I spent all day at one of our local nunnery's Earth Day event, grilling up the burgers, brats & pork patties for our co-op, and I am sunburnt.  Yup, first sunburn of the season!  I am exhausted, but it was a lot of fun.  And the co-op made around $500 just from selling salads--we haven't even gotten our take from the grilling stand yet!  Yeah!

We came home, then went out to dinner (did I mention that I was exhausted?), and then Brian headed off to church to babysit for some Vampire LARPers who rent the Religious Education wing once a month--he's a board member, and there has to be at least one board member present at any event not hosted by a member of the congregation.  Not long after he left, we had our next "first of the season"--the ice cream truck!  Some of you may remember how really bizarrely special this is to me, as I grew up out in B.F.E. on a 1/4 mile long private drive and no ice cream truck would ever dream of coming by.  In fact, one year for my birthday my parents hired an ice cream truck to come out to our house and serve ice cream to the party.  So anyway, we go tearing outside to pick our treats (which were the wonderful, cheap little popsicles rather than the $4.00 mega-delux ice cream thingumies).  The kids then proceded to play outside for another couple of hours, planting bean seeds in their garden, pushing each other down the slide and then pulling each other back up, and generally being total boys.  I chatted a bit with my neighbor, planted more beans, read some gardening ideology, and generally enjoyed the evening.  The kids eventually came over to sit with me, and finally caved and asked to go to bed.

Ah.  Good day.  Oh, and while I might look like a total lobster right now, the aloe I've smeared all over me is at least preventing much pain from setting in.  Either that, or I'm so sunburnt that I actually burned off the main layer of nerve endings in my skin.  Hm.  Well, I guess we'll see.

I really love role-playing games sometimes.  You get to say the most amazing, and yet totally-sensible-in-the-situation things, like "Taste the rainbow, bitch!"  (Has to do with using a brightly colored spell at a big, bad nasty thing.)

Yesterday was the day we tried to have last weekend.  Last weekend, on Sunday, we went to church and then took a picnic lunch out to the park, with the intention of eating and then playing a fun round of disc golf with the kids on the last really nice day of the year (70*F--WTF?).  What actually happened was that we were all a little fried from church, and the kids wouldn't eat anything, which pissed me off, and it all escalated and resulted in us packing the kids back up and going home in a huff and having a fairly annoyed evening.  But yesterday we tried again.  We had lunch at home and then bundled up and headed out to the park.  It was like 45*F, but somehow that made it more fun to me.  Possibly because I was so bundled that I didn't expect to do well, so I was just out there for the enjoyment.  And it really wasn't bad being out like that, although we only played 9 holes rather than the full 18.  We had fun, and the kids threw frisbees aimlessly around, and rolled down the hills into piles of leaves.  I averaged a little under 2 over par, which was a real improvement for me.  It was just a lot of fun.

We then packed up our kids and took them to the mall for haircuts.  The place we usually go was closed for remodeling, which was very annoying.  They're the cheapest in the mall, and they do a very good job.  Anyway, we took the kids elsewhere, and they did an okay job for a bit too much money, but now at least Ian's hair isn't all tangly.  His curls are all gone, but I'm optimistic that they'll come back. 

After that, we went to church for the Pasta Dinner and Auction.  We had yummy food, but didn't stay for the auction.  We did bid on a couple of silent auction items, and I won one of them, so I'm now a proud owner of a Mr. Popeil Pasta Maker!  I've got the hand-crank roller, which is great, but I can't do shapes like rigatonis or pennes or anything.  I think too, if I want, I can convert it to hand-crank (it might take some determination, but I'll see).  Brian is now officially "under the weather" from the long day out in the cold yesterday--he'd been teetering on the edge of sick anyway--but overall, it was a good time.

On our way home from church today the muffler fell off of our car.  I knew it was going to soon--I'd punched a hole in our exhaust line going over some really rough train-tracks too hard.  I mean, it was going to need changing soon regardless--it was rusted and old, but the tracks did it in.  So that goes high on my "to do" list.  I do love our mechanic, though.  I took it in to them, and he said Yup, you've got a hole in your exhaust line, but you don't want us to fix that.  It'll cost you $280 for us to do it; you should take it to a muffler place instead, it'll be much cheaper.  Man, I love those guys.  My mechanic is saving me money!

