xantippe's blog

Living Social

2012-02-14T05:30:00.001-08:00

I just got an email coupon for catfishing for four.

I told this to the kids, who pointed out that it's somewhat unclear. Is this catfish fishing or cat fishing?

Valentine's prep

2012-02-13T18:15:00.001-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

The kids did their Valentine's Day cards tonight.
I'm to Lothlorien in the audiobook of Fellowship of the Ring that I listen to mostly on the treadmill at the gym.
My husband has been working on getting our LOTR movies onto my Kindle. The Kindle has been resisting the transplant (since it's our DVD and not from the Kindleverse), but I think he's finally got it. I've managed to watch about 42 minutes of the movie at the gym. In general, my gym-going has been pretty regular the past week.
We had history fair a few days ago. C was on duty weaving with the Daughters of Liberty during an American Revolution reenactment. She wore a borrowed colonial dress, an apron and a white mob cap and wove furiously while her colleagues sewed, embroidered and complained about British enormities. D and I had a chance to wander around ancient Egypt and tour the US Civil War (the Underground Railroad, Ft. Sumter, Clara Barton, the surrender, Lincoln's assassination, O Captain, My Captain) while C did performances every 20 minutes. During our trip on the Underground Railroad, D and the other little kids were so spooked by the slave hunters that they crawled under the bushes as far as they could get.
Somehow, a Revolutionary war uniform for D needs to materialize by early next week. At school, they've got a jacket for him and a tricorn hat and we ordered a flintlock cap gun for him, but he'll need other stuff, too.

Mamas, don't let your babies

2012-02-10T08:08:00.000-08:00

I was just listening to Dave Ramsey's Wednesday show while hanging up laundry. The last caller I heard is newly married, with a degree in creative writing. He and his wife have $130,000 plus in student loans, some at 13 and 14% interest, and they make around $20k a year combined.

On the bright side, this will provide lots of life experience if he ever decides to write the great American novel.

It's time to revise "Mamas, don't let your babies grow up to be cowboys."

2 free visits

2012-02-08T10:08:00.000-08:00

Unauthorized entry into sibling rooms is a sore point at our house. In response, D recently made a ticket for C that says, "Good for 2 free visits to D's room."

Hungarian Dance

2012-02-07T06:01:00.001-08:00

This morning before school, C was glued to My First Classical Music Book. It comes with a CD and you advance through the music tracks as you read through the book. I had to tear C away from the book. "I was looking forward to the Hungarian Dance!" she said.

Dwell

2012-02-06T14:11:00.000-08:00

I gave D my copy of Dwell. This morning the kids were building block imitations of some of the houses in the current issue. C is reading it now as part of her homework. I made her ask permission from D. D said, "As long as you bring it back by tomorrow."

Cancellations

2012-02-03T15:37:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to run a board game club this afternoon and then show No Impact Man (very good!) this evening to the grad students, but I've been struggling with a cold for much of the week and have had a succession of bad nights, with last night being the worst. So we've had to cancel both things. Tomorrow we have two birthday parties to go to (one at a bowling alley, one with a family that does professional party organizing) and it's looking grim. However, if I have a good night tonight and nobody else gets sick, we may manage it.

Color

2012-02-03T14:19:00.000-08:00

The February 2012 issue of Country Living is CL's white issue and they have several home tours that are worth looking at. This is one of the white houses and it gives a pretty good idea of the issue and the techniques used, although I think the online photos underplay the drama of the dark wood and other dark neutral accents used in the houses. Anyway, in the houses featured, there's a very striking use of bright white walls and dark neutral accents (counters, floors, light fixtures, faucets). There's almost no color used in these photos, but in thinking of how to appropriate these ideas for myself, I find myself thinking that a traditional cobalt blue and/or a muted red would look really good in these settings. (The cobalt blue link goes to a Wikipedia page that has a dictionary of blues at the bottom--very useful.)

This afternoon, I received my copy of House Beautiful Blue: 350 Inspiring Ways to Decorate With Blue. I have a lot of blues among my household goods: Spode plates, Russian Gzhel', some Polish pottery, Japanese rice bowls, dish towels, a blue glass vase, a blue enamelware bowl, a blue IKEA tray with a white floral pattern, various plastic bric-a-brac etc. It's pretty cohesive, but I get the feeling that blue has to be carefully managed to prevent it from taking over and making everything chilly. I would not, for instance, purchase a blue sofa, but would stick to a dark brown leather sofa and maybe add blue pillows. I also think that the blue may need another color to warm it up. I have considered a blue-and-yellow color scheme (page down a bit until you get to the big blue hutch and golden wall paper), but it's not really me. My current thinking is to add in some soft red (like the red you see in Persian carpets). I also like this blanket from Pendleton, which at least in the online photo, does a good job of combining the sort of traditional blue and traditional red that I'm looking for.

I've also recently noticed that Amazon is actually a very good place for seeking design inspiration, even if you don't want to order things sight unseen. I've added a bunch of pillows in red velvet, red-and-white, blue jacquard and blue velvet, a blue glass Moroccan lantern and a very cute modern clear acrylic lamp to my cart. I don't know which items will survive, but it's a very convenient way to store ideas.

Asbestos

2012-02-02T20:05:00.000-08:00

Don't panic, everybody, but the property management guy has just informed us that they'll be doing an asbestos evaluation at our rental house next week.

Apartment hunting II

2012-02-01T09:05:00.001-08:00

I've now seen six different apartments, one near the kids' school and five near campus. Here's the dilemma:

Option #1 is a 3BR/2BA nearly 1200 square foot apartment two blocks from the kids' school. It has an outdoor pool, an exercise room and a green courtyard suitable for play, biking and scootering. The closets are reasonably generous, but the kitchen is tiny and old. Rent is $1200.
Option #2 is a 4BR/4BA nearly 1700 square duplex unit about 10 blocks from my husband's office. It is walkable, but not super convenient. It is several blocks away from the grocery store and a couple blocks from a playground, but there are no amenities (pool, play area, gym, etc.). There are lots of small closets, a couple pantries, and a large kitchen. It feels very roomy. Rent is $1400.

For option #1, we would definitely need substantial storage for the stuff that won't fit in the apartment. For option #2, we could probably squeeze nearly all the stuff in our current 2000 sq. ft. house into the duplex (the garage is more problematic).

This is a tough call.

Apartment hunting

2012-01-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

I have an apartment-hunting appointment today and next week. Given that we have one car, our two choices are 1) to live near the kids' school (I just visited an apartment complex two blocks away) or 2) to live in the campus bubble area. Option #1 is $1195 for 3BR/2BA and nearly 1200 square feet (plus gym, outdoor pool, central courtyard with bike and scooter-suitable sidewalks). I haven't seen any option #2 apartments yet, but for 3BR/2BA and bigger they seem to range from around $1200 on up ($1400 is probably the most we'd be willing to pay), with some having more square footage. (We pay $1,000 per month for our current rental from the college, which is not exactly market rate.) In the campus bubble, some of the rentals run $500 per bedroom or more, so some rental units cost over $2,000 a month. Amenities and desirability of location vary. I may have a babysitting gig for an infant next fall, so I'm crossing out the units with trendy concrete floors (I'm not crazy about them for our family either, as some of us are rather accident-prone). A fourth bedroom would be nice just for storing stuff (our current rental house is 2000 square feet plus a garage).

Cultural bubble quiz

2012-01-25T19:33:00.000-08:00

I was just taking the "How Thick Is Your Bubble?" quiz which is designed to test how deeply cocooned in upper middle class America the test-taker is. As you can see, I scored an 8 out of 20, which according to them, means that while I'm "part of the new upper class," I've also "had a lot of exposure to the rest of America."

How Thick Is Your Bubble?

Guest

Score » 8 out of 20 (40% )
Result

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored between 9 and 12.

In other words, even if you're part of the new upper class, you've had a lot of exposure to the rest of America.

Quiz School

Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Create Quizzes

Run away!

2012-01-24T10:37:00.000-08:00

I just saw the following Spanish-language ad in the real estate section of Craigslist: "Sin credito y seguro social usted puede comprar casa movil nueva."

Run away!!!!

C is sick

2012-01-22T19:49:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

D came home from school with a fever on Friday, but is feeling better now.
My husband went to church with D at a distant suburban parish and notes that D was very appreciative of the architecture. D, my husband says, has architectural needs that we need to keep in mind.
C was feverish today and will be home with me tomorrow. She was reading her children's atlas tonight and a P.G. Wodehouse Jeeves and Wooster story. I was reading her some of the Wodehouse, namely an episode where Jeeves books 87 Americans to pay to meet a genuine English duke (unbeknownst to the duke himself).
My husband is reading the kids The Black Arrow and In Desert and Wilderness.
The kids continue to enjoy watching How It's Made. I caught a few minutes of an episode on maple syrup making.

Great Country French Style

2012-01-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

The first thing I have to mention about Great Country French Style (2006) is that the cover photo, while lovely, is misleading. It has a picture of a light blue room with a rustic wood bed decorated with fabric in a small blue-and-white check, a white lace pillow and blue-and-white patterned pillows. I love the cover photo. Unfortunately, that photo is not characteristic of the book as a whole. I'm going to keep the book, but I don't really like the super formal living rooms, the monotone "elegant" color schemes, heavy fabrics, fussy furniture, floral fabrics, gilt mirrors, etc. (I realize that is more or less a description of the traditional French look.) I like Country French (kitchens, for example), but I don't like French formality. Here's what I like from the book:

a loud red upholstered (toile?) chair with a white design of a dog and flowers
flowers
windows
wood (especially in more rustic furniture)
toile (in small quantities)
blue-and-white check (big and small)
blue-and-white china
red-and-white fabric
heavy wrought-iron light fixtures
dark wood furniture and light walls

Clutter's Last Stand

2012-01-21T11:44:00.000-08:00

A while back, I finished reading Don Aslett's classic Clutter's Last Stand: It's Time to De-Junk Your Life (1984). I have lately been merciless with housecleaning and decluttering books and we are moving in less than half a year to a smallish (for us) apartment and then probably again in 2013, so it's a very high compliment from me that I am holding on to this book, when so many others of its kind have gone to the Goodwill box. Here are some quotes:

I have some keepsakes that I can't remember what sake they were kept for.
I have souvenirs or knickknacks that I dust, clean, store, and abhor.
I've kept books and paperbacks I couldn't force myself to finish.
All my life I've been told to save for hard times. So all my life I've saved for harder times to come. But no matter how hard times got, it has never been hard enough to use or re-use all the worn-out, broken junk I've saved. I finally realized that the hard times come when you try to clean around it, keep track of it, or move to another house.
Storage units are the ghost towns of clutter, a testimony of shame. Why do people store things in another place? Because they aren't using them!
I can't and don't want to pass judgment on your books because you can do it perfectly well if you'll be 100 percent honest with yourself: you wouldn't read many of the books on your shelves if you were trapped with them on a desert island. [Amen!!!]
If all of us honestly reflected back in on our lives to the time of greatest satisfaction and enjoyment, when everything seemed to vibrate with feeling and freedom, it was when life was simplest.

