The hole shrunk

I keep meaning to post pictures of our house (so boring watching someone else’s house get built), but it keeps changing. I feel like these guys are going way fast and will have it done well before their promise-by date.

So we took pictures of it 3 times last week (that was me holding Brett back), and they pretty much framed, windowed (technical term, I know) and boarded the whole place in that time.  So, here are some lovelies of my rambler to be.

Front

view from corner toward back yard neighbors

The three houses on our street/block (room for fruit trees!!!)

backside of our house.

View from our Dining Area, before the roof

View from living room


So, there you have it. I really like having the open farm land on the other side of are back fence. Sometimes the horses come up and sniff Polo. Hope they don’t sell anytime soon, because then I’ll probably have houses instead of aview, or a mini mall!!!

Destroying youth

Is it bad that I just want to throw away all my old journals? There are very few things that I never unpacked since the last time I moved, and the journals are one of them. I'm at a point of de cluttering where I don't want to lugg useless stuff, and I really don't want to read through them. I did my genealogy by writting them, right? so now I can burn them?

One advantage to dejunking is that I can find more crap like this tucked away in school notes, and destroy it before I die and my posterity finds it and thinks I was actually proud of it.:

Stop Pretending
You've crossed the rubicon
you think were done for good
but it's no river, dear
Just a trail of milk
One of us spilt

It goes on for a while, is about who knows who (clearly important in the scheme of things if I can't even remember), and is inexplicably called "Fur Elise." Best part, it has Choruses that repeat. I'm a songwritter people. Be amazed. This next part is my favorite:


I pushed to reach you
and you lashed  back.
Frankly, you weren't so kind
still you returned
with a basket full of eggs
or so it seamed

I know, I know, your soul is on fire. MOST LIKELY BECAUSE IT IS TRYING TO SELF DESTRUCT. I don’t get it either. You weren’t nice but you brought me a a basket of eggs, except you didn’t?

So why on earth did I share it? Maybe its one of those things were, by me revealing it, it looses it’s evil power. I don’t want an opponent to find this stuff when I run for president.

Other great finds include this Indian Legend I wrote in Elementary School:


WHY THE ROOSTER CROWS

Once upon a time there was a rooster named Shy One who never spoke.  When he was hit he would not cry or sob.  This had been going on since birth and his parents were worried.  The medicine man said Shy One could talk if he wanted to.  One day medicine man called Shy One’s parents and said, “We should try and get him to talk but they would have to have an idea.”  The medicine man and the rooster’s parents began to meet moonly times to get the best ideas. 
       One day they decided what they were going to do.  The only problem was when they wee going to do it.  They needed roosters to be close for their plan to work and he was hardly around roosters.  The next day Shy One’s mom saw him going outside. She called the medicine man. The medicine man got there as soon as possible and the parents medicne man followed the rooster.  They found a big stone and through it at Shy One as hard as they could an Shy One crowed as loud as he could. The other rooster  were jelous because they couldn’t crow. Rooster asked him questions and he answered every one of them! 
      Soon every rooster knew how to crow and since then every morning roosters crow to wake themselves up.


Things we can learn from the wisdom of young Charlotte:

1. If your kid has issues with speech development and don’t talk back when you hit them, try throwing a large rock at them with all your might... in front of their peers, if you can
2. Moonly times is the best time for good ideas.
3. Little Charlotte has the same problem getting around unnecessary details and to the point that big Charlotte does.

More fun with High School

A few things I haven't thrown out yet from the H.S. pile. This was a poem I wrote that I still like and am not entirely ashamed of.

Last Regrets

May 1999

Somewhere between happiness and pleasure the sun never rises and the sun never sets. Here the youthful mind is tortured by the unseen possibilities. The doubtless comfort of the hidden sun beckons softly in dreams while the mysterious breeze of nightfall screams from beneath the earth. Here both dawn and dusk die. 

Answers

Most of you are on a texting/emailing basis with me, and thus know the answer to the previously postulated question.

AND....the answer was

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when you use breastfeeding as your only birth control and:

• go more than 4 hours  between day feedings (only happened 2 because of errands) 
• Go more than 6 hours between night feedings ( hey, if they were going to let me get 7-8 hours of sleep a handful of times I was gunna take it. Especially since they rarely go to bed at the same time)
• ignore the obviously fertile change in your cervical fluid.

Okay, I didn't ignore it. I warned B to back off if he couldn't handle the risk. 

So there you have it. 8 years married before I got pregnant, and now at 10 years, I will have 3 under 1.5  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. B even said something like were gunna have a lot of kids if it was dependent on him not "taking a risk."

