Love & a Steady Hand

Entry to come

I am thinking about an entry on Nature versus Nuture -- basically how you can't control where the "nurture" comes from, or even if it's nurturing in the first place, or guiding your nature people in the directions you had planned. I am just feeling very suspicious of the whole idea of "X's are just like that," especially when it comes from folks whose kids are doing things that I haven't seen my kids do until they play with the "other" kids.

No time to write it now, but that's what I'm pondering.

Bored Stupid Again

I have about nine things I'd rather be doing, but right now there is not world enough or time -- or really, if I disappeared into the basement, where I need to do most of the nine things, these lovely boys would open such a whirlwind of havoc that I would probably not be able to get back upstairs.

They are delightful. Really they are. Today has been a good day. They were amazing swimmers, good listeners, helped me with a trip to Lowes; ate a good lunch (in their seats even with no TV on) and have been playing very nicely all afternoon. But still I am getting nothing done. Could be worse I suppose -- they could be having a bad day... Or, even more terrible still, I could have Matthew here all by himself. Then I think we'd just be asleep. And then I'd have bed-head for the rest of the day... Yep, definitely could be worse.

Happy Birthday to Kym

Hey, please all join me in wishing Happy Birthday to my very very dear friend Kym as she enters, in her words, a new demographic today. I think she's a little stressed about moving out of the 18-34 bracket.

As you can clearly see from the pictures, she doesn't look 35 -- and anyway, as I keep telling her, 35 is really just not old. Let her feel the love, won't you please?

Happy Birthday baby! I'm so glad you're my friend!

C is for Conifer

Yeah, I wondered if that was going to sound just completely unbelievable. Here is why he knows about conifers: As with so many things my kids say, you can blame They Might Be Giants. Now whenever we drive anywhere they are busy noticing the conifirs. See, you get brilliant kids when you listen to cool music. I guess it's finally time you all knew what the real secret is...

Here
is the link to see more song info (and download it if you like). And here are the lyrics:

C Is For Conifers

Most with cones for seeds, most with needles for leaves
C is for conifers, my kind of trees
Large junipers and fir, spruce, cedars and pines
C is for conifers, more then five hundred kinds
If you see a Christmas tree or a stack of newspapers or a 2x4 frame of a house
It's probably made from pine trees and pine trees are conifers, that's what this song is about
Or if you see a plant in the shape of an elephant, or in the shape of a dog
It's probably a shrub, a conifer shrub pruned into that shape by someone
Most with cones for seeds, most with needles for leaves
C is for conifers, my kind of trees
Large junipers and fir, spruce, cedars and pines
C is for conifers, more then five hundred kinds

Spoken: There are so many different kinds of conifer trees.
This is just a few of them: Spruce,
Hemlocks, larch, cyprus, juniper,
Fir, Douglas fir, cedar, yew,
Pine, the dwarf conifer,
And the great California sequoia redwood.

Most with cones for seeds, most with needles for leaves
C is for conifers, my kind of trees
Large junipers and fir, spruce, cedars and pines
C is for conifers, more then five hundred kinds

Whew, I'm tired!

Today was a REALLY busy day! I got up later than I intended (but before noon, so I guess that's something), but I did get the kids in the bathtub first thing and that was an accomplishment.

We got everybody's wet hair combed and got everybody dressed and then we all worked together to clean up the living room, dining room and playroom.

I thought that was going to be it for the day, but Kym called (bless her, bless her) and after I had finished hitting myself in the cheekbone with the phone (and gotten some ice on the welt it left), I took her up on her very kind offer to have the kids come play with her gang. Tim took them over and I ate Spaghetti-O's.

Then he went to his parents' house to get work done (they weren't there) and I started tackling the basement. We've had a problem down there since last spring -- namely, whenever I finish a project, I send Tim to take all my plumbing or refinishing or sanding or carpentry or whatever tools back downstairs for me. And since he doesn't know where things go, and also since it has been a disaster down there in the tool space for a VERY long time, we have both been making a pile of stuff in the middle of the basement floor. It was getting to be a large pile too. Here's what I'm talking about:

Now, I had actually taken care of most of the stuff from the first picture 2 weeks ago before everybody got sick, but since the whole place looks better now (and I didn't take a "before" shot of the tool room, so you probably can't even wrap your brain around that mess.) But I worked for a good steady 2 hours and made huge strides. I haven't taken "after" pics, and frankly I'm too lazy to go take them now, but I did meet my basic goals. There is still more to be put away in the tool space, specifically my Dremel parts and a box of stuff that Tim's grandpa gave us when he cleared out his workspace, but now you can actually find stuff.

I went to pick up the kids from Kym's (who on top of everything else lent me a not completely moderate amount of money -- it is after all, one thing to borrow a five, but a completely different thing to ask for 30). Anyway, we accomplished a very important mission, which I'll write about later.

Then, since I could finally run up and down to the basement to turn the water off and on (the water shut off is IN the tool room so it has been, for the past six or eight months, just past the big pile of junk that had been blocking the door to said tool room) -- where was I? Oh yeah, since I could finally get to the water shut off conveniently, I decided to fix the kitchen faucet which has been dripping since about the end of May. Yes, that's a long time to drip. Did I mention the fact that I couldn't conveniently get to the water shut off valve? Also I didn't know where my channel locks were, or my allen wrenches, or anything else I might possibly have needed for this particular job.

