Resourcefulness. Before and After.

Two pictures to demonstrate Phil's resourcefulness. He's trying everything he can to figure out how to get to his precious "OUTSIDE" by himself. Today's attempt:

And here's his gleefully triumphant face after he succeeded:

I can see my next project is to reupholster that chair. :/

Coffee Bandit.

No unsuspecting mug of coffee is safe.

Look at that smug little stinker.

Busy Boy.

Philip has been driving us bonkers this week.  

If he's not climbing up on a table or a toilet or the piano, 

he's dragging a chair somewhere to reach something.

Here's what an average 5 minutes with Philip goes like:  He toddles into the kitchen and dumps out a box of cereal.  While somebody cleans it up, he goes over to the table and finds a drinking glass, then promptly dumps it all over himself and the floor.  Then while we're wiping that up, he goes into the living room and finds somebody's glasses or cell phone and hightails away with his booty.  We wrest his prize from his grip and put it somewhere safe, but by then he's found somebody's carelessly placed cup of coffee, and has taken a long draught, and also probably spilled it.  While we're putting the cup in the kitchen or wiping the spill, he goes into the bathroom to find some trouble there - the kitty litterbox, a toilet brush, etc.  Remove him from the bathroom and he heads for the cat food dish.  Then he pulls a log out of the wood ring.  Take that from him and he goes and empties a basket of toys.  While we're picking up the toys, he goes over and shakes the gate until it opens, and scurries up the stairs to repeat the process on the second floor.  He can smell an open gate or an open door.  Any unguarded chair allows him to get at an unsuspecting computer.  If somebody leaves the piano bench pulled out even a few inches, to him it's an opportunity.  My sewing table is an irresistible prize.

There couldn't possibly be enough naptimes in a day with him.  I am exhausted.

About to be mauled for my cup of coffee.

Victorious!  There were only a few drops left anyway.

But he got every last one of them.

New hiding place.

I wasn't exaggerating about the piano.

It's only a matter of time.

It's like a huge game to him, and he's winning.

But he's SO darn cute about it.

Ha!  I beat you to the table again, Mom!

Pausing to plan his next attack.

In this pose he reminds me so much of my maternal grandfather.

Time For School With The Twins

I don't do a lot of formal schoolwork with the twins. What!? They're only five! To my way of thinking, playing IS their way of learning at this point. They can both read already, so they do a lot of reading. We play educational games. I answer every question they ask me. We cook and clean together. I direct them to educational websites. But we don't sit down very often with workbooks and such. Why not? THIS is why not.....

In case it may seem that they are only acting up for the camera, let me assure you that it was not so. The only difference between their behavior on and off camera was that they glanced over at me behind the camera, instead of me sitting between them at the table. They were every bit as giggly and ridiculously silly before the video, and after. I'm also homeschooling, and accountable for the educations of, an 11th grader, a 9th grader, a 6th grader and a 3rd grader. This takes up a significant portion of my day. Working with the twins takes up a lot of time and saps me of my will to live energy and enthusiasm. I usually need a glass of wine or a nap when I've had enough they are finished. On the other hand, they really are pretty darn cute. It's not so cute and funny when the 11th and 9th graders get that silly during lessons.

Havin' Some Fun Tonight.

I should have titled this post "A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight."

We have been cleaning our yard, patio and garage this week.  It's a slow process that involves deciding where to put all the accumulated junk that has piled up over the past four years, including all the junk that we had to take out of our old house and my mother's house, which both sold about six months ago.  Since that was the middle of winter, it was easier to just pile everything on the patio and in the garage than to deal with it all in the deep chill of winter.

But winter didn't last forever, and when the warm weather came, the patio began  beckoning to us from under her deep layer of debris, detritus and refuse.  It's actually a pleasant and shady place to sit.  Not that we'd know.

So we cleaned it off.  There were piles of scrap lumber and broken chairs, etc., that needed disposal.  My husband likes to burn anything made of paper or wood to reduce the amount of trash we put out.  We put some things into the burn barrel and went back to cleaning, keeping an eye on the barrel, of course.

When supper was ready, we went in to eat - forgetting about the burn barrel.  Andy was at work, Brian was away for the weekend.  It was just me, Conor, and the little girls at the table.  

