Our friend is here to hang out with us today. His mama is in the hospital undergoing about 31 hours of labor so far. My poor friend. Last I heard, about two hours ago, she was still only at 6 cms.
The boys are playing card games, board games and now finally video games.
Aubrey is at her last day of Meadowlark Elementary today, on Monday she'll take a tour for our charter Montessori school and quite possibly will start there within the next few days. Sigh. I was really looking forward to her staying home with me for home-schooling.
Despite her need for quiet, alone time every day (which I'm starting to believe is why she has insomnia: that's when she gets her quiet, alone time!), Aubrey is quite the social creature. She does like people and easily makes friends.
While I believe she can get enough socialization with our lifestyle -- SpiralScouts, our local home-schooling social group, our field trip group, just friends we hang out with regularly, open gyms at our favorite gymnastics place, etc -- going to a more traditional school, even though it is alternative, may be more of the interaction she wants and needs. And that I'm all for -- helping her get her needs and wants fulfilled.
I'm concerned about illness. I'm on the mend myself, little to no sore throat though still a tad tired. However, both Robert and Paul woke this morning with a sore throat. Oh no. Joey just got over being sick, not again. :( How unfair for him.
I'd really like to get Aubrey's room started on. It is way dis-organized and messy and needs to be thoroughly cleaned out. I believe she is going to actually de-clutter this time. She's been really into American Girl stuff in the last week or two. She said she'd like to get ride of everything and have only American Girl stuff in her room.
Now, American Girl stuff is really expensive, but maybe Santa Claus will bring her something.
We make our gifts for each other for Solstice. Or handmade gifts that we buy from local artisans. We have a great Holiday Market here in Eugene, Oregon.
And this year we are considering (though funds are too low right now to RESPONSIBLY make this decision) to buy one family present for Christmas instead of gifts for each other. And that one family present everyone wants this year is a hot tub. Ouch. That's a spendy present.
I should be writing my nano words now. I need 1,667 to stay on track today. Or something close to that.
I'M WRITING A NOVEL!!!!!!!!! Just wanted to say that again. :)
Friday, November 14, 2008
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Saturday, November 8, 2008
Zany Zoo
I'm up to 14K words for nanowrimo, so I feel comfortable taking my bored kids to Zany Zoo. They have a petting zoo on the weekends and I've wanted to take them to this for ... eight months or so.
It's rainy and blah outside, and I don't want to straighten the dining room and coffee tables, nor picking up the back patio, so I'm off to petting zoo adventure! Pictures to follow upon my return.
Additional note: I'm so sorry for not keeping up on my posts. Maybe a schedule of sorts would work? (snort. me and my lists.)
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Flying at Joshua Radin and Missy Higgins concert
I'm sitting in the concert hall surrounded by the twenty something (and much younger) crowd. I'm sitting on the side - if I considered what I looked from the outside I might be concerned about my wallflower appearance. But I'm enjoying people watching.
The guy at the tshirt/cd merchant table is cute and it looks like he's checking me out but I'm too far away to tell. The din of voices is getting louder and the room is filling up. It's the kind of concert I hate -- where you have to stand up the whole three hours -- through both sets. Thankfully this small hall has a weird trait of one long wooden bench around the perimeter of the room. And I'm sitting on it.
It may cut down on my viewing pleasure and I won't be able to reach out and touch Joshua Radin or Missy Higgins -- but I can stand the disappointment. I'm not a groupie, I just enjoy local live music.
Several people sit next to me but then decide, for whatever reason, to get up and leave. I wonder what, if anything, that says about me. Perhaps they're groupies.
I feel, decidedly, one of the oldest people in the room. Did I mention the noise level is getting louder? And that this concert will end well past my bedtime? And that I suffered a whole night of insomnia last night to boot?
I felt inexplicitly like weeping during Joshua's performance. His soulful voice and yearning touched me and woke a passion in me. Awaken.
My mama talons flared and I wanted to kill the people talking during his performance. To sit naked to the bone in front of 50, 200 or 5000 people and bleed with your words -- open and vulnerable -- deserves more respect than idle conversations barely lower than a whisper or cell phones open to texting.
The courage to do what any musician does is unmistakable and heart-wrenching and I so want to have just a smidgeon of that for my very own.
I love a man and his acoustic guitar. I melt.
Listening to Missy Higgins, I am shamed. There is no way I can ever create something as splitting-open as she can. Her voice is dynamic and alive and climbs the known spectrums. Her sound is unique and her voice breathy and exotic.
How can my voice compare? Will I ever write anything that will carry a person's soul on currents of awareness and on quests for betterment? For Missy's songs do ...
But by the third song in her set, I am carried on those same currents I lamented I would never carry anyone on. The song is uplifting of spirit and my eyes close and I'm transported by the music of her muse.
I am in awe and admiration by Missy's multiple talents. She sings, plays piano and guitar, and even owns an awesome accent that pulls me to red rocks and Aborigines. She's kind-of a cross between Cranberries and Colbie Calliet, but infinitely cooler. Fathoms.
I'm always in awe when an artist takes raw materials, imaginings, notes, sounds, clay, paint -- and turns it into something living and breathing, soulful and creative. Like, how does she hear the notes in her head and make them come through her fingers -- into the wholeness of a song? How is that even possible? Yet tonight I am watching that happen.
