Plumbing the Depths

This is the current state of our basement. You could consider this the "before" photo, though I assure you the true "before" photo would reveal a much less disastrous scene. We are in the process of finishing our basement. I say that like we are personally doing some of the work involved. We are not. Unless you count choosing doors and windows and deciding where light switches and closets go as work.

We vibrated for much of the day yesterday while a couple of men with jackhammers and cement saws created the piles of rubble depicted above. The trenches they created will become the major plumbing works of our soon-to-be wonderful basement. Hence the title of this post. Finishing our basement (or at least paying someone else to finish it) is plumbing the depths of our patience, our noise endurance, and certainly our budget. Hopefully, the "after" photo will justify all the means. Yes, I know it would save us a lot of money if we did at least some of the work ourselves, but as Eric says, we want it to look good. What do you think so far?

Crypto-plates

I can't help myself. Whenever I see a license plate that clearly has been personalized, I must figure out what it means. And when I can't decipher it, it simmers in the back of my mind and waits to be solved. Someday, I will be an old woman, wandering through the grocery store, muttering things like "A lily z r. A lily z r. What does it mean?! What could it possibly mean?!" I hope for a brighter future than that, so I'm asking you to help me decipher a few of the more troubling plates I have recently come across:

GRMBIC
I'm thinking this could be germophobic. Kind of lacking in letters, though. Other ideas?
APLSNT
A pleasant...? What? Apple scent?
PARONLY
This person never hits over par in golf?
ALILYZR
This is the one I'll be muttering because it just keeps saying "A lily z r" to me.
CNTRGR
Cent Roger? Center gear? C-note ranger? Nothing makes sense!
SLEWFOT
This one sounds so much like a made-up word, I just can't think straight! It also sounds possibly borderline profane, so, my apologies if any of these are offensive and I just didn't realize it.

Obviously, it's only worth paying to personalize it if other people can tell what you meant to say. I truly appreciate a well thought out license plate. This is my favorite ever:

H8UDMV
I love the irony of picking on the very place you have to go to get the plate personalized. So clever.

Alright, get those mystery-solving juices flowing and give me some solutions.

Private "I"

My one-room schoolhouse

Following week one of home schooling, I am in serious need of some alone time. It doesn't have to be in large chunks, but I could really use a bit of private time, alone, to myself, for just me, with no one else, for maybe 45 minutes every afternoon. That would be bliss. People are here. All the time. And they talk. All the time. I love these people, but...I really do need some private time.

During the course of this first week, I've been able to ferret out some other secrets that may help me be successful this year. Here's what I've learned:

• We need a box of kleenex in the school room (not that there's a LOT of crying).


• We need a garbage can in the school room (for all the used kleenexes).


• We probably should have a clock in there somewhere.


• I need to start interviewing possible substitute teachers so I can have my life back once in awhile.


• I will just have to turn a blind eye to Stephanie's consumption of large quantities of cheetos, oreos, juice boxes, and gumballs, since they are extremely useful in occupying her attention.

Actually, things have gone very well this week and I still feel very positive about doing home school. Yes, there has been a teensy bit of crying, quite a lot of kleenex use (for drippy noses), and an unprecedented amount of cheetos in the dining room, but I'm learning to cope.

Into the Unknown

Today, I jump with both feet, and definitely both eyes wide open, into a great unknown. I will send my middle child off on the bus to a new school and then I will greet my oldest child in the dining room, where I will be his teacher, while simultaneously entertaining my youngest, who is two. Was that a run-on sentence? Oh no! Maybe I can't really do this.

The job of mother gets more interesting and more demanding with each passing year. While home schooling is a choice (that I do not have to make), it is really no different than the choices we are all making as mothers every day--to do whatever we feel is best for our children regardless of the personal cost.

Wish me luck. Here goes!