And yet again, I'll make a plug  for the book that has taught me so much. 

And, just for the heck of it, the tag from a strap B found at home depot.

Caution made in China

Dot Gain and Story Time!

This photo was taken not 10 minutes after I changed his diaper, was perplexed by the fibery green spots in his diaper, and identified their origions based on the fact that the greenish areas had a distinct "dot gain pattern." Baby diapers are going to be like dog poop, huh. I'm gunna find bright crayon bits in his diaper one day.

Looks like more dot gain tomorrow!

So what started out as "Making room for the cribs"  in the office, somehow evolved to "clearing out the  storage closet," and I ended up spending today going through a giant Tupperware of trifle from my past. Old trophies, AP Government notes, SAT results, pen pal letters, Swim team lap times,  High School Essays and Creative Writting Assignmets....paystubs from my first job...

What, you didn't save your 11th grade vocab list?

I'm not sure which I thought my kids would want to see more, my Readers Are Leaders trophy, or my elementary school science fair trophy. Shame I lost my marshmallow spitting trophy. It felt incomplete putting all these in the trash without it. 

Clearly I felt that my posterity would want to see how much  I made as a box girl at Lucky's.

It's the written stuff that sucks my time. I can't throw anything away without reading it first. And I have to say my writting is pretty bad. Not just because I make bad spelling mistakes, but those in and of themselves are gems.

"the cult's currant location,"you know, because they are currant farmers on the side (that probably would have made a better story).

"and recount her desire to work with guerrillas." You know, like Jane Goodall's evil twin.

But horrible spelling aside, many of my stories are embarrassingly horrible, so clearly I needed to save them posterity. The following story was far from my worst writing, and far from my best. It did, however, get me the most "style" points I got from that teacher. He called it "Silly, pure sillies," and then wrote that it almost read like an adolescent story.

Juvenile, I believe the word he was looking for was juvenile. 

Anyhow, I am not sharing this because I'm proud of it, but because I found it hilarious and was laughing historically in that sleep deprived way. Tomorrow I might regret sharring it when I realize that you really do have to be tired to find it even remotely funny. Oops. Too late. The internet is forever.

Oakley was supposed to type it up for me, but he made too many mistakes.

page 1... gets good on the next page

Page 2. That's right, I mocked the post office. Sooooooo origional.

New catch phrase: "Oh my flying ...."

page 4... enter biological warfare?

page 5. Yes, why would ANYONE make up something so ridiculously stupid. I certainly would never make up such a story. Must be a true story then. 

page 6. Go ahead, lie to me, tell me you don't see a cop joke coming...

page 7...Oh no you didn't... that's a stain that'll never come out!

page 8. Har har har har har har har har

I know, I know, thanks for pretending to read my story. But if you did read it, I bet you are absolutely stumped at how I didn't have publishers drafting me from my highschool writting class. I was AMAZING ;)

Mistle-lane-e

Dumb title, but feel free to love me anyway


Remember years ago when I made cake pops? Well I finally did it again. Why did it take so long? Because as much as I ADORE presentation, food ends up in your stomach, and it really is 100% vanity to try and make your food look like toys, or like something Martha Stewart would take credit for even though her staff had all the imagination and did all the work. These weren't my best cake pops, but to be fair, they were truffles. I tried to cheat and use chocolate chips instead of tempering chocolate and they didn't form. Not wanting to waste, I made a  "Tunnel of Bundt cake" And intended to blend up the truffles and use it as filling. Once again I was thwarted and the cake was too fluffy for a bundt ban, and broke. so I mushed truffle and cake together, made balls, stuck em on sticks, and dipped them. All that work could have been saved if I had just made brownies.

Really though, they aren't hard to do, just take a little more time.

Well when B's Uncle/ Business partner relocated to a larger office, Brett got his own office. It's
ridiculously big for someone who sits at a computer all day. enough desk space for 3 people.... or 1 person, a pile of snacks,  and an evil puzzle.

I bought it for him. Isn't it beautiful?

 About a month ago Baby #2 was acting insatiable.  So I fed him sweet potatoes a few times. He loved it. Baby E wasn't tempted at all. Then I tried  banana once. They both loved it. The sweet potato looked the same coming out as it did on this cute little face, so I decided that he wasn't digesting it yet (even with a little momma milk mixed in). So I drank a lot of water. Nothing. Added my midwife's recommended herb blend (blessed thistle, red raspberry leaf, marshmallow root, stinging nettle) and my milk makers bloated back up and he seamed happy again. Then I made some more homemade deodorant (so I can smell like a hippie in a healthfood store) and my milk dropped a little. Whether it was my body adjusting so I didn't have to pump, or the sage oil  in my deodorant, I don't know (high doses of sage herb reduces your milk. Weaning mothers use it in tea to help). I quit deodorant just in case so that it wouldn't get too low. This is really frustrating to me because it is really hard to find deodorants that work ok that don't have aluminum in them ( I like my brain cells, thank you), and I've started getting really sweaty at night the last few days.

