lights out

Note: Since I started this post, we got hit with another nor'easter in the form of snow. Thankfully, we didn't lose power and were plowed out by the end of the day.

I had been procrastinating on a few post ideas, when post-worthy events dropped into my lap. My friends on the east coast, you've noticed some unpleasant weather lately? Like high winds and tons of rain in the form of a nor'easter? It was hard to miss in New England.

At first, I just worried about our MacGyver'ed dryer vent in the basement window. (My father-in-law did make us a Plexiglass window with a louvered vent in it for us to install at some point, but we hadn't gotten to it yet). I noticed the drywall was starting to wet through, and also that the window wasn't entirely air or water tight, so I rushed through two loads of laundry and then took some precautions.

I'd like to ask the person who wired our house if he was even aware that our state has electrical codes. 

On the bright side, my concerns about the dryer vent got the laundry washed and dried before I started noticing some brown-outs. Ok, clearly it's the wind, because utility companies in New England still haven't discovered underground power lines. I was in the basement with the kids around 3:30 when the lights flickered three times, then went out.

Okay. Let's go upstairs. I texted Mr. Husband and suggested that he bring some dinner home, just in case the power wasn't back by dinner time. I led/dragged the kids through a decade of the rosary partly to pray for the restoration of our power, and partly to have something to do since our playroom was pitch-black. We read through some books in the waning daylight (I may have cursed the early sunset of the northeast to myself), played "camping," lit some candles, gathered a few flashlights, and started telling stories as we waited and waited for Mr. Husband to come home.

By some miracle, a pizzeria and a convenience store on the way home had power, so once Mr. Husband navigated three detours due to downed trees, he came bearing pizza, wine, chocolate, batteries for the flashlights, and ice for the refrigerator. God bless this man.

We were surprised to wake up to no power, but got the kids breakfast (after catching them with the refrigerator doors wiiiiide open and administering a scolding), and Mr. Husband went out in search of a Dunkin Donuts with power. We took three second showers with the remaining hot water in the tank, and Mr. Husband decided that he could still get a few house projects done without electricity. I went out for more ice and gas while he worked.

I married up.

I'd planned to attend the funeral service for a friend's mother, so I headed out to the church two towns over, took three detours around down trees, and arrived to discover that though the church was holding the service, they were also without heat or power. After the service I saw I had 8 or so texts from Mr. Husband informing me that it was too cold in the house to stay there with the kids, and that he, the kids, and all of the meat from our freezer, would meet me on the way to his parents'. Once we'd thawed out and had a hot meal, we decided we couldn't face another night without heat.

The next morning, after hot coffee, Mass, and breakfast, we headed back home to find no power, and most houses on our (hilly) side of the street using pumps borrowed from the fire department to drain their basements. After checking our basement for water (none except a weird drain thing by our bulkhead, which I'd covered with a towel to keep cold air out anyways), we decided to run some errands, then come home to either stay if the power was back, or pack for another night at the in-laws' if it wasn't. We were delighted to come home again to no internet, but a warm house, running fridge, and lots of blinking clocks.

Snug little cuddlebugs at home again.

Many thanks to all the utility workers and tree specialists who worked overtime for days and nights. Many thanks to God that we had neighboring towns still on the grid where we could get gas and buy ice and coffee, and a place to warm up during our 48 hours without power. Many thanks to the internet for being out for an extra day and reminded me how little I need it.

But seriously, we're getting a generator once any store within 50 miles gets one back in stock.

seven quick takes

1. Miss A turned 3 last weekend! All she wanted was a Minnie cake...for her present, for her birthday dinner, and for dessert. We did give her actual presents, and she was a good sport about my chamber music concert falling on the same day. I can't believe my house is now devoid of babies and toddlers. It seems only yesterday that my day was a marathon of feedings and diaper changes.

My cake decorating philosophy is "know your limits."

2. The east coast has been blessed with a few lovely patches of warm weather. Unfortunately for us, it's either been so wet and windy, or I've had so many errands that we've spent less time outside than when it was just snowy. Goal for today: making the kids go outside, even if the time spend bundling up is equivalent to the time spent playing.

3. To get myself out of the winter doldrums, I'm planning my first-ever real vegetable garden for this summer. We finally have the space to start a decent number of seeds without worrying about the kids accidentally spilling everything. So far we have an odd mix of herbs and vegetables in potting soil, since I bought my seeds on clearance at the Job Lot last fall. #cheapskatesgonnacheap

4. Speaking of winter again, few things remind me more of the lack of forethought and planning than our barely-functional mudroom and the multiplication of outerwear items store in it this time of year. It's roughly 3' x 6', with more of the useful wall space taken up by a window, two inward-opening doors, plus another door to the kitchen.

