November 4, 2009 at 8:38 am (Uncategorized)
Mornings are being spent cozied inside our teeny moveable home, electric heater aimed at my legs with either knitting or a book in hand and a creamy coffee beside me. I look out to the west and enjoy the sunrise on days that don’t bring snow. If I’m lucky, the deer will be in the hayfield and I can watch them in their never-ending search for sustenance. I know I need to go out and feed the dog, but the warmth inside and the cold outside conspire against me and drain away my motivation. I am not an A-type person. More of a C-type. C for Carmen, C for calm, C for content, C for … cold. Thank goodness for heaters.
The house should be here November 17. Less than 2 weeks. We won’t be able to live in it for a couple of weeks after it arrives – the two halves need to be joined, a furnace and a hot water heater must be installed, basement windows and a door must be put in – but I can sense the close of this chapter of our lives. We have lived in the fifth wheel since June 15. It will have been our home for over 5 months. I can hardly see the future because I’m so blinded by the reality of the present and my surroundings.
At least some things don’t change.
1 Comment
September 9, 2009 at 5:03 am (House, Miscellaneous)
Tags: boys, Harley, House, summer
Aah, yes. Home. This is where we have spent our summer, and where we will be living until our modular home is ready to be moved onto our basement. Living in a fifth wheel is rather cramped, but we’ve made do. The clutter is driving me insane, but hopefully now that the boys have started school I’ll be able to keep things (toys!) somewhat less underfoot than they have been! They get to take a bus this year and are very excited, which I think will wear off after a week or so of walking down our 600m driveway (it takes 9 1/2 min.) to make it on time for a ride that arrives at 7:20 am.
Summer has been good. Stressful, but fun and busy too. We put the boys into swimming lessons for six weeks, saw an air show, went to drag races, saw my brother Mark and his family, and travelled to Edmonton a couple times. We also added to our little family. Meet Harley.
He is such a fun puppy. Very playful, smart, and generally calm. A little nippy, but what puppy isn’t? We also got a kitten who as of now has no name. He used to be Scamp, but the boys have other ideas. No pictures yet, since the rain hasn’t really let up since we brought him home.
Now that school is beginning, I imagine I’ll probably update quite a bit more often. And yes, Mark, the footings and foundation are poured, though that was an adventure I’ll save for next time. Toodle-loo!
Leave a Comment
June 30, 2009 at 9:51 pm (Uncategorized)
Tags: boys, House, rain
Just a quick note to say that I’m still alive. Living in an RV with three boys and a husband make for close quarters, but I’m sure it is something the kids will remember the rest of their lives. It keeps raining and our driveway isn’t totally gravelled yet, so we are often stuck here at the top of the hill. No power, no water (except from the water tank on the back of the truck – oh, and the rain) is an interesting way to live. Thankfully we can run our generator when we need to plug something in, although I’m going to have to teach the boys how to start it on their own. I’m tired of running out to it in the rain!
2 Comments
June 1, 2009 at 9:18 am (Miscellaneous)
Tags: Fear
No, not physically. But for the moment, I am mentally paralyzed. What to do next? Should I pack this or will we need it tomorrow? How on God’s green earth am I going to get through everything and sort into junk, charity, trailer, and storage piles?
Fear is a big paralyzer in my life. My first quilt top lay sandwiched on a floor for two months before I could gather up the courage to just quilt it. My first sweater suffered the same fate because I reached the seams and wasn’t quite sure how to continue. Fear of not doing something right, fear of others’ opinions, fear of death. I operate under a lot of fear. And I know it doesn’t have to be this way. Not everyone deals with things like this.
For quite a few years, driving through the mountains would give me sore arm muscles from holding on to the door handle. Heights are infinitely scary – I get dizzy just watching people on TV looking over a cliff. I’ve always had a thing about drowning. And yet, I shouldn’t be.
It’s rather obvious that I haven’t learned to “let go and let God.” I don’t really trust Him with anything. Not with this move, not with my projects, not with my ego, not with my life. So, that’s what I’m working on right now. Trusting. Giving Him the authority and the responsibility for all of it and all of me. Letting him rejoin my mental spinal cord and giving me movement again. Yikes.