I have this fancy spoon that stores the food in it, and you squeeze to dispense, but clearly that doesn't mean the babies will look clean.  Maybe when they are older. 

Remember how I just said I've been getting sweaty at night lately? I've also been having my arm and hands fall asleep on me from the pressure of using them as a pillow. This combined with the facts that I missed several night feedings (if they are going to let me have more than 6 hours of sleep and the milk makers don't wake me, I'm gunna sleep), I've given them solids a few times, and that I had some suspicious fluids and did not follow the applicable rules...this has me a little suspicious that we might need a 3rd crib. Big lots didn't have any $1-2 tests last night, and I wasn't going to pay 7 bucks for one at a grocery store, so will continue to assume "probably not."

I'll be honest, the thought does not scare the crap out of me, even though it really probably should. Not stupid enough to pray for it yet.

Well,   Ender has this Rash that comes and goes for about a month now. Usually it comes. I've tried stripping my diapers, switching him to disposables, natural creams, homemade creams, high zinc creams, switching to homemade wipes. I can't figure it out. 

At least I used junk t-shirts  and didn't buy overpriced flannel ones. 

I know that one area comes from the tabs on his disposable diapers (night time , first thing in the morning, and when I try to get rid of the rest of the rash). So I solved that one by putting on his disposables BACKWARDS. so the velcro tabs go behind. the other areas seam to improve a bit with daily soaks in Epsom salt, followed by naked time.  Here is some of the more modest pics my first naked time a month ago. 

I also have one of #2 biting #1's leg, and lots of gorgeous bottoms.  I was pretty good about hiding the gender-marker though

This has been a crazy week for #1.  His tummy scooting started getting him every where, next to dirty shoes, dog food, etc. 

yeah! Dog Food!

Started climbing boxes, low furniture, etc. 

Then he started actually full on crawling, and once he nailed that, he stopped waisting energy moving slowly. SO I stuck him in a box so I could get stuff done.

 Don't worry, he was happy

Then today all of a sudden, CONSTANT unsupported sitting. He holds for quite a while, then I hear "Thump," followed by "Waaaaaaaa"

 And so now that he has all that core strength, it looks like we have to lower the crib again already. booo. I like not hunching to pick them up

Pavlov

• I've been seriously obsessed with squash lately. I think I love it.
• I want to come up with cues that create a Pavlovian response in my babies... you know, sounds or smells that make them fall asleep or giggle. Is that cruel, amusing, or just awesome?
• I think I should go off sugar again so that my imunity is higher for winter, but I am kinda constantly craving this pudding/ mouse a lot lately.
• I realized today that I go through a costco pack of butter more than once a month when I get in a baking mood. Julia Child would be proud. 
• My babies are less anxious about moving out of mommies room than mommy is. I have a hard time falling asleep if they are not in there with me. I don't want to wait to move them until they get  used to knowing I'm there and get dependent on it, but I REALLY prefer waking up to soft voices than to screams from the other room.
• Here is a better picture of my  hole.
  

Houston, we have a hole (but the hole is not in Houston)

Brett drove by after work and took a picture in the pitch black... he was so excited. Even with the headlights pointed at it, is was pretty useless if you use your eyes to look at pictures (and even if you use your tongue).

So, naturally, he swung by on his way to work today. Admire it. Love my hole. it isn't it beautiful.

Some things I love about it:

• The pink spray paint on the curb... That's where our property line STARTS, and our home has to be at least 10 feet from that... Compare to the homes they are building near my condo, where there is only 10 feet between the homes, and they can't legally put up fences on most of the lots. 
• All the homes next/across are almost finished, so we wont be right next door to a construction zone.
• Across the street is the side yard of homes. This means we got lots of parking for all of those wild parties we throw. All of them. 
• We also have parking along our side (corner lot) and the landowners  on the other side of the street (horse trainers) refused to sell their land to our developers, so we might have that parking for a long time. 
• Animal rights. 

Downsides:

• Corner lot means we loose a little bit of our acreage to more sidewalk, and we have more fence that we have to share the cost of. 
• The CCRs don't specify much, but they do forbid goats. I can have chickens, a few behives, two horses,  some llamas, but I can't have a goat. Brett likes this, but I ain't excited for llama milk. 
• We picked a very popular floorplan. Our neighborhood has several, and that includes our next door neighbor. Oops. But we won't be yellow. 
•  

The babies made me make it

I keep coming up with more sewing projects that I typically don't finish for months, but fortunately, most get done eventually. Its more fun to make potential failures for ickle babies instead of for yourself.