Letters of C.S. Lewis

2012-01-21T11:15:00.001-08:00

I have some books to talk about. The first one is Letters of C.S. Lewis (1966). I'll quote the bits that jumped out at me:

The real Oxford is a close corporation of jolly, untidy, lazy, good-for-nothing, humorous old men, who have been electing their successors since the world began and who intend to go on with it. (This was from a letter of 1921, when Lewis was struggling to find a foothold at Oxford.)
[Macaulay] has the journalist's air of being a specialist in everything, of taking in all points of view, and being always on the side of the angels...
I am a man, therefore lazy; you a woman, therefore probably a fidget.
'Just what does a don do?' Like a woman, his work is never done. Taking 'tutorials' occupies the best part of his day, i.e. pupils come in pairs, read essays to him, then follows criticism, discussion etc.; then he gives public lectures on his own subject; takes his share in the business of managing the College; prepares his lectures and writes books; and in his spare time stands in queues.... (1948)
What is the point in keeping in touch with the contemporary scene? Why shd. one read authors one doesn't like because they happen to be alive at the same time as oneself? (1951)
It isn't chiefly men that I am kept in touch with by my huge mail: it is women. The female, happy or unhappy, agreeing or disagreeing, is by nature a much more epistolary animal than the male. (1952)
I have just finished Vol. I of Henry James' letters. An interesting man, tho' a dreadful prig; but he did appreciate Stevenson. A phantasmal man, who had never known God, or earth, or war, never done a day's compelled work, never had to earn a living, had no home and no duties....

I can't quote every passage I marked, but this is a really superb book, put together from Lewis's correspondence by his brother W.H. Lewis after Lewis's death.

Squirrels?

2012-01-20T18:12:00.000-08:00

We saw our third roofer this morning. He leans toward total replacement, but also toward a composition roof (a metal roof would be much more expensive). I'm relieved to hear that it's not totally irresponsible to go with a composition roof. The roofer made a guess about the siding damage that seems increasingly likely--he thinks it's squirrels. The more I think about it, the more likely it sounds. The damaged areas are exactly where you would expect from a squirrel sitting on the roof and gnawing away at the siding it can reach from there. Hopefully, they haven't broken through and moved into the attic.

My husband has been looking at these.

At this point, we're waiting for the rest of the estimates to come in and then we'll give the sellers a summary of the estimates and some photographs of exterior damage. We need to do a contract soon after that, followed by a general inspection, HVAC/plumbing inspection and a termite inspection. My dad also suggests talking to the bank and a real estate attorney in the near future.

Escape from ballet

2012-01-18T19:07:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

C wants to go back to ballet, so my husband did the forms for the ballet class that meets after school. We have some history with that ballet program, but the location is so convenient (it's at the kids' school) that I yielded to temptation. It was an automated online form. After realizing that we had been billed five (!) times for the January costume/performance fee, we emailed the head of the ballet school. She emailed back, explaining that because of C's age, the costume/performance fee would be $2 more expensive per month ($31.50, not $29.50) and because there are no girls C's age in the current class, we would need to pay for a private lesson ($65 per month, not $50 per month). As I told my dad, signing up with this ballet school is like becoming a Scientologist. We bailed, my husband asked for a refund ($197.50 already) and we're hoping to get our money back. I'm not going back, and if I do, please stop me. (The head of the school suggested we try a different location, which would eliminate the need for a private lesson, but if we're going with a different location, we might as well go with a ballet school where the head isn't widely referred to as "the Ballet Nazi.")
We've met with 2 of our 3 roofers, have gotten one full set of estimates (for roof repair, roof replacement, siding repair and exterior painting), and the home insurance agent looked at the roof and said the shingles are 30-year shingles and the roof is probably insurable with repairs. We may yet escape without needing to do an immediate roof replacement.

Toy trade

2012-01-12T12:59:00.001-08:00

I'm trying to look around and figure out what possessions we have should go to friends. I sent an email to a friend this morning and took over some books, a dusty toy kitchen and some toy food. She in turn gave me a toy accordion that scares her kid. Woo hoo! C is going to love the accordion. I also have some Dora bedding I'm unsuccessfully trying to place. C is so over Dora.

First roof estimate

2012-01-12T12:55:00.000-08:00

We saw our first roofer this afternoon. He thinks it's a matter of repair at this point, not replacement. That's very good. It also looks like there are some non-roof exterior areas that will need repair in the near future.

Two more roof estimates to go.

roofers

2012-01-10T08:51:00.000-08:00

As of this morning, I now have three roofers scheduled to do an estimate on the house we want to buy.

Women's bookstore

2012-01-07T16:56:00.000-08:00

I mentioned at dinner that my husband and I are watching Portlandia, and that there was a skit set at a women's bookstore. The kids were puzzled at the idea of a women's bookstore. I explained that some people believe that women have not been given a fair chance by men, society, etc., and they feel that there need to be special bookstores for women. C seemed to think this was a good idea, but she wasn't entirely clear on the concept.

C: So what do they stock? House magazines?

My husband mentioned that there might be biographies of women, for instance women pilots.

D: How about biographies of good house-pickers?

Commute

2012-01-07T09:19:00.001-08:00

I was just Google-mapping the route from our proposed apartment complex to school. It's 2 blocks. That is really good--were it not for the space issues, we might never leave. (The plan is to live there for one year.)

Our current rental house is about 2000 sq. ft. The apartment I'm looking at is 1169 sq. ft. and the house we want to buy is 2900 sq. ft. We are going to have square footage whiplash before this is over.

I'm going to have to do some measuring and plotting to figure out what we can move into the apartment with without feeling like we're living on A&E's Hoarders. The bedroom count will be the same as what we have now, but the kitchen is smaller, there's no separate dining room and there's no second living area (i.e. our library/office) and there's no garage. My spatial skills are at best average, but now that I think of it, I should mostly focus on those shared rooms when figuring out what to get rid of and what to put into storage. The bedrooms can probably go just as they are.

I also need to remember that there are such things as hotels and we can stay a night or two until our new home becomes habitable.

C is getting excited about the fact that the apartment complex has a pool.

Glockenspiel

2012-01-07T08:31:00.000-08:00

My husband and D have completed their copper pipe glockenspiel project. (What is the difference between a glockenspiel and a xylophone? The xylophone traditionally has wooden keys, while the glockenspiel has metal keys.) As they learned during the project, there's a lot more to it than just sticking a bunch of pipes together--they have to be precisely the correct length and they have to be attached correctly, or the music will suffer.

I'm not a musician, but I think it sounds fantastic! It sounds like an actual musical instrument, not a haphazardly arranged collection of plumbing equipment.

C's embroidery

2012-01-07T07:04:00.000-08:00

I got 24 sheets of variously colored felt for a project for C. C hasn't started the project, but she's been doing embroidery. Yesterday she finished a rather nice embroidered picture of a fat orange cat with green eyes sitting on a fringed red rug on a white sheet of felt.

C is warming up to the idea of apartment living.

End of vacation

2012-01-06T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

My husband is watching a goofy French spy comedy, OSS 117: Lost in Rio (2009). It's the 1960s and the hero, a chauvinistic totally un-PC French spy is partnered with a red-haired Mossad colonel. They are, naturally, hunting an escaped Nazi in Brazil. There are some jokes that are a little flat (we get it, he's racist, sexist, blah, blah, blah), but it's a very fun movie that lovingly recreates the feel of 1960s spy movies.
The cafeteria opened yesterday. Yay!
I went to the gym this evening and (after a long delay) got back to my LOTR audiobook. The four hobbits are staying with Tom Bombadil. I did 1.5 miles.
In house news, I have all of my inspectors and roofers collected, and now I am waiting to hear back from the homeowners for directions to how to proceed.
C said, "I don't want to live in an apartment!"
There's a new listing in the older neighborhood I watch. I got really excited at first at the price ($138k!), but eventually realized that it is the decaying pink stucco nightmare that's one empty lot away from a major thoroughfare. Meanwhile, today my neighbors were supposed to have the official inspection for the fixer-upper that they are interested in (listed at $124k, but they were trying to get it for significantly less).

meBoard

2012-01-06T18:49:00.000-08:00

I just made an interesting discovery in the living room. The object is about 4" by 5" and consists of a black foam layer covered with a sheet of black paper and then topped with a sheet of paper representing a screen. The screen has the following menu items:

Games Good
files
science
Apps
math 1+1
Books

C and my husband tell me that D (age 6) made this item, which is supposed to be a computer tablet, and he calls it a "meBoard." One of the interesting things about this is that although we have lots of electronics at home (phones, PDAs, a media player, laptops, desktop, two Kindles, etc.--an exact count is impossible) we do not have any Apple products and certainly no iPad. So, I have no idea where D got this idea from.

House offer

2012-01-04T00:08:00.000-08:00

We just made a $240k offer on a house that was for sale for $285k this past spring and are now waiting to hear back from the homeowners.

C's activities

2012-01-03T20:39:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what C has been doing:

When we were at the grocery store, she picked out a set of Crayola markers meant for use on glass. Since we got home, she has been decorating the French doors in the living room. Each pane is like a separate picture, so it's a nice format. C has been using this Doodle Stitching embroidery idea book for inspiration for her pictures.
C is much more interested in big fat classics now that she has her Christmas Kindle. She just finished Gulliver's Travels and A Little Princess and is reading Heidi now. My husband is reading her The Black Arrow. Note the uncharacteristic turn toward girl books.

Crepes

2012-01-01T16:19:00.000-08:00

C and I took a spin around the neighborhood on our bikes. I'd thought of doing this before, but had somehow not gotten around to it. There's a big, green central island and a big loop of road, with a couple dozen houses turned toward the central island. It's a very pleasant ride and because of the break, not a car was stirring. D was running around on the island.

Meanwhile, my husband was getting dinner started. He made some nice thin Polish crepes, mixed up a ricotta/sugar/cinnamon/nutmeg/cardamon filling and cooked it and heated up a can of cherry pie filling. D was dubious about the cheese filling. The rest of us had crepes with the cheese filling, cherry pie filling and various jams and syrups.