My attempt at a 360º-ish tour.

The walls are too soft for wall anchors or 3M hooks, there is mold on the baseboards, one of the door frames is rotting, and I'm afraid to mop the stick-on vinyl tile because it's starting to peel off. Furthermore, there is no insulation in the walls or floors, except for a lone paper towel I found stuffed in the wall while hanging a row of pegs.

This means that snowy gloves, hats, and boots do not dry in our mudroom, but rather become stiff and frozen. At least I managed to find a single stud under the window for hanging said pegs.

5. On that DIY thread, thanks to some generous family members who sent us Home Depot gift cards for Christmas, we are starting to build our tool arsenal past basic hand tools and electric drills. I'm one part excited and one part terrified that I'll lose a finger.

I have big plans for all of the scrap lumber the sellers left in the basement.

6. It's becoming more apparent to me than ever that my youngest was somehow born without any sense of self-preservation. Her first instinct upon entering any room is to find the highest surface she can climb, and then climb and jump off of it. I was hoping putting my kids in swimming lessons would help them be safer around water...nope. After Miss A strolled down the steps and went over her head once, it didn't deter her from trying again and again. God bless our ever-patient swimming instructor.

7. On Instagram, I pledged to join a "practice every day and gram about it!" with other followers of @wholeparenting this past Tuesday. How many days so far have I practiced the repertoire for my symphony concert in two weeks? Zero. Eek. I guess I'd better slow down my wild goose hunt for free pianos on Craigslist and pick up the fiddle for an hour or four.

This page is going to kill me. Especially if I have to read off of someone else's copy without my fingerings again.

or

Flesch called. He wants his arpeggios back.

Linking up with Kelly.

crunch crunch

Quite by accident, I've been sliding down the slippery slope into being some kind of homesteader.

It started, likely, with my childhood love of crafts. I learned sewing, knitting, crocheting, beading, quilting, loom knitting, moccasin-making...if there was a kit for it, I probably tried it.

In college, I learned to knit socks. When you make your own socks. you don't want to throw them away when they get their first hole, so you start learning how to darn holes. I was also on a very strict student budget, so I cleaned almost exclusively with baking soda and vinegar. After that, I always made my own cleaners. I've never quite stopped being cheap frugal.

Pre-Instant Pot yogurt making on the stove. Warning: this may require effort.

After I got married, I started making my own chicken broth. You see, before I had children I was on a kick to make lots of things from scratch, like bread, granola, and yogurt (the latter two in the crockpot, because that was before the fancy Instant Pot entered onto the scene). Some of that went away for a while when my son was born, but later came back. Some I never really did again after having children. It's a lot cheaper and easier to buy our sandwich bread at Market Basket.

The trifecta: pressure canner heating up jars, stockpot heating up broth, and Instant Pot making dinner.

When you make your own chicken broth and cook family-sized meals, you either need to dedicate a lot of freezer space to the broth--even if you cook it down to gelatinous, concentrated stock--or learn how to pressure can. So I started pressure canning my broths, which was a slippery slope to preserving food through jam-making and fermentation and sourdough starter babies.

With the quantity of broth we were going through, I started religiously freezing vegetable scraps and bones so that the broth was far cheaper to make. Meanwhile, I was growing cherry tomatoes and herbs in pots every summer and buying bagged compost. So, I eventually decided to stop throwing away perfectly good coffee grounds, fruit and vegetable scraps, and eggshells, and make my own compost. At the apartment, I used an old plastic storage tub with holes drilled on all sides outside (we did have a yard, but I wanted something closed to keep curious children and animals out) and added lots of shredded junk mail since we didn't have much in the way of yard waste. I collected compostables in a washed-out yogurt container, but eventually upgraded to a 2-gallon bucket when we moved and the trip out to the compost bin got longer.

Fancy.

Our outdoor compost bin is now five wooden pallets (four sides and a top) held together with zip ties. It cost me about $3 in zip ties and whatever amount of gas it took to make three trips to and from the nursery ten minutes away (which was getting rid of the pallets). Despite the freezing temperatures we had in the last two months, I can see the materials breaking down when I get around to turning the pile. As I said, I've never stopped being cheap frugal.