2 Comments
May 28, 2009 at 11:21 pm (Miscellaneous)
Do you remember first learning how to make sense of all those squiggly lines on paper? How the light just *clicked* and your brain went from illiterate to literate? I was making lunch in the kitchen the other day when Titus came up to me, holding a book. “I can read this,” he told me proudly. So, I asked him to read to me while I worked, and he sat down and read the entire book. My five-year-old. Who was reading things like “shiver me timbers” and “pirates” and “crocodile” without help. I have taught him a few of the basics of phonics, but nothing that would enable him to read a level 2 book in its entirety. I was flabbergasted, truth be told.
It brought me back to the start of my reading. I can plainly remember the day my mom brought out some flashcards. How she explained that some words have silent letters. How afterward I went and grabbed a book about Margaret Mead, the anthropologist and how Mom told me that I just wasn’t ready for that particular book because it was so long (and it was, big pages packed with words upon words). I can’t begin to explain what worlds opened to me once I started reading. I never did like the kiddy books. Chapter books, with adventures that grabbed me and wouldn’t let me go, that made those pages keep turning. I loved summer, because I could read in my bed late into the night without turning on a light and getting into trouble. I got to order books through school that were grades above the one I was in – that was how I got hooked onto the Narnia Chronicles. I tried going through the school library alphabetically. I fell in love with Anne of Green Gables. I wanted to be Anne of Green Gables. Animal stories were a favorite. Big Red, Black Beauty, the Black Stallion – I can still recall snippets. The Wizard of Oz. The Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. To name just a few.
I still love it. I gobble up stories and imaginings with a voraciousness that is hard to control. I honestly don’t know how people can live lives devoid of literature. What a gift it was that Mom gave me. It has ended up being such a large part of my life that I can’t help but hope my children become book addicts, too. Will they look back and see the magic in the pages? In my mind I wonder, how can they not?
1 Comment
May 27, 2009 at 11:15 pm (Kids)
Tags: Titus
We were downstairs, trying to hook up a printer to the old computer, when he spoke up.
“Mom, I wish I was adopted.”
I was a little shocked. “Really? Why?”
“I want to be Riley and Kyle’s brother.”
“But then I wouldn’t be your Mommy. Don’t you want me to be your Mom?”
Titus looked me straight in the eye. “I like you, but I like Riley and Kyle better.”
And that was that. Good thing I’ve got that motherly unconditional love thing happening. What a kid.
Titus and one of his new brothers
Leave a Comment
May 12, 2009 at 9:58 pm (Miscellaneous)
Tags: food
… that there could be too many raisins in a loaf of raisin bread. I was in such denial that I was half-way through the loaf before I admitted that I just wasn’t enjoying it. At all.
1 Comment
May 11, 2009 at 11:36 am (House, Kids, Knitting)
Tags: Ethan, House, Knitting
We have sold our house! I think it was the freshly baked apple pie that did it, but who knows. They had also given me a full day to get the place all spick and span (I wonder where that term comes from?) and so it was looking mighty fine that day. The final remnants of snow had melted off our front lawn, as well. I’m sure all three things helped. A house-selling trifecta, of sorts. Now comes the stress and homelessness. As of today, the plan is to buy a camper of sorts and have an extended camping vacation until the new house is livable. Which better be before the snow flies, or I will be one unhappy mama!
putting in the driveway last fall
working on the power shed
As you can see, we have been doing a bit of work on the land. The driveway needs a bit of finishing and some gravel, but it’s usable. Luke is finishing the power shed today so the hydro people can put in the poles and lines. Things are progressing! Next comes the septic system and water and a basement. Hopefully we get the blueprints from the architect (or, as I like to call him, the blueprint guy) today.
