Wow. You must all think we've died or something. Well, we are all alive and... mostly well. There are a few hoarse voices and runny noses around here, with the occasional fever thrown in for good measure, not to mention the stomach bug that wended its slow, painful way through the ranks last month. But other than that we're all fine... here... now.... how are you?
So much Life has happened since my last post that there's nothing for it but to jump back in in the present, and hope I can get caught up later. (yeah right) I think my last official post (not including all the drafts languishing in limbo) was about Miriam's show -- well, we were recently in the throes of Tech Week yet again! Miriam didn't perform this time -- we mutually decided that spending another quarter of the school year in rehearsals might not be best for the "school" part of home-schooling (let alone the "home" part). Which is a pity, because they did Into the Woods (the good half) which would have been a great opportunity for Miriam. So many good things to do, too little time to do them! So even though she's not on stage, she still wanted to be a part of the production, so the director put her on one of the spotlights. It's a pretty sweet gig -- she got to see the entire show six times for free. :) I got to see two of the performances, one of each of the different casts -- the kids really did an amazing job. They obviously had a lot of fun with their roles, and their comedic timing was perfect. The costumes and sets were beautiful too -- the production was a real pleasure just to watch.
So the only downside to the gig was that the theater was in Woodbridge, which is 15 miles south, which means I had to drive 15 miles south on I-95 every day. Twice. (California readers, think the 5 -- there's just never NOT traffic.) Thankfully the HOV lanes are pretty sweet -- I bought special snacks for the car just to bribe children to drive with me so we could qualify for the free pass. And Mr. Pickles came home early the second week to help with the driving, so I no longer had to do all 60 of those miles myself. Plus Miriam had a great time catching up with all her drama peeps as well as making new friends, so that makes it all worth it, since it's for someone who lights up our lives so much. (ba-dum chish)
After the last show was over, I gave Miriam the week off school. She was very appreciative -- we stopped at the library and she stocked up on Dickens, so it's not like her week off was totally misspent. :) Wow, she is so much more mature than I was at that age.
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Well, in between the 3 hours of driving I was doing a day, I managed to fit in lots of lesson planning for next school year. Usually I start that kind of thing in March when it's cold and wet and I feel like this school year is a wash so I might as well start planning the next b/c all those pretty shiny curriculum catalogues have started arriving in the mail. But this year either I felt more optimistic than usual and hadn't despaired yet, or else I was just too tired to think of yet another school year on top of this one. (I think it was more of the latter.) But now that the current school year is beginning to show signs of winding down, and I have hope that we won't all be stuck in the same grades next Christmas, I can think about the future.
This fall we will have 5 school-aged children. I have no idea how exactly that's going to work. Thankfully I'm getting used to the sight of the house always being barely one step above squalor. What I would really love to have is an au pair -- someone to make sure that the household stuff keeps running: clothes get cleaned and put away, children get fed, diapers get changed, groceries get bought, and the floors get swept -- so I can help people with Algebra or phonics or listen to history narrations or keep distracted children on task or play with Play-Doh -- you know, the fun stuff. Miriam is of an age where she could be super-helpful in this way, but she's always busy doing schoolwork! I feel like one of my hands got cut off once she hit 8th grade -- I lost my extra grownup. Thankfully Katie is starting to fill in the gaps more. And all the children do have chores, which in theory is supposed to lighten the burden of housework for everyone, but so far my attempts to get them to do their chores without being nagged is a dismal failure. I think we will be spending a good bit of the summer working on Good Habits.
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As I first began writing this I was sitting outside on our deck under the awning -- it was supposedly 90* out but didn't feel like it, thanks to a breeze and our jungle backyard. A weird sound has been coming from the trees -- a sound like an alien spaceship hovering just out of sight. For the last couple weeks we've been finding cicada carapaces all over the place. (daaaaaa dum...) I'm wondering if maybe this might not be the year to start planting all those vegetables we've been wanting....
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The other day Joseph decided to have a "backwards day." He wore his shirt and pants backwards, and even buckled his belt behind his back. (I suggested he might want to rethink that particular choice, to prevent possible bathroom complications.) He also walked backwards whenever he thought of it. That morning we had Children's Adoration Hour at our parish. Yes, of course I let him wear his clothes backwards to the Adoration chapel. #pickingmybattles #parentingperspective
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Happy Memorial Day! I feel slightly guilty about how we spent our day. This day was meant to honor the memory of those great people who offered their lives for our safety and freedoms. I feel we should have gone to Mass, watched a parade, something. Instead we cleaned the Space Shuttle and fixed a leaky pipe. SO patriotic.
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This past weekend Mr. Pickles took Daniel on a road trip with him, to attend the ordination of an old college friend of ours to the permanent diaconate. The ordination was on Friday evening, the big family party was on Saturday, and our deacon friend's first Mass was on Sunday. We couldn't all go as a family -- traveling is so complicated now -- so just Mr. Pickles went. Daniel was dragging his heels about the trip through all the preparations beforehand. But afterwards he told Daddy that he was really happy he came on the trip. When pressed for a reason why, he explained: "The pool. And the trampoline." Sacraments and father-son bonding be hanged! The hotel pool and the backyard trampoline were really the best parts of the weekend. And when you're a 6-year-old boy, really, why shouldn't they be?
And OF COURSE while Mr. Pickles was gone a faucet started leaking -- and not just any faucet: the cold water faucet leading to the washer. I can do without many other faucets in the house, but the kitchen and the laundry machine ones are preeeeeeeetty essential. So to keep the laundry room floor, and by extension the basement floor, from flooding, I MacGyvered a drainage system using a kitchen funnel, some string, and a bucket. Worked pretty well, if I do say so myself. I'm glad I caught the leak in the daytime -- that little drip produced 3 gallons overnight (I used it to flush the toilet a couple times -- go Frugal Queen!).
So today as Mr. Pickles was preparing to fix it, I prepared for an afternoon without water by filling buckets and pitchers before he turned the water off. Since plumbing is Mr. Pickles' personal bane, I just assumed something horrible and complicated was going to go wrong and prepared myself mentally to be without water until tomorrow when a plumber would come.
O me of little faith.
Turns out some part of the faucet was just loose, and Mr. Pickles cranked it back with a wrench. Took all of about 15 seconds to fix. I had been cranking the cold water back and forth, trying to adjust the temperature of the wash water in the machine manually (stupid "energy efficient" machines -- apparently they don't believe in actually using hot water to wash anything). Unfortunately it looks like I'll have to be leave it be, and content myself with lukewarm washes. Stoopid government stoopid regulations stoopid EPA razzerfrazzerrazzerfrazz. You know, with all our light-speed advances in technology in the last 50 years, why is it that our household appliances are all getting worse???
/rant
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Well, there's a random sampling of some of what we've been up to in the last couple weeks!
FURTHER BULLETINS AS EVENTS WARRANT
