Time Flux

I had said supper would be ready in only fifteen more minutes.

At least half an hour later, as Jason was setting the table, he said, "Fifteen minutes, eh? Those must have been Microsoft minutes."

Mr. Grubby Comes To Town

Mr. Grubby:


Mr. Grubby takes a bath:


Jabin learned how to say "no" this week. He'd been trying it out, experimentally here and there on a few other days, but today was when he finally realized the full impact and power of the word. He enunciates it so clearly, with such a drawn-out delivery, it is like he is making sure you have no excuse to mis-understand his intention. And he's been practicing it at each and every opportunity he can think of--all. day. long.

Tonight, he was playing outside with his brothers and some friends of theirs, and when I went out to check on him one time he was gaily filling the dog's water with kibble.

"Jabin, don't do that," I said, as I scooped the soggy kibble out of the water with my hand and physically transported him about ten feet away, pointing him in another direction. Of course, he was not to be so easily distracted. As soon as his feet touched the bricks on the patio, he turned around as though to make for his kibble relocation project again.

"No, Jabin," I said. "You leave the dog's food alone, please."

He looked at me, clearly understanding what I was telling him to do, then formed his mouth into a perfect little "o".

"Nnnnoooo!" he said. He didn't move, but I could tell he wanted to.

"Jabin," I said, that don't-push-me tone in my voice.

"Nnnnoooo!" he repeated.

"Go play with your toys! Go play with your trucks! Go play with Zekers!" I suggested, indicating the general area of the yard where each was located with my arm for every prompt.

"Nnnnoooo!" he replied each time, just as emphatically as before. He finally decided to make for the dog kibble again, but when he saw me take a step towards him he thought better of it and made for his truck in the opposite direction instead.

Also, the hole of muddy water where the kids had made "Mud Stew" earlier.

Thus, the bath.

Adventures in Soup-Making

Did I mention that I have decided to write a cookbook? A soup cookbook. With the rave reviews I get every time I plunk a pot of steaming goodness on the table, I guess it went to my head a bit, and I figured that maybe others could benefit from my soup-making techniques.

This decision has given new life to my soup-making. I am no longer content with the old standbys, now that I have to come up with enough unique recipes to fill up an entire book. Already, this has resulted in some exciting flavour combinations that probably would not have graced our table otherwise.

Tonight, as Jason was putting the boys to bed, I was methodically hulling the two gallons of almost over-ripe strawberries Mike had brought up from my uncle and aunt's berry farm near Ponoka tonight. I have never had so many fresh strawberries in my possession at once before. We go through a fair amount of strawberries in frozen form, which we throw into our breakfast smoothies. However, I think the combination of the excess strawberries in hand--what seemed almost a decadent amount--and the new-found bravery I have found in my kitchen since hitting on this cookbook idea, made me a little reckless.

I remembered seeing a recipe for a sweet strawberry soup in one of my cookbooks, but sweetness was not what my taste-buds were hankering for. I wanted a soup that could be used as a hot starter or main course, not chilled or served over ice cream for dessert. A little uncertain if my ideas would actually turn out okay, I decided to turn to the internet for a little pre-cooking research.

I googled an amazing variety of key words, and did not come up with a single soup that used the flavour combinations I had in mind. 99% of the soups were made to be served cold, and every strawberry soup recipe I saw was sweetened and seemed fit for dessert. This made me a little nervous. Surely someone had thought of this before? Maybe there was a reason there were no "Hot Strawberry Basil Cheese Soup" recipes out there.

However, I was determined to try. What's the harm? I thought.

I decided to make only a small batch. And to not wait until the pressures of hungry tummies at meal-time were mounting over me.

I pulled out a few ingredients from the fridge. Then a few more. Put some of the other ones back. Tried to formulate a plan in my mind. Then set to work.