For these home-cooked dinners, I've been using my new(ish) blue and white Spode plates (I own all twelve of these plates, but no cups).

New Year's Eve II

2011-12-31T18:34:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to figure out (by ear) whether the popping sound I hear is celebratory New Year's Eve fireworks or gunfire.

New Year's Eve

2011-12-31T18:07:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's been happening:

Work continues on a copper pipe xylophone/glockenspiel type thing. I can hear C tapping out "Ode to Joy" and "Hot Cross Buns" in the other room.
There was a good deal at the roller skating rink today ($5 for admission and skate rental). We took the kids and my husband skated and I popped out to Barnes & Noble. The rink was handing out New Year's and party paraphernalia (plastic leis, noise makers, New Year's Eve crowns) and there was a raffle. We won a t-shirt and a free admission to the rink. The kids were hoping for cotton candy.
After the rink, I made a quick run to the grocery store for emergency food supplies (milk, eggs, instant oatmeal, etc.) for the weekend.
At home, I quickly put rice in the rice cooker, cooked veggies and reheated the massaman curry I made two days ago. When I first made it, the little red potatoes were kind of waxy in texture, but by today, they were just right. My husband and D asked for seconds.
C seems a little bit under the weather. We'll keep an eye on her.
Our neighbors who have to move early are looking hard at the $124k fixer house in the older neighborhood that I watch. They have three months to get out of their house. We have six.
There's lots of demolition and mysterious ripping up of road bed going on near our neighborhood.

Galleria

2011-12-30T19:30:00.000-08:00

We got some generous Christmas checks from my parents and grandparents and it was decided that we would spend some of it on an ice skating outing at the Galleria. On reflection, my husband thought we could add a visit to the Frisco IKEA to make the trip more worthwhile. Here's how the day went:

We left home in the morning and drove to the Frisco IKEA, arriving at lunch time. We had lunch at IKEA (kids' meals were free today) and checked the kids into Smalland. C is 1/4 inch away from no longer being eligible for Smalland, poor thing. My husband hung out nearby and amused himself. I took a brisk walk through IKEA and then had enough time to do a walk-through of about 4 or 5 nearby home furnishings stores. There was one home accessories store (in a very heavy, ornate style) that had for sale (I'm not making this up) a sort of throw with a fake mink underside (I had to touch it to see if it was real or fake).
I went back to IKEA and found that my husband had already picked the kids up from Smalland. We went by the IKEA food shop and got coffee for me (IKEA only has half and half as creamer, no milk--that's European living for you), two packs of star and heart gingerbread cookies, one jar of orange and elderflower marmalade and one chocolate hazelnut bar.
I'm partly Swedish, and our regular pilgrimages to IKEA are my main gesture of ethnic pride.
I heard a lot of funny remarks at IKEA from shoppers, but I can't do justice to all of them. There was a tween boy pointing out to his mom that for some reason, it takes an hour to buy a bench. His mom said something like, do you have some sort of urgent engagement that you're rushing off to? I also heard a guy telling another guy that he used to count pregnant women at IKEA just for fun. He'd get up to 25 without any problem. I didn't see that many pregnant ladies at IKEA today, perhaps because those women already had their babies. It was like bring-your-baby-to-IKEA day
Our next stop was the Galleria. We lined up, paid, got skates for my husband and the kids, and then spent what must have been half an hour trying to find skates that didn't hurt D's feet. After trying a size 13, another size 13 and then a size 1 with little success, I finally told D to just skate until his feet hurt too much to skate and then stop. As it happened, D skated and skated and was just fine.
My husband and the kids skated and I walked through nearly the whole mall, returning occasionally to the rink to provide gingerbread cookies and a water bottle refill. This is going to sound a little wimpy, but it was real exercise. It's a huge place.
I think C was staying on her feet pretty well from the beginning and D got there by the end of the skate session.
There are ice skating lessons at the Galleria, of course. It's kind of a bummer that we live hours from the Galleria, but I suppose it's not one of life's necessities. We have talked about doing an overnight trip to the area and working in two consecutive days of skating, and maybe doing a lesson. That would be nice.
We listened to Mark Twain stories in the car. The $30,000 Bequest isn't bad, but let me be the first (???) to say that Mark Twain was a bit of a hack.
We got home to find a Christmas package with three Trekkie-themed t-shirts with the following messages: When I grow up, I want to go to Starfleet, Resistance is futile and then an even nerdier shirt that says Resistance is not futile, it's voltage divided by current. I kind of imagine that at some point, my husband and the kids will all wear their t-shirts to watch Star Trek.
So tired!

Massaman beef

2011-12-29T10:45:00.000-08:00

I just put this in the slow cooker--it's a Muslim-influenced peanuty Thai curry with beef and potatoes, essentially a beef stew. I thought better of using curry powder (especially after sniffing mine and finding it dusty and unfragrant), so I substituted some cinnamon-y garam masala. Then, after I'd gotten everything in the slow cooker and cleaned up, I remembered that I do in fact have a large unopened tub of Thai masman curry paste, which is more in the spirit of the recipe.

The prep time for the Massaman beef was very fast (especially since I was using dry minced onion and garlic). I am curious to see how it will turn out. We're going to have to wait a bit. When shopping yesterday, I didn't realize that both packs of meat I bought were due to expire today, so I'm going to be cooking two dinners today. The meat and potatoes in the Massaman curry will probably be better for the wait, although the coconut milk in the curry will probably separate in the fridge. It will be good, though.

The cafeterias reopen in a week. I think we can make it.

Not anemic

2011-12-27T09:49:00.001-08:00

All my hard work (pill popping and beef eating) has paid off--I saw my doctor this morning and my blood work is good. I'm not anemic and I can ditch my SlowFe iron pills!

Early move

2011-12-26T10:56:00.001-08:00

I just talked to our long-time neighbor from two doors down. They were told just before Christmas that they and another set of neighbors will need to be out early, namely by the end of March. The other house is just one away from us, so we are lucky not to be moved out early ourselves. The issue is that the college needs to put down some utility lines to the new student housing development a block or two away from us, and the lines need to run through our neighborhood right through where are neighbors' houses are now.

We need a house.

Is the 30 year fixed mortgage safe?

2011-12-26T08:41:00.001-08:00

I was just reading this article in Bloomberg, which questions the 30 year fixed mortgage and its role in the US economy. Here are some problems with the 30 year fixed mortgage:

It is federally subsidized.
It amortizes slowly, "exposing homeowners to years of unnecessary default risk."
The 30 year fixed mortgage has been involved in two federal bailouts in the last 20 years.
The 30 year mortgage has the potential to wreak yet more havoc in future. The author critiques the "closed system" in which the government subsidizes the issuing of these loans, while also taking on itself the burden of dealing with any of these loans that turn bad.

This article is a useful corrective, because people do tend to think of the 30 year mortgage as being as safe and as American as apple pie.

Christmas

2011-12-25T18:56:00.001-08:00

Here's some of what we've been doing:

My husband brought in our last-minute tree on Christmas Eve and the kids did much of the decorating.
We did the traditional Polish wishes with oplatek (oh-pwah-tek). D was especially detailed. I can't remembered what he wished his father (success with writing apps?), but he wished me that I would manage to catch up with my email. D is a very observant child.
For Christmas Eve, we had baked salmon (in foil packets with lime juice and rosemary sprigs) and bread pudding with dried cranberries and orange peel and ground cardamon (the cardamon was not as pronounced as last time--not sure what happened). We had a mishap with our two ovens and the bread pudding got turned off. I was so sincerely convinced that I hadn't turned it off that I volunteered to taste it to see how much it had cooked. The answer, unfortunately, was not at all. It finished cooking and the kids didn't like the bread pudding, so my husband and I had it all to ourselves.
We opened presents while waiting for the bread pudding to finish baking. D is very fond of (indeed inseparable from) his new digital watch, although he is now worrying about the fact that different clocks in our home give different times. Both kids have new calendars. In fact, C has two--one a freebie religious art calendar from church, one a $2.50 horse calendar from the grocery store. D has an Audobon calendar. I need to remember to write down important dates for D. C has a new Kindle. The kids also got a LEGO Mindstorm kit from their grandparents' Christmas checks. My husband has new roller blades that we are hoping to try out tomorrow at the skating rink and I got him a couple of Dirk Gently stories by Douglas Adams. I have a supply of rose soap and other rose-scented bath stuff and my new Kindle Fire. C is a bit miffed at the shortage of actual toys under the tree, but I see that she is enjoying the horse and pony encyclopedia we got her, as well as the Calvin and Hobbes treasury we got D. C is also enjoying the animal drawing book from us and the drawing book and sketching set from Auntie K.
It has been raining drearily for days now--just like home in Washington State.
This morning, the kids did the first project in the LEGO Mindstorm kit. LEGO Mindstorm is part LEGO, part robotics, part beginner programming. The first project is one where you make a robot that you then use a remote control on. There are endless variations. Currently, the kids (especially C) are working on a crocodile that snaps its jaws when anything comes within a certain range of it. Mindstorm is rated for kids 10 and up, but it seems about right for C, who is 9.5. (If you are interested in this sort of thing for your kids, sit down and brace yourself before checking the price--it's really expensive.)
The cafeterias are closed until the beginning of January, but thanks to the nice people at Patak curries, my kids believe I am an amazing cook. It was very lucky we had the foresight to mail order a supply of Patak curries before the cafeterias closed.
For Christmas dinner, we had tikka masala curry with chicken and kidney beans, rice and broccoli. For dessert, my husband had made a pumpkin pie with the kids (store crust).
My husband and I have started watching Anne of the Thousand Days. I read a couple of Tudor biographies back in high school, but I was reviewing the Wikipedia articles on the six wives of Henry VIII and on Anne Boleyn to freshen up. I particularly wanted to know if the adultery case against Anne was well-founded. Current scholarship says, no, it wasn't.

D on Monopods

2011-12-25T07:16:00.001-08:00

D says: A standing-on-one-leg contest would probably be won by a Monopod!

Not very Christmas-y

2011-12-25T06:26:00.001-08:00

This isn't very Christmas-y, but I still have to post it: School accused of putting autistic student in bag. Fortunately, the 9-year-old child's mother had been called to school to pick him up, so she was able to get him out.

In Kentucky, there are no laws on using restraint or seclusion in public schools, according to documents on the state Department of Education's website.

A July letter from the state agency to special education directors said the state had investigated two informal complaints this year.