There was a knock at the door.  I have some free things out on the front sidewalk (unwanted items unearthed in the backyard cleanout), so I assumed it was somebody inquiring about them.  Instead, it was a neighbor.

Her - "Do you know that you have wood burning out back?"

Me, nonchalantly - "Oh yes, we know."

Her - "No, I mean piles of wood, burning on the ground."

Me - Well, actually, I didn't say anything, because my heart was in my throat.  Yikes!  I hope I thanked her adequately.

Out back, we found that something had fallen out of the burn barrel, and ignited two of our wood racks that held our split firewood for the winter.  In addition, there were several spots on the ground around where dead leaves were burning.  I didn't actually see the conflagration because I was busy filling up buckets and trash cans.  Conor was the one who went up for the initial assessment.  All I could see was columns of smoke, which led me to believe that we had started a brush fire and the whole mountain was burning.

The actual damage was less serious, although still pretty serious.  Thank God that neighbor passed just then, so we could get it under control while there was still time.  It took us about 45 minutes until everything was fully extinguished.

Earlier in the year, our big wood rack shifted somehow and there was a small wood avalanche.  Some of the logs that had fallen were burned.

This wood rack was about ten feet long and stacked as high as those upright wood stakes.  It caught fire from underneath in two places.

I never did like how close Andy stacked the wood to the burn barrel.

My cousin Ian remarked, "Well, at least now you have charcoal!"

This is the dinner that was interrupted. 

What is this, the sixth fire incident we've had here?  Two chimney fires.  One blackened pot on the stove that filled the house with smoke.  One grease fire in a frying pan.  One box of matches that burst into flames when  accidentally left atop the woodstove.  I hate fire.  I wish I could be done with it forever.

I feel like I should say that this is the first incident we've had with the barrel in the four years we've been burning here.

I can't believe we forgot about the burn barrel.  I can't believe that the woods didn't catch fire.  I can't believe how the Lord spared us from a serious disaster, when we clearly don't deserve to be spared the consequences of our own foolishness.

My pitifully small heart is not capable of gratefulness that is as vast and profound as God deserves from me..

Minor Mishap

Big Drama at the Stefo House Today

Found this in the third floor bathroom today.

What a giant baby I am - my first instinct was to stand there frozen and scream.

Learned later that it's an Eastern Milk Snake.

It looks so small here.  Trust me, it looked a lot larger gliding across my bathroom threshhold.

3 feet long at least.

A Day In The Homeschooling Life

I found a copy of this old journal tucked away in a photo album. I can't remember what prompted me to record this particular day in our lives. I think I did it to show somebody what our "perfect" family does every day. Pretty soon I'm should try to chronicle another unvarnished day in the life to remember what life in the looney bin is like these days. The family has changed so much since then.  I have to admit, though - the thought of chronicling the parallel activities of 10 people makes me cringe.

Ten years ago - wow!  This log centers on Tuesday, April 9, 2002, but I had to include Monday night for it to make sense.

The players: Dad, 34 years old, working day shift

Mom, 33 years old, sahm to 5 children, classical homeschooler, aspiring morning-person

Sarah, 11, night owl, softball player

Scott, 9, high strung, very helpful, first baseman

Brian, 5, resident Wrecking Ball, mischievous, plays tee-ball

Conor, 3, "Baby Chick," adorable, stubborn

Clare, 10 months, nursing addict

At this point in our lives we have been homeschooling for 3 years and Mom is still very energetic. Lots of art study, poetry, music, plus Latin. Housework was a very large challenge to us (who am I kidding - it still is), since homeschooling takes up a large part of our typical day and extracurricular activities take up the evenings.

Monday night

9:00 pm

Dad walked baby Clare to sleep while I read to Brian & Conor; said goodnight to the boys.

9:30

Goodnight to Sarah turned into 45-minute discussion about marriage, financial responsibility, checking accounts and credit cards (at 10:00 Brian came sneaking in).

10:15

Put Brian back in bed. I went to bed to read and to wake the sleeping baby enough to nurse her, since I was uncomfortably full because Dad walked her to sleep.

