Category: life

a few crusts of bread

Tonight was Phoebe’s pre-K graduation, and I signed up to make finger sandwiches for the party afterwards. (I’m still not sure I used the right number of fingers in the sandwiches. The recipes were all so vague.) Since we didn’t have time for a real dinner before heading out, and since the party with foodstuffs wouldn’t be until at least 7, it was clear we needed a snack. Seeing as I had just cut the crusts off several loaves of bread to make dainty-looking sandwiches, I offered up some bread crusts for a snack. They were received much more enthusiastically than I would have expected. I insisted that they should have some water with their bread crusts, though. Because I’m caring like that.

Theo’s few crusts of bread.


Bread and water: nothing but the best for my children.


Phoebe with her meager portion.


Here is Phoebe in her pre-K graduation regalia. She has been excited about this event for weeks. This is about as happy as she looked during the festivities though.

But lest you think that they are miserable, here are some photos of Phoebe and Theo looking happy on the playground after the graduation party…

(I can’t hold my eyes open now, so I’d better get to bed. Tomorrow I’m heading into Boston to attend a conference. I was concerned that the commute might not be reasonable, as there was a chance of parade, and such parades have in the past led to crowded trains, heavy traffic, and more-than-usually-difficult parking. However, I’m glad to see that the parade isn’t till Saturday. Of course, I’ve also been planning to attend the conference on Saturday, so may well have to deal with the same issues then, and may not be able to make it to some talks I’d hoped to go to, including one by a friend. And doesn’t that just rain on my parade.)

washout

Water is essential to life on earth. Living in the developed world, I am lucky to have easy access to clean water. I know that too many in the world don’t have this luxury. Water is necessary. Water is precious.

Water is also trying to kick my butt.

I have refrained from sharing here the soggy details of my recent battles with water, in its various forms. Sure, I started a post about waking up to a steam-filled basement and a geiser of scalding hot water shooting from our hot water tank, and thoroughly soaking through a stack of dozens of boxes of books and papers and mementos, but I figured I’d spare you the damp whining. And then there was the follow-up post (that I also didn’t share) about how that incident, what with the water running for X number of hours in the night, had killed of the pump to our well and another water tank to boot. After all that, the dozens of leaks that our kitchen faucet sprang, spraying a shower of water each time we had to wash dishes or fill the drinking water pitcher, seemed quite minor. Almost cute. I hadn’t even gotten around to griping about the water we’d had leaking in through the windows over the winter, due to ice dams on the roof, and all the trials of dealing with more snow than we’d seen in the past several winters combined. What fun was all of this? I decided to move on to other things.

But water was not done with me yet. You may recall that this weekend was the dreaded yard sale. I dedicated practically my whole week to purging cabinets and closets and piles of things. I signed on to the town’s group listing. I planned. I publicized.

Then come Saturday…it rained. A lot. It was a cold, wet, rainy, wet, dreary, wet day. There was lots of water. It was wet.

Did I mention that it was wet?

I ended up having the sale on our front porch, with lots of things still crammed in boxes. I didn’t even manage to bring out everything that I’d purged from the house. It didn’t really matter that much, as traffic was slow. Only the really hard core bargain hunters, and some people coming to haggle over the last bits of baby gear we had. People enthusiastically bought a few items that I could have thrown out, and quibbled over a dollar or two for things that were worth 20 times as much.

As low as my expectations were, I wasn’t counting on the rain. What’s more, I’d signed up to have Sunday be the rain date in the town listing, so that more-or-less meant having the sale both days. And today was rainy too. (But I just worked on packing and re-sorting things, anyhow. Only one person came the whole day, but at least he bought a few things.)

The weekend wasn’t a total loss, but I still have my work cut out for me. I have to make arrangements to donate, sell, or otherwise dispose of all this remaining stuff. I blame the rain.

And would you believe that tonight I discovered a new leak in my basement? I can’t tell yet whether it’s water coming in from the rain, or from the plumbing.

All of this has left me feeling very stressed and cranky. I need to unwind. I’d think that a hot bath might be a nice calming thing, but who knows what perils would await me. Would I shrivel into a giant prune? Slip climbing out? Get washed down the drain?

Now excuse me while I get something to drink. Usually, I mostly just drink water. At this point, however, I’m not sure I should risk that much contact with the plumbing. I’m pretty sure that beer is safer.

she takes after me

I’m not sure I was ever that cute, but Phoebe certainly takes after me in many ways. For one, she has inherited my deep love of artichokes. (These were some photos from April. I had this idea to try using the water from steaming artichokes as an Easter egg dye. Usually the water is an intense, often bluish, green. Of course, that time the water was a dingy gray brown, so we opted not to try for olive drab eggs. Remind me to tell you about the cabbage experiments, though. They were more colorful.)

