An Update of my Knowledge

Here's what I learned today as a result of hanging out with my parents.

• Hillary Clinton is the shoe-in president of our country for the 2016 elections.  No need for any of us to vote.  According to the Rush Limbaugh show.
• Joe Montana really wanted to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers back in the day, but, alas, they turned him down.
• Joe was a "system" player and he's okay with that because it earned him several "system" rings.  Does that make sense to any of you besides my Dad?
• Mr. Montana's son does not play for Notre Dame any more and it makes him sad.

• A banana and dark M&Ms makes a really tasty snack.
• Spinning around on the bar at the playground can cause bruising to the back of the knee.  That never happened when I was 8.
• Sometimes plastic surgeons use their skills to change the identity of mobsters.  Thank you crime tv.  Castle, I think.

• Ok, I learned this on Saturday:  "Pavone" means peacock.
• I observed the footwear of many women as we waited at the City of Hope.  Lots of professional type ladies are wearing really big/tall high heels that make them walk in a very unnatural way.  The other end of the shoe spectrum here in So Cal are the casual ladies wearing warm fuzzy boots.  In So Cal.  It was 75 degrees.  Hm.
• I am a terrible hospital companion.  I.V. racks and syringes still make me weak, light headed, and nauseous.  It's embarrassing.
• The City of Hope is very near where I bought my motorcycle.  It was a cute red Honda Rebel.

Did you learn anything interesting today?

Me and Cali

So here I am in California.  I've eaten an In-n-Out cheeseburger, three ice cream bars and one avocado, knitted four dish cloths, walked ten miles, slept ten hours every night, driven in traffic nearly everyday, been spit-up on by baby Cadence, and have been introduced to crime television shows.  I've also hung out with very important people - the true reason for this trip.  And I have photos all ready to show you, but I can't get them uploaded.  Let me try again...

Okay, so I was able to post them over on facebook, including an exclusive video of my acrobatic feats of amazement.

I came out to help with housework and hang out with my mom and dad who are recovering from my dad's stem cell transplant.  The bonus is that my sister also came to visit with her new baby.  So we've had some unique family time.  I got to go with them to City of Hope, where my dad is being treated, and meet a few of the people who helped save his life from leukemia.

What I've learned from this trip is that I need to persuade my therapist to prescribe unto me a quarterly trip to visit my family.  It is so restorative.  Special family time, perfectly temperatured sunshine, no children to care for or cause me to wake before my ten hours are up, familiar places and food, no children to care for or...  It's just so nice.

Now I pause to express my love, appreciation, and greatest gratitude to my husband who is home with one vomiting child and two highly active children.  Isn't he wonderful?  He is.  So is his mom who is also caring for our children many days while I'm not.  A break in parenting is so golden.  Thank you, thank you!

Time for football tv and the beginnings of another dishcloth.

How One Loses His Transportation

Have you ever done it?  Lost your transportation?  I have to pause to laugh...

This afternoon the boys and I went to the garage to mount our bikes and strollers for an excursion uptown.  Peter declares, "I can't find my bike.  My bike's not here."  Hmm.  He's totally right.  Bike gone.

My first thought was that someone stole it.  But then I remembered that he is his father's son.  So I asked him, "Did you ride it somewhere recently and leave it there?"

He thinks for a moment then replays yesterday's solo trip to the market.  "I rode my bike to the market to buy meat for dinner...  And then I walked home."  I smiled hugely in disbelief that he actually did this.  Because...

More than once, Paul has been out and about driving somewhere and he ends up at the local cafe, which is a two minute walk away from our house.  After spending hours solving the world's problems with the farmers, he heads out and, forgetting that he drove the car, he walks home.  Then later in the day one of us goes to use the car and we don't know where it is.

"Oh, heh heh, I left it at the cafe."

See how funny and ridiculous this is?  It brought great humor into my life that Peter, never knowing that Paul is also prone to losing his transportation, took a one-way trip on his bike.

The truly sad part of the story is that his bike is gone.  It was not at the market when we went to retrieve it today.  I'm hoping that it will magically reappear, but I imagine one of the nocturnal youth who traverse our town in the darkness of night took it for a joy ride.

Cue Reuben's act of mind-blowing kindness.  He told Peter that he could ride his bike any time he wanted and that he would ride his scooter.  Yes, Reuben.  You're amazing too.

