Blog Update

When there are two boys in the house, you can't have the blog named after only one of them. So for those of you who want to follow my nephews in Alaska, they have a new address. You can find it in the blogroll under Wyatt Brothers in Alaska.

Superfluous

I made the hubby get out in the garden with me to install a soaker hose irrigation line so I wouldn't have to keep moving the sprinklers this year.

It has rained every day since.

Welcome News

Lucas John Wyatt

May 24, 2010
5:03 PM
4 lb 11.6 oz
17.5 Inches

What would you grab?

Today is a high drama day on both sides of my family. People I love are being require to make quick decisions and take quick action.

To the north, my brother and his wife are on a leer jet, flying toward the hospital where their baby should be born within the next couple of hours. They got the test results back from her amniocentesis and found out that the baby's lungs are not developed enough, but her own preeclampsia dictates that the baby be born today. From the time she got the news to the time they were in the air was about an hour and a half. They didn't even have time to go home and get anything or to say good-bye to their toddler.

A fire is raging through the Bosque, forty acres so far and about 15% contained. My in-laws' house is just up the hill. They're packing their trailer in case they're forced to evacuate.

If you know my in-laws, you know the question of what to grab is a tough one. He's a book collector and has thousands and thousands of books on his library shelves. She's a weaver, a spinner, a knitter, a quilter... which fibers should she save? Which finished projects are the ones that should be salvaged?

What would you grab?

A pet? A Photo album? A laptop? An heirloom?

It's always been a hypothetical question up to now. But seriously, in a crisis, what are the most important things in your life?

I know what one of mine is... I'd appreciate your prayers for both sides of the family.

Limerick Challenge

For all you aspiring limericists out there... are you ready to take the limerick challenge? I'll give you the first line and you complete the poem.

It doesn't have to be professional, but it does have to be clean to make it on the blog.

Here's your first line:

A spunky young woman named Jill

Licking the Spoon

It was one of those moments when I was the kid and she was the grown up, though she's my daughter. I don't know if it's that I've drilled into her that you don't lick the spoon (raw eggs and all that) or if she just doesn't share my love for unbaked baked goods.

This morning, she made the cookies and I licked the spoon. Chocolate Oat no-bake cookies (David Cookies, as they were known at our house growing up) don't have any ingredients to be afraid of... not if you don't count the cup of butter and the 4 cups of sugar.

So I stood over the sink and licked the spoon.

It tasted just like childhood.

Old Testament Humor

Reading the Bible is always an adventure. Sometimes a passage touches me in a way it never has before. And sometimes it's just plain funny.

Have you read the story about Balaam lately? -- Not the part about the talking donkey, the stuff that comes before that. Balak asked Balaam to come and curse the people of Israel, but Balaam said he could only say what God told him.

"No problem," Balak said. (My paraphrase) Balaam, after all, had a great reputation for passing out curses and blessings. He set Balaam up on a mountain over the Israelite camp, made all the proper sacrifices, and let his prophet do his thing.

His thing, though, was to say what God told him to. And God told him to BLESS Israel, not to curse them. Bummer for Balak.

"Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!" Balak needed a curse. Instead of finding a different curser, he tried to tweak things enough to confuse God. He set Balaam up on a different hill, one with a little bit worse view of the Israelite camp. That should do it.

No such luck. Another blessing came out of Balaam's mouth.

No problem. Just move him again, this time so he can't really see anything more than a little corner of their camp. Now, since the Israelites couldn't see him, he should be able to lay down that curse.

Ready, go.

Hello. What kind of god did this Balak expect? Obviously he thought God could be tricked, easily, like if he hid behind a handkerchief, God wouldn't know he was there.

Peek-a-boo.

You now what, though? God knew where Balaam was all the time. He knew where Balak was, too, and where his people were (not only their tents, but their hearts). You can't beat God at a game of hide and seek. He's always "it" and he knows where everyone is hiding.

Tomorrow or Saturday...

As of Thursday evening, the counter on my blog is at 29,965. Who will be #30,000? Will it be you?

