rachel's continued ramblings

sunday: waffles; sausage monday: chicken soup; sourdough (carried over from last week – we had leftovers on saturday instead) tuesday: hamburgers; carrot sticks; tater tots wednesday: chicken; rice; peas&carrots thursday: french dips; salad (we have christmas dinner on the 25th, not on christmas eve) friday: christmas dinner!!!! satuday: pizza; green beans (as if we could NOT have it!) i did the shopping yesterday, thank goodness. i hate shopping anyway, but doing it on sunday afternoons works pretty well, because i have the potential to do it alone… although layla somehow finagled her way along. i went to qfc in redmond w/ the added bonus of being able to go to ben franklin in the same trip. managed to pick up the RIGHT yarn for attempt #5 or something of my niece’s birthday/christmas/graduation present (yes, she’s 1 – you read that right. i’m just not very optimistic about getting it done in the next decade). ::sigh::

…you might get an email at 2:58am that looks something like this: “Dearest Daughter: Are you supposed to have suicidal feelings when your knitting is not doing what it's supposed to do? Is it all right if you ripped it all out and decided to start over just doing KNIT for the next few years? Is it all right  to wake up your Dad and yell at him because he's sleeping through your knitting night-mare? Other than that I feel fine--am going to bed--and plan to learn casting-on the first thing in the morning. Love from MOM P. S. Yarn does not go thru the paper shredder--surprisingly--neither do knitting needles ....”

…when you’ve lost the tv remote. our remote had been MIA for 2 days, so last night, dave tore apart the couch (not literally) in an attempt to find it. he did. but he also found, among much dust, crumbs, nuts, cereal and other junk… 1 shamrock BLING necklace 1 sample size bottle of baby lotion 21 cents 2 marbles 1 lego some sort of U shaped metal stake i’ve never seen before and have no idea where it came from 1 paper circle 1 foam circle and 1 oval 1 plastic knife 2 stitch markers 2 bob the builder memory cards 1 guitar pick 1 plastic play spoon 1 clothespin 1 crayon 1 colored pencil 1 hair clip 1 baby sock makes you wonder what your couch has been eating lately, doesn’t it?

i don’t know how i managed to forget to post these until now.    the pictures really do not give the yarn justice. it’s just gorgeous. (and it only took me what, 5 and a half months to finish. HA!) i already miss it.

i’m definitely one for extremes. i know this about myself. sometimes i am able to keep that in mind and the things related to it in perspective. other times, not so much. sometimes i will become overwhelmed with guilt i feel over how much i’m NOT getting done – be it with housework, homeschooling, time spent with my kids, etc. other times i will just become confused over what is going on in my own head. i try to make sense of the various (and often contradictory) extremes that are fighting for position in my head and then start to question my sanity. how can i feel this when just yesterday i whole heartedly believed in that ?  i habitually set unrealistic standards for myself, my family, my children, based on what i see elsewhere, and then feel distressed or disappointed when reality doesn’t agree with the idealized version of the situation i’ve been carrying around in my head. at any rate, i’ve had a rough couple of weeks. i guess i just feel like that by the age of 33, i would...

a couple weeks ago, i had a post about my pathetic housekeeping abilities, lack of motivation, bad habits, etc. etc. etc… i talked about different systems i’ve tried in the past and all of that, and was greatly inspired to put something together again, to try and remedy the pig sty i live in. so in my fit of motivation, i ordered the book from the library and made a trip to staples to buy a new, smaller cardfile box and some new 3x5 cards. so this is my version of how this works. if you want the whole scoop, read the book. if for no other reason than it’s hilarious! in my cardfile, i have 12 dividers for the months of the year and 31 dividers for the days of the month. i also have index cards in white, yellow, blue and pink. i want to get a few other colors as well, so i can give a color to dave and another to shane, and eventually a color to layla and micah, so everyone has their own cards. 1 card = 1 chore. right now, with a couple exceptions, all of the cards in the box are ...

did the shopping yesterday – thank goodness i’m DONE. sunday: scrambled eggs; sausage patties; toast monday: chicken burritos tuesday: white chicken chili; sourdough wednesday: advent dinner/service @ church thursday: tacos friday: pizza; green beans saturday: chicken noodle soup; sourdough can you tell i have a lot of chicken in the freezer and little else?

i discovered last night, at dave’s company christmas party, that layla is TERRIFIED of santa claus. about 10 minutes later, i discovered that she’s also terrified of the grinch. yup. there were a couple of costumed visitors at the party which made the party less than a party for us. we didn’t have a bad time, and it was a very laid-back atmosphere, but layla spent the entire time keeping track of those two characters and making sure that they were no where near her. she didn’t venture more than 2 feet from us the whole night and practically climbed us every time one of them was in view. fortunately, santa claus was very kind and gently tried to win her over by offering her a candy cane and having little conversations with her. eventually she was willing to take the candy cane, gave him a tentative high five, and actually said thank you to him audibly. sitting on his lap for a picture was completely out of the question. other than that it was fun and the city was beautiful in the dark, ...

it’s back. i skipped last week because i was lazy. we mostly just ate out of the freezer and i don’t even think i went grocery shopping at all. this week we’re still eating out of the freezer a little bit, and i already did the shopping yesterday, since i was already out at fred meyer doing my christmas shopping (SO thankful to have a dad who retired from fred meyer and has a perpetual employee discount!). so other than a small costco run i have to make later this week, i’m DONE already!!!! sunday: french toast; bacon monday: tater tot casserole (the spare i put in the freezer last time i made it) tuesday: mac & cheese w/ dogs; peas and carrots (the kids will be SO happy!) wednesday: advent dinner/service at church thursday: beef barley soup; sourdough (also out of the freezer from last time) friday: pizza; green beans saturday: chicken of some sort and veggies of some sort (yet to be determined after i go to costco and get the chicken) woohoo...

so i’ve had a skeleton of this post bouncing around in my head for a couple of weeks now. i’m not even really sure what the point of it is, or what my opinion on the matter really is, except that it’s something that’s kind of irritating me. have you noticed that christmas has been, more or less, completely deleted? listen to your radio. watch the commercials on tv. read the ads in the paper. nothing. it’s like ‘christmas’ has become a dirty word. now before anyone gets their dander all up, this is not a particularly religiously-inspired post, not that i disagree with the idea that ‘Christ’ should remain the center of ‘Christ’mas.  but that’s not what this is about. i’m a ‘word person’. i love language. i love the idiosyncrasies that that come with spoken and written language. i love that humans have the ability to string letters and words and sentences together to create something beautiful, or funny, or clever, or ANYTHING! it’s just a wonderful thing. i love that we can trace say...

i’m experiencing a bit of frustration lately. okay, a lot. and it’s exhausting. something happened to my sweet, wonderful, bestest little boy ever and he has been replaced with a TWO YEAR OLD! ugh. i’ve been quite spoiled in the last two years. as a baby, micah was super-content and never required more than his fair share of attention. a little later, he discovered climbing and my biggest challenge was trying to keep him from falling on his head. for the last year or so, he’s been so low maintenance, i’ve REALLY gotten spoiled. last spring, i discovered that he was great for easy bedtimes. plunk him in the crib, give him a couple books, say night night, and that was it! a few tears here and there, but more often than not, would fall asleep without much fuss. he was also really good at entertaining himself and would disappear into his bedroom to read books. he was also mostly trustworthy about putting stuff in his mouth or other ‘dangerous’ type things. i could point at a burner, say ‘h...