It was with no small amount of trepidation that I started sautéing onions. My hands actually shook as I minced the garlic and added it in. About this point I decided to go with a different combination of flavours than my original plan had been--something about the new line-up appealed to me more. (Not that the original doesn't have merit--I still have a lot of strawberries, so that might be tomorrow's experiment!) I hovered nervously over the pot as I waited for onions to soften. I was trying something completely new and different--oh, how I wanted it to succeed!

Soon, I was blending, adding the final ingredients, and re-heating. Taste-test time.

A sound of pleasant surprise escaped my lips. This was good! Just needed a bit of tweaking with the spices. A little more salt, a dash more cardamom, and oh! I forgot the pepper. Try again, and...

"Oh!" This was good!

After a few more teaspoons made it into my mouth from the pot, I decided to just have a bowl. As I ladled some into the white stoneware vessel, I decided at the last minute to garnish with cheese and green onions.

...It was like a little bit of heaven dancing in my mouth. It was so unexpected, so delicious--and so pretty. With every bite, a little moan of pleasure escaped my lips. Had Jason not been sleeping, I am sure he would have stuck his head out of the bedroom to see what exactly I was doing in the kitchen, anyway!

One really couldn't ask for a more fulfilling result to a cooking experiment than that.

You, however, are going to have to wait for the cookbook to be finished to try it! :-)

Recommended Reading

Nutrition & Health
Books:

• Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon and Mary G. Enig, PhD
• The Maker's Diet by Jordan Rubin
• Natural Cures "They" Don't Want You To Know About by Kevin Trudeau
  

Online Articles:

• Vaccination: Parents' Informed Choice
• Informed Choice: Vaccine Ingredients
• The great thimerosal cover-up: Mercury, vaccines, autism, and your child's health
  
• Aspartame (Nutrasweet)Toxicity Info Centre - Also has information on Splenda and Sweet One
  
• Guide To Superfoods - Non-toxic ways to get the extra nutrition your body requires, as opposed to synthetic or isolated vitamin or mineral supplements
  
• Dietary Guidelines
  
• Dietary Dangers
  
• The medical racket revealed: pharmaceutical fraud, political influence, and the FDA

Favourite Reads
Fiction:

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame, by Victor Hugo
• The Lord of the Rings series, including The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien
• The Dune series, by Frank Herbert
• The Chronicles of Narnia, by C.S. Lewis
• Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo
• The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
• Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
• Snow Queen and Summer Queen by Joan D. Vinge
• The Otherland series by Tad Williams
• The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling
• Phantom by Susan Kay
• The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux
• The Water Babies by Charles Kingsley
• A Painted House by John Grisham
• Pay It Forward by Catherine Ryan Hyde
• Esther: A Story of Courage by Trudy Morgan Cole
• This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti
  

Non-Fiction:

• The Holy Bible by various authors
• The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
  
• Captivating by John and Stasi Elderidge
• The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
  
• How to Make Your Kids Mind Without Losing Yours by Dr. Kevin Leman
• Sheet Music by Dr. Kevin Leman
• Bringing Up Boys by Dr. James Dobson
• The Nephilim and the Pyramid of the Apocalypse by Patrick Heron (as food for thought)
• Letters to Karen by Charlie W. Shedd
• Roman Lives by Plato

A Penny For Your Thoughts

As Jason was helping Noah get ready for bed, I sat in the big brown rocking chair knitting away on a baby blanket for one of the dozens of babies due-to-be- or already-born this summer. (I even know the mothers of at least four of them personally!) Jude was laying on the carpet on his stomach, legs kicking the air behind him, his head resting in his hands, in his faded Mr. Incredible pajamas.

"Mom?"

"Yes?" I looked up from my knitting, my needles not stopping. (It was just garter stitch, after all! I can do that in the dark! I have done that in the dark!)

Jude started into a long diatribe where the end of every phrase elevated in pitch like it was a question.

"I was laying here, and I was thinking for to do, and you were making supper, and Noah was at the table, and I was thinking, and, no, you were sleeping, and I was thinking for to do. And I had my head in my hands like this, and you were sleeping, and I was telling Daddy, and I was thinking for to do."