Tonight, we finally got around to eating the artichokes I trimmed yesterday, the most lethal-looking of which was featured on America’s Most Dangerous Vegetables. Theo, who loves to eat breakfast but has decreasing interest in food over the course of the day, has been wary of trying new foods at dinnertime. This was the first time we managed to get him to try artichoke. I’m quite happy to say that he was instantly taken with them, too. (Though it is a happiness tinged with sadness, as we will no longer be able to eat his unclaimed artichoke. And, alas, our pan can only hold 4 artichokes.)

(I have more to say, about artichokes, even, but I need to get to bed. I’ve had an exhausting day of digging through cabinets and closets looking in preparation for Saturday’s event of terror.)

daunting

I’m working myself up for something for something that scares me. (And no, it’s not turning 40.) What’s funny is that in telling a friend about it over the phone, somehow I managed to give the impression that I was trying to tell her that I was pregnant. (I’m not.) Though I suppose it is a kind of nesting. Or maybe anti-nesting. We’re going to have…a yard sale.

We have now been in this house over 12 years. We had a lot of stuff when we moved in. Then we bought a lot of stuff. Then we acquired a lot of stuff, antiques and small heirlooms, from both of our families. And we had a wedding, for which people gave us stuff. And we had 2 children, who also led to the acquisition of stuff. All of these things add up to way too many things. While we’ve given away much of our baby gear and baby clothes, and donated many other miscellaneous items, the rate of things leaving the house has not managed to keep pace with the rate of things coming in. The time has come for something drastic.

Our town has an annual “progressive” yard sale. Sadly, this does not refer to the politics of the town, but only to the concurrent timing of the yard sales and group listings. This morning I dropped of the registration form to get our house listed in the flyer. The deed is done. People are going to show up at our house a week from tomorrow, and hopefully they will leave with stuff.

I’ve never orchestrated a yard sale. We had a few moving sales when I was growing up, but I was never in charge. I’m a little overwhelmed.

Hold me.

case reopened

A few months ago, I felt a strange and sudden urge to pull out my violin and show it to Phoebe and Theo.The case had been closed for many weeks. And when I say “many,” I mean a number greater than 52. I vaguely recall having had the violin case open at some point in early 2009. Or maybe I’m remembering a lunchbox. Something was open then.

But that evening a few months ago, I indeed opened up my violin case. I pulled out the violin, and the strings were totally loose. It may shock you to know that I barely know how to tune my violin. My teacher always did it, at the beginning of each lesson. I managed to tune it once, when it got so badly out of tune that I couldn’t practice, and I did a decent job. But this time the strings were so loose they might as well have been just lying on top of the violin. I decided to give it a whirl, anyhow. John pulled out his iPhone with a tuner app, and I started to turn the pegs and the little fine-tuny-screwy-things (that is the technical term), and I was feeling quite pleased with myself…until the E string snapped.

So much for that demo.

But I got to thinking, and the next day or so, I called my violin teacher. For the first time since Theo was born. I asked her about strings, and while I was at it, about starting lessons. For me, and for Phoebe, too. My teacher said she’d work on finding space in her schedule. Eventually, she found a time when she could put our two half hour lessons back-to-back.

Tonight, Phoebe and I started violin lessons together.

I can’t say it was all a joyful, magical experience. Phoebe was tired. She’d had a full day at daycare with no nap, then we’d rushed off to a 45-minute karate class, before rushing home for a rushed dinner, and rushing back out the door. Plus I think she found the process of starting the violin to be pretty anticlimactic. We got her set up with a violin of the right size (quarter-sized). Then it was about learning to hold the violin with her chin, and how to properly hold the bow. That was about it. By the time we got to my part of the lesson, which ended up being only the last 15 minutes of our hour, she was pretty much done for. She collapsed on the floor next to me, periodically rallying herself enough to tug on my arm while I attempted to play. In spite of this, I enjoyed myself. I remembered more than I was expecting. (Not that we tried any of the more advanced things I’d worked on when last I’d had lessons, over 2 years ago. We worked on stuff that was probably from my first or second year of lessons.)

Next week, we go back.

I feel like this post needs some sort of snappy ending, but I’m too tired to think of an ending, and I need to make Phoebe’s lunch and get to bed. So I’ll post a completely unrelated photo to distract you.


