Old but colorful news

We went to the butterfly exhibit the 2nd day it was open. Most of my pictures are just like everyone else's, so I spared us all the cropping and posting. But I will share a few.

I did get this pretty cool closeup of a Buckeye that perched on Eminoodle's hat:

click on it if you want to see it even closer up at flickr ...

Buzz liked them - except when they landed on him:

And, while this isn't a dazzling photo, it was exciting ~ one landed on me, way down here by my thigh, and worked its way all the way up to my shoulder, over my back where I couldn't see it.

on the way out, the girls and I - who were walking home - jumped off the ledge for awhile. I really wanted to do this on LeapDay, but was a bit late.

I should jump more often, I like mid-jump hair. And do you like my new "girly" coat? And how it matches my boots? I'm quite pleased with them. :-)

Last colorful news doesn't fit with the rest, it's the old "hack it into the same blog entry or it'll never get posted" routine.

WAaaaaay back in 4th grade we had a chalk drawing assignment. It went to tour somewhere, as Elementary school Art is known to do. There wasn't a mall in town way back then, so maybe it was the Big City Mall a half hour away, or maybe it was one of those cool Mezzanine Library Art Shows I always loved. But anyway. After it was gone, my art teacher said someone contacted her because they wanted to buy it. As a budding artist, I was thrilled. She helped me set a fair price, and I never saw the picture again. I didn't forget about it, though, once in awhile something reminded me of those old days when I thought of myself as an artist, and that I had actually SOLD a work of art.

So anyway. Back in the dead of winter '08, on some bitterly cold day, I got a phone call. Some lady said she had just talked to my parents, and had been at an antique show / flea market. Well, if you know my parents you would have hung up right there. We all know they weren't at a flea market or antique sale. But I didn't hang up. Turns out SHE was at a show, with her friend, and her friend saw this framed chalk drawing. And looked on the back. Where it still had the original school art display sticker, with my former name, address, and phone number. So the lady bought it, took it home, and sought to reunite it with the 4th grader who made it. Fortunately for me, my parents still live at that phone number, and gave her mine. She gave me the drawing for free, happy to reunite it with it's owner.

So here it is! Are you so curious?!?!

I'm sure some of you are struck by the smudgy nature of chalk, some of which was at the advice of the art teacher, as I recall, and you are thinking, "messy."

Others of you, surely, are struck by the delicate artistic balance and signs of budding genius (like the clever signature, complete with exclamation point!) Uh huh.

And the rest of you are stuck thinking, "What IS that?!" because you want to understand and it looks a little abstract, which bothers you. Right?

It's skunk cabbage!

Skunk Cabbage!

nifty, eh?

So now you know a famous artist.

Er. An accomplished artist.

Yeah.

As a result of the return of this work of fine art, I will in the future need your decorating advice. But not today, all this typing is too much for my poor weakened state.

Moon Rocks and Germs

It's not a song, Rosanne, don't try to look it up. LOL.

So the Grand Lunar *rocks* !!! He fixed my blog spam issue by upgrading my blog software and working out all the bugs. I should have a handy-dandy annoying captcha like everyone else, now! WOOO! If you mistype it, it currently goes to some lame-o page that says your text wasn't accepted. It doesn't mean your comment, it means what you typed for the "type the mystery code to prove you're real" thing, so just back up and try again. Just to warn you.

So anyway, thanks Grand Lunar, you're the bestest.

In other news, I'm sick! Wah!

I usually manage to avoid disease and germs, but there's something going around that my children were thoughtful enough to pass on to me. While symptoms vary slightly, it seems to involve a cough, sometimes a sore throat, and sometimes pain behind the eyes, most often when looking around. I have a slight fever, cough, and congestion. And feel like poodoo.

(pauses for you to work up lots of pity)

In the wonderful words of Mrs. Bennett, "I have such tremblings, such flutterings all over me such spasms in my side, and pains in my head, and such beatings at heart, that I can get no rest by night nor by day..."

Yeah, if only I had some servants, so I would wear a frilly nightgown and retire to my bedroom for the sake of my poor nerves, to convalesce.

But I'm not dying, and the chore machine doesn't run very smoothly without (or with! ha ha!) my input, so I only took half the day to lounge about coughing and moaning.

I have to be better by tomorrow, though, I'm the designated chaperone for a rehearsal.

In other other other news, I'm making a concerted effort to eat healthy again. Have I already told you about that? This time around (because I've been around this road several times) I'm not going all out trying to make all my family eat healthy without me. I'm sure it's a lame excuse, but it undermined my poor ego to make healthy food that no one liked. I have never been able to be strict enough for long enough to have the family's tastes change and begin to really, truly, enjoy the healthy food.

So this time around it's just me. I mean, I'm willing to share if anyone wants some, but as much as possible I'm cooking meals in pieces so that I can choose healthy and they can add on what they desire.

