Drive-By

Quick, here are some photos. Nothing terribly exciting, but I finished Chapter 2 in my Geography class and still have to take a shower and get groceries, so nothing but bare bones today...


I know my parents will get a kick out of that one. They'll just shake their heads. Nicholas now has 2 nasty stuffed falling-apart dogs he drags around the house, even though we tell him they have to stay on his bed.

This is Katherine's new blanket. It took a couple weeks from start to finish and isn't as big as I wanted, but was quick and very fuzzy.

The whole third grade did a Jack and Annie musical skit about the government systems of ancient civilizations of Egypt (Jonathon's class), Italy, Greece and Mali.

It happens to everyone.

The day comes when you fall out of the habit of even minor updates to the blog. Well, it's time to get back on the horse, and this will be a Random Recap.

First off, Haiti. If you'd like to help check out the Center for International Disaster Information, and CNN has put up a list of aid/relief sites you can support. Physically useful items like the ShelterBox are hugely helpful. A full box costs $1000, but every donation helps support another box and another shelter for 10 people. If you are looking for an American, please check the State Department website on how to go about finding them. If you'd like to make an instant donation to the Red Cross, simply text "HAITI" to 90999 and $10 will be charged to your phone bill. You all have cell phones, put them to good use.

More than 100 U.N. peacekeeper staff are missing. Hundreds of thousands of Haitians feared dead. This is on par with the tsunami of 2004.

When I was in high school, my dad spent 18 months serving in Haiti. He lived in a house on the side of a big hill, and so did I when I spent the summer with him, up a rough and bumpy trail of a road more pothole than road itself. I would guess that house no longer stands.

So, as we continue on into 2010 and count our blessings while praying that those blessings are shared and helping those who desperately need help...
The last you heard from us, we were expecting a white Christmas and we finally did dig out from our nearly 2 feet of white stuff. But the snow, which is now large blocks of glacier ice where the plows piled it up, still lingers. Another dusting to an inch of the powder made everything white again. We're thankful not to be in the midwest where they have been pummeled by snow accumulation and frigid arctic air. Yet across the country, we are plain, frozen, cold. Even Texas and Florida are suffering. The crops in Florida may not make it if the snap doesn't end soon. And iguanas are falling out of trees again. Lengthy cold can kill them, which is either a good or bad thing, depending on who you talk to about these non-native reptiles. The frigid weather continues but a break is on the horizon.
I won't go so far as my friend, Danie, who spent a winter in Halifax, Canada and chose to embrace the season above her grumbles and complaints. I have chosen to suffer silently and try to spare my family from two more months of whines and angst. I imagine the past month hasn't been pleasant for them, so as an additional Christmas gift I will button my lip about how cold my feet are each and every day. I. Don't. Do. Winter.
Except for hockey. No, I don't play hockey, that would require an ability to skate well and funding for a ton of gear and a desire to intentionally be frozen on a sheet of ice for hours at a time. Right. But watching hockey, that's a different story. Ian and I gave the kids to grandparents the day after Christmas so we could go downtown, stay overnight in a hotel, and watch the Washington Capitals play the NJ Devils live at the Verizon Center. Caps won, I joined the Scarlet Caps for the fun of it and Ian might take Katherine to a game for her birthday. We watched the Winter Classic on TV on Jan 1st, and on Jan 2nd we took the kids to the Caps practice rink at Ballston Common to watch the FBI vs. US Secret Service. At $5 a ticket going to charity it was a perfect Saturday afternoon outing. Now if only I could figure out a way to put Jonathon in hockey. It would be perfect to expend some of his energy since you can't ever really relax or get sidetracked. Something to think about next winter.
Winter also brings Christmas, and Christmas I do. Christmas was great. Everyone got several special somethings. From fuzzy blankets and slippers, to new cameras and perfume, to gadgets and gizmos and clothes galore. After Midnight Mass we allowed the kids to exchange their gifts to each other and to us, but all the rest waited until my parents and maternal grandmother (Babcia) arrived on Christmas afternoon for lunch and brought a trunkload of gifts to share. We spent the entire afternoon opening, having dessert, opening, having another dessert, opening... No pressure but so many thoughtful gifts it was a bit overwhelming. As it is every Christmas. We are blessed to lack for nothing and be able to shower each other with tokens of our affection. The Holiday Shop at the boys' school saved the day with affordable and appropriate items for everyone in the family. This was the first year the boys really got in with the gift-giving and they really put a lot of thought into their choices of picture frames, jewelry and tools. As is the goal, they were as giddy about giving as they were receiving.
My goal next Christmas is to finally get each person in my family to choose a Kiva.org or GoodGifts.org or a similar program to join. What's your favorite service? Christmas should be a time for more than just our family to feel good. And once that idea gets going there's everything that says it should spread throughout the year.
Speaking of good feelings, a little aside - I attended the PTSO meeting at the girls' school on Monday. What a poor showing of maybe a dozen parents from a school of 1075 students (I'm to blame too, I had no intention of going) but Katherine was there as SCA president to introduce herself to the PTSO board and the rest of us. Before the meeting, Katherine's band teacher was chatting with her (he plays with an adult band group that practices at the school). One of the adult band members came up and her teacher introduced her by calling her a "gift from God" to his class as a good flute player and a good kid. Last week Katherine was moved to 3rd chair flute in band class, so to say that this is helping her reevaluate music in her life and giving her a positive influence outside the home is an understatement. It's these things that can truly form a person's character. Katherine has a good heart and being acknowledged as a good person can plant a wonderful seed of self-determination.
OK, back to my quick recap. Before my grandmother returned to Wisconsin, my dad took us all out for trip through ICE! and a fantastic dinner at the Gaylord Hotel at National Harbor. ICE! really was surprising, and if we thought we were cold outside it didn't compare to how frozen we were in the tent surrounded by millions of pounds of carved ice sculptures. Before entering everyone was give a hooded parka jacket and you could tell most people thought it was overkill on top of their own coats and hats. It wasn't. By the time we made our way by the funky penguins, our feet were aching with the cold. The clear ice angels and nativity were the most impressive in my opinion, though the fishing Coca-Cola bears were my favorite overall. If the ice artisans are coming by your neck of the woods some year, I encourage you to see their talent. They have a gift.
Speaking of gifts (again), a gift I'm giving myself this year is better health and a stronger body. Maybe next year I won't be so miserable in the cold if I'm feeling better and have more muscle overall. I'm attempting the hundredpushups challenge and maybe even the twohundredsitups challenge. I've pulled out the Wii Fit again (and the new Wii Fit extra, whatever that's called) and will try to do it each weekday. I've told myself I won't eat after 8 p.m. and I'm allowed a treat a day. What is a treat? A treat is a cup of hot cocoa, or cookies, or a piece of chocolate, or a slice of cake (you get the idea) but not all the above. Basically any source of empty calories is a treat. I initially had "a soda" in there too, but decided I'd just toss soda out entirely and I'm not missing it. I've had good days, I've had bad days like yesterday, but I figure a bad day doesn't mean I toss the whole plan out so I plug on. I'm also trying to eat breakfast before 9 a.m. and I'm trying to make breakfast a heavy protein meal, lunch a heavy vegetable meal, and dinner a more balanced lower fat meal. Today, I missed breakfast, so one strike there already. Tomorrow, I'll eat breakfast, promise.
So there you have it.
Except for one more thing. The other day while watching TV there was a toilet paper commercial. The commercial claimed that with its new thicker product a used could cut down from using 28 squares of TP to only 7 squares.
Is it me or did anyone else choke on those numbers? Who in their right mind uses 28 squares of TP, even of the worst, thinnest paper around. Who? And now we can "cut down" to 7? Really? ONLY 7?
I don't even know what to say.