Hey, look. Tires. ‘Cause I’m tired. Ha, ha, ha.

because I felt like I should toss something up here

Hey. Remember how I used to write stuff and post stuff here all the time? Like more than twice a month? Yeah, me too. That was cool.

I haven’t left, though. Well, actually, I did go on a trip, and come back. I went to Colorado for a cousin’s wedding. (All four of us went, and we got to see various family members, including my mother. Which was wonderful. Phoebe and Theo hadn’t seen my mother in over a year.) But what I mean to say is that I haven’t really abandoned the blog. I actually still write drafts that never get posted, and think about posting something almost daily. I’m not quite sure what gets in the way, except maybe the guilty sense that my time should be going in other directions.

I’ve still been keeping up with Project 365, and while I have definitely hit the doldrums, I am still largely enjoying myself. Many days, I feel like I’m going through the motions, and end up with predictably lackluster shots. Often taken at 11pm, somewhere in my house. However, when I look back at a month’s worth, I am generally pleased to see that there have been a few shots that I actually like. And every once in a while, I manage to do something fun.

In other news, in case you haven’t checked in on my sister’s blog, the latest news on my nephew and the pathology report was good, if unsettling: the masses removed in his recent surgery appear to be dead tumors. So, not requiring more chemo, which is fantastic. But unnerving, in that it’s not clear when, exactly, these tumors first showed up.

There are plenty more things that have been on my mind, and perhaps I will get around to sharing them. But for now, I should get back to some other stuff.

hitting a wall

I had meant to post something fun today, seeing as I’ve managed to go a whole 2 weeks since last posting. (That may be a record for me–I don’t remember going longer.) But I got some distressing news today. My nephew Diego had his 4-month-post-treatment scan yesterday, and the results were not as we’d anticipated. There will need to be more surgery. I feel a bit like we’ve hit a wall.

(I found this photo when looking through my photo library for clouds, since my sister picked that as a theme for her post. This felt fitting. I’m quite fond of the photo, though. It’s a mural in San Francisco, I think near the Bay Bridge.)

cut out from the same paper

Phoebe is growing more and more independent. She has her own sense of style, and is very creative. She picks out her outfits, she makes up projects and even games. She likes to do things her way, and is happiest when she able to do things herself. Not by herself, as in alone–she loves to have company. But she likes to be the one doing the tasks, and making the decisions. I enjoy seeing her figuring things out, and becoming more competent at a wide range of things.

For Valentine’s Day, the kids in Phoebe’s pre-K class were invited to bring in valentines for each of the other 17 kids in the class. Phoebe decided that she wanted to make all her own valentines, for the kids in her class. (And for the teachers. And for a few other friends.) Since I definitely have a preference for the hand-made and the home-made over the mass-produced and the store-bought, I did not discourage her from this plan. We even had an extra day, I reassured myself, since Phoebe wouldn’t be going to preschool till Tuesday. Of course, I had in mind that I could do a lot of the tasks with or for her–cutting card stock with the big paper cutter, and snipping other paper things as needed with the scissors for her to use as decorations. (I am a whiz with the scissors.)

But Phoebe had her own plans. For a start, she wanted to cut all the cards herself with her own little scissors. And she wanted to do all the decorating herself. And the writing.

Due to the chaos that is our life, which was compounded by a flat tire on one of the cars, Phoebe didn’t really get going on her project till Sunday. She worked hard at the project, cutting and drawing and writing. (I kept her company, and made my own valentine.) By Sunday night, however, she had only finished 8 cards.

Monday was a work day for me and a daycare day for Phoebe, then Phoebe had karate class in the evening. She’d finished a couple more designs before dinner, but still had many more to make. By the time we finished dinner, it was heading on towards 7:00, when we would ordinarily be getting going with the bedtime process.

I found myself saying to John: “I really love to see her wanting to do things her way, but sometimes she needs to understand that there just isn’t time to do everything she wants, just how she wants to.”

John looked at me.

“What?” I said. John smirked in reply.

“Oh, you mean she sounds like me. With my research.”

“Like you with everything that you ever do.”

Um. Guilty.

But I had worked out a revised plan, to at least get the 17 cards done for the kids in her class. I told Phoebe I would cut out some hearts for her with different papers–I even enticed her with sparkly papers! Then she could write on the cards and glue hearts on, rather than drawing pictures on each card. Phoebe agreed that we could wait for another day to make cards for the other people on her list.

