2 days down.... :)

This water-as-only-beverage thing is hard, but I am not going through juice nearly as quickly as I normally would...  I wonder if I can factor in that cost savings to add?

When Bear was getting into the tub tonight, she, in her best authoritative princess tone, asked us to bring in a bucket of water.  I told her we had a faucet so she did not need a bucket.  Then she saw her gladware "toys" in the tub and exclaimed, "oh, there they are!"

This got me thinking.  The areas that lack drinking  water probably lack clean bathing water, too.  When I spent a few weeks in a small rural town in Northwestern Mexico, I was advised to not even brush my teeth with the ground water, but to use bottled water.  Fortunately, they had the huge 10 gallon tanks brought in, you know the kind you might see in an office here.  And if water was running low, one of the neighbors was sure to have a bottle of coke in their little front porch tienda, or even better, helados (ice pops made of juices frozen in plastic baggies).

The spigot on the pump in front of the house where I stayed did not look like anything I would want to wash my hands in, much less drink from.  Who knew what kind of chemicals from the surrounding crops ended up in their water supply. But that was what the families were used to... I remember one little boy with eczema so severe, his brown skin cracked so you could see pink underneath.....

Just think that most parts of Africa are even more remote than the most rural, impoverished places in the United States. (And yes, there are places in our nation which warrant that description.) That village I visited in Mexico had the ability to obtain drinking water, even if there was only one telephone  for the community and the cattle shared the same road in as the pick-up truck.  The kids had a basketball court, the church had electrical fans which could be plugged in., and you might glimpse a hen sneak behind you while getting a drink from the water tank.  I once had a tick find my back while I showered, but we had ample water that was clean "enough."
*****
Today was harder, but I made it.  I took some more ibuprofen and an afternoon nap, snuggled with my 4 year old.  I put my coffee grinder up, and intend to find a place in the closet for my coffee maker to reduce temptation (and clutter).

So, I did a search for "Halloween" on my other blog, the one dedicated to my kiddos...

Bear was a year old when she wore the costume I put our 2 month old in today. (It's a size 6 mo, but stretched a lot.) She has changed so much in the past year, not to mention the past three years, and it's documented online.

I really, really need to get back to scrapbooking. To capture these moments in a "craft book", as Bear calls it (when I corrected her, she insisted, "No, Mommy, it's a craft book.") I am terrible at printing out the pics I take, and I fear that if I don't change that, they will be lost someday. Perhaps my blog will help me with my journaling if I ever to get on the ball....

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

At this point in my first pregnancy,

just shy of 3 years ago....

... we met our daughter.

THEN & NOW

11 weeks 4 days pregnant with Baby Bear, 2005

12 weeks with sweet pea
February 7, 2008

Many of my pics are trapped on my old computer (at least, I hope they are still there), which has the broken monitor and is not working with the other monitor we tried to connect it to. But at some point, some of the files were retrieved and put on here, and one just happens to be right around the same stage of pregnancy...

Around 13 months ago...

89 degrees

That's the current temp here in middle TN. That means it was at least a couple of degrees warmer during our little outing to the pumpkin patch. We now have a festive fall display of corn stalks, 2 pumpkins, and 3 gourds next to our front door. I predict at least one of the pumpkins will get smashed by our little bear at some point. The stems are already broken off. It seems wrong to have worn a tank top blouse to the pumpkin patch, but it was so warm.... Anyway, Tech Mom and I scoped out the location to see if they were open today. We had passed the sign yesterday on our way down to the Country Ham Festival, where my parents had Dad's artwork on display. Bear got to see all her Grandparents, her youngest Aunt, and her younger cousin all in the same day.

Anyway, all day yesterday Tech Mom had told Bear that she would buy her a pumpkin. And today we found the farm and she kept her promise before heading home.

All these pre-Autumn festivities bring back memories of the first small town where we lived in the Midwest when I was a child. This is the town where my elementary school was in walking distance, and there was an Appaloosa horse farm just a short walk down the street in the other direction. This time of year, we would go on hayrides at the apple orchard in the next town over and watch them press the apples for cider in the mill. They also made fresh cake donuts there. Donuts that put Krispy Creme to shame for imitating such a rich treat. Not that I don't like K.C. I do. But the real homemade cake donuts stick with you better instead of giving you that sugar rush that ends as a sugar crash. Anyway, it was fun to see my daughter's excitement as she tried to pick a pumpkin that probably weighed as much as she does, and when we returned home she played with her gourds and picked up our pumpkins.

After we got back from the pumpkin patch, Hubby cleaned out our car, vacuuming everything and febreezing the car seat. It had been at least 6 months since the vehicle had that kind of TLC.

p.s. I "chatted" with a former classmate from childhood, and she said the orchard is still going strong. Am I crazy for wanting to drive up there for some fresh cider and donuts to dunk?

Wordless Wednesday: Flashback to 12/6/05

It doesn't seem like she was ever this little.

