last week Laramie got another call. This was from a third-party agency, calling on behalf of State Roofing. "Are you happy with your recent roofing job?" Laramie assured them in strong terms that he was not happy, and explained why. "Oh," they said. "Did you try calling their 1-800 number?"

A few days later, State Roofing called to follow up. "Hello," says the marketing lady from the previous phone conversation. "We hear you're not happy with your roofing job." I gave her the summary of our dissatisfaction, and she took notes (though I assured her that the owner knew all about it already). She was astonished to hear that we had plywood that needed to be repaired, and called somebody to schedule the repair. He assured us they would get to it as quickly as they could, early next week. After giving us the same assurances in February.

We can understand the roofing company not wanting to pay us money. We can understand them committing to a minor repair in hopes that it will make us forget our major grievance. What we cannot understand is why they keep calling us to ask if we are happy when nothing has changed?

Maybe they're thinking of switching fields from roofing to psychiatry. They might be more successful!

Triple Feature Lunch

Alex's requested lunch today includes a

• Triple-Feature Sandwich (invented by Katherine): a sandwich with 3 layers of bread
• Triple Feature fruit plate: apples, pears, and oranges
  

Kid code?

Alex writes about something fun in class:

MeAT The HAOeNPrDBOB

NiGforDONUTS

Translation: "Me at the Halloween party bobbing for donuts"

Autumn Colors

Autumn Leaves

The kids' school has a huge oak tree that's losing all its leaves right now, and so every day after school kids go and build piles and play in the leaves. My kids played in those leaves about every day last week (good thing it wasn't raining the whole week). On the day of this picture, they worked on building that huge pile, and I called Mom to pass the time. She offered to come over and take pictures. While she was driving over, some bigger kids came and wanted to jump in the pile. At first I was a little concerned, but we let them, and they were really nice, taking care not to jump on Rebecca and building the pile back up again. It started to rain right as we were finishing with the pictures, so we don't know if we'll be able to play in the leaves again or if they'll be too wet.

On pile building: Katherine has definite ideas how leaves should be collected, and they don't always maximize for efficiency. At one point she was near the perimeter of the leaf spread, picking up leaves and handing them to her siblings to add to the designated pile. The siblings would carry the leaves to place on the pile, one at a time--wading through leaves up to their knees to get there.

AM Radio

We spent much of today listening to WCBS, a New York am radio station that interviewed me about candy experiments. They were supposed to broadcast the interview today, but we never heard it. Instead we heard ads for the play Wicked, info about a New York museum visitor's pass, lots of weather (highs in the forties), traffic updates every ten minutes (the George Washington bridge sounds like trouble), and news about the New York Marathon, whose runners included one of the Chilean miners who'd been running during his underground captivity. Go, runners!

It made me think New York sounds like a nice place to visit, but not to drive.

Telling Time

Rebecca, looking at the microwave clock which said 5:42, announced

"Two forty-five!"

Either she's dyslexic but brilliant, or she's a really good guesser.

Vampire Pumpkin

DC Photos

See the picasa album for more.

Electric Eels!

Alex's final game was Saturday. Go Electric Eels!

Soccer Saturdays

 
 
 

Arts of Other Sorts

Painting

I had a breakthrough week on the painting front--on Tuesday, I let Alex paint pictures with poster paints outside, and yesterday he talked me into pulling out the window art kit I bought for $5 at the thrift store. Good news: the painting did occupy him most of the time I was frantically trying graphic design on a newly installed program, although I did have to intervene several times to resupply paint, puncture bottle tops, and wipe up leaks. Bad news: after all that painting fun, there was no way I could talk him into doing any of his chores. Maybe next time the chores come first.

Pizza Time

We had a lovely time with Holly and Thayn--we ignored our children while they played with friends, ate good food, and talked. In addition to full tummys, we also brought home a nice new sourdough starter and some dandelion jelly. Thanks for the great time.

Saturday

Meal Planning Revisited

After another attempt at meal planning, and a week of meal-limiting family tummy aches, I just had to throw away a second bag of rotten bean sprouts. Meal planning's a bust, at least for now.

Or maybe it's just the Phad Thai that isn't in the cards.

She likes curls

 

Salmon Days

 
 

More soccer

Grandpa showed up at Alex's soccer game.

Spiders

Illustration for prior post. This spider was on the car this morning.

Who's Mama's Little Helper?

We made a job list today, which, coupled with the extra time Katherine gained staying home sick from school, worked surprisingly well. Katherine got so excited about crossing off jobs (her first chance to use the colored Dry-Erase markers she's been coveting since Christmas) that she even ran to get out the next day's outfit at 1:15 in the afternoon--right when I was trying to put Rebecca down for quiet time. But even after I shooed her out, I couldn't budge Rebecca, who was collecting an armful of clothes.