Most of you who know me already know the path I follow for "healthy" but for those that don't, I am a big fan of Dr. John McDougall's plan. If you want to lose weight, if you're facing health problems and want to avoid a life of "inevitable" medicines, check it out. Do some reading. Diet and Exercise. It really works. Go figure.

And, along those lines, following the McDougall plan, I've lost 10 lbs this year. Now I'm sad to admit that the first 6 or so are the SAME 6 lbs I've gained, lost, gained, lost, and gained again in the last year or two. But the last 4 are really new territory that I haven't seen since Eminoodle was little. So that's exciting. I've also been walking, walking, walking, but that you do know.

The good news is, now that I've "unhitched" my enjoyment of eating a healthy plant-based diet from familial complaints, I'm really truly enjoying what I eat, and feel like I get plenty to eat. And am losing weight, as a bonus, at a nice, steady rate.

The bad news is I must be getting old ~ I certainly don't feel as thin as I did back when Eminoodle was little. Same numbers, or getting close to them, but rearranged unfavorably, I guess. I don't really feel much like I've lost 10 lbs, despite what the scale says, and despite what the little fat-o-meter reader saying most of what I've lost is, in deed, fat rather than lean muscle. That's good, yes, but I guess I was hoping to feel skinnier, too. Maybe that will come in time.

Sorry to ramble on, it must be the brain-fog from being sick.

Anyway, leave me a comment so you can oooh and ahhhh over the bot-blocker.

One Million is a lot.

As of today -- March 21, 2008 -- I have walked over 1,000,000 steps this year.

My widget over on the left seems bent on showing the total since I joined, despite repeatedly changing the start date. But no matter. I know the truth.

Here's my stats for this year:

Woooo!

I should note these are total steps, as opposed to just my "counting miles" exercise walking. But still. It's a lot of walking!

Walk On!

The Boy Turned 5

I'm so behind on blogging. You wouldn't believe how many pix and half-thought-out entries I have, unposted.

But I shouldn't let Sputnik turning 5 go unmentioned. Sunday was his birthday. We tried to tell him that if he didn't eat all his cake, he'd stay 4, but he laughed and didn't believe us. He was quite insistent on turning 5.

Four days before his birthday, my friend Dawn pointed me to this knitting pattern. Thanks, Dawn!! I decided, if I hurried, that I could quick knit it in three secretive nights.

The rare Up R2D2's nose shot:

I have never done any stranded knitting, and apparently need more practice. But it turned out well enough for Sputnik, and I did get it done in time for his birthday. And I have requests for more, an R2-D9 which is red instead of blue, and maybe a C-3PO hat, although I was unable to find any instructions or images for those, so I would have to (looks around nervously) invent that myself. I am not sure I am a good enough knitter for that, although I do have an idea rolling around in my head.

Anyway, ramble ramble, Happy Birthday Sputnik! We love you and are so glad to have you in the family!

Spring might actually come ...

Don't have much time to post. Sorry I've been a rotten blogger. I've put off memes and procrastinated on being tagged and left comments unreplied to. I am ashamed of my blogging behavior. The short story is that I've been a little overwhelmed, with the kids' musical for church coming up, and just trying to do a better job with house and home. And the caffeine withdrawal and wacky dreams (Of which I had another, I got to visit Katie in CO's house! WOW, what a house! But I can't tell you about that right now) ...

ANYway. Yesterday it got up to nearly 50 here. The snow was melting, the birds were chirping, and it almost seemed possible that it would eventually be spring.

Amidst my hopes, I dashed out and hunted for sprouts. I was rewarded with some daffodils and then, upon VEeerrrrry close inspection, even a few of my beloved squill.

Here, for your amusement, is the daffodil duck (Kelly says dolphin, but there's no daffy dolphin cartoon, so duck it is) in my neighbor's yard.

I suppose it's kind of cheating to take pix of my neighbor's sprouts, especially when I have my own and some of those pix really did turn out quite nice, but the duck (dolphin) is amusing to me.

And my squill sprouts. I saw just one peeking through a gap in the dead-leaf cover, but I lifted the leaves to find a whole bunch just barely peeking through. The picture is not my best, but squill bring me joy, so I post it for the joy:

And of course, you know, now that I have this hope, the temps are dropping for the next week, down to barely above freezing during the day, and possibly more snow later next week. I think ... I hope ... I can survive.

Same Song, Second Verse

(fortunately not really louder nor worse, though)

More bizarre and apparently anxious dreams. I thought I was just feeling tired, but my dreams say anxious, too. Good old dreams, there to tell you what you're trying to stuff.