My crunch cred regarding cloth diapers has already been addressed, although I'll confess that we use disposable pull-ups at night now that both kids are potty-trained. Does homeschooling count?

What's next? I'm excited to start a larger vegetable and herb garden next summer, now that we have a large yard. I may risk starting some of our plants from seeds, now that we have older children and enough living space that they probably won't inadvertently kill the seedlings. I'm not sure if our town bylaws allow chickens, but since we live on a small dead-end street I would rather stay on my neighbors' good graces anyways.

ordinary time

I'll confess, toward the end of the Christmas season, I was looking forward to things going back to normal. Maybe it was the horrible cold-and-fever virus that hit everyone during the Christmas octave, or the disappointment of so many cancelled plans, or just the antsy-pantsy 4-year-old who was getting a too-long break from routine and preschool work.

Then it got far too cold to play outside. 

Didn't stop me from drinking iced coffee, though.

 And someone celebrated the night before our first blizzard by kicking her kitchen chair backward, splitting her head open, and taking a trip to urgent care. 

She's the family daredevil. I'll be amazed if she makes it to age four without breaking a bone.

After on-again, off-again fevers and isolated vomiting (including an amazing display all over the living room rug), Mr. B. was diagnosed with a minor ear infection.

And I say to myself, "When will things go back to normal?" But then I realize this is normal. It's normal for little kids to get hurt, get sick, and it's normal for me to worry about them. It's normal to have days of chaos where the playroom looks like a bomb went off, and every hamper in the laundry room is overflowing. It's normal to have a pipe freeze in the winter when you're still in the process of fixing up your house. Normal, normal, normal problems. I can worry, yes, but I can also be grateful when my ears pick up happy shrieks instead of sniffling and gagging. I can be content to shovel load after load from washer to dryer to hamper to drawers, wipe down tables, sweep floors content in the ordinary cycle of clean and dirty in the rhythm of our day. I can take an afternoon off when the kids are tired, and sit and watch Toy Story, reveling in their delight in seeing a 23-year-old movie for the first time. I can dry the tears, endure the screams, enjoy the giggles that won't last forever. I can simultaneously mourn and enjoy that my diaper bag is empty of diapers because my kids are no longer toddlers.

My vocation now is ordinary time.

2017: 12 Months in 12 Photos

Yes, I know the collage only has nine photos.

January
We faced down a long winter, and celebrated the second birthday of this little fashionista. Also, Mr. Husband and I took a first-time homebuyer's class.

source

February

We celebrated a fifth ring for our quarterback and started our home search. Also, winter in a two-bedroom apartment, which is a well-beaten deceased equus on this blog.

March
We traveled with friends up into the Green Mountains and spend a long weekend feasting, resting by the gas fireplace, exploring quaint little mountain towns, and letting our kids eat a shameful amount of Annie's Mac and Cheese. Then we went home, looked at a house, put an offer on it, had the offer accepted, and signed our first Purchase and Sales agreement.

April
We celebrated the fourth birthday of our oldest and my thirtieth birthday. Then we got the keys to our very first house and said goodbye to our shabby little apartment. God bless family, friends, and neighbors who were willing to help me break down outdoor play sets, schlep boxes and play sets in their notreallytiny cars, pack all of our furniture including a heavy washer and dryer into a truck and then unpack it all over again, surprise me by taking over all of the backyard stuff (including a plastic bin full of compost! my black gold!) I was planning to leave until the following day, and help with all manner of minor crisis like slow drains and rewiring the dryer. And all for the payment of a few beers and BJ's burgers grilled on our new (to us) back deck.

May
The renovating begins in earnest! Although our house was technically "move in ready," we learned during our first tour that there was a reason why no pictures of the second story were included in the listing. The upstairs needs a lot of updating, including covering up a gross tiled ceiling, major patching and repainting of the walls (who uses a staple gun to hang posters?!), and replacing a stained and filthy carpet.

June
Not pictured: repainted upstairs walls and ceilings. Or the office having its wallpaper removed over two sweaty weekends of steaming, then walls replastered and painted. Pictured: Kids enjoying the fruits of having a real outdoor water source.

July
We took a roadtrip to Valley Forge and Philadelphia! Mr. Husband and I enjoyed the history, architecture, and the art. The kids enjoyed the Please Touch Museum and the fountains.