Let me know if it is!

You Can't Get There from Here

When they say "you can't get there from here," they're talking about downtown Portland. As we got into the car, I said it out loud...as a joke. That was before I drove the scenic tour of Portland, forced ever further from my destination by signs that read,

NO TURNS
BUS ONLY
ONE WAY
NO TURN ON RED
LEFT ONLY
NO LEFT TURN
ROAD WORK AHEAD
LEFT LANE CLOSED

You get the idea. The poor people I was driving around must have thought I just dropped in from another planet. Obviously, I didn't know any of the local customs. I can understand having one way streets in a city. I can even understand dedicating 2 of the 3 lanes to bus and MAX lines. I don't understand why, when there are only 2 2-way streets, you can't turn off of one and you can't turn onto the other.

It was a wonder, but we actually made it to OMSI, Powells (I forgot my gift card. Guess I'll have to go again), and McMennamins, and back to the train station before their train was leaving.

Quite the 2 hours. Thanks for the adventure!

You Win

We were playing a game with the youngest the other day to distract her from her "tired legs" on a hike. You know the game, the one where someone says the name of an animal and the next person has to think of an animal that starts with the last letter of the previous word.

Here's how the game went...

mom: elephant
dad: tiger
kid: rabbit
mom: turtle

...You get the idea. Add in about a hundred animals to fill a half hour or so, including pretty much any animal you could think of. Ideas were running thin...

kid: finch
mom: hippopotamus
dad: skunk
kid: um... Kentucky Fried Chicken!

Game over.

Collateral Damage

A phone call from Dad at 11:30 last night sent me slogging out to the garden to cover all the baby plants in case a frost hit. Despite the hubby's insistance that it wouldn't come down to our level, I took the "better safe than sorry" approach and covered tomatoes, eggplant, herbs and peppers with every bucket I could quickly lay hands on. To his credit, the hubby who didn't believe in the project, came out and handed buckets across the fence to me in the dark.

Weather forecast was wrong, hubby was right. No frost.

However, the late night project brought some collateral damage - slugs!!! They cozied up out of the cold under the lips of all those buckets and died peacefully in their sleep.

Hooray for the false alarm! Hooray for collateral damage!

On Blogging

Didn't Churchill say something like this about blogging?

Never have so many had so much to say about so little to so few.

That's how I'm feeling about this blog right now, like it needs more direction, more streamlining, more purpose. What would you like to see?

Encore!

Once in a while, as I'm plugging through life trying to get the necessaries done, I get to check off something on my "bucket list." For me, that list of things I want to do before I die includes a lot of big ticket items--travel to foreign lands, learning other languages, getting a doctorate, making a difference in the lives of the people I meet.

Once in a while, an experience comes along that's so simple, so pure, I never would have thought to put it on my list. But as soon as it happens, I know it was supposed to be there, to experience that moment and to feel just a little more alive.

4 minutes. Me, my violin student and a room full of strangers.

And Itzhak Perlman playing the Theme from Schindler's List. No microphones or amplifiers, just the pure, sweet notes of the master violist telling the story of his people through his art.

4 minutes well-spent.

Encore.

Snooze Button

It's time to plant the garden. There's nothing in the weather forecast that agrees with me, just an internal alarm clock that tells me I need to plant NOW!

My first clue should have been the garden center. My daughter, the nursery cat and I were about the only ones hanging out in the vegetable section. And the cat wasn't buying. A bored worker wandered by every few minutes, glanced at the group of plants I'd chosen and stated, "Nice selection!" with great enthusiasm.

12 tomatoes
3 green chilis
1 eggplant
1 dill
1 rosemary
and a set of walla walla sweet onion starts

All sitting in the garden waiting for the downpour to end so I can put them in the ground.

Methinks I need to get my internal clock tuned up.