Kids are playing Asterix & Obelix on our PS2.  We also got Jak & Daxter 3 yesterday at the Mall, all used, but J&D won't play.  In fact, Asterix and J&D 1 are the only things that *will* play.  I'm going to see if I can get the PS2 repaired here (heck, Sony DADC is headquartered here, you'd think I could get a PS2 fixed here!), but if not, there's a place I can send our PS2 out to that will fix it for between $60-90, including shipping.  No way are we getting a PS3, though--they cost $350, and the damned things aren't back-compatible!!  Screw that, I'll sooner buy a new PS2 than a PS3.

I also cannibalized a bunch of bags of leaves from a neighbor's house to use mulching my empty garden beds, herb beds and strawberry beds for the winter.  Night-night, garden!

And now I'm going to go make some hot cocoa for everyone and watch my Mr. Popeil video on using my pasta machine!  Good times, no?

Okay, so Indiana now has a monsoon season.  Fine.  In fairness, this really isn't very unusual.  Every year we have massive flooding (at least, if you're anywhere near a river or major body of water you do), and every year we all go "Oh my gosh this is so bad it's never been so bad oh my gosh!"  Well, maybe not every year, but certainly every two to three years.  There are the occasional HOLY SHIT floods, like 1993, and this year is in fact annoyingly bad, but it still seems within normal tolerances to me.

Unfortunately, though, our town has sewer systems that can be carbon-dated, and the rain we have been receiving has completely overwhelmed them.  So our town is in an official state of emergency, the take-home message for me being that our Farmer's Market was cancelled today (BLAST), and I can't go to JoAnn Fabrics or Hobby Lobby until the stupid travel ban is lifted (DOUBLE BLAST).  I guess today I will work on my pantry until the ban is lifted. 

Brian went to his orientation program for the Distance Education program yesterday, and found out much good and bad.  We're both a little annoyed that there were several very very salient features of the program which were not made clear on either the website or any of the application materials which should have been.  For instance, our plans had been for Brian to be able to work on his student teaching during the spring semester, so that he'd be nearly done with licensure by the time the hiring cycle starts for the 09-10 academic year.  Turns out that there is a 9-month paperwork and such procedure for getting set up to do student teaching, and there are two opportunities each year to do student teaching.  To student teach in the spring, all paperwork must be in process by the beginning of March (this is most likely why ISU just couldn't admit Brian late to their program, since it's a 1-year only program, whereas SMWC has more flexibility).  So he cannot possibly do his student teaching this year.  Also, whereas the whole program is very much billed as designed for people currently in other professions to be able to work towards licensure at the same time, in order to student teach you are expected to have 8 weeks free from work.  This is not trivial.  These are things that people need to know before entering a program so that they can plan appropriately.  I don't think they were hiding these things or anything; rather, it just didn't seem to have occurred to them that they might be very important pieces of information.  Ah well.  Brian nearly left the program at that point, but decided to stay and see if he could work through this.  He seems to be glad he did, as it is likely that these facts are not doom for us, but they certainly derailed the basic outline of our plans.  He had to do quick mental scrambling while at the orientation to re-route himself, but he did it, and I think it'll be for the best.

On the other hand, he's very positive about the program and the teachers.  He likes the course modules and feels he can do well at them and get good information out of them.  He'd thought (feared) that there wasn't an Educational Psychology course at all, but there is, it's just called something different.  While he was a bit stressed out about some of the more radical changes foisted upon us by the new information he got yesterday, overall he's pretty happy with how things look.  He's particularly impressed by the woman who is in charge of the Distance Education program--he got great vibes from her.  Good stuff. 

Brian also got the Dungeons & Dragons v4.0 yesterday, and has more or less been up all night reading them (he did attempt to go to sleep a few times, but gave up).  He's been very oscillat-y on it so far.  At first he was really excited about some of the changes; then he became more pessimistic that the game looked very geared towards combat and it's video game spinoffs, rather than roleplaying, character interaction, etc.  We'll see.  I'm much of the opinion that this is what all of the books look like, and it's up to the DM to push the campaign the way it needs to go for the enjoyment of the players, but I don't know how systemic or difficult to modify the new rules will be.  We shall see.

If my newly-planted asparagus crowns are rotting in the ground, I'm gonna be soooooo annoyed.