Legalities and Love

Passports
Jury duty
Sleeping Paul
Conference
Nexus
Wassail
Snow
My sister


So Charlie joined our family August 4, 2011.  His adoption was finalized November 17, 2011.  We received his birth certificate with the wrong birthday on it in February-ish 2012.  When the corrected one came, we applied for his Certificate of Citizenship, which just came this fall.  With all of these documents, including his adoption decree, I went to the Social Security office to get his social security number.  Six weeks later I added this to my stack of really important documents to grab if our house is ever on fire.  Now comes the grand finale... I took all of the aforementioned papers and my legal husband to the courthouse to apply for Charlie's American Passport!!  And it came in the mail last week.  So all of our children are labeled as American citizens and we are free to move about the globe.  Which we will do shortly.

But before I leave the country, my services have been requested to solve a legal dispute.  Word of my smooth ability to daily fix a bajillion crisis must have reached the jury selection committee.  "We want her!  Did you see her bring immediate peace in her house when her middle son..."  And, "Whoa, she just put him in Time Out.  And he's staying there."  I hope I get to sit on a jury.  I would like to add that to my list of life experiences.

Paul went to bed by 8 o'clock tonight due to being up past 3 am last night.  Isn't that interesting?  Last night I went to bed before 10 o'clock and woke up just before 8 am.  That's the way to do it.  It was lovely.  So tonight, we switch.  And I'm about to dig into my secret stash of blueberry/pomegranate ice cream with cute little chocolate hearts in it.  This staying up later than everyone is a good idea.

Tomorrow we head to a conference.  But I'm deciding right now not to write about because it's not going to come out very interesting.  Next...

So, we have never owned a cell phone.  And we get a bit of, um, crap about it.  But we really really like the cell phone-free lifestyle, so we take the snide remarks and then go eat a bowl of ice cream, or whatever, because we don't really care.  But, I think this next thing I'm going to tell you is going to help The World accept us a little bit more.  We recently got a tablet thingy.  Right?  It's a tablet?  A flat rectangle with a touch screen that gets on the Internet and lets us download books and stuff.  Isn't that cool?  Aren't we totally with-it?  I knew it.  I knew it would make up for us not having a mo-bile.  You can't call me, but we can Skype!  And now I have Apps.  Everyone has Apps on their rectangular device-of-choice.  Our Saturday night pastor even did a whole sermon series around the Apps theme.  Now I have Apps and can totally relate.  Except that sermon series was months ago and I don't remember what he said.

It's Wassail time.  I make it several times in the fall and winter for gatherings and such.  It's super good, so they say.  Here's the recipe I use.

1 gallon of apple juice
1 quart of pineapple juice
6 oz of orange juice concentrate
8 cinnamon sticks
27 whole cloves

Put it in a crock pot (that works) to warm it up for a few hours.  Delish.  And your house will smell all holiday spicy.

It snowed on Monday.  Here.  Outside my window.  Paul came to tell me as I was doing my hair and I asked if the kids knew yet.  Cue children squealing.  "It's snowing!  Ahhh!"  Charlie grabbed his sandals and brought them to me with a high sense of urgency.  He did not like having to wait for me to find his snow-appropriate shoes.  And Charlie and Reuben went out to play.  I think Peter read a book on the couch.  Snow shmow.  This first baby snow is our reminder to start contacting last year's clients for Peter and Bros. Snow Removal.  And my cue to get the hot chocolate supplies ready.

And it can snow all it wants because I'm going to California for two weeks.  Aha!  Just don't order snow for Denver because that's where my layovers are.  I was the opposite of encouraged when I saw that Southwest plane slide off the Denver tarmac last week.  Flying Southwest for this trip.  Through Denver.  Double whammy.  Remember that show?  I barely do.  So, to California I go.  Without anyone else.  And hopefully I will make it there.  Because I get to spend time with my parents and my sister... And this baby who needs to meet me:

Did you read her onesie?  This is my sister's new baby Cadence.  Before she turns one she will be a big sister.  Why keep The World waiting for more extreme cuteness when it could be available in an easy nine months, I always say.  Excited for them.

And, I think that covers it.  I've had my ice cream.  You've read my nonsense.  It's time to bury myself in my flannel-shod bed, pre-warmed by Paul.