For more WW pictures, visit the WW Headquarters or 5 minutes for mom!

a family history... of sorts


'Twas Autumn '07, the setting serene...

An upstanding young man arrived on the scene
Where his parents had attended some decades before.

He knew the rules of this tranquil estate.
Even his brother stayed 'til graduation date.

No pink or blue sidewalks as rumor suggests.
A fine Christian place, where "only good kids" are sent.

Stained glass windows abound.
Making prisms of light.

And this place where some have found love at first sight...

Unlike those secular schools, no making out here.
Not for this boy, (it was early in the year).

This young man and his friends had a "home away from home".
But rules would not allow them to roam.

Still, they obeyed, doing their best.
To appease the VanG's and all of the rest.

Demerits were slow as the semester began.
Examples needed to be made, of any young man
Who stepped out of the box, did something silly or rash.
With the Dean of Men he surely would clash.

One day there was horseplay in a dorm room.
No beer, cigars, nor rock n' roll tune.

Just some guys tossing around the "Stay-Puff marshmallow man";
Out the window it fell and on the sidewalk did land.

The young men were then told they were sinful and liars.
At semester's end one left, as of mind games he grew tired.

Home returned, and one night out with the friends,
He told me the story... and I believed him!

Several years later, we visited the site.
Where that boy and his buddies got in trouble that night.
Hubby wore shorts, our baby sniffed a flower.
We loitered on campus (with his parents) for over an hour.

Is her tuition pre-payed?
Oh, we don't know if to this college our children should go.

In the midst of the rules and strong academics,
lies a pandemic of the heart which may breed rebels and cynics.

We hope to follow the Word and let bygones pass...
only the Lord knows our children's paths.

I found a blog where I can reminisce my childhood summer vacations... and learn more about the Cape, I'm sure.

I'd sure like to be there right now. It's too hot here in the South.

shhh.... (hope hubby isn't reading this)

i broke the rules. i bought an adorable mini-rose bush with white buds on it. and 2 geraniums. all 4 cost me less than $5, but i had previously been asked not to spend any more on my flower fetish/ocd/whatever-you-want to call it. so i do feel a bit guilty. yes, over $5. really. but the metal urn begged to have adornment after being abandoned by the chinese lanterns, and i read somehwere that japanese beetles don't like geraniums. i dug some dirt out of my veggie pots. baby bear thought the plants were growing out of "cake" when I pulled them from their plastic pots. i guess we've let her have too much chocolate cake and brownies in the past. :-)

the decorative urn was given to us by my college roommates. it held the birdseed which was later thrown at us as we left our wedding reception... they were thrown mostly indoors because it started raining during the reception. God bless my friend's mom, thewonderful woman who vacuumed up that mess. (she's wonderful in other ways, too.) i saw the white mini-rose bush and had to at least try to get it to survive. i had white roses in my bouquet and the bridesmaids' bouquets.

if he doesn't read this, then i wonder how long it will take him to notice the new additions to my floral family.

It's raining, it's pouring, Baby Bear is snoring....

so far, Baby Bear takes after her parents. Both of us are fairly heavy sleepers. However, now that I have a little one, I find I don't sleep quite as soundly as I used to.

Our sole TV is upstairs... not the part of the house you should be in during T-storm warnings and tornado watches. Nights like tonight make me wish we had a basement, preferably finished. Dad had finished the basement of our first house in MI. I was a toddler when we transplanted to the midwest from the east coast. Our house was a simple 3 bedroom 1 1/2 bath ranch, but with the basement it seemed huge. There were plenty of nooks and crannies and closets in which to play hide and seek. The house was situated on a hill, and a long, narrow deck ran most of the length of the back of the house. Both the dining area and my parents' bedroom had sliding glass doors out to the deck. Nights like tonight, we would watch the storms from my parents' bedroom. If a tornado warning went into effect, to the basement we went. During the winter months, we spent many a snow/ice storm around the iron wood-burning stove surrounded by a brick hearth. And then there was the old brown leather lazy boy, or maybe it was vinyl that was supposed to look like leather. We would climb on that and tip it backward the way Baby Bear climbs on her toddler chair. Except it was a little more difficult to move around... we couldn't just toss it.