August
Another month, another roadtrip! This time we went to Québec City and got on marvelously well considering neither of us speak much French. More beautiful architecture, art, and history for the adults, and Le Musée de la Civilisation for the kids. I may or may not have started casually looking at home prices in Lévis (where we stayed) while we were there.

September
We started MODG pre-K and youth soccer with Mr. B. I also stared de-beige-ifying our downstairs, and joined a local community orchestra.

October
We continued homeschooling, and Miss. A continued to try to join her brother's soccer team.

November
We bought laminate flooring and baseboards, transported them in our tiny cars home, and Mr. Husband, with his dad, installed them upstairs. Transformation nearly complete!

December
We had our first run with a Jessie Tree (using our faux fir as a stand-in). I felt like we had a very focused, anticipatory Advent, and was excited to host our first Christmas dinner. Then, starting two days before Christmas, Mr. Husband came down with a nasty cold +fever virus that proceeded to infect every other member of the family and transform our living room into a sick ward. I think this past week will be remembered as "The Lost Christmas." At least we have a few more days before the Epiphany to catch up!

Here's to 2018 and more frequent blog posts!

moving on

Time is a funny thing. When I'm anticipating something, it can seem like the weeks, days, hours, or minutes drag by--especially if I'm waiting for spring after an interminable winter. But four and a half years can go by in a flash.

Little Mr. B...a pumpkin among pumpkins.

When we signed our first lease agreement, we thought we'd be here for one year, maybe two. We were saddened to leave the more urban community where we'd been living, but we needed to move into the suburbs to find a reasonable amount of space to raise our yet-to-be-born Mr. B. Our apartment was, and still is, old (built in 1880!) and somewhat dingy, but it was in the perfect location for Mr. Husband to walk to the train and for me to drive to my teaching job. When we realized Miss A would be arriving, we looked at other apartments but ultimately decided to stick it out in a smaller but more affordable and convenient space.

Then our kids got bigger and more active, and 850 square feet got very, very small. And shortly after we started looking for a house, we found something that would work for us in a nearby town.

So now we are elbow deep in packing. When we moved here, we had yet to acquire any baby paraphernalia. Now our belongings seem to have tripled, especially in the Lego department. The last few weeks have dragged by as I eagerly anticipate more space, more privacy, a nicer yard, a parking spot next to the door. I bounce between frazzled packing and frustration that we can't pack everything that we'll still need before we close on the house. And I ask myself, will I miss this place?

I won't miss the backyard with the falling-down fence and the dusty soil that coats the kids until they look like Pigpen. But I will miss the impromptu playdates between Mr. B and his fellow four year old friend two doors down.

I won't miss the busy street with the constant noise of cars drag racing and truck jake brakes. But I'll miss being a less than a mile from the church, the post office, the bank, and the library.

I won't miss the constant stream of garbage being blown across the street from the shopping plaza into our front "yard." But I will miss the convenience of being able to walk over to Walgreens, even in a blizzard, and pick up prescriptions.

I skipped one week. ONE. WEEK.

I won't miss the constant dinginess of the apartment, from the dust lacquered into the floor, to the awful kitchen linoleum that looks filthy even when freshly mopped, to the completely obscene graffiti adorning the crumbling walls of our creepy fieldstone basement. But I will miss being able to keep the upper floors of the apartment from looking like a crack den with very little effort.

We may not live in a crack den, but sometimes my kids seem to think that we live in a frat house.

I won't miss trying to keep two active kids from climbing the walls when it's too cold, too snowy, too slippery, too rainy, too muddy...too anything to go outside. But I'll never forget that inside those same walls I labored with both of my children, cared for them as newborns, and watched them learn to roll, sit, crawl, walk, and talk. Even Mr. B may keep some dim memories of living in our "department."

So on we shall move, ready to make new memories in a new place, knowing that the days of unpacking and settling in will likely drag on, but the years will again fly by.

{7QT} After A Long Winter's Nap

1. I'm back. I took a long hiatus this fall and most of this winter not just from blogging but many other things due to some health issues. I'm doing much better, and I've learned some valuable lessons about accepting help and taking care of myself.

Enjoying a nice blizzard. Our neighbors thought we were insane.

2. We have been blessed by an unusually mild winter, and I guess I can't complain too much it this year. Snow and freezing temperatures always highlight, at least to me, the silly little inconveniences inherent in our living situation--like the distance between the parking lot and our door, or not having any devices on the roof whatsoever to break up ice dams hanging a full foot over the back of the building. So I'm grateful that we've had minimal shuffling of two little ones over the plowed-over sidewalk on our busy street to our car.