"Oh. What were you thinking about?" realizing this must have happened during my post-supper nap.

"I was thinking about what movie to watch."

"Oh."

That was quite the description of a thought process, coming from a four-year-old!

"Well, it's bedtime now. I guess you'll have to watch it tomorrow, huh?"

"Yeah. I'll think about what movie I want to watch tomorrow."

Really, we don't let our kids watch movies all day. They are quite limited in their time in front of the boob tube--Jude probably gets to watch the most, as I will often let him watch a movie while his brothers are napping, so we all get some "quiet time." Maybe this is why Jude feels the need to put so much thought into it--he wants to make sure he picks a movie he really wants to watch.

Or maybe he, like myself, feels the need to plan his day in advance. I suppose that can be a good thing, too. (See this post about his meal-planning and social-calendar planning fetishes.)

-----

If you would like to see more photos from our recent holiday, you can go here.

Good morning, Sunshine!

Do you want a smile? Go here. It will only take a minute.

It reminded me of how, when I was a kid, my mom would wake me up by singing the theme song off of some old T.V. show that would drive me completely crazy. "Good morning, sunshine! Why did you wake so soon? You've chased the moon and stars away and shined away the moon!"

I'm not a morning person, and I wake up slowly, especially if awoken by a person, not an alarm clock. Trust me, for the sake of our relationship, just let the clock get me up. Or the sun. But not singing about the sun.

Et tu, Brute?

Last year, I filed my taxes in September. I also registered with a GST* number for my business, which means that in addition to taxes this year, I also got to file a GST return.

This year, I managed to get my taxes filed sometime in early June, I think--a huge improvement over last year. And although my GST return was due on April 30, I dropped it in the mailbox across the street ten minutes ago, after receiving a verbal warning from the government from the self-same mailbox this afternoon. (Really, it was on my things to do last night already, but my husband, erm, distracted me. Like I was going to file a GST return after that!) I was tempted to see what would happen if I just let it sit, but they were using four-letter words like "fine," and I figured it wasn't worth paying more money to the government to find out. I'm such a wuss sometimes.

Anyway, in other news, our house grew by four more feet on the weekend. On Friday, as I pulled the van into the driveway from our homeward sojourn, Jason was filling up the water dish for Suri and friend, whom he had found wandering around downtown. After putting up a few "Found" posters over the weekend, and calling him in to the radio, his owner called us this afternoon--and said we could keep him! The voice on the other end of the line said that she had actually been trying to find him a new home for a while now, and if we wanted, we could have him.

We had already been joking about that very thing, since he is more laid-back and has less bad habits than Suri. Also, Suri is a lot less work with him around, since they play well together and he helps to keep her entertained. So, other than the additional cost of feeding another dog, there were very few drawbacks. We were planning on getting another dog when we move out to the acreage anyway, so this just saves us looking and training an "unknown."

Here he is, in all his canine glory:

Welcome to the family, Brutus.

*Government Sales Tax, applicable on practically everything, except I pay more than I collect in the course of my business, so I registered for it so I could actually get some of my money back from the government.

'S Wonderful

Jason, you make me want to invent new words to describe love. Everything in existence just seems so inadequate.

Thank you for being you. You rock.

Holiday Highlights

Well, we're back. By "we" I mean the kids and I--Jason never went anywhere except to work and the occasional foray to the river to give the dog some exercise.

I took my mom southwards to the Edmonton airport, and figured since it was so close to home it was a good excuse to hang out with the family for a little holiday time while I was at it. Unfortunately, I caught a cold from Amanda's kids only days before heading down there, and the excessive talking I am prone to do on a 7-hour trip in a van with another adult caused me to lose my voice. And by "lose it," I mean it was so bad that I could barely even squeak. It was that gone. The worst day was Sunday, when I wanted to take a strip off Noah for disobeying again, and could barely manage a hoarse croak. If I hadn't been so mad, I would have laughed at myself.