In one, "a student (was) nearly asphyxiated while being restrained," and in the other, a student vomited from panic attacks after spending most of an academic year "confined to a closet, with no ventilation or outside source of light," according to the letter.

Needless to say, poorly used or ad hoc restraint methods can be very dangerous (indeed fatal), so there's a lot of legislative activity to get schools to stop using dangerous or cruel restraint and seclusion practices.

Pleo's birthday

2011-12-24T10:21:00.000-08:00

C (to robotic dinosaur): Happy birthday, Pleo!

Christmas card

2011-12-23T10:23:00.000-08:00

We got the cutest Christmas card from a 1st grade classmate of D's. It is written as if by the classmate, and it talks about how he had been praying for a brother or sister since he was 2, how many years he kept praying, almost giving up when he was 5, and how he finally got a baby sister when he was 6. (He figured that his initial prayers hadn't worked, because he had been praying for an older brother or sister, and as his parents eventually explained, that is not how it works.) Anyway, it's a three hanky Christmas letter, so sad and so happy all at the same time.

I had my blood draw for my blood count for my anemia yesterday (I've been counting down to this more eagerly than to Christmas). I've been working on my anemia for about five weeks now, and I see my doctor to talk about my results a couple days after Christmas. Is it very wrong to be more interested in this than Christmas?

Cookie houses

2011-12-23T10:15:00.000-08:00

We were supposed to make cookie houses at our house with friends on Monday, but D's illness led to a cancellation and delays. Finally, this morning, we were able to host a cookie house-making party with a sister and brother who are classmates and friends of C and D. The cookie houses (with reminders from C) have become a Christmas tradition at our house. I should have bought fig bars (they're ideal for the roofs), but we did OK with vanilla wafers (perfect for building walls), vanilla frosting (good mortar), Christmas-themed Pepperidge Farm Chessmen (makes a good door), oreos for the roof, animal crackers and gum drops for the fence and chimney. Oh, and we had a couple different kinds of sprinkles. I sent our guests' house home with them and our cookie house is sitting gloriously on my dining room table. So cute! It will be very yummy with tea.

Arabian Nights

2011-12-21T18:48:00.001-08:00

C is reading a version of the Arabian Nights on her Kindle.

Cowboy boots

2011-12-21T16:17:00.000-08:00

I'm hoping this is the last day of D's convalescence. He occasionally complains of tummy, but he looks better, sounds better, and his energy level is very good. He had the same food as everybody else for dinner and nothing bad happened. Yay!

This afternoon, C and I drove to Cavender's Boot City (the Western store) and we did some shopping with the Christmas money C's Washington grandparents sent. We got C a pair of blunt-toed pink cowboy boots (size 3.5) and a bright pink sparkly cowgirl shirt (size small) from the women's section. This is the first time I've knowingly shopped for C from the women's section and both that and the new boots feel like a rite of passage. The boots are very cute. If we'd been able to find the right size, we would have just gotten brown boots and passed them down to D when the time came, but unfortunately, there weren't any cute brown boots in the correct size. It's not exactly a cheap store, but I really like a lot of the cowgirl shirts in the women's section, even the sparkly ones. C LOVES sparkly stuff. In fact, when we made a quick trip to Michael's (which is on the same plaza), she purchased some gold ribbon (on sale) and some rhinestones ($4.09 total, paid out of C's personal funds). By the time we got home, the rhinestones had been neatly installed on her purse.

At home, C passed her old brown cowboy boots down to D and the kids played cowboy for a while. They have a stick horse, cowboy hats and boots, so they are well-equipped.

C remains inseparable from her new Kindle.

Kindle

2011-12-20T18:27:00.000-08:00

D seems to have fewer tummy bug symptoms, but was still complaining of pain much of the day. I am tentatively hoping to pick up the threads of my social life some time tomorrow. I also hope to do a couple of outings with C tomorrow.

When we woke up at 6:30 this morning, we discovered that our water was totally cut off. I wasn't able to raise anybody on the facilities emergency line or the property management office, but later in the morning, I learned that a water main had broken, leaving ourselves, most of our neighbors, and part of campus waterless. Fortunately, our laundry and dishes were caught up and the outage didn't catch us with the big pile of sick bed laundry that I spent much of yesterday working my way through. We also had 5 gallons of emergency water on hand, which wouldn't have been enough to get us through a real emergency, but was more than enough to get through a morning and part of an afternoon, especially since the incident being a very local one, we could readily buy water at the store without fear that the store would run out. When I took a walk this afternoon, I was surprised (but very happy) to see three fire hydrants, totally open, gushing water--the water was finally back.

It's been a dull three days for C with D being sick. This evening, I suggested to my husband that we should give C an early Christmas present--namely the Kindle Touch that C's grandma got her (thanks!). I was concerned that C wouldn't take to it, but my husband had it loaded with a number of free classics, plus two books we paid for (a Redwall book and Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents). I pried C away from the Kindle to take a bath just now, but she's been inseparable from it ever since my husband handed it to her. I meanwhile, am not quite as inseparable from my new Kindle Fire, but I have been enjoying the apparent magic of being able to buy a Kindle book on my netbook and have it appear almost instantly on my Kindle. I have read books on the PDA in the past and listened to audiobooks on a PDA or on my phone, but given my level of technical skill, I've been dependent on my husband to move stuff around for me (to get it off librivox and onto the PDA or phone), and the devices I use have been very crash-y. To be able to do this all myself, and with the touch of a few buttons, is a totally new sensation. (We bought the Kindle Fire primarily for me to use at the gym and the gym is closed now, so it really won't come into its own until the beginning of January.)

D is sick

2011-12-19T18:33:00.000-08:00

We got D into the pediatrician's office first thing this morning and then spent the whole morning eliminating possibilities. The doctor's explanation was so involved that I asked her to write up the possibilities. She wrote up a quick flow chart that I found very helpful. (I think there are few more important skills than being able to tell a doctor that you don't understand what they are saying, rather than just nodding along as they go waa-waa-waa-waa) We spent the morning working our way through the flow chart. Various options (including appendicitis) were eliminated and finally we were left with the most humdrum of options, the tummy bug. It still might be something else (like salmonella), but if D's symptoms improve rather than intensifying, it's probably the tummy bug. I'm not saying "just the tummy bug," because the work involved in dealing with a stomach virus is quite substantial, from laundry to carpet cleaning.

I visited one of our hotsy totsy HEBs to collect convalescent diet items for D. The pediatrician had recommended bananas, ramen noodles, bread, rice, Gatorade and ginger ale and I got a lot of those items, as well as provisions for dinners at home. With the cafeterias closed, we are thrown on our own resources. Fortunately, those resources include couscous and Patak Indian sauces.

Christmas break

2011-12-18T18:13:00.000-08:00

The kids are out of school now. D has had some mysterious symptoms for over day with fever (up to 104, but mostly under control), sleepiness and tummy pain that comes and goes. I talked to the afterhours pediatric helpline this evening and was supposed to check back with them (they wanted to know what happens when D does jumping jacks), but they didn't return my page before D's bedtime. His tummy pain is gone right now, so that's less worrisome.

The cafeteria and gym and the campus Starbucks are closed, but the independent coffee place will be open until December 23. I think everything reopens around January 3. So I can't really properly appreciate my new Kindle Fire for another two weeks.

In other news, I may have a nanny gig for the fall.

C at work

2011-12-18T18:11:00.000-08:00

C was working on cutting out and coloring the illustrations from our Advent chain. It's a paper chain where you tear off and read a Bible verse for each day of Advent.

C said (to her dad): I hate behind on my work. Don't you?

LEGO

2011-12-12T20:24:00.000-08:00

D made a combination crocodile/cobra from LEGO. I think he calls it the "crocobra."

Nebuchadnezzar

2011-12-11T16:23:00.000-08:00

C got 4 bonus points on her spelling test for spelling "Nebuchadnezzar" correctly.

Pot holders

2011-12-11T14:13:00.001-08:00

D suggests using pot holders as Christmas tree decorations.

Tudor III

2011-12-10T12:20:00.000-08:00

This morning, I got an owner-guided tour of the 2750 sq. ft. 1920s brick tudor home that is for-sale-by-owner at $255k. Here are some impressions:

Super interior location, little to no traffic noise.
Very nice curb appeal.
Outside there's a carport with guest room and half bath.
On the first floor, there's a living room, large dining room, kitchen (original cabinets, stainless steel counters, new slate floor), breakfast nook, half bath, and a very small sunroom type thing.
A family of 7 lived there until recently, so everything is serviceable, but it's not a showplace. Looking around, I think you'd probably want something like $40k for painting, refinishing floors, and dealing with miscellaneous issues. That sounds like a lot, but it's such a big house that I think it really would take that much to shine it up.
On the second floor, there are three large bedrooms, a nursery/study off the MBR, and two small shared baths.
On the attic level, there is an unfinished traditional attic space, a large seasonal storage closet, and a small finished room, suitable for office or bedroom. However, the steep attic stairs and the lack of a bath on that level make it difficult to figure out a good use for the office/bedroom.
There are lots of built-ins.
There's a basement (ideal for tornado shelter, I was told).
The construction is pier-and-beam.
The roof is slate, and was just replaced after this February's storm. The roof that was damaged was the house's original roof, and the replacement (which was fortunately covered by insurance) cost $41k. It will hopefully last 100 years.
All in all, it's an extremely spacious house, with a room for just about everything. Setting aside the fact that the master bedroom has no master bath, the floor plan is very good for a house of this era. It's a big house, and practically all of it is usable space, which is not at all the case with every home of this size.
I still want a house near campus, but if that isn't possible, this is an option (at a different price).

Bread pudding

2011-12-09T19:56:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's been happening:

D mysteriously started getting red blotches all over his body yesterday. Our pediatrician's office has new extended evening hours (Hallelujah!), so all went in last night for a 6 PM appointment. D was dosed and the splotches duly began to disappear.
Tonight at bedtime, C said, "My hopes have been thrown into a shark pit." I think that had something to do with the big pile of letter stickers she needed to clean up.
We went to the Christmas graduate potluck tonight. Both C and I wound up accidentally locking ourselves in the vintage 1920s (?) bathroom, apparently a common occurrence. There were smoked turkey, candied jalapenos, handmade caramels and various holiday fare. We brought bread pudding, based on the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. My husband made whole wheat bread the night before to go in it and we did a variant of the recipe with 1/2 rum flavoring and 1/2 vanilla extract, orange zest, cranberries and ground cardamon (at least 50% more than the recipe said). My husband nearly put in coriander rather than ground cardamon, but was saved just in time. We didn't do the whiskey sauce. Anyway, the bread pudding was a very successful contribution--namely there weren't any leftovers to bring home. We have noted over the years that bread pudding is somehow a deeply collegiate food. The quality of a college's bread pudding says much about its academic excellence. We should probably try it again during Christmas break.

