You Don't See That Every Day

Today - A five mile bike ride with the two oldest kids. Up hills (ouch on the quads) and down hills - nice breezes! I've come to the conclusions that I am fully a mom. (~Yeah, 5 kids later and it hits me.~) As we were heading down a long steep hill - of which there are many in our neck of the woods - I saw my two children ahead of me flying down without their brakes on. And I got queasy. I also flew down the hill, but with my brakes on all the way down. As I started to get faster my stomach told me - Don't! and I would brake to slow wayyyy down. It was then that it hit me. As a child I would fly down the hills with my brother, not caring about broken arms, broken heads, blood or other painful possibilities. I would enjoy the wind and the feeling of speed as if I were really flying; Just as my kids were doing right in front of my eyes. But now ... now I brake. I slow down. I think of all the 'what if's' instead of flying down the hill. There's a parallel to li...

Today was the final day of swim meets for the swim league our oldest two kids are in. It was an all day affair. GK had the two swimmers at the pool by 8 am, which meant leaving home by 7:30. I was able to sleep in a smidge and leave the house an hour later. Just in time to see our girl race the very first race, the very first heat, and she won her heat! I was able to catch all but one of their races. (I took the younger ones home for lunch and nap, and missed one race.) We stayed until the very end, both swimmers being in the relays; we made it home by 6:45 pm, tired and hungry. What a fun day it was though! The kids swam really well. The friends we hung out with did really well. The younger kids didn't complain too much. I have plenty of leftover snacks for the week. And I even managed to get my laundry done while home at lunchtime! GK already input the latest race times on the spreadsheet he has been keeping for the swimmers. Both SEK and SGK have improved in their times. With...

The Virginian , by Owen Wister; Runner's World Magazine; Dare to Disciplin e; Strong Willed Child , both by Dr. James Dobson; Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free ; by Nancy Leigh Demoss Good Housekeeping; What we have here folks is a list ( I like lists ) of the books and magazines I am currently reading. At the same time. Well, not that I have them all open at once and am reading them at the same time. But I am reading through each of them this week - that kind of "at the same time". I don't think I have ever had this many going at once. Is it a problem? A disease? A syndrome? ("I have a syndrome." Harry Connick Jr. said this in a movie. Know which one? It's one of my favorites.) Perhaps it's just because it's summer and I have so many books I want to read in my time, and now they are piling up on me. Because even though I have some free time off from school, I don't have a whole lot of 'free' time with a 15...

Summer is going by so fast. Yesterday our girl found a 4 leaf clover! She was hanging on the swings in the backyard, just staring at the ground, she says, and whamo - there it was. The boy washed the dog today, and enjoyed some water himself. And I have another project. You know, for all that spare time I have on my hands. My sister in-law pieced the squares I had cut out. (I just can't get enough Irish Chain quilts!) So now I get to put the backing on and work on the part I love to do: the quilting! The colors in the photo didn't come out quite right - a little dark/ blue. There is much more purple in it than blue. And the backing will be an aquamarine color.

I mentioned in a previous post about The Barn my brother made and gave to my girls. I want to show you just how amazing this barn is! My brother T. must have spent a lot of time and attention to detail. The doors open with tiny hinges, the gates swing open too. The roof comes off so the kids can easily reach into the tack room which has removable cedar plank flooring. Every gate and door has these perfectly spaced dowels. They had to have taken a lot of patience to put together. Even the ladder has perfect evenly spaced rungs! Inside the barn the corners are nicely rounded. The girls have been playing with it every single day since we got it. The first night we had it at home, all 5 kids were looking at it, oohing and aahing. Little K even got her head inside it, trying to crawl in. Big brother S. wouldn't admit it, but he enjoyed playing with it too the first night. Now it sits in the girls' room, in the seat of honor for all toys - smack dab in the middle...

I ran a race last weekend. Another 5k. I am at a place in life when I'm OK with 3.1 miles. No need to go further ... yet. Faster? .. well I hope to someday. So I did a little something out of the ordinary for me. Something my husband is good at, but me... not so much. I'm not a numbers kind of girl. I put together a small, simple, spreadsheet of my times for the past few years of the 5k's I have run. And what a surprise! I started in 2008 with a 27:25. Not too bad for my first race since high school! My runs this year, post-5 kids body, have been 27:53 and 28:40. So a little slower, but still under 30 minutes. I haven't put in a lot of training time ... especially over the winter and spring. So I am not surprised by these slower times. But back in September of 2009 I ran a race while 3 months pregnant. And it has been my fastest time ever! It is the same race I ran in 2008, but this time I was carrying someone with me, and I had 'adoring' fans along the rout...

my parents, my brothers, sisters, some nieces and nephews. A long week has passed since I last wrote here. Sorry about that. But oh what a long and fun week it was.  We had swim lessons every day, along with swim meets for the older two. On Friday, out-of-town family started showing their faces in my neck of the woods, causing unbelievable comments to stream from my 12 year-old's mouth - in a good way. "Oh, what a shame," seemed to be his favorite taunt as they played games together. The cousins took it well and dished it right back at him. The chicken-bacon pizza we had with them on Friday night was heavenly - I even wrapped up the last piece and put MY name on it, so I could have it for lunch on Sunday. No-share pizza, that's how I roll. Saturday dawned extra early for me, especially since it was - gasp - raining. My nearly-oldest brother had (easily) convinced me to run in a 5k race with him and his wife before the family festivities began. It sounded goo...