It took about six tries to get it all apart and then back together successfully. It turned out (after I looked on the internet to figure out what the hell was not working right) that I was putting the springs and spring valve cover thingies -- (yes, I know, it's a very technical term, I hope I didn't freak you out too much) back in upside down. The extremely teensy, almost need a magnifying glass to read them instructions on the back of the repair kit were very vague on this issue. But it's fixed and nothing is dripping. Huzzah!

Mara was my leak monitor. She was also my "go flush the toilet again" assistant, because you can't actually shut the water all the way off in our house, so you have to go let the excess off someplace else or you get leaks in whatever you're trying to fix at any one moment. She was not thrilled to participate in this adventure since she was A) hungry, and B) watching the "Ultimate Gingerbread House" challenge on the Food Network.

Here is a picture of the new ball valve and the worn out one that I was replacing. The light blue arrow shows what the little groove is supposed to look like when the valve is new. The purple arrow points to how our groove actually looked, thus explaining the ridiculously persistent leak. Crazy huh?

It's so great when you can find your tools when you need them!

Read on, if you dare...

Here is the story of the amazing misson:

For our first two Christmases together, Tim and I got Christmas trees and put them up and decorated them. Then we moved back to Nashville and by Christmastime, for a variety of reasons that are not worth going into now because I am in a good mood at present, we ended up living in my parent's upstairs. My sister's old bedroom became our bedroom and my old bedroom became our living room. My parents were kind enough to let us share kitchen privileges and duties and they didn't charge us rent. Anyway, that year we decided we still wanted to decorate our own space, so we found a little artificial tree that was just a bit taller than I am -- on sale and bought it. The result was the now legendary "Christmas Grotto" and it was spectacular. I ran lights all along the ceiling and down the dormer walls and it was just amazing (for a bedroom that was posing as a living room in my parent's upstairs).

That's the back story. Trust me, it's relevant because, since then, and let me point out that it has been ten years "since then," we have always had the same little artificial tree as our Christmas tree. And while that has been very economical and mostly convenient, this year I wanted something different. Specifically a "real" tree. So for the past week or so we've been debating it.

We hashed over the money issue -- but to my mind, we've saved about $300 (at a minimum) in not buying trees over the past decade, so I wasn't too stressed about that, and besides, I wasn't planning to spend a fortune anyway. We discussed the ecological issue, and I while I basically agree with that one, whatever. But the sticking point (for Tim anyway) seemed to be the "how the hell do we get it home and what a pain in the ass to have to set it up and there will be pine needles everywhere" and that one I was having trouble countering. I basically thought, well, we'll put it on top of the van and tie it down and then I can do most of the set-up so you don't have to, which is frankly no less trouble than figuring out where the pieces of that damned plastic tree go, which I always have to do anyway, and I'll vacuum up the pine needles. I didn't say any of that, I just thought it. Quietly in my head. I know, wasn't that unusual?

But I wanted a real tree. I really really wanted it. I finally feel real again, and I needed a real tree to go with that. So, based on the idea that he didn't want to mess with the fetching part of the adventure or the setting up part of the adventure, the kids and I went this afternoon and bought a surprise (or as Mara apparently prefers to spell it "surpise") tree for Tim-Daddy. We talked about it in the car -- should we wait for him to go look for a tree or should we get it and surprise him and we decided the surprise would be best. I swear I did not try to sway them one way or the other. They like to make surprises for people. (Which I will admit I knew before asking them which one we should do, so I am not entirely guiltless, but I am rationalizing on multiple levels here, so give me a break already).

The best part was that it was completely in my budget (thanks again for the loan Kymmie-Kym) and the guy even drove it to our house for us! For free! It turns out that his son used to live across the street so he was chatting with our neighbors on three sides after he'd put the tree on the porch for me and I had to wait a while to go get it in because once he'd finished with one set of neighbors he went to talk with the other set.

We put the tree in the stand and got it all steady -- the kids held it up while I tightened the screws in, and then we worked together to decide whether it was straight and how much to adjust it. Mara and I were adjusting the screws and Matthew was holding up the tree for us. They loved that part. We watered it, we snipped off the extra branches at the bottom. We vacuumed the needles up.

And then I fixed the sink. Have I mentioned that I fixed the sink? You really should be paying better attention if you didn't know that part already!

Then we went to Frisch's for dinnner where we ran into: Kym and JJ and all three kids, just coming out after finishing their dinner. And she had free kids-meal coupons for us! Crazy good luck! We had a nice dinner, everyone was being 'haved and it was fun, despite my complete exhaustion.

Then we went to Target to buy holiday outfits for the kids. I love Target.

Then we came home and put on jammies and put the lights on the tree. We are waiting until tomorrow (when Daddy is home) to decorate. Then the kid went to bed and after a much-needed shower, I am blogging.

Here's the result:

This, obviously, is the tree.

This is what the paper ON the tree says.

The yellow drawing, if you can see it at all, is Matthew's interpretation of Santa Claus. He said he couldn't figure out "how to draw a conifer" so he drew Santa instead.

I hope Tim likes the surpise...