St. Nicholas

2011-12-06T06:27:00.000-08:00

Today is St. Nicholas's Day. We don't always remember to do something for St. Nicholas's, but this year, we did. With input from the kids, I ordered C a pair of pink rubber boots and D some blue gummy bear slippers (like these except not red). (These happen to be the footwear items each child needed.) Then, I discreetly collected them from the mail (an important skill this time of year), held on to them, and then last night before going to bed, my husband and I put each pair of footwear in front of the appropriate child's door, complete with a large bar of Hershey's Special Dark.

D was ecstatic this morning and very pleased. He has been wearing too-small bear slippers for some time. I would have liked to get him more traditional brown bear slippers, but it was surprisingly difficult to find even the blue gummy slippers in his size. C was less excited about her new pink boots, but the bar of chocolate may eventually wind up being used in a moldable chocolate recipe (if we don't just order readymade moldable chocolate).

Sherlock

2011-12-05T10:55:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's been happening:

My husband printed out an advent chain (from a friend's design) and each day, a child rips off a paper chain link, reads a Bible verse, colors the picture, and then we stow it away for later use as a Christmas tree decoration.
I Tilexed the bath grout this morning (to little effect), defuzzed the laundry area and started hand washing a wool sweater.
We've finished up all the P.D. James Adam Dalgleish series on Netflix. They tend to be 6 episodes long (with strategically timed murders), so you really get into them. And now there aren't any more.
The good news is that the new BBC Sherlock is very, very good--or at least the first episode we saw was. The idea is a Sherlock Holmes set in 21st century London, and it really does work. (For a more traditional version, see Granada Television's Adventures of Sherlock Holmes with Jeremy Brett.)
D has a fresh batch of rocks in the rock tumbler. That's a four week project.
The kids have two more weeks of school.

Tudor II

2011-12-04T12:34:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to book a showing of the 1920s 4/3 brick Tudor FSBO home that recently appeared for sale. Just today, it dropped from $275k to $255k. The location is super.

Roller skates

2011-12-03T20:08:00.000-08:00

Today was a big errands day. Here's what we did:

bought gasoline
got me a flu shot and yet more iron pills (this should have happened earlier, but I kept getting sniffles)
unsuccessfully scoured the city for size 13 men's inline skates for my husband
bought a few basic clothing items at Walmart
made an unsuccessful visit to Lowes
had lunch at Pei Wei
kept looking for skates
got Chik-fil-a peppermint chocolate chip shakes at the mall (very good--totally recommend)
went home.

We did find a couple pairs of size 13 inline skates, but nothing that fit well. The rental skates at the skating rink don't fit him well either, which is why we are considering buying. My husband may order a well-reviewed pair from Amazon. By the way, sell your Sports Authority stock (if any)--it was practically deserted on a day when every other store we visited was mobbed with people.

The kids did homework and C finished a book report.

Tudor

2011-11-28T10:27:00.000-08:00

There's a 1920s Tudor for-sale-by-owner that just appeared on the market today. I question a few of the renovation choices (a somewhat too industrial kitchen with white cabinets, grey slate floor and lots of stainless steel as well as some iffy paint choices elsewhere), but that's mainly quibbles. It's 4BR/2.5BA (good), 2500 (or maybe 2700?) sq. ft. (good) and is currently priced at $275k (bad). The location is just about ideal. It doesn't look like anybody is living there. I've written the owner to get a showing. The floorplan will make a big difference (the last big house of this vintage I saw was impressive, but had a very choppy upstairs floorplan). The price is out of our range, but we can always make a low offer. The worst thing they can do is say no.

Lewis Carroll

2011-11-25T06:26:00.000-08:00

D says: I bet there's a mirror store called Through the Looking Glass.

Thanksgiving

2011-11-24T17:04:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's been happening:

My husband and the kids made a pecan pie this morning (the crust was store-bought). Their recipe involves dark corn syrup and a lot of rum flavoring and produces a very rich pie.
After a couple days of feeling pretty good, I was feeling weak this morning, so I directed dinner preparations from my chair in the dining room. My husband cooked turkey (smoked turkey breast--a nice solution for Thanksgiving for four), sweet potatoes, Stovetop Stuffing and cranberry sauce (a whole berry recipe from the package). I served dinner (on my 10-inch blue-and-white Spode plates) and dessert (on my 8-inch Blue Willow salad/dessert/lunch plates) and supper (reheated Thanksgiving dinner). I also used my Delft tile trivets for dinner. We'll probably take a break Friday for fish sticks, but Saturday, we'll be back to Thanksgiving fare.
C has finished sewing and stuffing the big American Girl stuffed owl and is working on the small American Girl stuffed owl.
After some Star Trek: The Next Generation, my husband and the kids have been working on the kids' Electronic Playground.

Anemia update

2011-11-23T18:54:00.001-08:00

I forgot to mention that after just over a week of rest and iron supplementation and so forth, I'm feeling pretty good. I haven't really pushed it (no more than 15 minutes of walking at a time), but I can go about my normal business without shortness of breath or heart symptoms. I'll check in with my doctor's office after I finish my 30-day supply of iron pills to see if I need to keep going.

Before Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T18:38:00.000-08:00

The usual problem with Thanksgiving at home with the four of us is figuring out what to do with ourselves. Here's some of what's happening:

I got a Kumon handwriting workbook for D and a cursive workbook for C at Barnes and Noble this morning.
Also, D wanted to buy fabric, so we went to a quilt store and each child got a fat quarter from the $1.50 bin with their own money.
Later in the evening, we went to Michaels and I got a 20 oz. bag of stuffing. The kids are making and stuffing so many pillows that we ran out.
C's owl kit from American Girl arrived tonight and she is hard at work.
We did our pre-Thanksgiving grocery shopping tonight at a better HEB. After several years of wondering about it, I finally got several packs of Reynaldo's Mexican flan pudding. It's very interestingly egg-y. They also had pig heads for 89 cents per pound, but we passed on those.
This has been a very shop-y day, but we do need to be seriously prepared for four days more of holiday at home.

Bees

2011-11-22T16:30:00.001-08:00

I asked D what he wants to do with his giving money (currently at around $6). D says he wants to buy a beehive. I checked, and bees (or the equivalent) costs $30 at Heifer.

Sewing circle

2011-11-22T12:02:00.000-08:00

The kids have been spending much of the day on sewing projects. C is finishing a small stuffed dog (from this kit) while D is decorating and sewing a pillow. C has taught D everything he knows about sewing. C is determined to have D sign up for a sewing class with her this summer.

Real estate report

2011-11-22T06:30:00.000-08:00

Usually, the fall is a slow, slow time. Normally, a lot of houses disappear from the online listings, only to reappear in the spring. This fall, however, it's been different. I'm seeing a number of new listings, and people are hanging onto their listings into the fall (although they may yank the listings just before Thanksgiving).

I was just looking at realtor.com, and the stately two-story brick 2900 sq. ft. 4BR/2.5BA 1920s home that I saw with the kids a few weeks ago just fell from $250k to $230k. It's a beautiful home, but you can stand on the lawn and see a very busy street half a block away. Also, the upstairs floorplan is a bit muddled, and the presence of a window AC unit causes me some concern about the energy efficiency of the house. But, still--$230k!!! There's getting to be a band of houses in the low $200s ($230k, $220k (FSBO), $215k (FSBO), $204k and $200k), and then a smaller band in the high $100s ($178k, $170k and $170k).

I think it will be a very exciting spring.

Christmas tamales

2011-11-21T12:05:00.000-08:00

It has come to my attention that you can pre-order Christmas tamales from Rosa's Cafe Tortilla Factory, $11.59 per dozen. Now, I don't know if they are any good, but how very convenient!

Progress

2011-11-21T11:41:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

The kids get the whole week off for Thanksgiving.
My husband has a big day at work today, but he'll be free for the holiday starting tomorrow. Campus will be shutting down soon.
We finally got the car to the dealership for its 90k mile service today and we'll get it back tomorrow. Thanksgiving week turned out to be a surprisingly good time to get the car serviced.
C finished sewing a pillow with tassels at the corners. It's supposed to be for the living room. She accidentally left the edges rough.
C is saving up to get another American Girl sewing kit. There is currently a bear one for $8 and an owl one for $10--they must be on sale or something. She sewed two raccoon stuffed animals as part of a party favor.
D has been doing Disney's Dance Dance Revolution on the Wii.
I walked and the kids biked to and from Starbucks this morning. I had no huffing and puffing and almost no heart symptoms this time, so I take it that all those iron pills are starting to take effect. I think my color is better, too, definitely better than on Tuesday when my husband said I was greenish. I am thinking that this week, of all weeks, we shouldn't feel bad about eating out a bunch.

No West Coast trip

2011-11-18T17:42:00.001-08:00

On reflection, I have decided that it is unrealistic for me to think that two days from now, I can be hiking through airports with C and luggage and then spending a week of frenzied socializing in WA before trekking back. We canceled my and C's flights this morning and are going to get some cash credit.

Today was the kids' last day of school before their week-long Thanksgiving holiday. I went to D's class's Thanksgiving recitation (all the kids were dressed up either as Indians or Pilgrims), bringing a hot container of fish sticks as our contribution. I left just as the feast was beginning. I didn't make it to C's class party, but I did have a really good nap at home before picking up the kids from school.

Anemia

2011-11-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

I'm underway with my anemia-fighting program. I'm taking a bunch of iron, I'm endeavoring to take dairy far away from the iron and I'll try to drink orange juice. Calcium interferes with iron absorption and vitamin C helps it. In general, iron is very fussy, and everything you like interferes with absorbing iron, including caffeine. My research suggests that 3 to 6 weeks is enough to overcome anemia, although iron supplementation needs to continue for a while longer.

I feel a lot better than I did Tuesday morning. I'm actually perky, it's just that I need limit the amount of time I spend on my feet. About 15 minutes seems to be about right. My big exertions today were grocery shopping and walking to and from Starbucks, and that was probably too much. The main issue with the groceries is lifting stuff (my husband emptied the trunk, which helped). When I overdo it, my heart starts thumping more than normal and it feels like I'm walking up a steep hill, even though I'm just taking a short walk on a perfectly flat sidewalk. If I stay off my feet, I don't notice anything wrong.