Last night I dreamed we completely missed tonight's last rehearsal before the final musical. I was watching the clock, in my dream, and knew we had to go soon. Then I guess I *spaced out* for a bit, and I looked up and it was 8:15 and the rehearsals ended at 8:30. I knew we didn't have time to make it, but I scrambled around trying to get the kids ready ... until I realized they were already in their jammies, even. So I left them and hurried off to the tail-end to make my apologies.

I also dreamed I was hosting some sort of HUGE dinner party, and making all the food myself, from scratch. I remember moving a bunch (stalk?) of Bok Choy out of my way, past some other dishes, so I could open a can of (water chesnuts? macadamia nuts? some dream-food that was a cross of the two? water macadanuts?) and commenting to the people in the kitchen that I wished I was one of those people who cleaned up as they cook. I was making a huge mess, but too stressed to stop and tidy up as I went because all the people for the big party were already THERE, and apparently I was running behind. I was trying to make the (water macadanuts?) into some sort of frosting, so I needed to puree them into a nut-butter, add sugar and cocoa ... I wanted to blend them but didn't want to find the old nut butter maker I used to have - I think I was embarrassed to have so many people in my kitchen seeing how I cook (winging everything) .... I couldn't find the cocoa and people were getting out all the wrong old bizarre dishes to serve things on.

Then people started picking through all the half-made dishes we were working on to serve, because they were hungry and wanted to eat now.

Then there were all these children that were there for part of the party - there was something like a big scavenger hunt, and it was supposed to end with the kids' dessert table, and I was scrambling in big dark rooms to stay ahead of them preparing things, setting them out in time ...

I woke up feeling anxious and stressed.

In which, apparently, I'm insecure and stressed

Gotta blog this quick, before I forget it.

Then I've got muffins to bake (peanut butter chocolate chip, today) and - according to my dream - I'd better get cracking on the house cleaning.

I had this dream this morning ... the kind that convinces you that you should turn off your alarm clock because it's part of the dream and it just makes sense to do so, and you only realize when you wake that your dream tricked you ... I'm not the only one who does that in dream, am I? So somewhere along the line I turned off my alarm and overslept, and was rewarded with this dream:

So in this dream we were... somewhere. I guess it was our house, parts of it were similar, but all rearranged. And the house was a MESS. And people were over to get donuts before church. And everyone was being polite, but I was looking around - I believe I was even still in my bathrobe - and realizing how messy the house was, and particularly the kitchen where the donuts were.

Then, after the people were gone, it was raining really really hard outside, and the rain was coming from a different direction than it normally does. It was pouring and I realized it was dripping quite steadily into the living room. I ran to get some pots and pans to catch the drips, but all the pans were full of things like forgotten cookies and unwashed brownie crumbs. All I had was dirty dishes. Finally I just grabbed a few, turned around to turn them into the living room, in time to see the few individual drips turn into a downpour.

The pans I had chosen were woefully inadequate for the downpour, so I started running around the house looking for other places it was leaking, and trying to figure out where the roof might be leaking to cause it. It poured down one wall of the hallway and was dripping in several places in the bedroom. I used some dirty laundry to wipe up the floor as I heard the rains slow outside.

We had to go outside for some reason, and while we were out I realized I was wearing only a shirt and underwear, and was desperately trying to make sure my shirt was long enough to cover at least my behind. The Grand Lunar laughed and said not to worry, because the Shirt And Underwear Band -- apparently the high school band in his hometown, where we apparently were, and sure enough, down the street came a marching band whose uniforms were barely bottom covering tunics. But somehow I did not feel comforted by being attired like the band.

I realized I needed to get home and clean up the horrible mess, but somehow -- I guess as the marching band was coming by -- we needed to sit on some stone-and-grass steps, sort of like a roadside amphitheater in town, to watch the parade. We were sitting right near The Grand Lunar's old High School Youth Group Leader, who wasn't old at all. Somehow we had grown up, but all the people he knew in High School were still late teens, early 20's. And they were whispering and pointing. At me.

It turns out, according to the dream, that The Grand Lunar hadn't been back in town since way back before we were married, in the time where we had broken up after dating quite some time. And in that time he had tried to get together with his high school romance, who's name was something like Nadine or Noreen. And who looked quite a bit like Elizabeth Bennett in the "Colin Firth P&P" which we just watched in real life. So, as the story went, Nadine or Noreen would not take him back, when he had returned long ago, but he didn't really want to get back with her anyway, he was just sad that he and I had broken up, so when we got back together he was happy. But in my dream, all the old high school people did not know or believe that, and so they were whispering and pointing at me because The Grand Lunar had had to settle for me, his second choice.

Then I realized that Buzz, my newly potty trained (WOOOO!) 2 year old, was over peeing in a canoe. So I had to run over and get him and tell him not to pee in canoes, and the people who had been sitting on the edge of the canoe were appropriately shocked and grossed out, because of course in addition to it being shocking and gross, they were all still late teens, young twenties, and had no idea that sometimes kids did crazy things like that. So they couldn't relate. I tried to laugh it off and tell the youth leader that everything looks like a toilet to a potty training toddler, but he wasn't so sure.