Freaky.

3. Despite the mild winter, I'm so glad that I finally invested in quality winter wear this year. After ten winters in New England wearing a pea coat, I finally purchased a coat system from L.L. Bean. It has been worth every penny (especially the gift card I got with the purchase that went toward the first pair of snow mittens that stay on Mr. B's hands). Then, last week, I took advantage of their ridiculously generous return policy to exchange some cracked Wellies for the popular Bean Boots. I consider myself pretty thrifty as far as clothing is concerned (I mostly rock the clearance rack and Savers), but it's more fun to enjoy the snow with my kids without being super cold and wet.

Enjoying afternoon cereal the classy way.

4. Miss A has now turned two, and I'm marveling at how many baby things are disappearing from our main living floor. Half of our baby toys have been dropped off surreptitiously at Savers (they take stuffed animals! Praise God!) and we had to retire all the baby gates because the kids were using them to mash each other into the wall. Lest you think our children are precocious little angels, I also had to throw Miss A's toothbrush away this week because she snuck into the bathroom, got her toothbrush down (which is on a shelf over the toilet because our bathroom sucks is quirky.) and used it to clean the very dirty drain pipe in the sink (because when the drain stopper broke my landlord replaced it with a $0.50 mesh sieve).

Should we water the house with sand or mud?

5. All of a sudden my children have gone from being indifferent and/or antagonistic toward each other to being frenemies--a vast improvement, really. I can sometimes set them up with something to do--trains, coloring, dressing up--and back away to either accomplish something, relax, or just listen in on their conversation. Today they painted the heck out of eight coloring pages and discussed which Bob the Builder characters they each were. It was surreal, I tell you.

I almost took one of those signs home.

6. Because we're crazy, we decided to break up our winter by driving north. We left our mild, snowless abode in southern New England for the mountainous reaches of Vermont and stayed in this little place for four days:

The view of the Green Mountains was fantastic.

It was too cold to hike, and not snowy enough to do snow things, so we took a few trips into the nearby towns for maple syrup, chocolate, and cheese, but mostly we sat in front of the gas fireplace, cooked, and ate. We also made a futile attempt to procure Chartreuse liquor, but were stymied by unpaved roads not maintained in the winter, a fallen tree, and our southern New England city slicker vehicles. The kids had a blast on the trip, but Mr. B was very, very confused.

7. He was confused that we were going to live in Vermont indefinitely because we may be leaving our little apartment abode soon for four walls, a driveway, and a yard of our very own. We're thrilled by the washer/dryer hookups that are next to one another, a kitchen with more than fifteen continuous inches of counter space, closets wide enough for hangers, and enough space in the bathroom to swing a cat. Among other amenities.

Linking up with Kelly.

a new chapter or two

I always think of fall as the beginning of a new chapter in life, even though it has had very little bearing on what we do the last few years. This year, though, I've started a soft launch of home preschool for the three year old and decided to continue my KonMari'ing of the house.

I emptied out our bookcase, and made up a box to give to the library book sale. Mr. Husband took a few out because he wanted to read them.

Then, Mr. Husband sent me to the library book sale to find Michael Crichton and Michael Lewis books. At $0.50/book, I might have gotten carried away. I guess I cancelled out any KonMari'ing of our bookcase. Oh well.

My decision to homeschool our 3 year old this year was for many reasons, but I was still anxious about starting. Before we began, I couldn't get him interested in any fine motor skills--beading, coloring, painting--it all turned into some truck-related game. I've been working out of 26 Letters to Heaven. It has a lot of ideas, but we can be flexible to fit everyone's mood and abilities. I've been pleasantly surprised at what's come out of it.

Week One:

Both kids enjoyed the gluing part, although the 1-year-old got a lot of help from me.

My late start actually worked out, because we were able to celebrate Michaelmas during our "A for Angel" week. I've been wanting to live more liturgically for some time, but felt overwhelmed until I decided to just try one thing at a time. So I got some ideas for a Michaelmas dinner, printed out some coloring pages to decorate our table, and made a blackberry tart. We said the St. Michael prayer with grace before we ate, and it seemed festive enough for a 1- and 3- year old.

And this week:

I was truly impressed with how neatly the 3 year old did this activity with letter B. We've been taking the crayons and stickers out more with both kids, so I guess we're starting a new chapter with art, too. Here's hoping we don't run out of steam in two weeks!