Mysterious Footprints

Luckily, these photos of footprints on the beach are somewhat mysterious, which gives me an excuse to write about our family beach trip. But really, take a look here. The footprints in the first two photos look strangely inverted. They did not look this way when we took the pictures and they don't look that way when you view them on the camera. But on the computer, they do. It's very weird. The last one, I think, looks normal. Usually. But sometimes, it goes inverted too. What is going on? Is there a technological explanation for this mystery? (The purpose of the photos was to show the vast difference in size between Stephanie's feet and Eric's, which would have been shown in the second one. But instead you can see the difference between hers and mine in the third. I wear a 7 1/2. So you can see how tiny and adorable her little feet are. In case you're interested, Eric's are size 13. No, that's not a typo. 13!)

Inspect this one closely as well, and you will see that the boy on the left is playing the game on the DS and the boy on the right is listening through the headphones to the obnoxious repetitive sounds of the game. They were both perfectly content with this arrangement. ??? Another mystery.

Stephanie wasn't too sure about going out to the water, but she loved having it come to her. Eric dug little wells in the sand so that when the waves came close enough, she would have a pool of her own to play in.

Daniel asked Eric to do the ever-popular "bury me in the sand" trick. You can see on his face that he loved it. However, when I helped him get out, I could not believe how deep Eric had buried him. Wasn't there something in the news a few years back about a small child dying this way? Something about the weight of the sand and the effect on the lungs? Anyway, I gave Eric one of my usual wifely lectures about it after the fact.

Last one. One of our favorite things to do at the beach in the evening is rent a family bike. This year, we graduated to the two-bench bike since Daniel is clearly too big to ride in the front basket. Stephanie loved the ride up front. Nathan took a turn in the driver's seat again this year, which was much less frightening than the last two years. I wish I believed this was good preparation for actual driving. It would put my mind more at ease about the near future.

P.S. I would love to get some feedback on how those footprint photos look to other people--are they inverted or normal on your screen? Mysteries were made to be solved. Most of them, anyway.

3 Mini-Mysteries

Doesn't he look like the foreign spy in a made-for-TV espionage movie?

Mystery #1:

Given all the evidence, one would have to conclude that Daniel's favorite moment of our weekend was the moment he received his plastic disguise glasses from Wendy's. But how can this possibly be? It's a mystery, because Friday afternoon we left the house at 2pm and drove to the beautiful Shenandoah mountains, where we then set up our amazing family tent and cooked burgers and hot dogs on our camp stove. I even brought purple Gatorade especially for Daniel (it's not a party atmosphere for Daniel if all we have to drink is water). We walked on the Appalachian Trail, came back and made S'mores, talked and told stories, stayed up late and slept in our tent. We saw deer and heard owls. In the morning we had pancakes and sausage, broke camp and went on two gorgeous hikes. See? So many incredible moments to choose from.

Okay, I left out a few parts. There were all these irritating gnats buzzing around our faces for much of the time. SO irritating in fact, that I was perfectly willing to pay $9 for a can of bugspray and another $6 in additional bug-be-gone paraphernalia. Our fire was almost impossible to start because the wood was wet. After 45 minutes of failure, we turned to lighter fluid to save the day. The wood lit and burned brightly for about three-and-a-half minutes and then rapidly declined, so we had time for just a few marshmallows before our evening turned from family fireside to family lantern-side. Stephanie cried off and on through the night, and Nathan dragged Eric along on a 3am bathroom break. Our first Saturday hike was great--short, sweet, nice view. Our second hike was probably a mistake. "Downhill to an 83-foot waterfall" sounds terrific, but the waterfall was waaaay over there (can you hear that soft sound, guys? that's the waterfall) and then, of course, we had to hike back UP the trail. If it seemed like a long walk even to us, which it did, it must have really seemed long to the kids. Daniel's most-used phrase was, "I HATE this place!"

So I guess that mystery is pretty much solved after all: I'm trying to look at our campout through rose-colored glasses, but Daniel seems to prefer viewing it through his plastic disguise glasses. You can hardly blame him.