Something From Nothing

After a major fiasco of a garage sale when we moved back to the states several years ago, I refused to ever hold a garage sale again. We had puzzle pieces and straight pins all over the lawn, people dickering over the 25-cent price tag on a lead crystal vase, and women pulling on items of clothing they wanted like they would in a Black Friday sale on a B movie.

No more garage sales.

The problem is, what do I do with all the stuff I'm taking out of my house. Most of it goes to the church garage sale where it will be converted into cash to purchase supplies to build houses in Mexico. I'll even go work at this sale--that doesn't bother me. It's having MY stuff aired in front of the world that I can't stand.

I took 3 boxes of books out today, crossed a couple of bridges and found the Powells warehouse. Picture a warehouse full of bookshelves, books on every shelf, with a busy little army of Northwesterners pushing cartloads of books up and down the aisles to be shelved. One of 6 warehouses that feeds the Powells physical and online stores, it was a bibliophile's delight.

Only the books in the warehouse are not for sale... at least not at that location. If you want to handle to books, you have to visit one of their stores.

I walked into the warehouse with 3 boxes of books and walked out with 1 box and a Powells card loaded with $98.

Mission accomplished. Anyone want to go to Powells?

Purging

I've finally come to grips with the fact that we are in this house to stay. So, instead of dreaming of how to increase our floor space, I'm decreasing our belongings...

Starting with books.

15 apple boxes full of books have made their way off the shelves so far... 5 for storage, 4 for the church garage sale, 3 for used book stores, and 3 boxes of homeschool books to sell to younger families.

I know I'll miss some of these books. I'll hunt for them and won't be able to find them. But then, I've been doing that already. It seems when there's a book I really need to lay my hands on, it's gone into permanent hiding. At least now I can blame my purge instead of my memory loss.

Henri Matisse is Dead

This probably doesn't come as a surprise to you since the French artist passed away in 1954. But for those of you who haven't met him, Henri Matisse (Henry, for short) was also the name of my youngest daughter's beta fish.

He lived a long and happy life... for a fish.

I'm not sure if it's a sign that we're raising the girl right or a sign that she is heartless, but the mourning period lasting about 22 seconds. Then the shovel came out and she picked the perfect spot to bury him, right beside the 2 frogs she had for about a day last summer. She didn't even flinch when she shoveled the dirt over that ever-open eyeball.

I don't think I could have done it. I'm sure someone else in the family always officiated over my hamsters' funerals while I sobbed into my handkerchief. I remember moping through a whole day of school (3rd grade) when Fluffy died. (And using his untimely death as an excuse for not participating in class activities.)

It's been almost an hour now.

She's campaigning for another pet.

Pavlov and Turkey in the Straw

The ice cream truck just went by, singing Turkey in the Straw at the top of its electronic lungs. Kids from miles around hear the song and, instantly, their mouths start to water. Nothing could taste better on a barely warm spring day than a Sponge Bob Push-up, drastically overpriced at $2 a pop.

"It's the ice cream man," they shout, scrambling for their own money or begging their mothers for some. They flock to the street, waiting to satisfy the craving they didn't even know they had.

I keep a constant supply of fudge bars and twin pops in the freezer for just such an occasion. For the same price as indulging a momentary craving for a minute, I can fill the same craving in all my kids for a week or more.

I don't respond to Pavlov's call. Not when it sings "Turkey in the Straw" (which I find immensely annoying). I must admit, though, that the theme song for the NPR news quiz makes me want to take a walk. And I suspect they put the milk at Safeway right by the donut case for a reason.

How 'bout you? Do you have any pre-conditioned responses?

Where in the World?

A handful of you will know where I've been and perhaps the same number will know why.

Butterfly Kisses

This butterfly must have recognized this as a child who loves flying creatures. Owls, bats, juncos- even starlings- all flying things deserve to be fed, admired, and studied. She caught a glimpse of a crow carrying nesting materials this afternoon and ran inside to write it down. The great blue heron, the chickadee and the bald eagle have earned their spots in her life list book. Everything but flies and bees are to admired and encouraged.

She deserves a butterfly kiss.

photo credit: Aunt Dana