Oh, let me tell you one more thing about Paul.  Today was a special day.  The beginning of It All in the world of PaulandStacey.  This day, November 14th, back in 1998, Paul and I became PaulandI.  So sweet.  I've probably already told you about it.  We were sitting on a bench on Lover's Lane at PCC and he held my hand...  Then the next November 14th, he called my Dad to ask him if he could marry me.  Then he asked me what I thought about that plan.  I thought it was a good idea.  A great idea.  The best idea.  So a few months later we were married and really became PaulandStacey.  And that's the story of November 14th and why the boys thought I was all weird and sappy today.


*What I learned while writing this post:  'tarmac' is short for 'tarmacadam.'

Points For You and Me

Here's the lineup of tonight's discussion:

Charlie and the dentist
Paul gone
Bonus plane money
Polyp
Date at the museum
Voting tears
Ju-seok
Car battery
Pork chops

They say you should take your kids to the dentist when they're young.  Peter and Reuben were older than the dentist preferred, like fiveish.  They've always had a good time at the dentist though.  But Charlie, being fully two, wanted to keep his teeth to himself.  He clamped his mouth shut and fought with great might.  So much for bringing them in young to ease into the dental experience.  I brought him in at this younger age because we're moving soon and I wanted his formerly cleft lip checked out.  And I wanted the dentist to explain what she saw in English, you know, so I could understand what she was saying.  She said the something something arch looked good and all of his teeth are in the right place.  Ten points to Dr. Rucker.

Paul is not here.  Maybe he is with you.  Just go ahead and give him a big ole kiss for me.  If you have any extra pity sitting around you could share it with Paul, poor guy.  He's out in California where it's all sunny and warm and filled with people he likes to hang out with. It's really sad.  Whereas I, I get to take the trash out to the street tomorrow morning in the 28 degree cloudiness after being woken up by a Charlie telling me he's "All done."  Negative 50 points to jealous me.

But Senor Paul did scored us -ME- some bonus airplane dollars by volunteering to take a later flight.  He said I can use them this winter when my annual I Must Go To California Right Now urge appears.  Sweet man.  One million points to Paul.

Okay, so what if your doctor found a pretty small little growth attached to your insides?  And what if he wanted to remove it?  Would you let him?  Me neither.  Thanks for your input.  I feel better about it now.  Zero points to impending doom.

What's next?  Oh, our date.  We spent a lot of hours at the art museum last Friday.  We went on three docent-led tours discussing American impressionists, Flemish painters, and Islamic art.  We were really nerdy and very romantic.  It was so nice to do something that WE wanted to do without having to manage our dear, but needy, children.  A thousand hundred thank yous to Debbie who fulfilled all the needs of our children that day.  75 points to educational dates in the city.

Did you cry when you tried to vote yesterday?  Me too.  I just looked at that ballot and those two names and implored God to tell me which one to pick, because I didn't want to mark either of their names.  And ultimately, I didn't.  Then I fought back my tears of frustration that there were not suitable men listed to lead our country.  It felt odd to deposit an empty ballot, but perhaps I am not the only one who did.  Negative a lot of points to man's sinful nature.

This is to formally notify The World that the child formally known as Reuben would, from this point on, prefer to be called Ju-seok.  He will remind you if you forget.  Cute points to the Korean.

Last week our car failed to start, so our friends at Bradley Tire tested our battery for us.  The little machine said it was fine.  And then Paul went out of town.  Which leads us to this afternoon when I loaded the kids in car to take them to piano lessons and... nothing.  Not even that little clicking sound.  Everybody out, call to cancel piano, and call to Bradley Tire to come rescue little me.  And they totally did.  An hour later they returned my car with a new battery.  They brought it to me.  And before that they came to my house to jump my car (after pushing it out of the garage) and take it to their shop.  This is small town love.  And I'm going to miss it.  So I baked those boys some of my favorite brownies and cookies and brought them to  the shop, which I could do because when I turned the key, my car started.  600 points to small town America.

Since my car stopped working, my crockpot followed suit.  Porkchops and stuffing and sauce all laying nicely in there all afternoon.  Cold.  It was plugged in and turned on, yes.  So I microwaved them.  Isn't that silly?  And then I hoped really hard that we would not get sick from eating meat that sat on the counter and may or may not have been fully cooked.  It's been five hours and we're okay so far.  Negative 6 points to my crockpot that let me down.