Anyway, since I was too hoarse to actually go visit anyone, and my father's house and yard were too hot to actually enjoy them (Saturday night set a record as being the hottest night in 52 years!), my brother Logan and I hid in the basement, I let my children watch excessive amounts of animated videos, and I read a book. Yes, it was so bad I was forced to delve into the novel I had brought with me as likely the only "summer reading" time I will get. It was tragic.

Seriously, though, I felt I did almost nothing but read all week, until bad-girl times of the morning, and barely finished the book before I came home on Friday. That fifth Harry Potter book is a doozy.

Of course, I didn't actually read all week. Last Monday we moved home base from Dad's to my in-laws, and thankfully, my voice had started to come back a bit (it was so bad the day before that I had JUDE tell Mom Winters on the phone when to expect us), so I did some visiting there. Then on Tuesday, I went to my friend Candace's for lunch. I hadn't seen her in over a year. Her two daughters are a few months younger each than Noah and Jabin, so it was fun to see how they changed. Not only that, they recently moved to an acreage, and Candace is busy fulfilling her farm-wife dream, with gusto even. You guys think I have excessive energy. You should see this woman--two kids, two alpacas, a goat, a passel of baby chicks, building coops, and stalls, and soon to have a cow and calf (said goat and cow are both for milking). Candace, you leave me speechless.

Also on Tuesday, I went and had a follow-up appointment on the Photo-comparative Blood Analysis, which I know I still have not explained here. (I'll get to it, I promise. Just like someday I'm actually going to update my survey on the right-hand side-bar!) At any rate, suffice it to say that things were much improved over last time--I had expected they would be, as my psoriasis has virtually disappeared, except on my hand, I have loads more energy than I have in years, and other than this present cold, have not been sick since the last time I was down there in April. We're not at the end of the tunnel, but Floyd (the expert) was very pleased with the improvements we saw in such a short time, and we can definitely see the end of the tunnel!

Wednesday night I got to have dinner with my dear friends Chris and Tegan, who are currently living near Lacombe. They only moved onto their acreage recently, so the driveway does not extend all the way to the trailer, and with all the rain they've been having the field they live in is a big slop-hole. Chris had to come retrieve us from our van with the quad. Here is a picture of him taking us back after supper, the older two boys tucked cozily in fore and aft positions. Also, self-portrait of Tegan and I on the flatdeck trailer behind him. (Never mind my "I'm concentrating on aiming this" smile.)

By Wednesday, I had been so inspired by my sister-in-law Ang's super-cute, super-flattering short hairstyle that I decided to go get a haircut while the getting was good. In Peace River, you have to book your hair appointments for a month in advance. Plus, I have only found one hairdresser I like, and she is on hiatus since she just had a baby. So I managed to squeeze in an appointment in Red Deer and got it chopped back up to healthy, pre-moulting-from-having-three-babies length.

Before:



After:

I had originally thought I would head home Thursday, but decided to take the extra day and head to Calgary to see my dear friend Vicki. Every time I go there, I come home with more toys for my kids--the really cool ones, too. She gave us the slide playset in our backyard, as well as a tricycle, and this time she sent us home with a chalkboard on an easel. Jason commented, "You just can't go to Vicki's and not get stuff, can you?" I guess not, but that's okay. She gets the kids' old toys out of her house with the satisfaction they will be used, loved, and appreciated, and I get to spend time with her. It's a fair trade, I think!

The thing I heard most commonly on our trip was "Mom, today I'm going to be a _____." The blank was most often filled in with "dragon, elephant, lion, cheetah," or "tiger". In fact, I think I heard that phrase nearly a dozen times just this last Friday alone, with a different creature to role-play each time. So much fun. Well, except for the part where every single animal of choice roars. Loudly. For eight hours in a van. Ahem.

On Wednesday, as we were headed up to Lacombe from Red Deer during rush hour traffic, I had to laugh as Jude looked around our van in amazement. We were heading north on Gaetz, and he first checked in front, then beside, then behind our van.

"Mom!" he exclaimed. "There's cars all around our van!"

Do you think we live in a small town?