In other non-house related news, I wanted to show you a picture of the sweater I knit. I found the pattern in Vogue Knitting 2007 Holiday and it was called the Reindeer Cardigan. I wasn’t feeling the reindeer, but the rest of the cardigan I rather liked, so I knit it up with a Lion Brand acrylic yarn called Vanna’s Choice in Brick. Of course, I made it too big and it won’t shrink since it’s acrylic, but I’ll still wear it.
I am NOT pregnant. Even though it looks like it.
One quick story to finish off the post. We were in the car, headed for soccer, when Ethan made a sudden exclamation from the back seat. “Mom, I’m not wearing any shorts!” That’s right, my child had run out to the car with his soccer socks and jersey on, sporting his tighty-whitey’s. And didn’t realize it. I could hardly drive back to the house because I laughed so hard. Now, every time we leave, I make sure to ask him if he’s got any pants on, which is apparently getting a little annoying (I think that’s what it means when he rolls his eyes at me). Kids. Gotta love ‘em.
1 Comment
April 20, 2009 at 7:57 am (Knitting)
Tags: Knitting, Socks
Life has been full! Since the house has been up for sale this spring we’ve had people traipsing through almost every weekend, opening closets full of clothes, studying the state of my kitchen cupboards, sometimes getting to witness my supper in the midst of cooking. There was one nibble on the line, but we had to throw it back because it was too small. Of course, with all the cleaning and such going on, the two things that I’ve been making time for are knitting and sewing. Finally I have shaken off the malaise of winter and fallen head over heels with my sewing machine again. Not to mention that I have actually finished not just one but two projects that were on my needles. Aah, Spring, how you make me feel alive!
The first one I finished was a pair of socks. Socks that I had started in January, frogged in February, and restarted in March. You have no idea how difficult it was to unravel that first sock, even though I knew I would never be happy with it the way it was. I was completely done except for grafting the toe, and I realized my tension had changed between the leg and the foot, and that the leg was far to big to ever be worn comfortably. So, one day, I gathered all my courage and started pulling. Very cathartic, very scary, all at the same time. Now I am totally in love with them.
I found a pattern I liked online, called Hedgerow Socks. It called for a solid color, and like a doofus I picked out this absolutely gorgeous variegated merino wool yarn. Colinette Jitterbug yarn in castagna (which means chestnut in Italian, if Wiktionary is telling the truth). I think I may try this pattern again with a color that brings out the pattern. Of course, now that I’m hooked on hand-knitted socks, I’ve got a folder full of patterns that I really, really, really want to try, so making another pair probably won’t happen until, oh, say 2012?
3 Comments
March 28, 2009 at 8:36 am (Art, Miscellaneous)
Tags: Books, Jane Austen
Can I confess something to you? I don’t necessarily like going with the flow. In fact, I can be quite contrary. Oh, not in everything, but in some very specific ways I’ve always had a hard time doing what others thought I should, the way they think I should do it. That tendency becomes exaggerated when it has to do with things that are very important to me. Like books. As a Christian, I have not read The Purpose-Driven Life. Nor do I intend to. The only reason I started reading Philip Yancey’s books were because nobody had mentioned to me how good they were. It tends to go the other way as well. I specifically picked up the Harry Potter books because so many evangelicals were saying not to. Books that have been banned, well, I need to know the reason why and decide for myself!
So when I was wandering around my college library as a fresh-faced 19 yr. old, trying to find something to read that would take my mind off my studies, I didn’t realize that Jane Austen was so beloved. So admired. So girly. When I picked Emma off the shelf, I was doing so simply because 1. it was a novel that had nothing to do with my studies, and 2. it was first alphabetically in fiction (my college library had a really awful fiction department). And then I was sucked down into the whirling vortex of all things Austen.
Imagine my shock, nay, my utter dismay, when I discovered that Jane Austen was the authoress whom all college girls adored. That she was the epitome of all things romantic. That I had just become one of millions of devoted fans. Not only do I consume her books in one sitting, I watch the movies. And cry. Anything another author has written about her or her works, or has used her as inspiration for their own novel, I read. I am obsessed. And I find it distressing that it is not my obsession alone.
I am, after all, a typical female.
2 Comments