This music is so cool it makes me believe that anything is possible. What I love about good live music is the passion and playfulness and the down-to-earth-ness. Musicians are so real. And rare, I believe. I know that's weird to say when there are so many of them around, but when I think of the intensity that goes into writing (my own passion), and then the double and triple magic of adding the mastery of an instrument -- or three -- and then the courage to perform it, I find it truly chilling. It gives me hope in humankind and makes me want to continue incarnating into this lowly human form over and over again.
Yes, we are lowly humans, unless we can surround ourselves with one of those rare musicians that can fly.
The guy at the tshirt/cd merchant table is cute and it looks like he's checking me out but I'm too far away to tell. The din of voices is getting louder and the room is filling up. It's the kind of concert I hate -- where you have to stand up the whole three hours -- through both sets. Thankfully this small hall has a weird trait of one long wooden bench around the perimeter of the room. And I'm sitting on it.
It may cut down on my viewing pleasure and I won't be able to reach out and touch Joshua Radin or Missy Higgins -- but I can stand the disappointment. I'm not a groupie, I just enjoy local live music.
Several people sit next to me but then decide, for whatever reason, to get up and leave. I wonder what, if anything, that says about me. Perhaps they're groupies.
I feel, decidedly, one of the oldest people in the room. Did I mention the noise level is getting louder? And that this concert will end well past my bedtime? And that I suffered a whole night of insomnia last night to boot?
I felt inexplicitly like weeping during Joshua's performance. His soulful voice and yearning touched me and woke a passion in me. Awaken.
My mama talons flared and I wanted to kill the people talking during his performance. To sit naked to the bone in front of 50, 200 or 5000 people and bleed with your words -- open and vulnerable -- deserves more respect than idle conversations barely lower than a whisper or cell phones open to texting.
The courage to do what any musician does is unmistakable and heart-wrenching and I so want to have just a smidgeon of that for my very own.
I love a man and his acoustic guitar. I melt.
Listening to Missy Higgins, I am shamed. There is no way I can ever create something as splitting-open as she can. Her voice is dynamic and alive and climbs the known spectrums. Her sound is unique and her voice breathy and exotic.
How can my voice compare? Will I ever write anything that will carry a person's soul on currents of awareness and on quests for betterment? For Missy's songs do ...
But by the third song in her set, I am carried on those same currents I lamented I would never carry anyone on. The song is uplifting of spirit and my eyes close and I'm transported by the music of her muse.
I am in awe and admiration by Missy's multiple talents. She sings, plays piano and guitar, and even owns an awesome accent that pulls me to red rocks and Aborigines. She's kind-of a cross between Cranberries and Colbie Calliet, but infinitely cooler. Fathoms.
I'm always in awe when an artist takes raw materials, imaginings, notes, sounds, clay, paint -- and turns it into something living and breathing, soulful and creative. Like, how does she hear the notes in her head and make them come through her fingers -- into the wholeness of a song? How is that even possible? Yet tonight I am watching that happen.
This music is so cool it makes me believe that anything is possible. What I love about good live music is the passion and playfulness and the down-to-earth-ness. Musicians are so real. And rare, I believe. I know that's weird to say when there are so many of them around, but when I think of the intensity that goes into writing (my own passion), and then the double and triple magic of adding the mastery of an instrument -- or three -- and then the courage to perform it, I find it truly chilling. It gives me hope in humankind and makes me want to continue incarnating into this lowly human form over and over again.
Yes, we are lowly humans, unless we can surround ourselves with one of those rare musicians that can fly.
Monday, November 3, 2008
Joey, sometimes called Robert, is sick today.
I'm not homeschooling today. Joey is sick. Fever, sore throat, headache, and he puked this morning, too. I'm so lucky that my empty popcorn bowl was sitting on the floor by the couch that Joey was laying down on. Whew!
We had swimming and open gym at the gymnastics place planned for the day. Also, picking up Evan and Celeste from school. (I'll still have to do that. I think I'll set my alarm on my cell phone in order to remind me. This is just the sort of day that I'd forget to pick them up.)
I have a presentation I want to go to this evening. EVEN is presenting on alternative meals and recipes for Thanksgiving. The babysitter never returned my call about sitting tonight, so I hope that Paul will be home in time. Also, most babysitters (at least teenagers) wouldn't want to watch ill children that aren't related to them. :) Fair enough. Also, Joey probably wouldn't like it either.
I think I'll take the extra time to write on my manuscript. Well. Not extra time, really. I was planning on writing while Joey was at Bounce. Since he won't be going, I'll have to sneak it in while he's otherwise engaged with cartoons or xbox.
Over and out.
We had swimming and open gym at the gymnastics place planned for the day. Also, picking up Evan and Celeste from school. (I'll still have to do that. I think I'll set my alarm on my cell phone in order to remind me. This is just the sort of day that I'd forget to pick them up.)
I have a presentation I want to go to this evening. EVEN is presenting on alternative meals and recipes for Thanksgiving. The babysitter never returned my call about sitting tonight, so I hope that Paul will be home in time. Also, most babysitters (at least teenagers) wouldn't want to watch ill children that aren't related to them. :) Fair enough. Also, Joey probably wouldn't like it either.
I think I'll take the extra time to write on my manuscript. Well. Not extra time, really. I was planning on writing while Joey was at Bounce. Since he won't be going, I'll have to sneak it in while he's otherwise engaged with cartoons or xbox.
Over and out.
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