My West Coast trip for Thanksgiving is still under review.

Tiger mom snoozes

2011-11-17T19:48:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

C got her first issue of National Wildlife today. It was a favorite of my childhood--my great-grandma had steamer trunks full of magazines, and National Wildlife and Smithsonian were my favorites.
I also got a preview of C's grades for the quarter. They range between 92 (for math) and 103 (for Latin). There's part of me that wants to go full Tiger Mom and ask, what happened with math?, particularly since C won a math competition at the state fair just over a month ago, but I am restraining myself.
We have been suffering temporary disappearances of uniform skirts and lunchboxes, and I am making inquiries into that. The last straw was when we got billed yesterday for C eating an office-provided lunch when I had packed a lunch, it disappeared at school (stuffed into the wrong cubby, I suspect), and then reappeared in time to go back home. I am contesting that bill, because I feel that I have carried out my side of the lunch compact.

Anemic

2011-11-15T18:03:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what's happening:

I had a bit of a scare this morning (early morning faintness--my husband said I looked greenish) and called the doctor's office at 5:30 AM (after calling 911 and then thinking better of it). I had an early morning appointment with my doctor, a blood test, and have been diagnosed as anemic. I have lots of pills to take but I'm not sure how quickly to expect results and I'm supposed to see my doctor in about 5 or 6 weeks. I feel short of breath like a too ambitiously corseted 19th century heroine and can only spend short stretches on my feet. I have travel plans for later this month, so I'm not sure how that is going to work (as my family's plans evolved, they came to involve me and C waiting at SeaTac for 4.75 hours for an auntie to fly in from Denver, and then to drive with her). This is all going to have to go under review. There are a number of options to consider, but I'm more than tempted to just bail on the whole thing.
In real estate news, the $220k mostly original 1900 sq. ft. 1930ish house that I saw recently has now been cut down to $200k. That is quite gratifying.

Four weeks of email

2011-11-14T20:48:00.000-08:00

Here's some of what has been happening:

I just dug out from four weeks of email. I had replied to a lot of stuff, but anything school-oriented or with dates and times, I hadn't answered. I have no idea how that happened, although my chest cold certainly helped.
D has finished reading the last Clifford phonics book. He is getting very fluent. The new math program continues to be a problem, though.
Our high today was about 83 degrees Fahrenheit. I was walking around the neighborhood at 8 PM and it was still 75 degrees.

D on books

2011-11-13T08:38:00.001-08:00

Surveying the many bookcases in the family library, D asked his dad if he had read all of the books. My husband replied that that had been under discussion and that there's a plan to thin down our book collection. D said, "I think you will find that you don't need a lot of them."

4th grade physics

2011-11-12T16:55:00.000-08:00

Here's some other stuff that has been happening:

Both kids were invited to a birthday party at the local rollerskating rink. D's invitation came first and then C was invited to keep the birthday boy's sister company. We got the birthday boy a raccoon Webkinz and Beyblades set. (As a public service, I should mention my technique for dealing with children's birthday parties. On getting an invitation, I immediately ask the mom what to get the child as a gift and then scrupulously follow those instructions. If there is no reply, we go to the party gift-less, but with clear consciences. I'm not going to get some child something he won't appreciate or already has a million of.)
I cleaned and vacuumed our car.
C's 4th grade science is getting serious. C is generally very good on the vocabulary type stuff, but occasionally has trouble with the actual problems. Here's a test problem C missed: "The formula for calculating work is Force X Distance = Work. How much work was done to move if Mr. M [the science teacher's husband] used 50 N of force to move a washing machine 10 feet." C added the 50 and the 10, I regret to say, but she fixed it at home. C missed the following problem from a worksheet (there's a picture of a car with both a rocket helping it forward and a a parachute holding it back): "A rocket applies an additional force of 10 Newtons to the 10 Newtons that are applied by the wheels. Add force arrows to the picture assuming that the parachute continues to apply 7 N of force in the opposite direction. What is the new combined force (net force) and direction?" This is probably the place to confess that while I have seen this sort of problem, it was in 11th grade.
As I've said before, 4th grade is hard.

Another $220k house

2011-11-12T08:38:00.000-08:00

I went to see a for sale by owner house this morning. Here we go:

It's one story, 2850 square feet, was built in the late 1940s, and has exactly 3 bedrooms and 2 full baths. To me, the floorplan feels more early 1950s than late 1940s, but I guess they were just ahead of their time. There's one bedroom with a huge closet, and the other two bedrooms have typical pre-1950s closets.
It's been listed for sale off and on for two years before going for-sale-by-owner. The price has gone from $240k to $220k.
The owner (a 60-something man) lives there by himself and wants to downsize.
The bedrooms are large, but otherwise nothing else in the house feels particularly large. I'm not sure how it adds up to 2850 square feet.
One bedroom has a big closet and a dressing area that could be converted into an office for my husband.
There are no "extra" rooms (no second living area), which is what I was expecting from such a big house.
The kitchen has a large pantry.
The house is 90% updated. The exception is one of the two bathrooms, which has regrettable green and brown tile and wallpaper. The rest of the house is fine as is.
The kitchen is quite nice (hand-carved corbels, white tile backsplash, island, etc.). There's a breakfast area off the kitchen with a washer and dryer hidden behind cabinets.
There's a formal dining room.
There's a medium-sized deck with jacuzzi, and outdoor speakers. Party!!! (Not sure that's exactly my style, but somebody will like it.)
There's no garage, but there's a car port and a small storage building. A previous owner used the small storage building as housing for their maid, although there isn't any plumbing (!!!). That's another possible office for my husband. There's still the question of workshop. I guess I should have asked to see the storage building to see what functions it would be most suitable for.
The landscaping isn't Versailles, but it's nice, and there are built-in planters attached to the front of the house. My grandparents' house in Washington has that, and I've always liked it.
The driveway desperately needs resurfacing. The way it is now, there's no way the kids could scooter safely on it.
This isn't a deal breaker, but this house has that now-extinct style of brick work where the mortar oozes out in big blobs.
The house is on an important (but not super busy) street. I'd ideally like something on a more interior street, but this one doesn't feel as busy as I thought it would. The only thing is, you wouldn't get much use out of the front yard.
There's enough square footage to work with that I think we could probably put in built-ins with a combination of cabinets and bookshelves.

What do I think? I would really prefer a 4th bedroom to having 3 bedrooms. It is a lot of house for the price, while not being the sort of all-too-common house where you can accidentally lose family members--it just doesn't have that rabbit hole feel to it. There's a 1920s cottage four blocks away for the same price that is 900 square feet smaller, but this is a lot more house for the money. We would not be offering $220k, though.

All in all, this house looks like a realistic option if nothing turns up near campus by the spring.

Apple muffins

2011-11-11T06:52:00.000-08:00

My husband made some delicious apple muffins. D liked them, except for the apple part. Similarly, D likes my husband's blueberry muffins, except for the blueberry part.

I was hoping for some variety, but it looks like we're going to be back to pumpkin muffins.

Christmas photobooks II

2011-11-09T20:04:00.001-08:00

We ordered the special big format photobook for my relative last night and picked up our nine freshly-printed photobooks this evening. So, that's a big chunk of Christmas done.

Today was more or less wasted. I've got a chest cold with a bit of nasal congestion and I decided to cancel my engagements for today and just take a sick day. Then I had a brief, unrelated TMI medical thing, got a last-minute doctor's appointment this afternoon (which required furious schedule juggling), and was ultimately pronounced quite well. On the one hand, I felt like the little boy who cried wolf, on the other hand, I didn't accidentally want to collect my Darwin Award. So, all is well that ends well. I may take another day off tomorrow. My email is very much in arrears.

Christmas photobooks

2011-11-08T10:19:00.000-08:00

November is upon us, so my husband and I have been working on the yearly photobook that we give to the adults in our family for Christmas. I always wonder if we have enough photos (because I personally don't take any), but we started with nearly 1500 raw photographs. Now, a lot of those were from the kids' digital cameras, especially D's. D documents almost every serious Zoob or LEGO or block project that he creates, so we devoted a couple of pages to the kids' projects. My husband and I whittled the photographs down to around 150 photographs (or something like that) and he worked on red eye and cropping. Then (after some shopping around) he uploaded the photographs to Walgreens and we worked on it much of yesterday evening, placing the order for eight 22-page photobooks right around midnight. We will do a one-off version (hopefully tonight) for a relative with some vision loss. Her copy will have fewer photos, but there will only be one picture per page. According to Walgreens, the first run of photobooks should be waiting for us at our local pharmacy this afternoon. We normally do this project over Thanksgiving weekend, but I'm going to be unavailable, so we needed to start earlier.

Japanese rice bowls

2011-11-07T12:24:00.000-08:00

As a follow-up to that last post on hoarding, I just got four new blue-and-white patterned Japanese rice bowls in the mail.

Secret Lives of Hoarders

2011-11-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

I've finished reading Matt Paxton's book The Secret Lives of Hoarders (2011). Paxton is an organizing expert on A&E's show Hoarders, the show where a team of experts and relatives go in to do an intervention with a hoarder. Here are some notes. Direct quotes will be in bold or in quotation marks.