We got to see a LOT of farm animals this trip--plus a really, really big puff ball.









Happy New Week, friends! Hope you are enjoying your summer!

Striking The Balance

"Lead a balanced life." That's what you hear, over and over, from so many sources.

Today, I had reason to pause and wonder if this really is the best advice.

Whenever I think of trying to balance my life, the mental image that comes to mind is of myself on a unicycle--my head is back, I've got a long metal pole protruding upward from my mouth, two more sticking upright from my hands, and on top of these three poles are precious china plates that represent all the many facets of my life--being a wife; a mother; a friend; time for studying the Bible; my hobbies; my ministry; my duties. The sheer stress of trying to keep all these plates from falling down on top of me in an enormous symphony of shattering porcelain is overwhelming. No wonder I get so little sleep--if I fell asleep, everything might come crashing down!

This image often came to me last winter.

Today, God impressed a new point of view on me.

While balance is important in nature, and something that God designed into it--a state of being we refer to as "homeostasis--coming back to normal"--it is not something that occurs constantly. On a graph, homeostasis could be a straight line running horizontally across the middle, while the actual state of something would be a zigzaggy line that would cross over that center point fairly frequently on a trail of hills and valleys.

This is much like the balancing act I described above--the plates seem to change position all the time, shifting here and there, and I never really feel like everything is completely balanced.

What about this view of balance? The type of balance God calls us to may not be to constantly be trying to keep upright on a unicycle while juggling our many responsibilites. What if real balance is more of a state of being full-out, pedal-to-the-floor on-fire for the things He has given us a passion for?

"I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15, 16)

This does not sound like the admonition of a God who wants us to be performing a balancing act all our lives!

Notice the word "act" in that phrase. It is an act, isn't it? Who ever really leads a perfectly balanced life? Yet we pretend we do, don't we?

For so long, I have feared the commitment required by this verse. Although I already hold many views that some would consider "radical," I have not come to this point willingly--I have fought God every step of the way on it. Oh, my foolish pride! Now, I see Him calling me ever onward--ever closer to the edge, that wonderful and awesome place where my faith is completely in Him; where I am no longer grasping to take back and control the parts of my life I have half-heartedly handed over before.

Where I am full-out His--and completely at rest. This, I can see now, is true balance. Not trying to stay in the middle of a socially acceptable norm. But living on the edge--the edge He has called me to.

Those who remain in the comfortable boundaries of social acceptability look at those on the edge with suspicion, fear, hurt, mistrust--all because they do not understand what would possess someone to live their lives there. But for those who go there willingly, they know the reason--because only here is there peace. And at the same time, it is the greatest adventure anyone can ever have.

"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

I stand here, God, ready to put down my poles and my plates, ready to get off this crazy cycle, and move closer to that edge. I fear it--I fear the reprisals, the relationships that may be strained with those who do not understand. I know it is going to happen, for it has happened before, with myself on both the giving and receiving end. But I also know that there is no fear in love, because perfect love drives out fear (1 John 4:18), and that You are Love (1 John 4:8). So I trust that you will drive the fear out of me as I go to this deeper place in you. I thank you that you are not finished with me yet .

I look forward to this new adventure in You with both excitement and nervousness, like a mother expecting her first child. I pray that you would increase my faith, so that I may be bold, not looking back at the things I am leaving behind, but gently encouraging others to join me in seeking out their own deeper places in You.

I claim the rest in Your above-mentioned promise. Show me how to be at rest. For too long, I have been Martha--now I want to choose the better way that Mary chose. I want to sit at the feet of Jesus, and not be so worried about all the preparations that need to be done. Not be so BUSY.

I want the true balance that Jesus offers.

I want to live on the edge.

On Blogiday

Just for the few of you who are actually reading this, despite the prolific sunshine outside, I shall be holidaying for the next week or so. I hope you get to enjoy some great time with family and friends and the outdoors this week, wherever you are.

Hugs and kisses!