10:30, 10:40, 10:42, 10:50, 10:54, 10:58, 11:10

Brian gets out of bed because he “can’t sleep.”

11:15

Brian sneaks into my bed. I pretend to be asleep, hoping he’d go away. He wakes up the baby, then promptly falls asleep. Now the baby wants to play.

12:30 a.m.

I give up trying to nurse her back to sleep or keep her from waking Daddy, and take her downstairs. We eat Easter candy and I watch a movie while she is cute and content, crawling around, playing.

2:30 a.m.

I come back upstairs after the movie ends. Clare has passed out in my arms and I successfully lay her down without waking her.

3:30 a.m.

I finally fall asleep.

Tuesday morning

5:45 a.m.

My husband thinks he has some chance of waking me up at the time we had agreed upon, before all of last night’s nonsense began.

7:30

Revised alarm goes off – I ignore it until Scott comes in to shut it off. He crawls into my bed and snoozes it for an hour.

8:30

The alarm automatically shuts off after an hour, so we are able to go back to sleep without any further interruptions.

9:30

Brian comes in, then Conor. We wake slowly, scratching alphabet letters on each others’ backs, playing the ‘leg sweep’ game. Clare is happy jumping in the crib. Scott showers. Normally Clare would wake up before 8:00 a.m., nurse back to sleep, and stay asleep until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. Not today, though, with all the commotion.

10:05

With Clare still in the crib, I take a “self-preservation” shower. This means that if I don’t, I’m going to feel so grimy and oily that I’ll be miserable.

10:30

Sarah showers, I make notes for this log, Brian & Conor play cars, and Scott antagonizes them.

10:40

Dressed for the day – I attempted (unsuccessfully) to nurse the baby back to sleep while the kids went down to eat. They had cereal amid much strife – fighting over bowls and spoons, who was hogging the cereal, passing the milk, etc. Again, Scott is the source of it.

10:55

Scott begins math (on his own), Brian & Conor (henceforth B&C) play with Bug’s Life figures, and Clare motors around on the floor looking for choking hazards.

11:05

Phone rings. Sarah fouls up computer boot-up (back in the dial-up days) and the phone call is cut short by the modem screeching in our ears. I yell at Sarah for thinking she knows everything, then yell at B&C to clean up the three messes they’ve made so far. Baby is crawling up my leg (she did manage to find a jellybean a few minutes ago). Scott is TRYING to concentrate on math. I still haven’t eaten or dried my hair. PS – I hate it when my mother calls during school hours.

11:15

I decide on cheese melted on tortillas, and canned pineapple. The baby crawled around the kitchen floor crying after me the whole time I was preparing my “breakfast.” Scott finally gave up on math and took pity on her and held her on his lap until I could sit down to eat. Brian is playing computer; Conor is around here somewhere but quiet (I better go take a look), and I think Sarah is sulking because I yelled at her.

11:22

Sar wasn’t sulking; she was reading about sharks. I’m feeding the baby prunes while I eat and write this. No school being done at the moment.

Sink – full of dishes.

Table – full of crumbs from last night’s dinner and today’s breakfast.

Couch – loaded with 5 batches of clean laundry in various stages of foldedness

11:27

Sarah gets her math book. B&C doing puzzles. I don’t even want to look at the floor in there.

11:34

Brian dashes in to grab his kindergarten math book, which requires my full attention. 3 kids doing math at once – not good. They all distract each other. Oh no – now Conor is running in clamoring for his “piggy” book (a preschool math workbook with pigs on the cover). Oh, boy…

P.S. Clare doesn’t like pineapple.

P.P.S. Scott went in to finish the puzzles.

11:42

THREE RING MATH CIRCUS. At least I’ve eaten and I’m feeling human again. Scott isn’t back yet from the puzzles.

11:47

Scott’s back. Conor is on the counter. Brian is doing quite well solo in his math book. I take back what I said before – he can work alone sometimes.

11:50

Doorbell rings – kids adjourn to see their homeschooled friend Casey for a minute.

12:08

A minute turns into 20 while they show her a new game that was a birthday gift.

Sarah – poetry.