Paxton describes a Stage 1 hoarder's home. "Their house was cluttered--but not the stereotypical place that one associates with classic hoarders like Margaret. There were piles of clothes, toys, papers, and mail that looked like someone meant to get to them a few weeks ago but had gotten distracted. The telltale sign of hoarders-in-training: The piles were in every room." That's really insightful and chilling.
Hoarding isn't about how much stuff a person has. It's about how we process things. Most people can easily make decisions about what to keep and what to toss or donate, and then they follow through. A hoarder can't.
Everyone has a junk drawer that holds odds and ends of stuff. When that junk drawer becomes a junk room, it's a signal that you are moving up to another stage. Or if a major appliance like a dishwasher or air conditioner hasn't been working for several months because it's difficult to get to it for repair, it is most definitely a sign of a Stage 2 hoarder.
A Stage 2 hoarder begins to withdraw from friends and family. As a substitute, he or she begins to acquire more things to fill that void, and the cycle continues in earnest. As the hoarder brings home more items, managing those takes priority over personal relationships. At this point, the hoarder begins to shift from embarrassment to justification, explaining why he or she "needs" the possessions.
Stage 3 hoarders are losing track of their personal care--bathing and haircutting aren't a priority. Because kitchens at this stage are often borderline functional, Stage 3 hoarders tend to eat food that's been cooked/reheated in the microwave oven or fast-food takeout. This almost always causes weight gain. For Stage 3 hoarders, physical activities are often limited.
The Stage 4 hoarder begins to retreat to a small area of livable space in the house--a "cockpit" where the hoarder spends most of his or her time. The hoarder probably doesn't do laundry...A hoarder at this stage may bathe at the sink or not at all. Hoarders have pretty much stopped following societal rules at this stage.
Margaret is a Stage 5 hoarder, which is as bad as it gets. There is major structural damage to the house, with severe mold, strong odors, bugs, rodents, and cobwebs taking over. Entire floors of the house might be completely blocked off. There are walls of clothes or other items in every room. The hoarder spends the entire day struggling to complete simple tasks like eating, sleeping, and going to the bathroom. Diet is generally limited to soft drinks and either fast food or now-expired generic brand food that was bought on sale.
Depression is often so severe for a Stage 5 hoarder that he or she struggles to get up each day. A hoarder at this stage is often confused, perhaps saving items for people who are no longer living. Hoarders at this stage don't leave the house, with the exception that some may move to their cars or a homeless shelter to sleep.
Like almost every hoarder with whom I've worked, Candace also showed signs of what I now know to be clinical depression...
Hoarders aren't slobs who don't care about being clean. They are people struggling with overwhelming emotional issues. A pile in a hoarder house isn't a pile of stuff; it can be many things: a pile of sadness, a pile of quitting, or sometimes even a pile of hope. It's never really about the stuff, hoarders are just confusing their possessions with their emotions.
Whatever the triggers that set off the hoarding may be, or whatever boundaries and limits with which the hoarders wrestle, almost every person I've worked with has been fixated either on the future or the past. It's so much easier than living in the present, because the present can be awfully depressing.
Researchers also know that hoarders often have other identifiable medical issues, including dementia, obsessive compulsive disorder, and depression. But they're still figuring out if the other diseases lead to hoarding or if hoarding triggers them.
Some experts argue that addicts never change their personalities; they just substitute healthy addictions for unhealthy ones.
Therapy is a critical part of staying clean for advanced hoarders...
Paxton urges hoarders to go off credit as part of their recovery.
I've always believed that a hoarder house is a house full of quitting. To make a change, the hoarder has to stop quitting and start trying.
Without professional follow-up therapy, up to 85 percent of serious hoarders will go right back into the behavior. Even with therapy, I see up to half of late-stage hoarders slip back into it.
The goal is to help the hoarder find a suitable replacement behavior, which might be a job, volunteer work, a pastime, or a hobby--preferably one that doesn't encourage further collecting.

Making Peace with the Things in Your Life

2011-11-06T18:30:00.000-08:00

I was recently reading Cindy Glovinsky's Making Peace with the Things in Your Life: Why Your Papers, Books, Clothes, and Other Possessions Keep Overwhelming You--and What to Do About It (2002). She beats around the bush a bunch, but she's occasionally insightful. Her psychological approach to clutter, while wordy, can offer a unique view of the clutterer's mind. Here are some quotes I liked (direct quotes in bold).

Some brains are wired to think mainly on a concrete level. To their owners, the sooner coins and bills are exchanged for davenports and snowmobiles the better. Numbers in a bank book or stock certificates mean nothing, nor do intangible purchases such as college education. Such people tend to become spenders. [I read a lot of personal finance stuff, and I think this is a really brilliant insight into why so many people cannot seem to grasp the concept of saving.]
Spenders are often broke and almost always have too many Things to fit into their homes, no matter how palatial, including the latest, fanciest organizing equipment and books. You don't have to be rich to be a spender, at least not in modern Western culture; it isn't a matter of your income but of what proportion of it goes into purchasing physical objects. And anyway, spenders buy most of their Things on credit, which, in their minds, is the same as getting them for free, since credit is intangible, and therefore unreal. Needless to say, spenders may experience clutter problems on their way to bankruptcy. [I've personally wondered how well our human minds are equipped to deal with the concept of money. The virtue of such things as the traditional envelope system is that it takes the budget (a very abstract, arbitrary concept in our age of practically unlimited credit) and brings it down to the concrete level. When the money is getting low in the envelopes, you slow down spending, and when it's gone, you stop.]
Glovinsky contrasts these people with those she calls "philosophers." "The Things philosophers buy are few, though the Things they get rid of are also few, as they fail to notice that the Things are piling up around them, and are constantly forgetting where they left them. Thus, philosophers can have clutter problems just as severe as spenders can, but the difference is that their clutter tends to be dingier and covered with stains."
The fact is, almost any psychiatric DISORDER is likely to create disorder with Things.
The erroneous belief that any reasonably intelligent human brain is supposed to be able to deal with Things easily has wreaked havoc in people's lives throughout history.
Grief is a kind of emotional time lag in which your attachments fail to keep up with the speed of change. The train your body is on has moved out of the station while your soul is left standing on the platform. When you feel that part of you has been left behind, it's normal to want to hang on to Things that you associate with your past.
Throughout most of history, people have explained behavior purely in terms of angels and devils. Originally, these angels and devils were literal, but more recently they were replaced with human angels and devils, better known as moms and dads.
SMALL DIFFERENCES IN THE BRAIN CAN MAKE BIG DIFFERENCES IN WHAT WE'RE ABLE TO DO AND WHO WE BECOME.
People with visual memory glitches often try to compensate by keeping as many Things as possible in full view. If you look in their closets, drawers, or filing cabinets, they'll be three-quarters empty. But keeping belongings visible by leaving them out works only if you have a great deal of space and very few Things. Usually this approach results in the vast majority of your possessions being buried under Thing mountains where they're just as invisible as they would be inside containers.
Research has revealed multiple biological causes of underactivity, involving neurotransmitters, hormones, immune cell count, and other bodily entities as affected by stress, burnout, and negative conditioning of the "learned helplessness" variety.
Brains, like bodies, get tired.

Roomba

2011-11-04T11:10:00.000-07:00

Here's some of what's happening:

D changed our Roomba battery under his dad's supervision.
D is reading! Fluently! He's just about to finish the level 6 Clifford phonics books.
C is reading the Warriors series of cat books. Her chum has been lending her copies.
This morning I made a brief appearance at D's field trip to a big city park, fortified myself with Starbucks, then walked my favorite early 20th century neighborhood, looking for for sale by owner homes that haven't made it onto the internet. I had a good stiff hike, but didn't find anything. I'll try again in the early spring.

House visits

2011-11-03T08:42:00.000-07:00

I saw two houses this morning with a realtor. Here's what I saw (while I still remember).

The first house is $220k. It's on a well-known street, it's 1900 sq. ft., and it was built at the very beginning of the 1930s. There are three bedrooms and two baths. The lot is narrow and deep, and the homeowners had room for a big trampoline and playset in the back. There's also an old-timey garage with a small separate work room that I think my husband would love. The house itself is cute, but/and basically originally--they've mainly just painted. The kitchen looks original. I think the flow of living room, dining and kitchen is very good. There is a small out-of-the-way corner with built-in bookshelves that would make an excellent office for my husband. I like the house and I think I can imagine us there, although I wonder where we'd put all our books, and I expect that the kids' Disney Dance Dance Revolution stuff would be out of place in the formal living room. I can imagine buying the house, but not for $220k.
The second house is $205k. It was also built at the very beginning of the 1930s and it is 2100 square feet with three bedrooms and two baths. It's on a quieter street than the previous house, but within sight of one of the busiest streets in town, and it's across the street from an Episcopalian church. It's on a smaller lot than the first house and there's barely any backyard and no garage. The interior of the house has been seriously worked over. There's a big remodeled kitchen (were those IKEA cabinets?) and a large master bedroom and bath addition at the back with vast closets. We'd be able to fit our book collection comfortably into the master bedroom, maybe even a treadmill. Aside from the master suite, the floor plan is very similar to the house I saw first today, with the same progression from the front door: living room, dining, kitchen. There's room for a biggish table in the kitchen. There's also a small family room/media nook area not far from the kitchen.

Between these two houses, it's a very tight race. On the other hand, visiting these just-big-enough houses does help clear up that great mystery, why do people buy McMansions? These two houses are very cute, but I found myself thinking, if only there was one more room! Just an office (with doors) for my husband or some place to put a treadmill or an extra bedroom--just one more room! Or two! Or three! And then the $220k rambling 2900 sq. ft. house that I'm going to see in a few days starts looking like a brilliant idea. Now, the truth is that in 10-15 years, my husband and I won't need anything like 2900 square feet, but meanwhile, it would be nice to be able to spread out a bit. And that, my friends, is how it happens.

November real estate report

2011-11-02T06:58:00.000-07:00

Here are the houses under $300k that I know of that are currently for sale in the early 20th century neighborhood I watch. I put the ones I like in bold. Here we go:

$252k (I saw this one)
$250k (I saw this one)
$220k (I'll see it soon)
$220k (I'll see it soon)
$205k (I'll see it soon)
$178k (I saw this one)
$170k (marginal location)
$170k (cute renovated 1920s house plus dubious additions)
$124k (estate sale, nothing has been done to the house since probably the early 1970s)
$96k (very poor location)

There's increasing convergence between our price range and the houses I like. I'd still prefer a house near campus, though.

$205k

2011-11-02T06:02:00.000-07:00

I've got another hot option. This one is a nicely done-up 3BR/2BA 2100 square foot 1930 brick cottage in the older neighborhood I watch. Although the house is across from an Episcopalian church, it's on a much less busy street than the two houses for $220k that I mentioned earlier. The church probably generates a lot of traffic at certain times, but whenever I've been there, it's been very quiet. It is, unfortunately, the end of the neighborhood. The street itself is solid, but within two blocks, the neighborhood peters out. Also, there are two homes for sale on that street that have been listed for some time and are priced substantially lower. There's one for $170k (2300 square feet, peak sale price around $240k) and one for $178k (2000 square feet, peak sale price around $190k). I'm going to go look at this one, too.

I had no idea that November was going to be so interesting for real estate.

$220k

2011-10-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

I have two houses I'm interested in, both at $220k, on the same street in that older neighborhood near downtown and four blocks apart. It's one of the most famous and well-loved residential streets in our city, but I prefer streets that are less inviting for cross-town travelers. The city fathers have put in a couple of traffic-slowing roundabouts, which is nice. Here's a comparison:

House A is brick, nearly 2900 square feet and built in the late 1940s (but has more of an early 1950s traditionalish ranch personality). The facade is OK. It's a FSBO now, after a long stretch on the market with a realtor and many, many price cuts. According to the online photos, the kitchen is quite nice without being super trendy and it looks reasonably well-maintained. I have an appointment to see the house in the next couple of weeks.
House B is new on the market, so new that there aren't any online photos yet (why, oh why do realtors do that?). It's a 3BR/2BA early 1930s brick cottage (I think, based on Zillow) and the facade is absolutely adorable. The square footage is around 1900, which makes the asking price an exercise in optimism. I've sent a query to the realtor.