So I scooped up the toddler and began making my way back to the early morning parade outdoor street amphitheater seats, and saw my mom, who apparently was also visiting my husband's childhood town (which, I must also say, bore no resemblance to his real childhood town), and my mom was wearing a big fluffy white swank-hotel bathrobe, and her hair was down and drying naturally after her shower, so it was all in beautiful auburn ringlets, and I remember thinking, "At least mom was able to shower and dress before coming out in public, unlike me!" (because I was, of course, still in my t-shirt and underwear) ...

so I wobbled my way along the amphitheater rock ledges to get back to where we were sitting, stepping over and around people, and as I got closer to our seats I found I was also stepping over dirty dishes and the like. Because, apparently, it was also our home. And it was the end of the day, and I realized the parade had diverted our whole day, and it was bedtime and I hadn't gotten any of the cleaning done. The dream ended with me sighing that i'd have to spend all tomorrow cleaning.

---

*the ironic thing is that we did work pretty hard to get the house back in shape yesterday, and it's not actually so bad at all. Not perfect, of course, because we do live here and I am behind on folding the laundry (although totally on top of the washing and drying!) (and the folding will be rectified today)

**after re-living all this, I think I'll pass on the muffin baking and get down to cleaning, just in case all of The Grand Lunar's high school youth group drops by.

I'm not dead yet!

(although you'll have to wait until maybe next week for me to finish the quote with the "I feel happy!" part)

I keep forgetting you don't get the posts I write in my head. It would be so much easier if you did.

yesterday was day 1 caffeine free. I did drink a cup of *just* decaf, and I know that does have a little caffeine in it. But close enough. I figure I'll drink decaf for a week, then drop it in favor of decaf tea.

Anyway, yes, my head does still hurt some. It's more come-and-go now. Sometimes when it doesn't hurt it feels ... squeezed. Hard to explain, but it's a very intense feeling. Yesterday was particularly bad in the squeezy pressure feeling and sensitivity to noise and chaos. Of which my house seemed full. But we survived, and I'm hoping today will be a little better. I am not really sure whether today will be better or worse. Technically I think yesterday would have been the worst, being the actual first day all decaffeinated, but I am wondering if cutting back slowly will keep my body hoping longer. I don't know. I've never really cut back slowly and successfully before.

Someone asked why I was quitting. I used to have a post about me and caffeine and our on-and-off-again bad-boyfriend type relationship. Apparently I took it down at one point. Maybe I'll scrounge it up and repost it. But suffice it to say that caffeine is like that for me, the bad boyfriend who you kick out and they come back sweet talking, promising to change, and then when you take them back they're just as awful to you as before. When I'm *on* caffeine it takes caffeine just to bring me up to normal. I'm tired all the time, my moods are less level, my motivation goes with my moods and alertness, needing caffeine just to keep me sort of normal. It's a controlling drug. And I feed headaches caffeine out of fear of withdrawal. I always think it'll be different and it never is.

When I'm off caffeine (once I'm over the hump, that is) I am more alert without it than I ever am with it (other than the honeymoon days when I've had some after a long time without) ... my moods are more level, and I don't live feeling controlled by it.

Good reasons to quit, eh?

Plus I've just been having random headaches and feeling down a lot in the last 6 months, and I can't really accurately ascertain how headachey and/or depressed I might really be until I rule out the obvious things like caffeine.

So ... blah blah blah!

I have some other posts in my head, like the one of the Art From The Past. And I'll need your help with some living room decor arranging. But I've rambled on enough for today.

Have a good Wednesday!

*** Advertisement ***

Dear Local Reader Friends,

Our church is putting on a children's musical on March 15th at 6:30 pm. Gark and Eminoodle have lead roles (!!!) and Tobi-wan is singing in the choir. We'd love to have you come and see them! :-)

*** End Advertisement ***

Slowly, Slowly, she sank into the sea ...

I've had a headache for going on 3 days now.

I can push it back a little, keep it at bay, with ibuprofen, but it hasn't ever quite gone, just sort of faded back a bit. When it comes back it's been fairly bad.

I think it's probably from my slowly quitting caffeine. I've been cutting back, cutting back, a little less every day or two. Measuring carefully, some regular, some decaf. I'm down from 4 T. regular (my starting baseline) in a BIG cup to 2 tsp. regular, 1 tsp + 2 T. decaf in a smaller cup.

So I think the slow-quit has kept away the migraines.

But not the headaches. They've come and gone throughout the slow withdrawal, until the last 3 days where they've mostly just stayed. I'm hoping when I finally drop the last bit of caffeine this week they won't get worse.

Stupid drug.

Remind me, this time, to stay quit. Once I get quit.