Let's end with a positive score board.  I am now going to read my Perspectives book and attempt to complete the homework.  200 points to this fantastic class.  And 4973 points for me because I earned 18 out of 20 on my last two assignments!  And the crowd went wild...

Food, Fun, and Family Service

One of my goals as a parent is to develop a servant heart in my children.  I want them to take initiative to help others.  I want helping others to be second nature to them.  I want them to think beyond themselves and put others first.

So I am on the lookout for opportunities that provide this training.  Last week a mobile food pantry truck came to town and I signed our family up to help distribute the food.  It was so great.

 Charlie and our friend Diane handed out laundry soap to all 118 families who came through the line.

For two hours.

He was laying down on the table toward the end.

 Peter's job was to pull this cart as the client loaded it up with food.

Then he took it to their car and helped load it in.

This is how it made him feel.

Peter was a little unsure of himself at the beginning and wanted me to stay right with him.

So we worked together until a family who had walked to the park needed a ride back to their house with all their food.  I took them home, leaving a hesitant Peter.

He said he would stay right there and wait for me to get back before he helped another client.

But I tried to encourage him that he could do it by himself.

By the time I returned he had gone through the line ALL BY HIMSELF with a client.

When I rejoined him he said to me,

"Mom, maybe there's something else you could go do now."

Aha!

Confidence built.

 Reuben and Paul also got to use the fun carts.

Here they're waiting for the next family.

Reuben reminded Paul to tell them,

"Jesus loves you."

 We all enjoyed the time of serving.

 Charlie and I found that it was important to stop and take cuteness breaks now and then.

 Ok, so we're all done and the boys got permission to take these large boxes home to play with.

 Too big for the car

so they walked them home.

And then they spent the afternoon being extremely silly with each other and their boxes.

Which is another of my parenting goals:

brothers who love each other and enjoy each other.

Funny, Smart, Sunny, and Cute

Paul is hilarious.  This is how I know...

He went to the grocery store with all three boys so I could rest and have some Me time.  Not the funny part, but very heroic and loving, which are also necessary elements for a good story.  On his way out the door to the store I mentioned that I'd like some ice cream with bits of goodness in it that I could eat in the evenings when the children have disappeared into the night.  Look what the funnyman brought me:

He said, "You'll either thank me or be mad at me."  I laughed because I was not expecting .03 ounces of ice cream.  And I laughed, and maybe even cried, because I wanted more.  Lesson learned.  Go to the grocery store myself.  Or, perhaps, be more specific in my requests.  Or, thank my husband for controlling my portions of unneeded fat and sugar.  He is so thoughtful.  And ridiculous.

Paul's Missouri Grandparents came for a visit.

We love them dearly and think they are cute.

They go south for the winter.  I forgot to speak of their wisdom.  South for the winter is so smart.

And I felt like a flight attendant all day with that scarf around my neck.

I think it made me stand up taller.

Coffee, tea?

 The reigning Quilt Monster

 Guess what we're working on?

Potty training.

Throughout the day I hear the toilet lid shut and I head to the bathroom to find

This One taking his bear to use the toilet.

Then he uses wet wipes and puts on a new diaper.

He is figuring out his world.

 We had two warm days this week and we spent them outside,

soaking in and storing up all the sun we could get.

Peter successfully led us through this maze at a nearby nature preserve.

It was shaped like a bat - the flying mammal -

not the unfortunate tool the Giants are using to win World Series games.

Bleh, Giants.

Bleh.

Let's move on.

Mid maze.

Like my necklace?

Remember that time I bought a bunch of stuff I didn't really want at the Turkish shop in California?

This is from that.

I'm kind of fond of it now.

After the prairie maze, we toured some trails and crunched the leaves.

Paul came too.

I don't have any photo editing capabilities on this computer,

but if I did, I'd zoom right in on that cute couple.

Turks at Turkey Run

It is fall here.  Nearly over now.  The leaves today were rusty red and orange.  I do like fall and its beauty, but I also despise it as it insists on bringing winter all too close behind it.  I loathe and dread winter.  It makes me colder than I want to be.  And that's all the complaining I'm going to do.

Look here.  We spent an afternoon with our friends at Turkey Run.