Let's see, maybe I should just take these in the order in which they happened, so that you can get the profoud weirdity of what was today.

• I did not manage to check either my email or my blog before I left this morning.  This never happens.
• After working out, I got to spend the afternoon finally hanging out with one of my best friends whom I've not seen in ages.  It was really, really, really, really nice....  Man, I've missed having friends.
• Took Alex to piano, when the day was still mostly clear with puff-clouds in the sky.  After piano, went back to friend's house to get her and go to a small Wednesday farmer's market.  Within the half hour of my son's lessons, all hell broke loose in the sky.  Heading to the market, there was a well-defined line of black on the horizon.  Once there, massive storms had erupted.  We got a call that my friend's whole family had holed up in the basement and that we were under a tornado warning.  We, on the other hand, are in my car essentially in the middle of a field.  Great.  So I go and buy some asparagus and cheese cause, really, what else can we do?
• Storm blows over in 15 minutes.  Clear again.  Head home.
• Check messages.  Find out that Brian has been admitted to SMWC, still unclear if they can process things in time to get him in for the June term though (turns out they were able to).  Find out one of Brian's grade and junior high school friends committed suicide either this morning or last night.
• Fix All Local Dinner (there will be a separate post for that later--this is not my official One Local Summer posting).
  
• Brian tries to find old acquaintances to inform them of the bad news about his friend.
• We head to the library which is inexplicably closed.
• Get ice cream.

F-ed up, man.

 Currently everyone in my house is sitting at a computer.  I'm just sure that's not healthy.  Brian is home from work this morning so he can go see Ian's gymnastics lessons, and he's playing "Spellforce".  Ian is sitting at his little Vtech "computer" playing some kind of letter game, and I'm, well, right here.  I spent the lion's share of the morning convincing Brian's laptop to find our home network; ISU's computers use some kind of proprietary software for networking, which was quite easy to manipulate once I found the bloody stuff.  Sheesh.

It's been a weird few days.  Mostly good, although with some tense moments.  Wednesday was fun.  Brian stayed home from work and vegged all day.  After dinner, we all went out for haircuts (yes, even me--shoulder length!), and then Alex went to buy himself a snorkeling set.  No, I really have no idea what he's planning on doing with it, but he'd been talking about one for over a week, and finally he decided to buy one for himself, as he has plenty of money for a cheap kid-style one.  He now walks around our house in snorkel gear.  Cute.  Since the kids did so well at haircuts & everything, we went out for pie, and then all home to bed. 

Thursday was spent in a nontrivial amount of tense discussions about whether or not B will be applying to SMWC for their accelerated teachers licensure program.  He is worried, very plausibly, that trying to take classes will interfere too much with his work on publishing over the summer aimed at getting another academic job.  We're also worried about the money.  We do have the money to pay for the courses, but it won't be easy, and it will largely clean us out.  But Brian looked over the course list, and we talked to one of the admission agents at SMWC, and B is persuaded that the courses are very flexible in form, and he should be able to do good publishing work as well as completing his coursework.  In fact, the format might be very advantageous for him, as he can sort of bop back & forth from writing to coursework, which is how he works best.  It's just a really hard decision to make.  We would really love for Brian to find another academic position, but the market is so bad that we just can't count on it.  And he has an opportunity this year to complete his licensure for secondary ed, which would allow him to keep teaching, which he's very good at.  *sigh*  We'll see.  I actually think he would really enjoy teaching high school, but then again, it would be him doing it, not me, so what I think doesn't amount to much.  But we do have friends who changed from the academic route to the secondary ed route, and have been glad as hell that they did so.

Going to a fun burger & beer joint tonight with the folks on the Terre Foods Steering Committee.  We might do a bit of brainstorming and general chatting, but really this is just for rest & recharge.  We've been working pretty hard over the past few months, and with festival & farmer's market season coming up, we're going to be kicking into high gear soon.  Beer is an important component to fortify oneself for the upcoming onslaught.  And my mom is taking Alex for the weekend, which should be fun for him.  In fact, this is the first mother's day since I've been a mother (and possibly the first since B and I have been together) that B won't be in the middle of finals on mother's day.  We're kind of at a loss on what to actually do!  =)