John got Theo off to bed, and Phoebe and I settled down to work. We got a method down by which she would pick several hearts for a card, then I would put glue on the hearts, and she’d stick them on like stickers. When things went pretty fast, I even agreed that she could draw on embellishments. (She wanted each card to have a face.) We finished the cards by 8:30 or so, and Phoebe still felt that she’d had control of the artistic direction for each of the cards.

(Remind me to tell you what’s going on with my research…)

Some of the plan A cards:


Plan B:



I liked the gingerbread plan better.

So, I see that it has been 9 days since my last big whine of a post. Consider this post a continuation of the last one. And let me start by giving a warning: there will be mentions of vomit.

I had a commute day last Wednesday, for something work-related, but not something that leads to any sort of progress towards my degree. Thursday I miraculously managed a full day of work, finally making progress on the list of things I’d been trying to do the week before on a group project. Friday was going to be another commute/meeting day, so when we were all snowed in again, it didn’t feel like a huge loss in productivity to have my lab meeting by conference call instead. (Though it was a bit awkward, as John had a conference call at the same time, so neither of us was available to corral the kids. We put on a movie, which contained Phoebe pretty well, but Theo wandered in to contribute to my conference call several times. Mostly asking me to go watch the movie.) Then there came the weekend, during which I typically end up completely wiped out by the time the kids go to bed. But I wasn’t too stressed. The following week there were going to be 5 days of childcare, two days of which (Monday and Tuesday) I had no meetings or doctor’s appointments scheduled, and surely I would be able to get back to my own research project.

When Phoebe woke me up before 6 on Monday morning with a fever and an earache, I considered dropping out of my PhD program right then.

Happily, Phoebe perked right up with some Motrin, and John decided he could take her to his office for a few hours. However, with their late-morning departure coupled with other home and family things I had to deal with, I didn’t manage to start on my work till noon. That theoretically gave me about 4 hours to do work before it would be time to pick up Theo, but my focus pretty much sucked.

Tuesday I had the day with still feverish Phoebe, which included taking her to her preschool for picture day, and taking her to the doctor’s office. In between, we went out for lunch and went to CVS. Afterwards, we had a bit more than an hour before it was time to pick up Theo. I squeezed in a few work-related tasks while Phoebe re-enacted picture day with my camera, John’s tripod, and a whole lot of stuffed animals.


Yesterday, Phoebe still had her fever, but John was able to stay home. I took Theo to daycare, and rushed off to a doctor’s appointment, which had been rescheduled from the afternoon in anticipation of the upcoming snowstorm. I drove into Cambridge for a work-related thing right after, and then back home just ahead of the snow. When I picked up Theo from daycare, I was optimistic that he’d be able to go to daycare again in the morning, as the snow was expected to be stopped by early morning. (Phoebe would still need to be home, as daycare policy is that kids need to be fever-free for 24 hours before returning.)

As we waffled about what to have for dinner, Theo sat on my lap and we looked at some pictures on my computer. He complained that his stomach hurt. Then he threw up. All over himself, me, the couch, the floor. (Happily, my open laptop was mostly spared.) The rest of the evening was spent cleaning up, and tending to miserable children. Phoebe didn’t want Theo in the same room with her, as she totally dreads vomit (not that any of us like it…). She ended up going to sleep in our bed. After a change of clothes, I sat holding Theo, empty yogurt container and towel-like things at the ready. I realized that we weren’t likely to fall asleep, and I certainly wasn’t going to be able to do work or read. So we watched a movie on the couch (the couch that wasn’t torn apart for cleaning),which distracted Theo nicely. My dinner ended up being some bread, eaten on the couch while I held Theo. Eventually, Theo and I went to settle down for the night on Phoebe’s toddler bed. (We didn’t want him alone in his crib since we were still expecting more vomit.)

Today, though home sick, both kids have seemed largely fine. But there was so much snow that we probably couldn’t have gotten them to daycare and preschool anyhow. It took most of the day to shovel out, as we had to take turns staying inside to referee the kids. The day was remarkably uneventful, if completely unproductive. (Not counting snow removal and additional vomit-related damage control.) And I was very regretful that all of these events didn’t even leave me enough time to bake more gingerbread.

As of now, both kids are asleep in their own beds. I am fully looking forward to sleeping with my legs fully extended in an adult-sized bed.

Theo asked for “the drum” (our nickname for the big empty yogurt containers) several times today, but didn’t end up needing to use it. Actually, what he said was “I need to put some corn in the drum.” (Apparently he’d had corn for lunch yesterday.) He’d sit with his face over the drum, cheerfully half-singing, “Here it comes! Here comes the corn!” Then he’d say “achoo!” (Clearly he is not as traumatized by vomiting as Phoebe.)