Rutabaga Dreams

I declared today a Scrubbing Vacation. If you are not familiar with such things, I suggest you pick up a copy of Pippi Longstocking! Emma and I have been talking about doing one of these for quite awhile, and after reading Kim’s call to arms this morning I decided it was time to take a day off and do some scrubbing. I feel compelled to reassure my readers that my house really isn’t that bad - I can have people drop by (most of the time *ahem*) without feeling mortified - but there were some areas that needed some additional attention. We spent the morning cleaning and scrubbing, then we packed up a lunch and had a picnic with my mom at a local park. It was a gorgeous day, and we had a great time watching Emma make friends with another little girl who was there and watching Gregory crawl all over the playground. He thought about walking a couple of times, but then decided that all fours was a better position for the uneven terrain.

After our picnic and play I came home and scrubbed some more while Gregory napped, then we headed out for our homeschool park playday. Then it was off to Orchard to pick up a few things (where I had the uncomfortable experience of my children being pointed out as good example for a rather uncooperative little boy about Emma’s age - I thought it was an odd thing to do, and it seemed to have little to no effect on the boy) and then home to start on dinner. Someone gave us some frozen ground antelope awhile ago and I finally pulled it out to use it. We made burgers with it, and it was really tasty. I have never had antelope before, and while I was more acutely aware of the source of the meat than I am when it is turkey or cow, I very much enjoyed the taste. Somehow eating something that I don’t usually eat made me think more about the animal it came from, and made me more thankful for being able to eat good things like this.

It occurs to me that it is really getting rather late, so I should probably be going off to bed. I’m getting good at long, rambling posts these days, aren’t I.

A little over a week ago Matt asked if we could start making rye bread on a somewhat regular basis.  Not to do anything by half-measures, I promptly ordered 25 lbs of rye berries and a pound of caraway seeds from the buying club.  So, yeah, now we’re really committed to rye bread. 

I tried making some on Friday, and it turned out reasonably well.  The dough was quite sticky though, and it was rather difficult to get into the cast iron covered container to bake, which made it a little on the dense side.  (I baked it this way so that I could get a round loaf  with a nice crust)   I just started another batch of the bread this morning, and I tried to fine tune the porportions a bit, but I think it is going to be just as sticky.  I’m not sure if it is a water/flour ratio thing, or if it is because of the molasses, but this bread recipe is just sticky.  I guess I either need to figure out how to deal with it or I need to try a different recipe.  Too bad I lent my favorite bread cookbook to a friend last week!  Anyone have a good rye bread recipe?

Life is a little quieter and calmer this week, which is nice.   We spent some time outside enjoying the beautiful weather yesterday, and I made Gregory’s day by letting him go outside in the back yard when he asked to.  That little guy gets so excited whenever you let him go out!  Emma and Gregory puttered around together in the back yard while Matt and I made dinner, which was really nice.  Gregory has decided though that he’s not so interested in walking after all.  If you try to help him walk, he sits down, and while he’ll walk holding onto things he isn’t walking by himself anymore.  Why is it that babies do that?  They figure something out, do it a lot, then back off for awhile then start doing it again.  I know it is a normal developmental thing, but I do find it rather maddening at times!

Well, I see I am on the computer for 13 more minutes than I should be, so I best cut off this rambling post before it gets too long and get on with my day.

What a week!  It feels like it should be Friday, or perhaps even the weekend already.  The big news of the week - Gregory is walking!!  He took his first steps on Tuesday night, and practiced his new found skill quite a bit more yesterday, particularly yesterday evening.  This somewhat unfortunately coincided with my attempt to take the two kids with me to my church’s Lenten retreat, but I’m glad that he’s getting this walking thing figured out!

The Lenten retreat has been interesting - we have a Paulist priest visiting who is doing a series on the Gospel of Luke.  What is particulary neat about the series is that he has large portions of this Gospel memorized, and proclaims the Gospel, rather than just reading it.  He adds a fair amount of inflection and such so that it feels like story-telling rather than recitation.  He also sings hymns, psalms, and other songs and of course gives a lot of commentary as well.  It has all been quite interesting, and I’ve enjoyed it - particularly the parts where he is speaking out the words of Luke.  Hearing long passages spoken by someone who knows them well is a neat experience, and very different from the experience of hearing short passages read during Mass or reading them myself.