The Value of Perserverence

This is a poem I just came across in the True Education Reader, Fourth Grade, published 1931. A good reminder for us all.

Try Again

If at first you don't succeed,
Try again.
'Tis a lesson all should heed--
Try, try again;
Let your courage then appear;
For if you will perservere,
You will conquer, never fear;
Try, try, try again.

Twice or thrice though you should fail,
Try again.
If at last you would prevail,
Try, try again.
When you strive, 'tis no disgrace
Though you fail to win the race.
Bravely, then, in such a case,
Try, try, try again.

If you find your task is hard,
Try again.
Time will surely bring reward;
Try, try again.
That which other folks can do,
Why, with patience, may not you?
Only keep this rule in view--
Try, try, try again!

-E. Hickson (adapted)

Summer To Do List

• Go camping.
• Scrapbook almost every day before fall hits and I no longer have time.
• Take lots of wonderful, well-lit sun-kissed golden photos of my children until all hours of the night.
• Mentally prepare myself that Jude will be starting kindergarten in less than two months.
• Scrapbook at night, too, whenever I can work it in there.
• Go for a picnic or three with the kids.
• Repaint every remaining room on the upper floor that has not been repainted already.
• Tear off the stuccoed wall-paneling from the basement walls and drywall, tape, mud, and paint them.
• Re-do the flooring in my kitchen, entrance, dining room, bathroom, and stairs.
• Get my office organized.
• Record at least three more songs.
• Do a performance or two.
• Organize my office for the winter teaching season.
• Keep making new-house-based decisions.
• Cook three meals a day.
• Keep my house semi-clean.
• Make sure nobody has to wear their clothes for more than three days before they have clean ones to put on.
• Scrapbook in the mornings, if it's a really good day, and I've hired a babysitter.
• Occasionally post on my blog.
• See my friends occasionally, too.
• Hug my kids every day.
• Kiss my husband every day.

Even given that I will be only peripherally involved in the renovation projects, do you think that maybe I'm indulging in a little wishful thinking?

Oh, and also--when I got to the end of this list, I realized that if I were to type it in order of priority, it would have to be pretty much reversed. In case anyone was wondering.

Happy New Week, friends!

Blessing

"Dear Jesus, Bless our bodies, bless our food, keep us safe, help us to be wise men, in Jesus name, Amen."

-Daily prayer before mealtimes. Jude made this as a hybrid of bedtime and mealtime prayers that we were trying to teach them. Now Noah and even Jabin want to take their turn saying it. (Jabin's sounds pretty ambiguous, but we get the picture.)

Inquiring Minds Want to Know

Like any well-adjusted four-year-old, Jude has a lot of questions. This is a good thing--to question things is a trait that God gave us along with our brain. It's part of what makes us human. However, there are a few recurring "faves" that I think reveal some things about his personality. Here are the top three questions I hear from Jude daily, more often than not multiple times a day:

1. "Why?" (Shocker, I know.) This is said without thought, a knee-jerk response to whatever it is I tell him. That wouldn't be so bad if I didn't know that the answer I give him will be treated with an equal amount of contemplation. More often than not, as soon as I tell him the answer he will repeat the question. In fact, a parenting course I went through once went to great lengths to explain the verse "Fathers, do not exasperate your children," saying that we shouldn't just tell our kids to do something without reason. At the age of three, when they reach the age of reason, you shouldn't just say, loudly and in front of their friends, "Don't eat that ice cream!" Instead, you should expand and explain, "Don't eat your ice cream over the carpet, because you might drip and make a mess. Please move over to the linoleum."

Thanks to this, I follow nearly every command I give (unless I think it self-explanatory) with a "because..." statement. Still, as soon as the period has left my mouth, I hear "Why?" I JUST SAID WHY!!! So much for saving my breath. Does it say anything in there about children not exasperating their parents? Not that I remember--it's pretty much a given that kids are going to do that.

My usual response to this question that has been uttered by pre-schoolers throughout the millennia: "Why do you think?"

Because he usually knows the answer already. See what I mean? Knee-jerk.