Today, after several tense and packed days of preparation and work, the closed portion of the conference on Meditation and Spirituality (for which I've been working for a few weeks) began finishing up.  Having nothing specific to be working on (being there rather in a "just in case" capacity), I got to sit in a room with some of the best thinkers on the subject and listen to passionate, sometimes even heated, debates about the nature of spirituality and its role in clinical psychology and research.  And they're paying me for this!  Honestly!  The discussion was fascinating.  I took notes furiously.  As an employee (and decidedly not one of the top minds in this field) I did not feel it was my place to interject comments, so I wrote down my thoughts anticipating talking with the participants during meals or breaks.  Instead, my comments got made by others, which was at the same time gratifying and frustrating (gratifying that I had good comments to make, frustrating that others got to make them).  Arguments flew back & forth about the role of first person reporting in both clinical work and in research; what constitutes a necessary and/or sufficient condition for religious experience; whether or not the claim "all activities are spiritual" renders the very term "spiritual" meaningless (they meant from a clinical standpoint, but I'd wonder if that worry wouldn't hold writ large).  Dear gods, it was fascinating.  I'm planning on picking up Pargament's book on Religion & Coping. 

On the pure-work side of the event, though, trying to get a University in mid-Indiana to cope with a roomful of meditators can be interesting.  Try convincing catering that, no, really, around 1/2 of the participants will be vegetarians.  Yes, vegetarians.  That means they don't eat meat.  Yes, that includes chicken.  No, that small tray of veggie wraps will not be sufficient.  Okay, I'll call you when we need more. (5 minutes later)  Yes, we need more veggie wraps now, we're out.  *wait, wait, wait*  Those are not veggie wraps.  They have chicken in them.  Chicken.  That's meat.  It comes from an animal.  Would it help if I asked for non-flesh foods?

ARGH!

But still, worth it all.

I've also, pretty much, mostly, been asked if I want a permanent job there.  As long as the hours go back down (which I would expect, since they're only ramped up so high for the conference itself), I think that would be really cool.  We'll see how this pans, though.  It's been a bit stressful getting my life to work with a job, even though the job's only 10hrs/week.  I've set aside some projects that I enjoy, like bread baking and making jams & canned goods.  I expect, though, that what I really need is to adjust my schedule to a more appropriate form that will allow for these activities.  I think I can do it; and if I can't, maybe I'll try to bow out gracefully from my job.  But I must admit, having a paying job, and the satisfaction of working outside the home, it's been really nice.  I'd forgotten how much I enjoy non-domestic activities.  I have the utmost respect for stay-at-home parents, and I've done it myself for some time, it's harder than hell.  But I'm just one of those people who likes to work outside the home at least some of the time, even in a volunteer capacity.  It's a different sort of satisfaction.

Hrm... I think I'm beginning to feel--pulled?  Yes, pulled, in many directions.  Right now things are largely under control, and it's a bizarrely good feeling, but I know if I try to keep this up I am going to blow a gasket.

It is now 12:30pm.  I have accomplished the following:

• Notified Alex's school that he is (yes still) sick
• administered medicines to both Alex and Ian (who, yes, now has croup, too)
• made breakfast
• emailed my boss about not being able to come into the office for the meeting this afternoon (thanks, sick kids)
• edited a co-op survey for our startup business
• phoned Joink about donation of local webhosting in the future
• investigated nametag options for the Center's conference on Staples.com
• Google-fu'ed the locations of all of the closed conference participants so that the dept. secretary can fill out travel authorizations for them (this one is strong in the Google-fu)
  
• emailed all known travel arrangements to dept. secretary
• made paneer
• discussed opening a bank account for co-op with a cohort

This is, really, a lot to do in about 3 hours.  I need to get to work on lunch now, and then take Brian to the eye doctor today ::stress::.

So far I'm keeping up, but I'm not sure this is sustainable.  Also, notice that essentially no housework has been done yet.  Remarkably, our house is clean (don't even ask me how that's possible--my only guess is that the kids have been too sick to mess it up).  We'll see how I do.  One cohort in our co-op group has essentially taken it upon herself to monitor what I'm doing and make sure I'm not totally burying myself with work.  She has already ordered me onto the couch once with a cup of hot tea.  Good person.

Now I need to get to that lunch, and then after taking B to the doctor, provided we're not in full panic mode due to the diagnosis, I'll need to build a website for the co-op.  Yes, much to do.  At least some of it is earning me money.