I tried to take them away and put them back, but she started to cry. I had to stand aside and watch. What was Rebecca doing? Getting out her next day's outfit. Just like Katherine.

Then, at dinnertime, I mentioned that Alex hadn't set any silverware for me. In a minute, Rebecca was up and yanking open the silverware drawer. I tried to stop her, worried she'd pull it down on herself, but she reached in for a fork and spoon she was hardly tall enough to see. Why? I wondered, because she already had some. Then she toddled over to my plate and set them down, spoon on the right, fork on the left, before she returned to her place with an enormous smile. I had one too.

At last! Someone is listening to me!

Meal Plan

Monday: wonder what to make for dinner--out of ingenuity managing everything with Lar out of town. Katherine saves the day by choosing lentil soup. Reflect, eating lentil soup, how silly it is getting to always wonder what to make for dinner. Remember Laramie has always advocated meal planning as the solution. Decide to try planning meals. Brainstorm meals with children. Chose English muffin pizzas (kids' request) and phad thai as next meals to make.

Tuesday: shop for English muffins and phad thai bean sprouts. Eat lentil soup.

Wednesday: pick up Laramie from airport, desperately craving olive pizza. Lar helpfully points out that chicken provencal has olives, and requests it for dinner. After afternoon of teaching piano while swimsuited children paint pudding mural outside, rush to store for ingredients to oblige returned husband. Feed children lentil soup. Cook chicken provencal. Lar brings home beef and gnocchi.

Thursday: Eat leftover lentil soup and chicken. Cook pasta to go with chicken.

Friday: go out for dinner to Maggianos, which sends home a second pasta dish for each classic dish you buy. Leave store with three boxes of pasta.

Saturday: get invited out to dinner with the girls after Relief Society broadcast. Lar serves kids lentil soup and English muffin pizzas.

Sunday: lie around with enormous tummyache. Lar cooks rest of English muffin pizzas.

Monday: eat pasta, chicken, and leftover gnocchi. Lar dines on rice and fish.

Tuesday: eat leftover restaurant food.
Throw away rotten bean sprouts.
Rethink meal planning.

Watch

When we were newlyweds, Laramie bought me a golden Timex watch that lit up blue. It served me well, until the clasp started to loosen last year. I asked him to buy me a new one for Christmas, describing exactly what I wanted, he met all my requirements--and I didn't love it. We shopped for a new one, but I couldn't decide. Eventually I pulled out the pliers, tightened the Timex clasp, and put it back on.

That worked great until last week, when, as I sprinted the kids to school, my watch flew off my wrist. Either it's been picked up by a passing third-grader, or it's really going to foul somebody's lawnmower next spring. Anyway, I couldn't find it.

I planned on doing the same thing I did last fall, checking every clock in sight and carrying my cell phone for backup timepiece, but Katherine had other ideas. "Why don't you borrow mine?"

After all, she has a watch too. Her grandma gave it to her as a birthday gift, and though she rarely wears it for fear of losing it, she checks it faithfully at night in bed(usually when I'd rather she were already asleep). At first I demurred, but she brought it to me as I worked on my computer, insisting I use it. (With--smart girl--the caveat that I'd have to buy her a new one if I lost it. Fair enough.)

At first I wondered how I'd feel wearing a child's watch with a bright pink face and a pink elastic band. Not bad, it turns out. The band was surprisingly comfortable, and the shock of color cheered me up. It even had a second hand, one of the qualifications I'd originally insisted upon.

I did rush out to buy myself a watch soon afterwards. Laramie pocketed the pink watch, which I returned to its place in Katherine's bed. I am now the proud possessor of a shiny new watch with a second hand, now set to school time.

But I've learned there are worse things than losing a watch.

Or wearing pink elastic.

Special Treats

One morning I told Alex we had a special treat for breakfast--gingerbread pear trifle that Lar and I had brought home the night before. Since it contained fruit, I thought it would be OK for breakfast.

"Is it messy?" Alex asked.

Overhearing, Becca thought the conversation was about her. "I not messy!" she announced. "I just wet."

Mini-agent-holidays

We have not yet had the grand celebratory dinner I wanted after I had the fateful phone conversation with Myrsini Stephanides, who offered to become my agent. I spent all that day in a daze, a little stunned, asked mom to watch kids during the conversation, conducted my part in a business-like manner, and emerged from the study as if in a dream. Part of me wanted to be frantically writing, though there was nothing to be done; part of me couldn't focus on anything (witness my "clogging" the following Thursday!) I didn't want Mom to leave.

Where's That Spider?

Taking advantage of September sunshine to update my blog outside on the lawn, I saw a black, bulbous spider crawl across my knee. Then it vanished. "Where's the spider?" I wondered, picking up my computer and searching my lap. But it was gone.