Rather than hall my whole diaper backpack (with blankets and toys, and my water) into the bathroom at church, I wanted a self-containted diaper changing kit I could just grab and take with me . I used scraps, and was making it up as I went, so I would like to remake it neater with more for-thought, but, this works fine and don't want to waste time and money.

Top compartment holds spare covers, the green compartment holds a ziplock of whipes, and the bottom part is a whipeable changing pad with a pocket for holding the cloths. I usually pull them out while the  baby is on top of the changing pad. 

THe top compartments flip on top of the changing pad, then it folds in half with a handle, so I can just grab it out of my backpack and take it with me. 

THis shows where the cloths are hidden under the velcro fold over of the ch anging pad. you can see I used the fabric inside out to have the laminate on the outside... since I was to cheep to buy more fabric to have laminate and print on the outside. 

My wet bags came out lovely. 2 bags cost me little over 5 bucks to make  for both (compared to  10 15 each) and were quick. You can see how squiggly my sewing is. My sewing machine is fairly crappy and sometimes its not worth the effort to try and force it to sew strait. I mean, it's cool and I did it on purpose.

Only slightly more complicated than a pillowcase. Laminate on the inside,  velcro to cose. 

My wrist straps were surprisingly tidy

My squiggly stitches were "on purpose"

When it got really cold for a while and I didn't have hats, I made up a pattern (simple) based on a knitting pattern that was basically a rectangle with a seam on one edge. I thought they came out cute. Silly, but cute. Sometimes they look like Russian women, sometimes like little hobbits. The hats were also made  from used t/shirts and sweater linings. 100 points for being free.

Silly warm boy. 

a month and a half later,  I finished the second hat. In this photo, I still need to do a top stitch on the one on the right, but I did finish it last night!

Then, looking for more sweaters at kid to kid (a lot of my hand me downs were short sleves) I found a sock monkey sweater, so of course, that meant the day before the church halloween party, I had to make a second costume. I thought it would be easy, but I forgot that picking a non streatchy fabric is hard to get over baby heads, in the end I made it work, but it took 4x as long as it should have. I'm pretty proud of using no pattern though.

In the end I used a green onesie underneath. The back was sliced from top to bottom,  and I had to reconnect it with lengths of elastic. 

And lastly, I felted an old cashmere sweater that had a few holes in it to reuse the wool. It's all fluffy now. Wool, from what I read, is amazing. It insulates your body temp well whether it's hot or cold outside, it breathes well, and It absorbs alot of moisture and pulls it away from your skin without wicking and transferring to the other side of the fabric... so it's good for keeping you dry in rain, and for pulling sweat/urine away from skin, and its antibacterial so it can absorb urine many times before it smells and you have to hand wash it. Usually you can air dry, swap for another pair, then reuse, washing 1-2 times a month. Hence, some people love wool soakers, aka diaper covers, especially for night time. For all these reason wool is apparently amazing, so I've been wanting to make something with it.

See how fluffy it got!! Sadly you can still see the holes. I was hoping they would felt in, but I cut around it . 

It shrunk a bit when I felted it. shame I cut of the sleeves when the elbows wore through. I could have made nursing pads from the cuffs. 

Well, one of my little ones has started getting some rashes, so I need to change him often, and even though I use disposables at night time, I was looking for something better. the velcro tabs seem to irritate his skin though the disposable diaper, because it is scratchy. So I finally broke down, and yesterday I took a free wool soaker pattern, and made a test diaper with some scrap material. Its a bit feminine in color, but kinda cute. I then made a fluffy soft wool one cutting up my now felted sweater. With the cloth diaper underneath, it makes a supper fluffy butt. I want to put a tail on it.  I need to lanolize it (incase my sweater was processed) just in case, but I'll be trying it out soon.

TEST Material., but without the cloth inside. I think he looks like a boxer. 

Gotta love the paint  on the fabric. Also, I sewed the waist band to the wrong side. 

I decided to make him wear it today with a diaper underneeth. Because it was just sweat shirt material, I did have to use a cover underneath. 

Voila, soft fluffy wool with a cloth inside. I ended up making the legs shorter to to use smaller scraps of the wool, and I had to make the legs tighter. Not as cute, but it works. 

Next time I wont skimp on the length of the leg cuffs so it will be cuter. 

Inside out . I patched together scraps to make an extra thick "wet zone" area