No Longer Dreaming of a White Christmas

It's no secret, over the past weekend we were slammed with a snowstorm that dumped roughly 20 inches of snow in our area. In December. That's big for the winter season in our area and unheard of for December in our area, and it's going to guarantee a somewhat white Christmas.

The kids are over the snow. It was pretty while it came down for 24 straight hours. It was fun to play in a couple times. It's great for canceling these 2 1/2 days of school before the holiday break officially starts Wednesday afternoon. But now we dread that we still don't have a snow shovel, one car is encased, the sidewalk is impenetrable and we'll probably get a nasty note (again... we've gotten one from a "helpful" neighbor telling us when our grass was too long and another stating when our leaves needed collecting, so it's well within the realm of expectancy we'll get one about not clearing our snow fast enough. If they can reach the mailbox).

The snow interrupted quite a bit of course. Katherine had planned on earning 6 hours of volunteer time on Saturday and Sunday decorating the church and at the Foreign Service Youth Foundation Christmas party, and my parents were going to take the boys to see the new "Christmas Carol" movie.
We have a well-stocked pantry so aside from cautiously making it to church on Sunday, we have stayed home. In our small house with kids who want nothing to do with the snow anymore, that means a lot of TV, computers, cleaning house, cooking food, and a random game here or there. We've discovered the full joys of Netflix on demand. Getting a couple movies out and back over the course of a 4 days was great initially, Netflix makes no sense overseas with the shipping lag time, but now we can make an Instant queue and watch whatever whenever. Yesterday was a Mythbusters, original Twilight Zone and Planet of the Apes kind of day. Today, who knows. With another big storm making its way across the country and threatening us with icy rain on Christmas Day, I'm thinking that tomorrow may be my day to hit the grocery for some particular Christmas meal items (and perhaps a shovel). My parents and grandmother plan to come down and celebrate the day with us. We'll see what the weather brings.
With all the snow I managed to finish Rebecca's blanket and put it under the tree.

