Happy Kids

I have some very happy kids. You can tell by their overly exuberant smiles. They also like the camera.

This is the little one's "scrunchy face."

House Inspection Part II

Well... there's mold. We'll be meeting with our realtor tonight to write up an addendum to our offer so that can get cleared up. I'll be calling the lab today to find out what kind of mold there is, what it means, and how to get it cleaned up. Yipee. (Not really.) The good news is that (like I said before and I have to keep reassuring my husband) this is all either fixable or we can get out of the deal. So, I'm ultimately unconcerned.

My Graduate

My big one graduated (from preschool) last week. Another milestone in the grand scheme of "they just grow up so fast."

House Inspection

We had a house inspection done yesterday afternoon. When we made our offer, we made it subject to the inspection as well as radon and mold. If there was anything wrong with the house we can either have the seller fix it or negotiate a new price. It went pretty well, except for the large, wet, rotting corner in the finished basement. No, it really isn't a big deal. We're having it tested for mold and then we'll take it from there. Like I said, this is all stuff that we can have fixed before we buy it. If the test came back and said that the whole basement was infested with mold spores and there's so much radon that we might die having been there twice, then I'd be worried. But at this point, it's fixable. The inspector also pointed out the unsafe deck that needs to be fixed, pronto. That is something that my husband, his dad, and cousins will be thrilled to tackle. Then there's some electrical issues that we'll have fixed by the seller, too.

Even though my husband turned pale as I rehashed all of this, I'm not in the slightest bit worried about it. What can you expect? Houses age and benefit from near constant attention. This has been lived in for 15 years and probably hasn't had much attention. It needs some fixing up, but if it didn't, we wouldn't be able to afford it, so that's responsibility I'm happy to assume.

Our house, in the middle of our street

Yeah, you probably all know that we bought a house, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's the most exciting thing happening around here, so that's what I'm going to write about!

It's a two bedroom split-level. Right now we're living in a 24 bedroom ship. That can only mean one thing... DOWNSIZING! Hurray! If there's one thing that I love about moving, it's getting rid of stuff. It makes me feel so free, so light, and unfortunately so in need of getting cooler, more appropriate stuff. But we have so much to get rid of, mainly huge, cumbersome pieces of furniture. I'm planning on garage sales for the summer and lots of them. We won't be moving until August so that will give us lots of time - roughly 10 weeks to squeeze in the necessary 32 garage sales we'll need to have in order to lose this stuff. If you (my family) is in need of something, let me know before you buy it. I've got rugs, dressers, chairs, toys, clothes, baby stuff, children (not really), books, misc. junk. Just let me know what you're looking for!

P.O.W.S.

No, I'm not giving a shout-out to America's POWS, I'm talking about plain old white sugar. This is coincidentally my little sister's street name. Mine was something having to do with yellow cake, but I can't remember exactly. Those were our ghetto days and another story entirely.

Anyways - I recently bought good sugar. Good, expensive, whole sugar. I'm making an effort to shift our eating to as much whole, unprocessed food as possible. Luckily, this hasn't been hard to do and has provided me with lots of new culinary undertakings. By purchasing this sugar I have begun to see that when you buy quality items you will be less apt to waste them. (This realization is one that I should transfer to most areas of my life.) Treats become just that, things you should savor, not toss down the hatch without tasting. Plus, the foods that I've had that was made with whole sugar are far more satisfying. We will see if it really changes my practices as much as it has changed my attitude.

Rhubarb

A few days ago my little sister and I picked rhubarb from my parent's house. When all was said and done I ended up with about 8 qts of chopped rhubarb which I cooked down with four pounds of sugar and 9 chopped up oranges. The result is what my family (and extended family and friends and random strangers that I meet) will most likely get for Christmas. I canned 13 jars last night and have enough jam for roughly 20 more. I need to hit our local thrift store to find more jars and I need to put up the shelves in our pantry/recycling room/bathroom foyer to store this stuff. The problem is that this jam is tasty, but not what I intended to make. I really want a plain rhubarb jam. So today I'm going out to harvest another load of rhubarb to try again.

Updates

The little one...

...can walk.

The big one...

...is registered for kindergarten.

Wow.

Sleeping babies

I love sleeping children. It may be my favorite form of childhood. They're so quiet, still, peaceful, self-sufficient... all the things that they aren't when they're awake. Right now it's about 7:40. I have been awake for 2 hours. I woke up on my own, fully rested, because the little one slept all night, I repeat, ALL NIGHT in her crib, without nursing. I have not had a full night's sleep in, what, 2 years? So now I am awake and alone. (Those aren't bad things.) I have enjoyed breakfast and reading by myself and a shower by myself and now time on the computer by myself. It's going to be great when they're teenagers and sleep until noon. My heart flutters at the thought of that much free time.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day is coming up and I would love to embrace it as a tribute to myself and those who have brought forth from their loins however, I have a hard time doing so. I read an article in Smithsonian magazine about the woman who invented the holiday. Ultimately she invented it to honor her mother and then spent the rest of her life opposing it because it was taken over by commercialism. It does seem like we are puppets of the commercial world. There is always something to look forward to whether it be Easter, Mother's Day, Christmas, Boss's Day, etc. And these are all reasons that we are supposed to buy something. When you go into a store the banners are practically shouting, "IT'S SPRING, BUY SOMETHING!" It's more than a little weird, when you think about it.

Anyways, it's something that I have been pondering lately. I'm certainly not saying we shouldn't celebrate. That is the really great thing about holidays is that they provide opportunities for us to get together and celebrate. Which reminds me - MY LITTLE SISTER IS COMING HOME TOMORROW!!!

Hang-out time

I'm pretty excited these days. My little sister is finally going to be done with school for the year and she'll be heading home in about a week. One of the best parts of summer is that she's around to hang out with. Granted, she often avoids me, ignores my phone calls, or sleeps until all hours of the afternoon in order to not have to hang out with me. But when I can catch her in a semi-showered state and make her feel guilty in front of Mom or entice her with the promise of alcohol then we have all sorts of fun together!

Dairy diary

Dairy products and I have a history. It begins somewhere around my eating butter by the finger full or using oyster crackers as a vessel for butter or sneaking half and half packets from any restaurant and drinking them in the back seat or doing the same with butter pats for that matter or begging to drink the cream that accompanied Dad's coffee....mmmm.

Wow, anyways, we've had our ups and downs. There was a time when I was known as 'Lactar' when I had a terrible time with lactose intolerance. Then most recently there was the year that I had to mostly abstain from dairy for the sake of my nursing babe. Oh, that was hard. There are some psychological repercussions that I'm still working through with that one. This may be reason #5732 why I'm done having kids.

We're good now, dairy and I. In fact we've entered into perhaps the most glorious phase of our relationship. I've started getting local raw milk that has exceeded any dream of fantastic milk that I may have had. It is simply the most delicious milk I have ever tasted. My family and I have turned into milk gluttons. We buy 3 gallons a week and from that I get enough cream to make ice cream and lighten my coffee, milk to make yogurt, and milk to drink. (If it were worth it, I'd make butter too, but it takes too much of my precious cream to do so.)

Hopefully dairy and I will be mutually affectionate from here on out. I don't care to give it up again. The idea of veganism was once appealing, but it is not for me. Neither are selfless acts of baby love anymore, for that matter.