Got some emailing done this morning, set of with Ian for the gym.  Ended up being able to bike with Brian about half the way there, which was quite pleasant.  Did a positively brutal body sculpting class.  You know how those go?  "How many more times can she make me do this?  I can't do many more of these... Ow ow ow EIGHT MORE?!?!  Okay, almost done... she'll give us a break after this last one and WHAT DO YOU MEAN "NOW ADD A KICK?!?!" "  But believe it or not, it was great.  Picked up Ian from stay-n-play, and he wanted to see the pool.  On the way to the pool he plastered himself to the window of the gymnastics room watching the kids.  I notice that the kids are all roughly Ian's age, so I inquire.  It's "Mommy & me" gymnastics lessons on Friday!  Right when I finish my workout!  Ian can try it for free next week, and if he likes it, it's $25/month (we'll see).  We go hang out at the natatorium window for a bit, then head for home. 

On the way out, we're intercepted by Mrs. Ly, who owns the Asian Market downtown.  We chat a bit about making kimchi, and she invites me over to make eggrolls to sell at the Blues Festival this weekend.  Sure!  What the heck!  I decide to make an afternoon of it, and head downtown.  We get there, whereupon I smack myself in the forehead for deciding not to bring my purse (and hence, wallet) to workout with me.  Unchain bike again, head home to get wallet, double-check kimchi recipe, then back downtown.  Buy kimchi needfuls at the Asian Market, a yummy veg. lunch at Market Bella Rossa, then up to Mrs. Ly's for eggroll-making.  That was fun.  Of course, Mrs. Ly has some exacting standards for eggroll-satisfaction, but we did okay (or, at least, she didn't try to kill us and use us as eggroll filling).  Left eggrolling to pick up Alex from school, had a brief and optimistic chat with his teacher, who thinks that Alex is reacting negatively to a new kid in class who has a lot of the same issues (but is far more aggressive), and that he'll even out soon.  Yay!

Came home, had neighbor-daughter Hannah over for a bit, watched The Goonies (again), and made pasta for Lemon Tagliatelle (ooohhh soooo yummy).  We'll see what happens tonight!

And now, I leave you with some stupid-yet-funny religious lightbulb jokes:

We had a fairly packed weekend.  We got our Christmas tree, and after some minor modification to the trunk, it is up and seems pretty much unlikely to fall over.  It's even decorated!  We discussed finally breaking down and buying a new tree-topper, but so far we've not done it.  We currently have the good ole cardboard star covered in tin foil on top (it's even attached to the tree with twist ties).  Truth be told, I'm a little edgy about getting a new, cool tree topper.  Have you ever noticed that in like every movie about divorce or family problems the tin-foil tree topper becomes the symbol of all that was lost, or traded in, or given up for the sake of careers, or....  You know the ones--the divorce papers are about to go through, and the soon-to-be-ex husband & wife start packing their things, and one of them finds *sniff* the tree topper that they made *sob!* when they were in college/just married/in their first apartment/etc.  *cry*  It reminds them of how they used to be, what they used to value *whaaa!*.  Then, with tears in their eyes, they take down the ultra-cool, $150 tree topper they had and re-attach the tin-foil star (why do these things always happen over christmas?), and then they tear up their divorce papers and LIVE HAPPILY EVER AFTER!!!!!  Oy vey.  So, by extension, if we buy a new tree topper we are consigning ourselves to at least one decade of unhappy,  loosing-contact-with-each-other-and-our-values, probably will try to divorce, trauma.  We can only hope to find the tin-foil star in time to save our marriage!  I don' t think I'm ready for that sort of thing....

I've also noticed a recent, and to me disturbing, spate of media relating to organic farming and related practices.  These have all been terribly skewed against organic farming, IMO.  Now, I don't expect much from the Today Show's coverage ("Look!  It has *more bacteria on it* than conventionally grown food!"), but the article in The Economist really worries me.  Those people are supposed to be smart, and as such I have to assume that whoever wrote about food politics for them was actually trying to present biased information.  Or, and maybe just as likely, s/he is suffering from the same sort of economist tunnel-vision we see in other areas--like the popular economic assumption that we have an infinite supply of energy (no, I'm not making that up).  So, for example, the Economist article complained that by offering a guaranteed minimum purchase price for coffee, Fair Trade coffee is propping up a system of coffee overproduction--that is, the farmers are currently overproducing coffee, and they'd be able to get by if they would diversify their farming.  There are only three HUGE problems with that analysis, which any economist ought to be able to detect with a minimum of effort:

1. Coffee has a regular 5-year boom/glut cycle, and has for at least the past 200 years.  Farmers might be overproducing coffee this year, but they will be underproducing coffee in 3-4 years, and that's just how it works.  So, the complaint that farmers are overproducing is spurious at best, since we'll need them to be producing at these levels in a few years.  This brings us to--
2. Farmers want to diversify, but they can't because they don't have the resources.  This is where schemes like *gasp* Fair Trade come in, because they often offer training in diversification, and even occasionally small or micro loans with low interest.  The Economist article claimed that guaranteed minimum pricing is a disincentive for farmers to diversify, but in practice this seems to be nonesense.  These farmers know what will happen to them if Fair Trade ever disappears for any reason--they're toast.  They want and need the skills to protect their farms from hostile purchasing when coffee is on it's high cycle.  And, of course, there's the final problem of--
3. The main reason farmers can't get a decent price on their crop has far more to do with the 18,000 middlemen the coffee goes through to get to market than anything else.  Fair Trade is doing nothing more than removing the middlemen, allowing them to purchase coffee at a fair price directly from the farmers, rather than after a hundred price markups between the farmer and the distributors.

Argh!  None of this is brain surgery!  Good grief!  The article even claimed that only 10% of the price of a fair trade coffee from a coffee bar goes to the farmer.  Well NO SHIT SHERLOCK!  It's from a COFFEE BAR!  They have a horrendous markup on the coffee even after retail pricing.  That $3.75 latte only costs about $.75 to make at home from retail goods (at most).  Wanna bitch about how little money makes it from Starbucks to the farmer?  Bitch at Starbucks, then! 

*sigh*  Well, anyway...

In other news, Ian had his 2 year checkup, and he's golden, if BIG.  He's barely off the charts on weight, although as she pointed out in about 10 days he'll be back on the charts.  He doesn't seem to be overweight, though, so no one's really worried.  I think it's his thighs--you should see them, they're gargantuan!  Which made it easier for the RN to give him his vaccinations (man, I hate those... I wish I'd ever heard of delaying vaccination when Alex or Ian were born).  I'm expecting some crankiness and fever soon, but so far he's doing fine.  Anyway, time for lunch, as my eldest keeps politely reminding me.  PB&J today, I think.

R.

My friend KH is in the *suck-suck-suck-suck* part of labor. Where you have fairly regular contractions that are enough to, for example, keep you awake, but are not kicking over into full-blown labor. This is absolutely exhausting, not to mention nerve-wracking. We spent the morning hanging out, walking around wally-world, and she's definitely in early labor. Who knows how long this could last, though? I finally left to pick up my kids and head home, with explicit instructions to keep me posted (I mean that, K, I know you're reading this!). Some of the last few contractions she had before I left looked quite tricky--she was having some trouble talking through them, and that's a good sign. But I do hope she's able to get some rest.

On the other hand, my kids were apparently total angels over at KP's--she had no problem at all with them, they played happily and quietly and.... hey! That's not fair! Why don't they ever do this for me?!?!

Now, to figure out another way to get to KH's besides on the moped. That was okay today, since it was around 60 degrees (WTF?), but it's gonna suck soon, since the bottom's supposed to drop out of the system tomorrow (I've heard about expected highs in the 30s, eesh). Not fun on a moped, but doable. But if it's snowing.... I'm in serious trouble. *plotting*

R.

I have suffered yogus interruptus.  Right after the "active conditioning" section of my yoga DVD had finished, but before the "balance and relaxation" phase, Alex comes tromping down from a very truncated nap!  It couldn't have been more than 45 minutes... erg!  I sent him back upstairs on the "at least have some quiet time playing with your stuffed animals" theory, and more or less managed to finish my video, but it really disturbed the whole vibe, man.  It's tricky to get your body going again when it's been interrupted and is thinking, hey!  maybe she's done torturing me for this afternoon!  On the other hand, yoga is getting easier and easier to do.  I haven't done my video for a few months I think, and I've lost more weight since then.  It's amazing what losing 10 lbs can do for your ability to pretzel your body.