 This is Zeynep.

She is youthful and a lot of fun.

 I, too, am youthful and loads of fun.

And my husband is handsome, as you can see.

 Since we are discussing youthful funness,

here is Paul crossing a high fallen tree.

 Bringing his children out to enjoy the danger.

Ta-da!

Danger equals fun.

 Here is Ersen.

Sometimes he wears Converse low tops and it's really cute.

 Some bears and boys in a cave.

Meet Ozlem.

We have interesting discussions about our differences and similarities.

And she has beautiful thick black hair.

 CharChar testing new levels of dangerous.

Love him.

 We had a post hike picnic

and while the adults and Charlie ate at a picnic table outside

these two sat up on this mantel in the shelter house and chitchatted like silly brothers.

 And here we are for our fall family picture at Turkey Run.

The boys look thrilled, yes?

My leg-squeeze got Peter to smile.

 This is what we look like from the left.

Group shot with Sugar Creek in the background.

Lovely day.

 Did this video work for you?

...You Make Lymeade

Remember that one time when I had Lyme Disease?  That was a neat two weeks.

Much to my consternation, it seems that I am, after all, losing my mind on my own accord.

Paul and I were sitting in the office of the infectious disease doctor last week.  (My primary doctor found that I had Lyme Disease, started me on antibiotics, and referred me to this infectious disease doctor who I saw two weeks later.)  He had read over my history, squinted at my last round of blood tests (including the ones that showed I tested positive for Lyme Disease), poked my body hither and yon, then turned to us and said,

"You do not have Lyme Disease."

Paul and I laughed in aghastment.  For two weeks I had been reading books and websites about Lyme.  The more I read, the more symptoms I recognized.  What's that one thing some people are?  Hypochondriac?

Know what I have?  Nothing.  Know what's wrong with me?  Nothing.  Know what's causing the fatigue and such?  Nothing.

His official diagnosis is: You are tired.  And he validated my symptoms by saying, "What you're feeling is real.  You are tired."

And this is my favorite part...  He said something like, "You're going to drive yourself into a mental situation if you try to search out more answers for why you're tired.  Don't do it.  You are healthy.  You are tired.  You will feel better."  He just gave me the freedom to stop trying to fix myself.  Just be tired, lady, and one day you won't be tired any more.

So, People of the World, this is when you offer all your insights as to what is really wrong with me and how I need a third opinion.  Ready...go.

While you gather your thoughts about that, I will further express how I feel.

Well, first, I feel tired.  (ha - tired, but still funny)

Nextly, I keep wondering to myself, sometimes with tears of frustration:  HOW IN THE WORLD DO I MAKE MYSELF FEEL UNTIRED?  It's been nearly a year full of tiredness and I can not find the little toggle switch to flick it from "tired" to "not tired".  I think it broke off.  The Doctor of Extensive Knowledge said I need to work through the tiredness and get back to exercising.  That's it.

Some have suggested that this is my subconscious way of declaring that I do not want to move to Chicken (ever been there?).  Others have offered that maybe Satan is working hard to slow us down and discourage us from moving to Chicken.  And a third opinion has been that perhaps God is testing and strengthening my faith, determination, and character as we prepare to... move to Chicken.

I kind of like the "You are tired" one.  I did pay him a lot of money to make that statement.

But, you know, one gets a lot more sympathy when she has a real diagnosis like Lyme Disease.  I'm kind of missing it.  Who cares if you're tired?  Everyone is tired.  For real.

So here's to my way up out of the sloggy tired mind and into the rejuvinated go-get-em...

Ohhh, trying to creatively create that sentence just exhausted me.


But, look!  Here's our annual family picture at Turkey Run.

 Tired shmired.

When Life Gives You Lymes...

Hello Peoples of the World!  I've missed you.

While I was washing dishes tonight, several thoughts came to mind that I deemed blog worthy.  But now that I'm here they have escaped me.  So I will just type and such until things come to me.

Well, see there.  The phone just rang and someone needed to know if they could use the church Fellowship Hall tomorrow.  "Um, yeah, let me just look at the church's master calendar hanging on my kitchen wall here..."  But really I jogged faster than my body wanted to move, across the street in the rain to check the calendar.  It's free tomorrow, in case you were worried I'd leave you wondering.  Except now it's not.