2. "What are we having for (breakfast/lunch/supper)?" I'm not sure if this stems from an inherent interest in cooking, a need to know so he can have some semblance of feeling in control of his life, or so he can steel himself for the worst. Due to the pickiness of his eating, I'm going with the latter. It wouldn't be so bad if he hadn't decided about a year ago that he just does not like onions. Sadly, I have never learned the skill of making food taste good without onions in it, and really don't desire to, so Jude has learned early the art of "picking it out." The only compromise I make here is to blend them into soups whenever possible, because I am fairly certain it is the texture more than the flavour that bothers him.

He does love breakfast, though. I think he asks what's for breakfast before bed each night because he wants to anticipate it until morning, especially if it is a favourite such as pancakes or shakes.

3. "Who's coming over today/Where are we going today?" This is technically two questions, but they are usually used together, especially if the answer to the first one is "no one" and the second one is "no where." (He asks them in no particular order.)

Jude has been a social butterfly from the day he was born--always gregarious and smiley, eager to go visit people. He went through a shy, clingy period when we first moved up here which has mostly dissipated, only rearing its ugly head on rare occasions when the group of kids we are encouraging him to go play with is very large and contains lots of kids he doesn't know. I am hoping that going to kindergarten this fall will help give him the confidence he needs to realize he can make friends with strangers all on his own, especially since it turns out that he really won't know anyone in his class. However, it is a mark of how often we DO go places and/or have company that he doesn't ask if anyone is coming over, or if we are going anywhere, but just assumes it will happen. Mostly because on the few days a week I am not babysitting or entertaining, I usually end up having to go somewhere to run errands. I am a homebody, but a social one, so while I like the way things are, sometimes it's a relief to have a day with no one to see and nowhere to go. Sadly, Jude doesn't see the thrill of that, yet.

I love that he asks questions. I hope that he continues to question everything, throughout his life. I also hope that Jason and I can teach him to apply his brainpower to both the question, and the response, so that his questioning is productive and useful.

Some people never learn that skill. I pray that our children do.

I Am Posting By Default

I wasn't going to take the time to post today, and if I did, it wasn't going to be about this. But I am waiting for our kids to settle in their room after a very late night playing with friends, so I'll just dash this off quickly before heading to the sack myself.

In the last month, our life has been crazy. But the good news is, I can now look forward to that leisurely summer I was hoping for.

The reason is, there has been an unexpected and unavoidable delay on our house-building project. Our contractor's elderly mother has had a bad fall, breaking her leg--this on the tail of a stroke last fall that she has still not completely bounced back from. This was just the "straw that broke the camel's back," though, on a project that was too rushed from the start.

And frankly, I'm relieved. Jason is disappointed to lose the momentum we had gained on the project, but I am looking forward to approaching this whole thing at a more leisurely pace. It will be much better to break ground in the spring and be moving in next fall than all the scads of balancing acts we were trying to pull off in every facet of this project to make it work this year. Maybe I'll even have time to blog a little more than I have been! (Not that summer is ever really a great time to be sitting in front of a computer for hours, though.)

(So don't hold your breath on that one!)

Anyway, I have been doing a little bit of recording, finally. I have discovered that a recording technician I am not. Also, my rhythm sucks. But this first song I am working on is a huge learning curve, and the hours and hours I have put into it already will pay off when I approach my next project and complete it in a fraction of the time. Right? Right?

It won't be anything fancy--I am doing it with free downloadable software, and all the instrument sounds except my own voice came from my Yamaha, both of which facts impose certain limitations on what I can do with the song. But it's still better than the off-key, mistake-ridden version that we recorded when Candace and I (as Heart & Soul) did a concert in 2001. Plus, it's the new, improved version, with the third verse.

The song I am referring to is this one.

Anyway, since I was up until nearly 4 this morning working on it, I'm pretty much dragging my butt around right now--better go shower and sleep.

Hope you all had a good weekend, and a happy Canada Day to my fellow Canucks!