I feel like a fog has lifted, though.  I cannot believe how completely, utterly, totally tired I've been.  As my friend K says, it's exhaustion at the molecular level.  I have no idea why.  I'd thought for a while that I might even be getting sick, but that doesn't seem to have come to pass.  At any rate, I've actually done stuff today, and may even continue to do stuff tomorrow!  I'm optomistic...  Honestly, my leading theory is that I need coffee at least once a day.  I don't manage that usually, as Brian takes the whole carafe of coffee with him to work (which he drinks all day, so it makes sense), and I don't want a whole carafe of espresso for myself, just one cup!  There must be a reasonable solution here.  Maybe I could score one of those cool, gold-filter one-cup drip thingies...  I used to have one of those, and have absolutely no idea what happened to it.  It was great while it lasted.

I also now have the absolute cleanest diapers on the planet.  I ran one standard cycle, and then meant to run a quick double rinse and spin.  However, I forgot to switch the cycles before I pressed "start", so I quickly "paused" the cycle and changed it, then restarted it.  This apparently really really confused the poor thing.  I'm guessing it thought what I wanted was another complete wash cycle, then rinse, then the quick rinse, then the second rinse, then the final spin.  Suffice it to say, the thing had been running for over 2 hours before I finally forced it to final spin and made the madness stop.  Very clean diapers.  Squeaky clean.  Eat-off-of clean. 

R.

We keep our house cold during the winter--usually around 62 degrees or so.  Yeah, not exactly sub-arctic, I know, but still a durned bit lower than most anyone else we know.  It saves us beaucoup bucks on our gas bill, and is a good general conservation measure.  However....

I am cold.  Everything was okay until we started hitting the 25 degree days outside--our house just gets sucked down with it, ya know?  And it doesn't help when I'm doing lots of cooking in the kitchen.  The kitchen is nice & toasty, so I'm in a tee-shirt, then I come into the living room and notice that my fingers are blue.  Erg.  Good way to get pneumonia.

I am also now engaged in a perpetual DVD battle with Ian.  The velcro that was holding the DVD cabinet door closed finally gave way, and now Ian will pull down whole shelves worth of DVDs, much to my consternation.  Ah well.

We've got an Interfaith Thanksgiving Dinner to attend tonight--it's us (the UUers), United Church of Christ, Central Christian, and the United Hebrew Congregation.  A good time should be had by all.  Well... at least I don't have to cook!

R.

So I now, like, totally belong to this co-op, right?  Actually, it's cool.  I got a monster bag of unsulfured dried apricots (gonna hafta get used to that--they're not day-glo orange, and they taste more like actual apricots than apricot additives... but sometimes I *want* the apricot additive flavor...), a 5 lb bag of raisins, 6-5lb bags of Bob's Red Mill Whole Wheat flour, 3 lbs of rGBH-free butter (but salted!  Damnit!), and a TWENTY-FIVE POUND BAG OF OATS!  Yup, you read that right--25.  Yee-haw!  Granola, here I come!  On the order next month I'm getting Brian like 6-2lb boxes of turbinado sugar, all for his coffee!

Otherwise, things went standardly today.  Did almost all of our Thanksgiving shopping.  I say almost, because it is impossible to do all of it in one go, no matter how hard you try.  One must forget something.  Made some yogurt--ah, yogurt.  I also made Lima Bean Stroganoff tonight.  It's actually really good, but it sounds so gross that Brian has officially renamed the dish "Mushroom and Bean Stroganoff" or perhaps "Butter Bean Stroganoff".  He claims (and I think rightly) that this is one of the few dishes in the world that can be greatly improved by changing it's name.

R.

Today was a nice day.  Pretty non-descript.  Got up, made banana-pumpkin pancakes (those worked!  who'd'a thunk it? Cardamom is the secret!).  Went to church, sold beaucoup chocolate bars, cocoa & coffee to the awaiting masses.  Had a nice afternoon.  Kids napped well, made banana bread (having a banana-intensive day).  Made black bean soup and cheesy biscuits for dinner; Alex even ate reasonably well.  Kids took bath, mom called and made a failed attempt to guilt her way into our plans for Thanksgiving (hah!).  Soon kids will go to bed, and it will be me, Brian, and a container of egg-nog ice cream... yeah.