Scott – divisibility rules

12:25

Scott, Brian & Casey are playing Tonka Construction on the computer. I’m doing Latin with Sarah. Conor & Clare are playing on the floor.

12:55

Clare crawled into the kitchen during the Latin lesson – big distraction. Sar couldn’t/wouldn’t do the exercises, so we analyzed one complicated sentence, then called it quits. Now I’m trying again for Clare’s nap, writing sideways in bed as we nurse. Sink and laundry still untouched. I should think about lunch, shouldn’t I? I left Scott with a penmanship verse and some poems to browse. Didn’t do much of anything educational with B&C so far today – time is running out, since they burn out early and today is baseball practice. Scott needs geography, science, history. Religion wouldn’t hurt, either, though they get a lot of informal instruction and example in that area.

1:05

Clare is asleep! But she’s still nursing and I can’t get away yet without waking her.

1:08

Okay, she’s soundly out and I’m free! I decide to take a few minutes to fix my hair – call it sanity preservation. Kids are all quiet downstairs though I doubt any school is happening!

PS – blowdryer is missing. Thanks, Sarah. Yes, it's been three hours and my hair's still wet. I have very thick hair.

1:20

Well, at least the front half of my hair looks nice now. I’m going to order the kids to do a "ten-second tidy" while I decide on lunch.

2:00

Lunch is on the table. Boys are eating grilled cheese sandwiches and pretzels. I’ll be eating three pieces of scrapple as soon as they’re fried hard enough for my liking. The last x minutes were spent emptying and loading the dishwasher, and washing up the sinkful of dishes. During that time, the kids took all their Easter candy out, spread it all over the living room floor to sort it, then LEFT IT THERE when lunch was ready. Their teamwork was incredible, though.

PS – Conor hid a hard-boiled egg inside a plastic one and put it in the candy bag, so maybe it’s a good thing they sorted the candy before too long!

I don’t remember smiling yet today. Brian told me yesterday that I don’t smile very much. That really hurt and I’m going to work on it. I’m going to make dinner (quiche) while I eat. Also a pumpkin pie, since my DH requested one. Why not? The oven’s on anyway. Mind you, this is extremely atypical for me!

2:30

It’s only 2:30??????????????? I’ve eaten and I’m still making quiche – little hands kept snitching the broccoli I had prepared, so I had to prepare more. Kids have cleaned up candy and are now playing computer and watching TV.

2:55

B&C wandered in and are now mixing pumpkin pie with me. I’m not a custard pie baker but I hope for their sake it turns out well. I’m sitting down for a few minutes now. PS – Conor’s been running around in his underwear for a few hours now for some reason.

3:15

A little electronic solitaire, a couple books for Conor, now I’m building puzzles with him. Quiche is not done yet because our oven is slow. The 3 oldest kids are still playing a computer game.

4:30

Quiche done, pie going in. I think it’s going to be a flop – too soupy. I watched last night’s movie again while I got all the laundry folded. Baby got up at 4:00.

5:15

Drove to baseball to see if it was cancelled by rain or not. Sarah went to Brianna’s house rather than hang out in the car at the ball field for an hour.

5:30

Cancelled!!!!!! We visit with grandparents for a while instead.

6:30

Scott and I went to library for something new and exciting to read.

7:00

Retrieved BC from grandparents’ house and went home.

7:15

Daddy’s home! We actually spend some time in recreation together!

8:30

I give the boys a warning that bedtime will commence shortly. Scott is very emotional and everything is upsetting him – he also feels bad that he didn’t get a good day of school done but it’s too late to change that now. Everything B&C are doing is wrong and bothering Scott!

PS - B&C declare that they never ate dinner (not true, we had quiche, which they don’t like), so I give them a bagel and chocolate milk.

8:45

Kids head upstairs to dress for bed, brush teeth, and fight. Dad yells – boys all get into bed. Sarah is just getting home from Brianna’s.

9:30

After a little talking, I say final (I hope) goodnight, and warn Brian not to repeat last night or he’ll be sleeping in the hallway.

9:40

I nurse baby to sleep, say goodnight to Sarah, go down to look for this log, and do a laundry transfer – dry laundry to basket, wet laundry to dryer, dirty laundry to washer.