With all the snow I managed to pick a pattern for Katherine's and decide on her color palette but couldn't get to a craft store, so ordered what I think I want and cross my fingers it works. With all the snow I started on another small project with some cotton yarns I've had for a while. I'm making a multitude of small squares with them and will sew them in a patchwork. They won't make a soft blanket or anything, cotton is more for functional items like place mats or washcloths, but we'll see what it ends up being. If I have enough they might be a nice tree skirt. Somehow in our move I lost both our tree skirts, one the kids decorated back in 2002 and one my mom made. I am bummed.
What I really want to make is this blanket with different colors(hope the link works), but even the sample colors aren't so bad. I do realize that one house can only handle so many afghans, but I'm looking ahead here people, work with me. When my kids grow up and leave the nest (except Nicholas, he's never leaving he says, though I remember when Katherine was this age and saying the same thing... times have changed), they take their stuff with them. They'll each have their clothes and knick knacks, a bed set with comforter, a couple homemade afghans, a case holding their own Christmas ornaments, and a set of dishes and cutlery. I suppose we should toss in a tool kit and a car kit too. Am I planning too far ahead? It doesn't seem that far ahead. Next year Katherine heads off to high school.
Ah, the house is waking up. I was up around 6 a.m. due to bad dreams of being attacked/overrun, so I popped on here to update the blog. Nicholas is up now at 7:15 and I sent him downstairs to get some breakfast. He came back up with the question: "Mom, are we rich, poor, or in the middle." The only correct answer in my book is "Well, what do you think?" He figured we're in the middle, then rattled off that we have a big house, 2 TVs, an XBox, a Wii, etc. etc. I pointed out that we have enough, far more than just enough actually and with all our stuff we certainly sound rich. I think we're rich in more than just stuff though, don't you? Christmas comes in 3 days and sometimes it's a little difficult to keep the focus on the parts not packaged under the tree (we don't "do" Santa, so gifts raining down from a mysterious man in red don't apply), but we'll keep working at it.

There's music in the air.

We went to a Messiah concert on Sunday afternoon, my mom was singing, where the highlight is always the final Alleluia chorus. Tonight we went to the 6th grade chorus concert, the highlight was a "cat duet" song composed entirely of Meows.

This fits right in to both and it'll put a smile on your face (not from our 6th grade program):

5 December: It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I never imagined that we would have snow in December.



It's been snowing for about 7 hours and is sticking. The roads are slushy, the air is fresh and I rather wish we had a fireplace. The reality is this will be one of the few snow "storms" we'll have this winter and neither heavy snow clothes or a fireplace are necessary, but on a day like today it's nice to bundle up and enjoy the view.

The boys and Rebecca played in the yard. Rebecca built a snowpenguin

and the boys soaked each other with snowballs.

Katherine disappeared with her friends for an afternoon of sledding at the elementary school, so the rest of the family braved the roads for a quick bite and a venture to the VFW tree sale. They have a covered lot with a roaring fireplace. No snowy Boy Scout lots for us.

We brought our tree home and are waiting for it to dry a bit before putting it in the stand. A few other decorations made it up. Tomorrow is Saint Nicholas day, the day he fills the kids' stockings with goodies, so they are ready.

For those in the mid-Atlantic, enjoy the evening warm and cozy!

3rd Grade Field Trip

Tuesday was the big field trip for Jonathon's class and all the third graders. A 45-minute ride downtown brought us (yup, call me Chaperone) to the Natural History Museum. The kids have been learning about soil and habitats and animal adaptations, so the chaperones were each assigned 3-5 kids (those with boys got 3, those with girls got 5) and set loose on the museum.

Here is Jonathon's photo journal:

Thanksgiving may be done, but the Thanks don't stop there.

Our new 12 year old.



The school won't let me bring her balloons (too disruptive or someone might choke on one, who knows) but after her weekend shopping spree and a dinner tonight at Chik-Fil-A followed by ice cream cake and plenty of gifts, she'll be ready to face her 13th year.

What most impresses us with Rebecca is her work ethic. She's still all about fairness, but she also puts her homework first every night, she attends every drama rehearsal (you'd be surprised how many kids don't), her room is kept neat, she's got a sense of style/fashion, her first quarter grades were straight As, she does her chores and is saving methodically to purchase her own laptop. She's fun and funny, responsible and bright; she makes smart choices and tries to keep her temper in check. I hope she continues to develop and mature the person she is now because she's awesome to have around.