Lucy woke up last night (after she had come to our bed) saying, “I need my coffee!” I told her to go back to sleep, but she got up, went to the living room (where Craig was still on the computer) and got her sippy-cup of chocolate milk with a splash of coffee and brought it back to the bedroom. The she got up again and announced that she wanted water. Before Craig could get it, she was saying very loudly, “No, I going to sleep!” but she had closed the bedroom door on her way out and couldn’t open it again. All this woke up Samantha, and thus ended my half-hour or so of comfortable sleeping.
Category Archives: Domum
Strawberries
This post made my day. Craig’s dad is growing strawberries, and we have been the beneficiaries of his bounty for the last month or so. We are exploring new and exciting ways to use them all, but Lucy still likes to eat them plain, preferably daily or twice daily. Craig’s dad has beautiful, neat, raised, mulched rows for his plants, but neglected strawberries for ground cover, now there’s an idea! The book list at the end of the post is great, too. I’m going to have to head to the library for a copy of Jamberry. That was one of my favorites growing up.
This week’s news
We are experimenting to see how long we can survive without air conditioning. I’m shooting for Memorial Day. (We will get a respite on Mother’s Day, since Craig’s parents are coming over and I’m not going to impose this penance on anyone else!) We didn’t use it last month, and our electric bill was less than 1/3 of what it had been. We’ve been spending lots of time outside (in the shade mostly!) and leaving the house open for the breeze. It’s not terrible, just a little uncomfortable, and I have a new appreciation for those little breaths of cool air!
Goats?!?
There are goats living down the street from us. Not on the end by the freeway, fortunately for them, but on the other end by the convenience store. There are two of them, and they wear collars. I’m not sure who the belong to, but I saw them a few days ago on one side of the street grazing in an empty lot, and this morning on the way to school I had to wait for them to cross the road. It was a little surreal. I was wanting to move to a farm, and it seems that the farm has come to me! (We also have a chicken next door, whose purpose is termite removal.) More details on goat sightings as they become available.
Pictures take way too long to load…
…but here they are. You might wonder what I’ve been doing with myself lately, since I clearly have not been posting here. (Besides telling my Latin students that the preceding sentence is an example of an indirect question, and would require and accusative-infinitive construction in Latin. If that doesn’t mean anything to you, don’t worry, it doesn’t mean anything to my students either.) Here are a few pictures to help you imagine what we have all been up to. I’m a little embarrassed by the blurriness, but I’m still figuring out these digital thingys.
Even the home garden isn’t safe…
Maybe I should retitle this blog something about poo. It seems to be a theme lately. Until I get a chance to start writing some of what’s dancing around in my head (and digital camera!), this is worth reading. (How’s that for a teaser?)
http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e54ee22f1c883401157
Dinner
“The focus of our days is the dinner table, whether, as often happens in the winter nowadays, it is just Hugh and me or I am cooking for a dozen or more. When the children were in school I didn’t care what time we ate dinner as long as we ate it together. If Hugh were going to be late, then we would all eat late. If he had to be at the theatre early, we would eat early. This was the time community (except for the very small babies) gathered together, when I saw most clearly illustrated the beautiful principle of unity in diversity: we were one, but we were certainly diverse, a living example of the fact that like and equal are not the same thing.”
Food for Thought, and Thought for Food
I’ve been thinking a lot about food lately. I like to spend time in the kitchen, making good food from scratch (or close to it). Unfortunately, that often means something else in the never-ending list of house and school chores is being neglected. As much as I know I would miss all my kitchen comforts, some days I envy women whose work for the day is almost exclusively involved in preparing food for their families.
TV-free
Craig stumbled on an interesting article the other day about the damage screen time (TV, computer, etc.) can do to the developing brain.? You can read the rest of the article here, but I’d like to share just the conclusion for its insights:
15 minutes
Fly Lady? (the architect of my one hope of ever having a clean house) has a wonderful bit of philosophy: ? you can do anything for fifteen minutes. ? This is usually applied to dealing with piles of paper clutter, laundry, putting away holiday decorating, etc. ? But with a two-year-old and an infant, I’m learning how to do things for only? fifteen minutes, since that’s about the average length of time my hands are free before one or the other (or both!) is demanding attention. ?