Fifteen minutes later, standing in my bedroom, I found it crawling out of my sleeve. I jerked and brushed it to the floor. I searched for it, but it had vanished again.

Where's that spider now?

Two weeks of momentous events

--Rebecca told me she needed to go potty, demanding to sit on the "downstairs toilet!" and pooping in it. !!! (Sadly, this did not mark the beginning of a new era.)
--Alex threw the longest tantrum we've seen yet.
--I derailed a few tantrums by asking Alex to consider consequences, giving him hugs, or reading to him as he completed his assigned task.
--Katherine received a tape on her Martial Arts belt for yelling "Yes, Sir!" to one of the instructor's command. He says he never gives them out to white belts who've only been in the class two weeks, so she's pretty proud. Alex attends class with a huge smile on his face, and it is to hoped that he soon internalizes their philosophical teachings of self-control.
--Laramie took Alex's piano instruction in hand one evening, chasing him up and down the keyboard as they played technique patterns.
--My friend Lydia dressed my kids and hers in swimsuits so they could paint a giant mural with pudding. Kids revelled in the art, the cleanup (licking their spoons), and their subsequent scrubbing via sprinkler. I calmly taught piano downstairs, congratulating myself on being able to trade so that somebody else could run the messy art projects.
--Laramie left for seven days out of nine, with a work trip and then a family trip to Utah, where he hiked the Narrows at Zion's National Park. (See Skeedattle.)
--My friend Arren, another piano student, organized my candy collection. Now it's nicely packed in Ziplocs into bins labeled "Hard," "Chewy," and "Chewy with a Shell." Chocolate gets its own bag. Even more amazing, we managed to cram everything back into one cabinet, reducing the candy sprawl that had been taking over my storage. Now I will be able to tell what I already possess before I buy, such as the seven half-used bags of marshmallows we collected out of various crannies. Marshmallow, anyone?
--After nine months of dithering, I decided to buy the watch that I'd almost settled on in January. By then, Ben Bridge no longer carried it (and the salesman was pretty grumpy about having to write down the numbers for watches he couldn't sell us, although he charmed considerably when Laramie asked to see a set of $900 watches), but Lar found it at an adjacent jewelry store. ("Oh, I've been visiting this mall for years," I assured the saleslady when they told us how long the store had there, thinking of my teenage rambles up and down its then-fewer halls, wandering into the bookshops and studying the photo of Bellevue Way and 8th--two dirt lanes with a cow in the intersection. "Really? I don't remember seeing you," she said, and I didn't dare admit that I'd never patronized her store because we were only shopping for my second piece of jewelry in our married life.) Luckily, I'm still in love with it a day later.
--I GOT AN AGENT!!!

Really Momentous Event

Just in case you missed that last item: I HAVE AN AGENT!

Really Momentous Event II

For those of you who don't know, this is a GOOD thing.

Baby Steps

It's not that I keep my house immaculate. I don't. But I'd like to. And the likelihood of adding to the mess always alarms me. That's why I put the honey on the bread myself, why I'm reluctant to get out poster paints, and why I have my friend lead big art projects while I teach her kids piano. I don't want my kids making more mess!

Still, I have to let go sometime. And they have to grow up. So this week I allowed these activities (with trepidation):
--Painting: Alex decided to make a paper bag pumpkin the way Katherine taught him last year. This means stuffing a lunch sack with paper, rubber-banding it shut, and then painting it. Reluctantly, I mixed up orange and green paint, spread a paper sack out on the deck table for a paint cover, and sent Alex outside in a Microsoft T-shirt (those qualify as "grubbies" in this house). Surprise! No spills, no drips, no mess to scrub off the floor. Just some paintbrushes to wash while the duly-colored pumpkin dried outside. It went so well, I might try it again.
--Cutting: Katherine is becoming quite the independent cook. She now cooks her own breakfast oatmeal in the microwave, and she wants to accompany it with fruit. So Katherine has started cutting her own pears and peaches. She goes after them from the outside in, cutting slices off the peach until she reaches the middle, rather than the grownup method of halving and removing the pit. Added bonus: she feeds slices to her siblings. She's still limited to a butter knife, but the way she's learning, I might let her graduate soon to something sharp.
--Spreading: Katherine has been able to make her own sandwiches for a little while. Today, Alex decided to give it a try. He proudly "honeyed" bread for himself and his sister. I have yet to check for sticky spots.

Now if they can just wipe up spills, and put their blocks away, we might get this house clean yet!

Back from Utah

 

If you want to see more, check out Skeedattle

Fire truck math

Alex, showing me a picture of a fire in a book: "Mom, how many fire trucks and helicopters would it take to put out this fire?"

Me: "I don't know."