10:00

Found the log!!! I’m going to spend some computer time now typing it up. Today was an okay school day for Sarah, not-so-good for Scott, B&C were played with and read to, and the house is fairly neat.

11:00

After several trips to the bathroom, Sarah came downstairs and said we were keeping her awake.

11:30

Clare woke up crying, and Sarah went up to get her.

12:08 a.m.

Sarah and Clare are still awake downstairs. I’m going to print this out and then go to bed. Hopefully Clare will cooperate!

PS – the pumpkin pie was fine.

Picture Parade: Has anybody seen the twins?

Never mind.  I found them.

Dog Pile.

I sent them in to clean up their floor.  Sigh.

Picture Parade: Chaos in a Cute Package

The reason your hotel mattress is so uncomfortable.

Wheels, and Lousy Luck.

Last month we found the perfect car for Scott.  He now has a full-time job, the Malibu was getting poor gas mileage, and I can't possibly shuttle him there and back every day.  We looked around for a while until we found a kelly green metallic Subaru, the ideal car for him.  Good gas mileage, but funky and somewhat unique.  We picked it up on a Saturday evening, and he was thrilled.

Until Sunday evening, that is, when he crossed paths with another teen driver coming the opposite way.  I can't really picture how it happened.  I imagine it was something like this:  La-di-da, here I am traveling west.  Oh, there's the traffic light.  I have to turn left here.  Oh, hey, there's another car coming east through the traffic light. He's already in the intersection.  Oh, what the heck, I can make it.  I'M GOING FOR IT.  NOBODY LIVES FOREVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

While Scott was exercising his legal right of way, proceeding through the green light, the kid tried to make his turn and, as my husband put it, "T-boned" Scott.  Smashed right into the driver's side.  

Scott's car was totaled, after only 28 hours of ownership.  Thankfully nobody was hurt., but Scott really does have the worst luck, if you will.

Below is the replacement.

96 hours and counting.

Speaking of replacements, here's how we replaced the van.

It seats 9, which still leaves us two short.  The oldest two rarely travel with us anymore, though.  It's a much nicer vehicle, but I still miss my shoddy old van, which seated twelve plus plenty of room for our stuff.  We gained a bit of luxury (and doubled our gas mileage), but lost all that cargo space and extra seating.  However, we do have heating and ac in the rear seats now.  That part will be nice.  But still, I miss my van.

Chocolate Milk

Clare was an arrestingly beautiful child who had a personality to match. She loved everybody, and everybody loved her. Except her big sister, but we won't get into that now.

It's hard to look at that angelic face and imagine that she could be anything other than perfect.

But I just have to share this little story for my blog-friend Nicolle.

In 2004, my oldest son was chosen for a little-league All-Star baseball team. What this really translates to = several EXTRA weeks added onto the end of a long, hot, slow baseball season. One Saturday in September, we drove about an hour to where the games were being held, and I dropped my son off to warm up with his team. We had to wait for a game or two (and who knows how long they can last), so I took the kids to a small pizza joint for lunch to kill some time.

That day I had with me Brian (8), Conor (6), Clare(3) & Theresa (11 months). Keeping them happy, occupied and quiet for who knows how long was a real chore. We ordered our pizza, and then I bought the kids chocolate milk and chips to snack on until the pie was ready.

The pizza joint was really rather small, and there was an older gentleman there, eating alone. He had to be in his late sixties at the youngest. I don't know if he was just a grumpy old man in general, or if he was gruff because my kids were misbehaving, or if he just wanted to eat alone at his local pizza place in peace. . I was trying my best to keep them contained and quiet, but hey, they were four little kids being held hostage by a baseball game. Heck, I wanted to misbehave, too.

Now go look at Clare's sweet face again. Then picture her slipping away from our booth for a moment - just a moment, mind you, while my guard was down - easing over to the old man's booth, and beaming at him with that angelic smile, just before deliberately spraying a mouthful of chocolate milk right onto his table, the floor, and down the front of her dress.

"Getouttahere!" he snarled at her, gruffly. I remember apologizing to him, wiping off his table and wiping up the floor, and wishing I could just disappear. I'm certain I was trying not to cry, but probably not succeeding very well. That's all I remember, though.