However, all of this has coincided with Matt working really hard on a site that launched last night…  so I took Gregory with me on Monday night (he did wonderfully, just sat with me and played quietly in the pew), got to leave the kids home on Tuesday night (so I missed Gregory’s first steps, unfortunately), and then I tried to take both of them on Wednesday night.  The kids did really well during the session for children on Wednesday afternoon, so I thought I would try to bring them to the evening session.  It did not go well - I gave up after about a half an hour.  Emma was great, she sat and listened attentively and tried to be helpful with Gregory.  Gregory however only wanted to play noisily with Emma and if I tried to hold him to keep him away from her he would squawk and ask to get down.  And if I let him down, he wasn’t content to play at the foot of the pew like he usually does (and did in the afternoon) - no, he wanted to walk.  And even the walking would probably have worked out, he could have just practiced at the back of the church and I don’t think it would have been a problem…  but no, he needed to walk saying “awk, awk!” (walk, walk) and making happy baby screeching noises.  All very cute and everything, but quite disruptive!  So I threw in the towel and we went out and got ice cream. 

And now today I have the buying club order to sort, and then park playday, and then the last evening of the Lenten retreat.  Phew!  I hurt my ankle over the weekend so I haven’t been running in the morning, which is probably for the best because I feel like I need all the energy I can get just to keep up with everything!

A conversation at a playground this afternoon:

The scene:  Three little girls, approximately 4 to 6 years of age, playing on a jungle gym.

Girl 1 (apropos of I don’t know what):  Everyone dies!  Everyone will die someday!

Girl 2:  No, not everyone!  God and Santa don’t die.

Girl 3:  God and Santa?

Girl 2:  God and Santa don’t ever die.  Never.  They live forever.

Girl 1 (the six year old Nietzsche disciple):  God is dead.

Girl 2:  No!  God isn’t dead!!  (she’s rather upset)

Girl 1:  Then where is he?

Girl 2:  He’s invisible.  Like Santa - that’s how Santa delivers the presents without being seen.

Girl 1 (unconvinced):  invisible?

Girl 2:  What do you know?  You don’t even go to church!

Girl 3:  Yeah, you don’t even go to church, you just go to kindergarten!

Girl 1:  I do to go to church!

Girl 2:  No, you just go to kindegarten!  I know!

Girl 1 (somewhat to herself at this point):  I do to go to church…  I go to kindergarten on kindergarten days and church on church days…  well, actually I go to sunday school…

At this point she realizes that the conversation and play has moved on, and she jumps up to join the fun on the slide.

A couple weekends ago we were up at the property, and I have been meaning to post some pictures and an update, but I am just now managing to do so. 

Here’s a picture at the road, looking down towards where the house is going to be:

This is where the house is going to be  - the orange tagged stake  towards the left in the picture is the northeast corner of the house.  All the trees with orange tape around them will be cut down at some point in the near future.

Here’s another view of the house site, the tagged stake in the lower right of the picture is the southwest corner of the house.

And here’s one of my handsome hubby cutting down a tree.

We’re making a lot of progress on the house plans.  We’ve decided to pay the SIP people to do some design work for us and to draw up the official plans.  We realized that if we wanted to start building this year instead of next year we needed to get some help in this department!  We’re currently in our second round with the designer, and we’re working on our draft of the electrical plans.  Matt is trying to bone up on plumbing so that he can try to figure out what that all is going to look like as well.  The electrical is interesting because it also involves lighting…  and lighting is rather challenging!  Other than “lights are good” we don’t possess a lot of expertise in this field, so that’s been a subject of discussion and research as well.  Some of the discussion has been quite amusing - apparently I notice lighting a lot more than my husband.  At least he’s willing to humor me and isn’t insisting that bare light bulbs dangling from the center of each room would be sufficient. 

The other thing we’re trying to figure out is how exactly we’re going to pay for everything.  To that end, we’re trying to get a handle on what things are going to cost.  Yesterday we spent several hours wandering around Lowes writing down prices and such, which I think was quite useful.  We only got about a third of the way through the store though, so I think we’ll need to go back soon.  There’s a part of me that wants to just try to figure out how to pay for this on our own - borrow from the 401(k), max the credit cards, drain the savings accounts, etc. then refinance when the house is done to clear all that up.  However, that’s probably not the most responsible way to do it.  I  rather chafe at all the requirements and details the banks want for the construction loans, which makes me want to try to get around using them as a source of funding.