Alex: "16 fire trucks, 10 helicopters, and 10 planes. I figured it out because this one has burned out of control. This one (pointing to opposite picture) would be easier. It would be twice as less helicopters and one less helicopter. And the same amount of planes. This one (pointing at inset) would only need one truck to put that one out. That one's pretty small. This one (another inset) would need two trucks, one helicopter, and one plane. Can you write an article about fires?"

After the Ball

 

 

 

And over the ball.

Summer's Over

 

Petraeus’ Top 10

Published in the BYU Magazine from Summer 2010, these are from General Petraeus’ list of his "top 10 reasons BYU grads make great soldiers:"

10. They have already been on many a mission.

6. They will seize any objective swiftly if you tell them refreshments will be served.

3. They always have a year’s supply of provisions on hand.

For the complete list, go to the article and scroll down. They're all really funny.

Vashon

We'd been meaning to go to Vashon Island all summer...

 
 
 
 
 


Cool and overcast with intermittent sprinkles--the perfect summer day for a swim.

Becca's Favorite Meal

Me: "Becca, let's go home and have some dinner."
Becca: "I have lunch."
Me: "Yes, you had lunch. Now it's time for dinner. Should we go get some dinner?"
Becca: "I have lunch."
Me: "You already had lunch. Now it's dinnertime. Let's go eat some food for dinner."
Becca: "You have food. I have lunch."

Summertime

Summer's ending. I should be getting myself on an earlier schedule to get ready for school.

But I stay up late reading. Why?

Because I can. Because it's still summer.

A Long Night--No Fibbing!

1 wet bed
1 sick child
2 kid baths
3 loads of laundry
5 times a parent had to get out of bed

Katherine, Brown Eyes

I never had a child as ... as you.
Where'd you learn all the things that you say.
You run around and sleep and play.
We do it every single day.

Nothing for it but a bedtime tune.
Sweetest tune I know is...
Katherine, brown eyes, don't you cry now.
Katherine, brown eyes, time to say good night.
The stars are silver notes across your eyes now,
Katherine, brown eyes, now sleep tight.

(To the tune of "Sara, Brown Eyes" from Ragtime.)

Sweet Becca, Sleep Becca.

Sweet Becca, Sleep Becca
Daytime is done.
Sweet Becca, Sleep Becca
Wait for the sun.

Sweet Becca, Sleep Becca,
All through the night.
Sweet Becca, Sleep Becca
til morning light.

Moral Questions

Not that I have seen my children look at the "terrarium" during the last few days. Which leads to a new question: do we
1. sneak it out to the garbage
2. repopulate it in the middle of the night
3. explain the demise of "Extra Weapon" and invite the kids to go dig up more roly polies?

The Advantages of a Pink Plastic Picnic Cup Terrarium

1. cheap
2. you can poke holes in the top
3. through its wavery pink walls, every scrap of bark looks like a bug.

Blast Off

 

Scout Lake

Alex, Katherine, and I had a nice overnighter on Friday at Scout Lake with grandpa. It's a nice ~3 mile hike on a less frequented trail, yet there was still one other group camping at the lake already.

In the morning L & Rebecca joined us for a huckleberry pancake brunch.

Oh, and water was cold; comparable to the ocean.

Just the 2 of us

Even with kids we have squeezed in a few dates this summer.

A New Family Member

Alex added a new member to our family today: a roly poly bug he named "Extra Weapon." It lives in a house made of two pink plastic cups (the cups we used for lunch), with some rocks, some strands of grass, and some plaintain leaves he poked through the air holes after we found somebody online who says roly poly bugs love them. That is, if it didn't drown under the water Katherine poured in to give it a drink.

"It's great," said Alex. "Now we have a pet, and we found it ourselves."

A Conundrum

Why do we work so hard to clean a house for company--and then apologize for the mess?

Memories from our trip to the coast

• Rebecca gamely walking most of the two miles along the beach to Moclips--but getting carried back since she wouldn't stop digging with her razor clam shell or trying to walk backwards
• Turning up cinnamon rolls, coconut cookies, chocolate-walnut fudge, and an apple-boysenberry pie in one tiny town
• Singing a renaissance madrigal with my sister, since I had the sheet music from my audition in the car, and arranging "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief"
• Hearing Alex singing "A Poor Wayfaring Man of Grief" the next morning
• Digging a giant hole that evaded the tides the whole weekend. Maybe it's still there.
• Kids running along the edge of the waves, a game my sister's friend taught them
• Wading in the waves with my pants rolled up because I thought it was too cold to swim, soaking the knees of my pants, and going in anyway. The verdict: Water surprisingly warm when compared to evening breeze; running back to the house extra-cold in long wet jeans.
• Alex getting wet every time we got near the ocean. Heading back, we ran out of underwear and had to keep him in his swimsuit all the way home.

Beach Snapshots