Picture by Reuben.

He was really amazed by this sunset.

This is for Carly.

Know what we're watching?

Anne of Green Gables.

My sons' future wives can thank me with gifts of fair trade chocolate.

I have been reading L.M. Montgomery's journals and they are so fantastic.

(She is Anne's author.)

She tells about which characters and stories are based on her real life,

and how she cried and cried the day of her wedding because she was not marrying for love.

 Then she moved away to live in a rural part of Canada with her new husband who was a pastor.

She is me!

Except I married with overflowing amounts of love.

But!

A pastor's wife in a small foreign town who has all these expected duties

and can't really confide in anyone because then her life becomes the town's latest gossip!

Ah.

We are kindred spirits born a hundred years apart.

Read it with a box of kleenex.

WWI affects her strongly and there's the part about baby Hugh and the parsonage does not have a bathroom and...

He is so lucky to be the third child.

Never would I have let a two-year-old play with weapons.

My heart melted oowey-gooey when Paul bought this mini sword for him at the feast.

It was a moment of tender father-son sweetness.

Peter and Reuben had both made their much-anticipated, thoroughly-considered sword purchases

and Charlie was left empty handed.

We did not plan to buy him a sword too.

He's two!

Oh, but he wanted one like his big brothers and Paul, so sweet, felt this in Charlie.

And he bought one.

I am feeling oddly sentimental about it, Charlie's first sword.

And a rare spontaneous purchase by Paul.

It was love.

And I love love.

Speaking of love.

Here we are.

Hanging out at our Saturday night church.

We were either waiting for the masses to exit the building,

or we had arrived early and... I have no idea why I took this picture.

Can you sense a bit of scatterbrainia in me?

It's okay.

I now have a diagnosis for my brain fog, memory loss, muscle weakness, and deep lingering fatigue...

One day whilst traversing the trails of Turkey Run,

a mite of a tick poked me with his teeth

and delivered into my body the poison of Lyme.

At least we think that's what happened.

I never saw the tick or the bite

but apparently I have Lyme Disease.

Because that's what my latest blood work showed.

While I am not looking forward to dealing with the late stages of this disease,

I am thrilled

THRILLED

to have a name for the way I feel.

I am NOT losing my mind on my own accord.

It's the tick's fault.

So, tips?

Who's had Lyme Disease?

The Feast

The grand finale of this year's Celebration de Reuben was a two-day excursion to The Feast of the Hunter's Moon.  He has been waiting for months for this annual 1700s historical reenactment festival.  I am so thankful for this event because it means we successfully avoided a Chuck E. Cheese birthday, his second choice.

We went on Friday for the School Trip Day and learned some things from costumed actors.

Then we went back on Saturday for the full feast effect.

These pics show a mix of both days.

 

See the learning?

This guy taught us all the parts of his gun, how to load it and fire it.

We took breaks for rest and nourishment.

Watching a wood-turner

This is super hard.

See?

Reuben needed to be convinced to try it.

I think he knew he wasn't going to be perfect at it on his first try

and he wanted to avoid failure.

He was right, so we moved on to the next game.

Throw the ring with these two sticks.

She said this used to be a game played by both girls and boys, but eventually only girls played it.

She thought the boys were banned from playing due to their playing it like boys:

Wild and rough.

It was fun.

And quicker to be good at.

Not like that roll the wheel with a stick game.

I realized today that this one is nearly ten!

Ack.

These are the Budabi Brothers.

We watch their funny juggling show every year,

even though we could tell all their jokes now.

We even considered inviting them to stay the night at our house,

instead of in their tent.

But we didn't.

But it could've been fun.

Or weird.

Okay, down to business.

Forget all this educational, entertaining stuff.

Let's shop!

He quickly learned to say 'rabbit foot.'

The whole point, according to the boys, for this event

is to shop and purchase a new weapon.

Happy Birthday!

Pirate sword with belt and sheath.

Time to battle.

Charlie's first sword.

Ah, so cute.

Here's some battle video.

It was a grand time.

If I had a daughter I'd get more into the costumes.

Fancy dresses and parasols.

Then the boys would want soldier uniforms.

But Paul... he would go more for the voyager look that made us giggle:

the longish shirt with a flappy thing at the waist.

Cold legs.

And bottom.