From this (1975): see that cute little girl on the right, bottom row? yeah, me. to this (2011):

We've been having a little trouble this summer with a certain child who continually asks to play computer, or Xbox. That's just not gonna happen in our household when there is sun shining and nice weather. It doesn't last long enough in Oregon to spend it holed up inside playing with some box. So we gathered some materials and set the Boy to work on making a game. Some call this game Snakes. Some call it Ladder Golf. G. managed to get the PVC pipe at a local store for a few bucks; compared to what you would pay for it in the store, we saved mucho-bucko. Hurrah! We found a bunch of old golf balls laying around the house; G drilled some holes into them and attached some nylon rope (which we also happened to have laying around the house) - hurrah for the frugal folks! (please disregard girl-with-towel-on-head - she likes to walk around after a shower with her towel-turban on. It does great things for her hair, so I don't say anything.) So now the kids have this game...

I made another batch of strawberry jam today. Now perhaps the berry smell will be gone from my refrigerator. It was starting to get nauseating. I like to have some music on while I work and today's pick was Francesca Battistelli. (Is that Fran-sess-ka or Fran-chess-ka??) I have one CD of hers and I really, really, really like it. Really. I'm not technologically advanced to get her on an ipod or mp3 or other downloads, so I still buy CD's. The story here though is what led me to buy her CD. My 5 year old has a memory like a ... well, an elephant as the cliche goes. She can hear something once or twice and recall it exactly, days later. Which brings into question my habit of listening to country music while driving. This daughter of mine, along with her older sisters, have become big fans of Taylor Swift. So much so, that it became a concern to me and my husband. I happen to like T.S. (as the girls refer to her!) but having my little girls sing "you belong to me" ...

Does anyone out there like cleaning the (house) bathrooms? Really? Raise your hand. You are the winner of  a trip to my house and here, you can clean my bathrooms, weekly! to your heart's delight. Yeah, I didn't think I would have any takers. It is one chore I really don't like to do. That and washing dishes. Hmm... washing dishes, washing down the bathroom ... I see a (slight) correlation. I recall one bathroom at a B and B we stayed in - it was an all-in-one kind of room, no dividers between the shower, sink and toilet. In the middle of the floor was a drain, and the whole room was in tile. I think I would love a small bathroom like that. Spray it all down and get a hose to wash it all off. Easy-peasy. A few years ago my older kids wanted - nearly begged me - to help scrub the toilets. Back then I didn't want their little bodies exposed to the chemicals in the cleaners. What was I thinking? I set a precedent that has been hard to change! Now the same girl who ask...

In my corner of the world this past week I washed (what seemed like) dozens of load of laundry - from camping, and farming, and daily life; I went to my kids' first swim meet, and cheered loudly even though I wasn't always sure what was going on; I finished reading a classic book - Little Women; I signed up for a 5k, for next weekend, and a 5k in September; I ran with my husband one morning; I watched my 2nd to last disc of The Gilmore Girls. I don't know what I'll do when it's all over with my next, last, disc. I'm sure Netflix has something new to offer me. I weeded the corn on the farm and got to a visit with a cousin I haven't seen in a while. I started reading the book "Lies Women Believe and The Truth That Sets Them Free"; I made jam; and smoothies; I watched my husband and kids destroy the ceiling in our garage. One step closer to a new addition. I ate a DQ Blizzard. Haven't had one in so long, and it was SO good. I...

It's time for the berries! I picked half of our raspberries yesterday morning. With a little help . But if that wasn't enough, I had to go and get some strawberries too. I knew that their availability is nearly at an end here, and wanted to get in on the good stuff. So I brought home 24 pints of those. Plus my 4 pints of our own raspberries. And then I got to work ... washing, boiling, smashing, sugaring, cooking, stirring, pouring ... After almost 3 hours, my final product of 16 jars of jam. But only because I had to stop when I ran out of sugar and pectin. But we had strawberry with our breakfast oatmeal this morning, and then strawberry shortcake for dessert tonight. And I picked up some more needed ingredients, so I will finish up with the last of the berries that are waiting in my refrigerator, and making it, and my kitchen, smell like strawberry every time the door is opened.

Even though I had plenty to do at home, I met up with a friend at anew-to-us park in our town. Our kids played together there for a little while and then were ready to go. There was a tall slide; a smallish climbing structure with a slide; swings! and monkey bars; and, what I didn't get pictured, was the splash pad. I think if it had been warmer, and if we had had towels, and if I had let the kids play in the water fountain, then the park rating would have been higher than 6.5; as it was, we'll have to try this neighborhood park again on a hot day when we can play in the water. Thankfully there were plenty of picnic tables, and a drinking fountain and bathrooms! - three items on my own personal criteria list.

On the third day of camping... A much better night's sleep for the adults. But it looks like little K needed a nap early - she fell asleep on our hike out to another battery. The 4 other kids had ridden their bikes with the cousins, so G and I got to spend some time alone walking and talking. It was almost like a date! Battery Russell is another historic site that we got to climb around and look into. Still sleeping - until I noticed the circulation in her hand being cut off .... As I tried to gently adjust her, she woke up. But then she was happy to walk around and pick dandelions, which she clutched in her hand until I pried them out as we returned back to camp later. We packed up after lunch and drove south. Recognize this monolith? It's a highly photographed one - Haystack Rock. We didn't stop this time, but have plans to hopefully come back later and explore Cannon Beach with the kids. But we just had to stop in Tillamook. Because it is home to our favo...