We probably won’t be starting to build until June at this point - we might be starting some foundation work in May, but at this point I’m not expecting that.  We are still on target for moving up there in mid-April, which is approaching with great rapidity!  My sister and her fiance are going to be moving into this condo when we move out, and she came over to look over the place on Friday.  It certainly made our upcoming move seem a lot more real.

Today I have two RCIA rites, the Penitential Rite and the Rite of Election.  The Penitential Rite is just for me, because I am the only person who is already (validly) baptized in my group.  I’m not sure what this rite is going to entail, but I have a mental image of standing up in front of the congregation by myself and saying “I’m sorry!”.  I know it isn’t that, but I’m trying to keep myself from looking it up on Google because I’d rather just be surprised.  My RCIA coordinator doesn’t give us all the text and details of the rites beforehand - she just gives us enough that we can know where to go and what to respond when we do the rehersal shortly before the service starts.  This annoyed me a bit at first, but then I realized that it had more impact this way and that even if I did know every little step it didn’t make any difference.  So I try to turn off that “must be in control of everything” part of my brain and just go with it.

The other rite is the Rite of Election which is held at a bigger church in the next town over.  It is mainly for the unbaptized folks, but I get to be there and stand up at a certain point.  It should be interesting - all the RCIA groups from the area will be there, and the books of enrollment (where all the unbaptized and their sponsors wrote their names last week) will be presented to the bishop.  It is supposed to be a neat service and I’m looking forward to it.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan, by Lisa See, is a historical fiction novel that takes place in the middle part of the 19th century in the southern Hunan Province in China. This is a part of the world I know little about, and I found this book absolutely fascinating. The book is written in the voice of Lily, an old woman reflecting over the course of her life, her friendships and her families (by birth and by marriage). This reflective tone helps give some distance to some of the more difficult aspects of her life, and lends perspective and a cohesiveness to the whole story. The author deals with some difficult topics - topics that are foreign and sometimes even repulsive to the Western reader - things like footbinding, arranged marriages, and the abuse of women. What I particularly liked about this book, beyond the excellent prose and compelling story, was how well the author presented these subjects. She didn’t write about them in a rather typically Western style, where the reader can feel the author’s disgust and condemnation in every harrowing scene. See also doesn’t sidestep the issues, glossing over these formative parts of the women’s lives. Instead, See manages to write compellingly and with a good amount of detail about what happens to these women but in a way that you have some understanding of why such things happen in the context of the culture. She was able to walk the fine line between giving greater context and excusing the events - she didn’t fall prey to the relativist’s idea that since these things happen in this culture all the time, they must be just fine for that culture. I highly recommend this book, especially for anyone out there who enjoys reading well written historical fiction.

I’m really enjoying the practice of getting up and getting out in the morning.  I’m finding that it has become an important part of my day, a part that sets the tone and carries through my day more than I initially expected.  I find it interesting that my period of prayer and my time spent running are getting longer.  I guess my spiritual self and my physical self are getting in better shape!  At first when I started this, I was listening to my Teaching Company lecture (<a href=”http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursedesclong2.aspx?cid=700&id=700&pc=By%20Title”>How to Listen to and Understand Great Music</a>) shortly after I finished praying.  I’m still really enjoying the lecture series, however I’m not nearly as interested in plugging in right away.  It is starting to feel almost intrusive in the peace and silence of the morning.  I’ve started listening only once I get to the part of my route where there is a more traffic, which means that I’m now only listening to about a lecture a week.  Another thing that has surprised me is that I’m enjoying walking/running the same path every morning I go out (5-6 times a week).   I assumed that I would get tired of  this route and that I would want a change of scenery before too long, but instead I’ve grown to enjoy this route all the more.  I like watching different trees and plants go into bloom, and noticing all the other subtle changes that occur from day to day.  Initially when I started doing this, I thought that I should have or would need some sort of exterior goal for doing this, like a 5K to train for or something along those lines.  I had long thought that I would really like to do the <a href=”http://www.baytobreakers.com”>Bay to Breakers</a> in SF, but now the thought doesn’t appeal to me.   I feel content to do this just for the sake of doing it - doing it because I enjoy it and because it increases my enjoyment of my family and the world around me.

I’m really happy that I’m doing this, and I hope I can continue - even though the move and everything.  Part of why I’m writing this is in hopes that if I stop doing this, I can look back on this post and remember how much I enjoyed it…  so that perhaps it will help me get on the bandwagon again!

I know the whole Blogger word verification thing for keeping spam comment at bay is important, but dontcha just hate it when all that comes up is “word verification” because the picture won’t load?  Grr.