Mystery #2:

I bought a new kind of fruit snacks for the campout, called "Clever Kids." The front of the box says "Number bites! The fun counting snack" and there's a cartoon octopus holding a bunch of numbers and a little calculator. "Feed kids' love of learning." "10 pouches." Okay, there were 13 pouches in there! Now I'm not complaining about the free extras, but you have to admit to some irony here. Teach your kids to count...starting with the 13 pouches in this box of 10. It's a mystery - how did this box end up with so many? Do they all have 13? Did they mean to do that, so that kids would catch the mistake? Now I'm interested to try the alphabet ones.

Mystery #3:

Shortly after returning from our campout Saturday afternoon, Nathan desperately wanted a shower. No wait, that's not the mystery. It probably should be because, come to think of it, he's never wanted a shower before. But back to what I was saying. I forgot to tell him that one of the glass doors on our shower was not actually hooked into the track... CRASH! A million little pieces of glass all over the bathroom. Mysteriously, the little glass pebbles looked blue, even though the shower door was clear. That's not the mystery either, though. Nathan received only a few small cuts on his hands and one larger gash maybe from a metal part of the door. Curious (and a relief!), but also not the real mystery. Here it is: Why did Eric see the need to smash the other shower door in order to dispose of it? Is this the way most men would have handled it? He assured me it had to be done, but I still wonder if he just felt left out of Nathan's experience and invented a reason to recreate it. It must have been like a cool scene from a movie. I wish I had thought to take pictures!

Going Undercover

Perhaps in an attempt to hide from the law for her previous crimes, Stephanie decided to paint herself in toothpaste. Discovery was made in the typical manner:

1. I heard the distinct sound of nothing. Always a bad sign.
2. I called to her. No answer. Almost always a bad sign.
3. I looked for clues as to her whereabouts, things like "open bathroom door", "missing items", "scattered toothbrushes and other bathroom supplies".
4. I followed the trail to her room and found more criminal activity in progress.

Exhibit A: Luckily, I caught her (blue-handed) in time to prevent any permanent damage, aside from the Winnie-the-Pooh book that now smells forever minty-fresh. This occurrence followed closely on the tail of a fluoride-drinking incident that same day. Maybe I should have seen it coming, but children never cease to surprise and amaze me with their curiosity and ingenuity. Oh well, I can think of worse fingerpaint...

Murder Mystery

The victim was found in the seat compartment of a pink mini truck. He is believed to have been minding his own business at the time; witnesses say a small, adorable, curly-haired girl was seen in the vicinity near the time of death. She is known to be dangerous to tiny creatures. One witness even saw her in close contact with the victim a short time before the body was discovered. Reportedly, she was holding the victim by one leg and saying, "See?" to those nearby. She has since been taken into custody and bail has been set as a 3-hour nap, awaiting further investigation. Although she has been charged with many incidents of animal mistreatment, she has never been punished, due to the judge's inability to see past her sweet face and charming voice.

Recipe Revealed

For those of you who are brave enough to try cooking with quinoa, here is the recipe I raved about last month: (for the photo, follow this clue)

Black Beans and Quinoa
1 t. oil
1 chopped onion
3 garlic cloves, crushed
3/4 c. rinsed quinoa
1 1/2 c. broth
1 t. cumin
1/4 t. cayenne
salt and pepper
1 can corn, drained
2 cans black beans, drained
cilantro
Saute onion and garlic in oil. Add quinoa, broth, and spices. Bring to a boil, cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes. Add corn, black beans, and cilantro.

Vegetable Salsa
1 zucchini
1-2 bell peppers (red, orange, or yellow)
1 c. cilantro
1/2 sweet onion
1/2 jalapeno
1 can pink beans, rinsed and drained
1 t. cumin
1/4 t. chili powder
1 t. salt
juice from 1/2 lime
Finely dice all vegetables and mix in remaining ingredients. You may want to add a tomato or avocado or increase the amount of the spices.

Thank you again, Serena. It was delicious!