I still count it among one of my worst Mommy moments.

So Nicolle, please don't cry over spilled milk unless Boyd spits it at somebody.

Crunch. Ouch.

Tree, meet Van.



Van, meet Tree.

Hearth and Home, Revisited.

Monday, June 30, 2008: Andy and Michele sign the papers and spend the first night in their new home. One of the major selling points of the new place is a cast iron wood stove.

Wednesday, October 18, 2008: Andy lights the inaugural fire in the cast iron wood stove.

Wednesday, December 24, 2008: Michele stuffs cardboard and Christmas wrap into the wood stove, which ignite, whisk up the flue, and cause a minor chimney fire. Michele stands alone, barefoot, in the icy street, watching flames spurt from the top of her chimney, thanking God that it was a rainy night.

Summer, 2009: Chimney is cleaned and repaired.


Friday, December 18, 2009

10:30 p.m.: Michele goes to bed early, but can't sleep because something smells weird. Michele goes downstairs. Apart from the smell, everything seems okay, so Michele polishes off the end of a fat novel.

1:00 a.m.: Novel finished, Michele goes upstairs. The smell is stronger, and the upper floors are hazy with smoke. Michele opens a window to install a fan to draw out some of the smoke, and sees smoke billowing up from below. Racing downstairs, Michele runs outside and around the corner of the house, where she finds a flaming hole in the siding directly behind the woodstove. Michele frantically calls 911 and begins to wake the household.

1:05 a.m.: Brian bounds out of bed, wakes Conor, and begins to evacuate his little sisters. Michele heads to the third floor to wake Andy and Scott. Michele and Scott evacuate children. Andy comes downstairs, evaluates the fire, and fills a bucket to douse the fire.

1:10 a.m.: Emergency crews are beginning to arrive. We are sending all the children down the back staircase into the waiting van. We think we have everybody, so Michele goes out to the van. Somebody asks, "Where's Natalie?" We have forgotten Natalie. Scott races in, and retrieves Natalie from the master bedroom, where she has been left alone. Everybody assumed that somebody else carried her out.

1:12 a.m.: Back in the van, somebody asks, "Where's Theresa?" Theresa, awakened by Brian and told very plainly by Mom to "go down the back steps and into the van," is still very sleepy, and angry at being awakened. While we think she obeys and goes out to the van, in reality she goes back downstairs. Scott goes back in, and after several tense minutes he finds her - under the one of the twins' beds. At last the head count in the van is complete.

1:15 - 3:30 a.m.: We have grabbed enough blankets, coats and shoes to make everybody comfortable on this frigid night, so Michele drives everybody away in shell-shocked, anxious silence. We have nowhere to go at this hour, so we just drive slowly through the streets until we find ourselves parked outside a nearby chapel. There we sit, talking, speculating, praying, and yes, even joking about what might happen next, until we get the call from Scott that it is okay to come back.

4:00 a.m. The firefighters extinguished the blaze within 15 minutes of arriving, but several other walls had to be opened to ensure that it was not spreading. We are allowed to re-enter the house and sleep there that same night, although most of us are too scared to sleep easily. Andy stays downstairs in the living room as a sentry, and the rest of us are on the third floor, as far away from the fire as possible. Michele's king-sized bed that night accommodates Clare, Theresa, Natalie, Noelle & Michele, all sleeping sardine-style, with Brian stretching out across the bottom of the bed. Conor and Scott sleep in the rear part of the third floor, close to the rear entrance, and Sarah falls asleep at a friend's house since she couldn't get back to the house with all the streets blocked by emergency crews.

The outside, where the fire burned through the siding. If you click on the picture and look closely, you can see the crack in the pipe in the wall that started the fire.

Wednesday, December 29, 2009: It is the coldest week of the winter so far, and our house has been decidedly chilly between the absence of our wood fire and the large sections of exposed wall. A repair crew begins the weeks of repairing the interior damage and replacing the siding, putting insulation board up behind it as well.

The wall that was torn out in the room above the fire.

Tuesday, January 26, 2010: The chimney specialist finally comes to make the repairs and upgrades necessary for us to safely install a new wood stove.