Thanksgiving musings:  I cannot find a non-pre-brined turkey anywhere in this town.  I'd given up for dead any hope of finding a free range turkey, but I can't even find an "unenhanced" one.  Now, I'm not a big opponent of pre-brined, or "enhanced" turkeys in principle.  In essence, the processors are saving us a step.  But I like to do it myself.  It's one less step of processing that is done elsewhere, and I'm a total control-freak when it comes to my kitchen.  I don't even (usually) buy salted butter, not because salt is evil, but because I want to decide how much salt is in my food, thank you very much.  Ah well.  Some of the farmer's market people who had livestock this year said that next year they might try to do turkey, which would be absolutely awesome. 

When I was in Idaho the prof I taught for was a great guy who is scottish and vegan, and married to a nice american lady.  When he found out that they would be hosting thanksgiving one year, he launched into this tangent about "Oh yeah, that'll be jus greeeeat!  We can do a maybe Asian theme, and we could maybe have sauteed string beans, and I know this great dish of marinated tempeh with a sesame glaze and a... and... er... uh-oh."  He tailed off as he noticed his wife standing, arms crossed, staring coldly at him.  She took in a deep breath, and said "This is THANKSGIVING.  We will be having MASHED POTATOES.  And GREEN BEANS.  And STUFFING...."  I think he realized at that point that he had stepped on some invisible, previously unknown yet deeply held cultural need of americans to have stuffing at least once a year. 

R.

Random Thought:  War is Peace. Ignorance is Strength. Freedom is Slavery. Bush is President.

I cut Ian's hair last night.  Bwhahahahaaa!  I hate it I hate it I hate it!  I did a good job, it looks fine in an objective sense, but HIS HAIR IS GONE!  All of his beautiful curls!  He was so adorable!  I loved his hair!  But now it's all gone... he looks like a little boy now, not my angelic little cherub.  Yes, his hair needed to be cut.  Yes, it was getting badly tangled and matted.  Yes, it was torture to wash & comb through.  Yes, everyone thought he was a girl (the doll didn't help).  I DON'T CARE!  I WANT HIS HAIR BACK!  Do you think I can glue it back on?

*sniff*

He's not getting another hair cut until he's 25.

R.

The weekend with the family was not bad.  My mother, bless her, did not attempt to talk with me about anything serious, which might've inspired a bout of hari-kari in me.  The kids were more or less tolerable, my mom dug having them around, and they liked her new (but temporary) place.  We went to see mom's new home, which is currently under construction.  It looks like it'll be nice, but I cannot get how anyone can pay over $175,000 for one part of a triplex unit of townhouses.  In Missouri.  Honestly.

The baby shower was nice, but I don't think it was all that crucial for me to have gone.  There were over 60 people there.  Eesh.  I am not used to that sort of event.  Most baby-related events I've been to over the past few years have been small, intimate, 8-12 person gatherings that were more about mommying the mom-to-be that getting as much stuff as possible.  In fact, usually you're only asked to bring a casserole to freeze, to sign up for a time to bring a hot meal over, and to supply a "bead" of some sort to make a labor-chain for the mom to hold during labor as a focus and reminder of all those who love her and are rooting for her.  The poor mom, in this instance, is so screwed, too.  Her husband (my cousin) is really not all that great of a guy.  Nice enough in his way, and I'm sure not abusive or anything on that scale, but hardly the "there for you" kinda guy.  She managed to talk him into going to a one day, crash course in parenthood.  This thing is supposed to cover everything from labor & delivery to diapering in 8 hours.  She is so so so so screwed.  I talked with her about hiring a doula, or looking for one who's working for free to get referals, which she said she would check into.  I'd love to do it for her, but I live 3 hours away.  I just hope she has a really smooth birth, because there is not going to be anyone or anything there for her in a supportive role to help her avoid complications.  *sigh*

On an evil note, as per my grandmother's decisions, my mom was supposed to make her own birthday cake!  And it wasn't even the cake she wanted!!!  WTF is going on here?!?!  She asked if she could make something different, and my grandma was like "Well, I really like the Sunshine Cake..."  Who gives two fucks what cake you like, granny?  Whose birthday is this, anyway?  At least I was able to intervene and make the cake for her.  But damnit, I'm making the cake my mom wanted the next time she comes through.

R.