Our next house was a little larger, but to get to the laundry room (basement), mom had to go down two flights of steps instead of just one. The basement was still a work-in progress when we moved... it had a storage area, the utility area, and what was to eventually become a bedroom. It never quite got finished. But when the tornado warnings came, guess where we huddled with our sleeping bags, flashlights, and pillows? Yep, that unfinished basement... the closet of the craft area/bedroom. And then there was the time the neighbor's "pet" fox got loose, but we didn't know it was their pet, and then the news guy ended up filming the pop-up hailstorm from our back deck and doing a story on a seemingly tame, stray fox from our backyard. The fox belonged to the scary neighbors, the ones who blasted heavy metal and I truly thought were members of a strang occult. (Keep in mind the church we went to at the time taught that singers like Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, those so-called "contemporary Christian musicians", were misguided heathens who were really going straight to hell with their music. And culottes were somehow more modest than pants for playing sports or on the playground... though in reality, the boys could see UP them if they tried, so they were actually less modest than pants. Thank God our parents got us out of that church. Though the funny thing is, the time spent in THAT group prepared me for understanding the mindset of my future husband's grandparents. Well, a little better understanding, anyway.) Anyway, back to the neighbors... they were one of 2 homes in the small subdivision that I remember we NEVER went to for trick-or-treating. If they weren't nice to us most of the time, and we suspected them of keep pets for strange reasons, why would we want to trick-or-treat there? And the man who mowed the lawn in his speedo at the other place was just plain gross.

Ah, the memories. I don't think the thought that I would be laying in my bed as an adult, remembering thunder storms past ever really occured to me as a child. I certainly didn't think my random mind would wander to culotte-wearing churches, fox-hostage-keeping neighbors, or speedo-wearing middle-aged men. UGh.

I want my hubby to come home. I've gone from having my usual weird dreams to really strange flashbacks in his absence.

All is quiet through the baby monitor. Good night, friends.

breezes and bellies...

(not at the same time)

ok, okay... here you go! i finally got up the nerve to start up the old laptop... the one with the fractured screen that is connected to an old monitor that tech mom gave me... and the monitor is at least 2 feet above the keyboard. so now the laptop is a desktop. however, i didn't like linking to baby bear's blog via the word belly in the last belly-tag post, and i'm sure most of you didn't either... so i decided to suck it up and use the less convenient of the computers. (i know, i should just be grateful to have one, never mind two working computers! and i am!)

anyway, baby bear and i went out to the park today. days like today make me glad to be living in the south. while my sister and her family are driving north to where it's still winter, it was windy and warm here. no jackets necessary! the daffodils are in bloom (mine should begin opening tomorrow... if a pesky rodent hadn't eaten most of the bulbs, i would have a lot more in our flower bed). anyway, days like today also remind me of why we have chosen to stretch ourselves financially so i can stay home with our daughter. i would not want to be in my old indow-less classroom next to the ISS room, dilbertish office cubes or even the welcoming learning center with the foosball table for "success time" tutoring others' kids while my daughter was playing outside with someone else.

As promised, here are those belly shots....

"hiking" in the smokies at 26 weeks...

not sure when we took this, but I had to be farther along...

bec and me at her shower on 10/15/05- 10 days before babybear's birth

p.s. thanks for the blouses, crt!

Does anyone else remember having to "map" stories or thought processes in their high school English class? Well, my brain tends to function like one of those abstract spider-web maps. I will think or talk about one thing, and the next thing I know, I am reminded of something that appears totally unrelated. If one listens carefully they may or may not catch how I "wander" from one thought to another.

Running into that old friend from college a couple of days ago reminded me of our trip to Puebla, Mexico. One evening on that trip, our group ate at VIP's, a chain restaurant which also had a gift shop and bookstore attached. It was a tourist-oriented restaurant, and many of the books were in English. As I turned the pages of one book in that store, my eyes landed on a familiar sight. The book contained photographs of historic sites throughout the United States, and as I stared at a picture of what appeared to be an old store, it hit me... I had been there. Not just once, but several times. There, as a college student who was travelling in another country, summer vacations from my childhood flashed across the chalkboard of my mind.

I remembered stepping out the front door of my aunt and uncle's Cape house, beginning our walk to the Brewster Store. Many days, the walk seemed to take forever. We passed other cottages and homes, the smell of the bay following us inland. Once we reached Main Street, Rte 6A, we passed several bed and breakfasts. Finally, what seemed like an eternity later, we would reach the store. The highlight of our visits was buying penny candy. Fireballs, rock candy, salt-water-taffy... I felt like I was Laura Ingalls Wilder going into town. Stepping into the Brewster Store was travelling back to a bygone era.

I didn't purchase the book that day. I left it in the store in Puebla, Mexico While it was a touching coincidence, I knew I would rather take a photo of the store myself someday. It had been years since I had last stepped foot in that quaint shop. In fact, as my family drove from Michigan to Cape Cod, I had probably made it very clear that I would prefer taking a vacation to somewhere "fun", like Disney World or Cedar Point. How I took those "simple" family vacations for granted!

If you would like to step back in time, pay a visit to the little white general store with benches our front. Pick up some penny candy, and be sure to save some for your bicycle ride on the rail trail, day at Coast Guard or Nauset Beach, or a nature hike through the salt marshes. And if you're really brave and don't mind fielding questions from the young ones if they see two people of the same gender holding hands, it is worth the drive from Brewster to Provincetown to catch a whale-watching excursion into the Atlantic. Just don't feed fireballs (or anything else that might have survived the drive) to the whales.

Funny how one dinner out can bring back a lobster trap full of memories.