Friday, January 29, 2010: The chimney work is nearly complete and the new wood stove Andy selected is delivered. Brian, Andy, & Michele assemble the stove and put it in place, awaiting complete installation.

Saturday, January 30, 2010

6:30 a.m.: Andy returns home from working night shift, and Michele wakes the six youngest children to go to a swim meet.

2:30 p.m.: The family returns home to find a neat, cozy living room with a small fire burning in the newly installed wood stove!

5:00 p.m.: Andy leaves for his next night shift.

10:30 p.m.: After burning two small test fires, Michele loads up the woodbox for the first big fire. Once the stove heats up to nearly 500 degrees, it begins to emit fumes. This is normal for a new stove - the paint and caulk are still curing - but to Michele it smells exactly like the weird smell that started this whole thing. Panic attack ensues. Michele spends the next 5 hours obsessively monitoring the temperature of the wood stove, feeling the walls for any signs of heat, and checking all the windows for any signs of unexpected smoke.

3:30 a.m.: Michele reluctantly falls asleep from sheer mental and emotional exhaustion.

Sunday, January 31, 2010, 9:30 a.m.: Michele wakes up. The house is still standing. Michele spends the next two days reading the manual, fiddling with the air controls, and calling Andy at work every ten minutes while learning how to control this fiery beast that Andy first selected without consulting her, then abandoned her with while he was on the night shift. Thoughtless jerk.

Monday, February 2, 2010, 11:30 p.m.: Michele types this blog entry while basking in the glow of this awesome wood stove. Monday's spaghetti and sauce were prepared on the wood stove, and Tuesday's beef stew will be slowly simmering overnight. No electricity required. How cool is that?

Now if it would only snow, we'd be ready for a blizzard and a blackout.

It really is beastly big. The markings on the side of the stove are just shadows from the lamp in the corner. I love how much wood the wood hoop holds, and how neatly, compared to the rubbermaid tub method we used to use.

It is a step-top with a fireview window.

Daddy and Natalie soaking up the warmth and the glow.

Dropping in to say "Hi!"

Hi People! How've you been? Well, I know how YOU'VE been, because I've been checking into all my favorite blogs. But I haven't updated for weeks, because if the internet is an information superhighway, I've been cruising for the last few weeks in a 1971 Ford Pinto. It's an old, slow, overwhelmed desktop that is very cranky and temperamental. You can't click more than once at a time or else it gets confused and refuses to budge. And heaven forbid you accidentally click on a .pdf!! Go to the bathroom, fix yourself a snack, iron the laundry, then come back and see if it's downloaded yet. It really does teach us a valuable lesson in patience. All the poor baby really needs is some extra RAM, but it's so expensive to upgrade for that model.

A few weeks ago my youngest angel, Natalie, wandered up to my bedroom in the middle of the night and crawled into my bed, lying right along the edge. Of course, it doesn't take a supergenius to guess that she fell out of bed at some point, and she caught my laptop with her foot as she fell. It was stationed on the end of my dresser, where I was trying out The Naked Alarm Clock. I absolutely, positively needed to get up on time the next morning, and sometimes I just don't hear my usual alarm clock. This was set to go off with a jangling, unfamiliar bell at top volume. Foolproof, right? I didn't figure Natalie into the equation...

When I tried to power up the laptop the next morning (and I didn't wake up on time, naturally)there was an error message that read, "No bootable devices...The hard drive is either damaged or disconnected... you are doomed...blah blah."

I was really hoping for "disconnected" but instead it was damaged beyond repair. All my homeschool records, all my Pampered Chef records, all my digital pictures that I hadn't put on Snapfish, all my emails and contacts, all my kids' school reports . . . . gone. What hurts the most was the homeschool records. My kids have to log over 900 hours of school each year, and I'm terrible at keeping paper records. We had several hundred hours logged already on that hard drive and now I GOT NOTHING.

Dell was fantastic about helping me out, though. I even was connected to a live, easily-understandable tech support (she was in the Philippines, but spoke perfect English) within FIVE MINUTES of holding!!

So my two purgatorial weeks of using the cranky old computer are at an end.

Now I just have to be more careful of where I put my laptop.