It's too early for us to buy in this older neighborhood, which is our fallback option, but there's currently nothing for sale near campus. We'll probably give it until about February or March and then panic. Good thing we're not selling a house.

rools

2011-10-30T17:24:00.000-07:00

D has produced the following set of "rools" for his room:

No bracing any ting! Do Not come in whith owt my permission! No jumping on my bed!

D asked my help with spelling "permission." He is currently revising the text for spelling.

Calligraphy

2011-10-30T16:03:00.001-07:00

C has a calligraphy kit (with a book of sample scripts and some pens) and she and D made welcome home cards for their dad. C also made D a coat of arms (not sure if that's the correct term) with a shield with a unicorn rampant on either side, a dragon over the shield and D's name in Gothic (?) script. It's made up as a scroll that is rolled up on either side, but open to the coat of arms.

C's current projects are weaving, embroidery and calligraphy. I think she would also be making balloon animals, too, but she's out of balloons. A major priority for C's next room will be figuring out a suitable way to store all her craft materials.

Halloween decorations

2011-10-30T11:49:00.000-07:00

Here's some of what's happening:

My husband will be returning very soon from a trip to the American Catholic Philosophical Association meeting in St. Louis.
It really is fall now. We've had a couple of mornings in the 40s and today's high will be lowish/middlish 70s. It's fantastic weather for playing outside, scootering and running. The kids are having a good time.
My driving has improved, I think, or at least it's gotten more flexible and varied. After over 3 years of having a license, rather than having to memorize routes precisely and practice them a couple of times, I'm now able to improvise a bit and drive places I've never been before (thank you, Mr. GPS). I think I could probably drive almost anywhere in the city and one of our main suburbs. I've had to do a lot of driving to new places to get C to her volleyball games as well as doctors' appointments and Goodwill and we've figured out some longer, non-interstate routes for me. My main limitation now is that I don't drive the interstate (which is home to hundreds of semi trucks hauling stuff all over North America). Not driving the interstate doesn't interfere greatly with my quality of life, but I would dearly enjoy going by myself to IKEA (say, during the school day) so that I can take my time and not rush through before the kids finish up their hour at Smalland. Once I'm comfortable getting on and off the interstate, that's one of the first things I'll do.
The kids have been making a lot of Halloween-themed crafts. They made 2D pumpkin faces to hang on doorknobs and a 3D pumpkin and a jack o'lantern made from strips of orange paper. I claimed the 3D pumpkins for my display shelves in the dining room.
D's reading is coming along. He read 2 pages of The Phantom Tollbooth yesterday, under C's supervision.
C continues to work on her embroidery.

C's room

2011-10-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

Having finished D's room, I continued sifting C's room today. I've left the toughest areas for last, but we may be halfway through the work on her room. Today I went through some small boxes, a big bin of stuffed animals and craft projects and I went through her CDs with her and brokered the sale of some CDs to D. D went for several freebie chant CDs and a Baby Bach CD, as well as one more item I can't remember. What's left for us to work on is a medium bookcase (mainly books), a tall bookcase (toys and crafts), some medium boxes full of stuff, one drawerful of toys and an overcrowded dresser top.

I'm starting to think that I'd really like a lot of closed storage for C's stuff in her next room and just a few open shelves. A shelf or two would go a long way.

This was a big embroidery/sewing day for both kids, but C did an excellent job of picking up her stuff.

Brag note

2011-10-28T21:56:00.000-07:00

D sometimes files his school papers so quickly that I don't have a chance to see them. So today was the first time I laid eyes on the following "Brag Note!" from D's teacher. "D is great at math and very engaged in learning. He always includes and lifts up others!" Awww. I collected the brag note for D's scrapbook. D wanted to ensure that the note wouldn't be displayed so that anybody could see the note because he doesn't want to brag.

Home game

2011-10-28T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here's some of what's happening:

C's 4th grade volleyball team had their last game at home yesterday. They won! It was the first time this season. After the game, there was a celebratory award dinner at Pizza Hut. C is pizzaphobic, so there was a lot of back and forth as we decided whether or not to go. Finally, we decided to go. C had some sort of boneless (!) chicken wing thing and received an award for good sportsmanship.
This morning was parent-teacher conferences. I got a sitter and went forth, making good enough time that I was able to attend two conferences and visit Starbucks. The sitter brought her 11-month-old baby and the sitter and I are negotiating a swap so that she can finish a work project.
We took advantage of a free kids' meal deal at IHOP today.
C finished her raccoon American Girl sewing project. She embroidered an orange pumpkin onto a t-shirt of D's (with my authorization) and also started improving a couple of her tops without checking in with me (the pumpkin she was sewing wound up on the back of the shirt). I spent a huge amount of time this evening cleaning up the mayhem resulting from the embroidery stuff being emptied onto C's bedroom floor. I've since put nearly each color of floss into its own tiny ziploc, as well as bagging up the tiny sequins, bits of ribbon and felt letters that came with the kit. I am hoping that they will stay that way and I have no intention of picking it up again. We also sorted through C's drawer where she keeps her important papers. I had C take a number of her stained glass coloring pages and tape them up on our French doors in the living room, which is where we usually display that sort of thing.
C hung up a papercraft UFO of D's. It looks great.
I finished sifting and repacking the last of three boxes of my old letters today. This last box was mainly from the second half of the 00s, at which point the art of snail mail letter writing was clearly in severe decline. It's nearly all thank you notes and greeting cards, which was not the case 10 years earlier.
Lastly, D and I finished up our biannual turn-out of his room. We do it one shelf and drawer at a time, so it's a very slow, involved process. He was very good about letting go of old papers. Now, to move on to doing the same with C's room (we've already done something like 1/4 or 1/5 of her room together). C has more ongoing craft projects, so it's more challenging to deal with her stuff, but I have a couple clear plastic shoeboxes standing by.

Make posters

2011-10-28T13:38:00.000-07:00

In the car today, D was asking me what terrorists are. I explained to the kids that terrorists are people who use violence against innocent people to achieve political goals and to get a political message across. C asked, "Why don't they just make posters?"

Improved zebra

2011-10-26T20:06:00.000-07:00

This evening, C made striped paper wings for her Playmobil zebra.

Catch up

2011-10-24T18:48:00.001-07:00

We had a phone and internet outage, so I'm rather behind on news. Here's some of what's been happening:

My husband and I are starting to dip into Netflix's collection of P.D. James stories. I'm wondering if Commander Dalgliesh would get on with Inspector Morse or Inspector Lewis.
On Friday night, we had the big school star night. It was a success--no small children got run over or lost in the dark. My husband took so many telescopes that C and I had to secure a ride there with friends. My husband gave a short talk on the life cycle of stars and then it was out to the telescopes to see what we could see. D manned his telescope and C managed to get Jupiter in view. My husband clocked three hours of volunteer time, a very valuable commodity now. Our kids were fitted up with little red LEDs on their beltloops, as usual. According to amateur astronomy etiquette, white light is a no-no. My husband has, in fact, gone so far as to replace the overhead lights in our car with red LEDs.
We were all under the weather this past weekend, particularly C and my husband. Both have been feverish and C skipped school today and will do so again tomorrow. I have a pack of make-up work for her to do, although I fear that there's probably some more Latin work that we haven't been given yet.
In real estate news, the grimy 2400 square foot estate sale house in the older neighborhood I watch has had its price cut from $135k to $124k. That is interesting, but I think we're not the right buyer.

Worst car loan ever

2011-10-21T09:17:00.000-07:00

I was just listening to an episode of the Dave Ramsey show from a few days ago, and he's got a woman on who has a car loan with 24% interest. That is the worst car loan terms I have ever heard of. I have heard of 14% and 19% before, but this really takes the cake.

French Country Kitchens

2011-10-21T08:10:00.000-07:00

I am not really a French decor person (the living rooms tend to look like they should be roped off, with "Don't Sit Here!" on the chairs), but I really like the book I just got, Linda Dannenberg's French Country Kitchens (2008). Just the dustcover (a kitchen with white walls, a shelf of teapots, blue-and-white tile backsplash over the stove and some stainless steel) was worth the price of the book. Now, I warn you that you will look at this book and wonder, how do they keep these patina-ed, rough, antique-filled rooms clean? And then, on second thought, you'll think, those crevices are full of 200-year-old grime. But hang in there and enjoy the pictures, because it's an amazing book, even though I personally (living in a climate where the insect life is varied and robust) would prefer a version that is smoother, tidier and more scrubbable (une cuisine americaine). But there's definitely a part of me that wants to recreate the dustcover kitchen.

Interestingly, the book admits that many of the owners of these amazing living-museum kitchens have a second kitchen called the arriere-cuisine or back kitchen, which is where most of the modern appliances and some storage are located. I've heard similar stories about Asian homes having two kitchens (a showy Western kitchen open to the public and a smaller workmanlike Asian kitchen where all the hot, messy work happens) and one story (I can't remember from where) about an Italian-American family where there was an upstairs show kitchen and a downstairs work kitchen for heavy-canning and sauce cooking. Even in American kitchens with our historic trend toward uniting the kitchen with other living areas, there is also a countervailing need to be able to shove the less attractive byproducts of the cooking and eating process out of sight.

Flyering

2011-10-20T09:22:00.000-07:00

I just got back from flyering the other (and what will soon be the only) faculty/staff neighborhood. I flyered 18 houses in that neighborhood with our "Are you thinking of selling your house?" flyer. There are probably about 10 other houses in the neighborhood, but I skipped the ones that are way too big, the owner is out of town for the year, the owner is terminally ill, or the house has just been built or moved in to over the past two years.

Past flyering attempts have gotten me on average one response each time, I believe. One was over $400k (way too much), one was very affordable ($145k) but just a little too small for us (and some friends bought it), one was $219k (too much for us at the time, but we'd probably pay it now) and one was $285k. And then there was the lot there that we thought about seriously, and then somebody else bought it (or bought the lease on it) and built a spectacular 2800 square foot home on. The $219k house is the one I most regret (I regret almost all of them a little bit), but a lovely family lives there now, and we really didn't have the money at the time.

All I need is one good one...But hopefully it's not the undiluted 1970s house or the 1500 square foot house that barely fits on the lot or the pseudo-French chateau with no private yard space.