Kids. Ruin. Everything.

(Warning: Lengthy Rant Below)

At low times, my motto around here is “Kids…..ruin…..EVERYTHING!!!!!” usually spoken through clenched teeth with a scowl. It’s sad that I feel that way, but I do.

I remember once while pregnant with the twins…in an absent-minded moment, I let Theresa hold my watch for about 2 minutes, and during that time it completely vanished. I was too big and lumbering to bend down or move the couch, and so it was lost for a couple weeks. (My husband eventually pulled out the couch and found it in about two seconds). She was only 3, and I was so angry with her and myself and everything, and I really let her have it. I made her (and myself) feel pretty awful.

(Theresa, me, my twin belly at about 5 months,
and the watch in question. We are sitting in the same spot
where she lost the watch a mere two months later.
My head is cut off because one of the kids took this photo)

But it was the first watch I had ever owned as an adult and I’d worn it for two straight years without losing it, a first for me. God was testing me then, and I failed. Then my wrists swelled up and I couldn’t wear it anyway, and the battery died shortly thereafter. It still lies dormant on my dresser. That'll teach me.

My point is that I was (and still am) so tired of EVERYTHING in this house getting broken, lost or ruined. The twins are the worst yet right now. They walk off with anything they can snag. They like nothing better than to clean all the dvds or homeschool books off their respective shelves. You can’t let them anywhere near a box of tissues. They ransack any unsuspecting schoolbook that they find.They dump out at least one box of cereal a week. And DON'T EVEN GET ME STARTED ABOUT THE EGGS.

Why, you may ask, are they allowed to get near the cereal/eggs/tissues/etc.? Well, for starters, they work together. I have numerous other critters in this house who leave doors open, gates open, cereal boxes out, etc. I'm usually busy or distracted. And the twins are a lot faster than I am!


A few months ago in desperation I decided to confine them to one room, because I figured that one room of chaos was better than four rooms of chaos. Anyway, the twins either find ways to sneak through the gate, (Noelle is the master escape artist)
or else we leave it open (in an insane moment), or we have pity on them for being locked away like animals. We can't stand to see them like this:
One day in February (the same day we all came down with the flu) was a day we planned a field trip to a Reptile zoo up near Williamsport. Our trip was delayed by at least an hour because one of Noelle’s booties (brand new, expensive, Robeez) went missing, right from plain sight. I ranted and fumed and cleaned like a madwoman and generally made everyone miserable (even Andy) because “Kids…..ruin…..EVERYTHING!!!!!”

And then Natalie pooped. And when I went to change her, I found that Noelle’s other bootie had somehow gotten stuck down Natalie’s pants. NO WONDER we couldn’t find it !?!?! And to top it off, guess who was the one who dressed Natalie? You got that in one, it was me. All my fault. No wonder God struck me down with the flu. If i was Him, I would have given me the plague. Someday I will learn.

A few days ago, I slipped away to the bathroom. The twins were at the front door, occupied with playing peek-a-boo through the glass with their older sisters Clare & Theresa. I swear I was only gone for 2 minutes. That's 120 seconds. But by the time I returned, the twins were standing on the kitchen table banging on the laptop. They had somehow hit the right (or wrong) combination of keys, and managed to lock and password-protect the keyboard. I set the password about three years ago and had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA what it could be. So the laptop was rendered completely useless. Thank the Lord that our mailman came by a few minutes later, and was able to calmly explain how to fix it to exasperated old me .

I have to keep repeating over and over: “My children are a gift from God and I love them.” LOL

PS - This post was originally made in June. I still privately think that kids ruin everything. The last major doozy was in August. I stepped away from the computer to use the bathroom, and the twins pried 7 keys off the laptop. Laptop keys have three insanely tiny and fragile parts required to reattach them to the keyboard. I spent two hours hunched over the table. I kept telling myself that if Malaysian children can do this, then so can I, failing eyesight, clumsy fingers and all.



We are still missing 4 keys, and the 'e' key will never be the same. It's like a loose tooth - gonna lose it any day now. The Big Mean Daddy won't replace it, and tells me it's my fault because I let the kids use the laptop to play, so they treat it like a toy.