There was much rejoicing

It is done.

Creative Writing is history.

I just submitted my final assignment!

BIG OL' SIGH OF RELIEF!

Too bad I haven't yet received a grade on my poetry assignment. Hopefully that will come in the next week and a half (so slowwwwwwwwwwwww). Then soon after a grade for this final unit (short story final revision and discussion of what I learned in the course) and with that, A FINAL GRADE.

Now with THAT monkey off my back, two more are waiting to get on. I just got my textbook for my humanities class in the mail. I'll start tomorrow. I've done enough today.

Bad poetry amok and up for a major award

Well, not MAJOR major, but cool anyway.

My friend, Stephanie (she's not just an imaginary blog friend--I've actually been to her house) (she's also very intelligent and funny. Read her blog: Diapers and Divinity. It's on my blog roll) had a haiku contest. I just had to try my bad haiku writing skills and entered. Check it out! And vote! (I won't be mad if you don't vote for me. But I might go cry in my room. Very quietly so you won't hear)

Coming apart at the seams

My serger broke again. It was the FIRST time I used it since it broke last time (and suffered for three weeks without it) and another piece broke off of it not 10 minutes into working on a project. I wasn't even able to finish the one item I was working on even though it was just a quickie thing (shorts for Hayley). ARRRGH!

I can tell you that I'm NOT taking it back to the place I had it fixed last time. They weren't very good in communicating with me. Several (all of them) messages on their business voicemail went unanswered.

Sergei, you betrayed me! I won't be able to trust you ever again!

Double the pain, trouble, and use of energy and time

I signed up for TWO more college courses today.

I'm almost finished with Creative Writing (My goal is to have it ALL submitted by this weekend) and I am two years behind my goal for finishing the program, so I need to hustle some buns here. The courses are Humanities 202 (I'm confident that I can finish this class by October, if I really buckle down on it) and Scottish History and Family Research. This Scottish history class has a research paper thrown in as one of the assignments, but with the help of my dad, who a) works as a genealogist at the local Family History library and b) is of Scottish descent (thanks, Grandma Hawley!) I think I can do this with minimal loss of sanity, brain function, and hair (as in tearing out of). My goal for finishing that class will be...um...November? (I'm mentally lobbing darts at a calendar)

Pray for me.
Support me.
Forgive me for not having a clean house, for being hermetic, for not volunteering to be more helpful, for always yapping on about my college classes, for wigging out when unforeseen occurrences mess with my timetables...

I may not complete this degree program, but I'm going to keep at it for as long as I can.

Missing out

The paper-less society has been talked about for years. Computers were supposed to replace the need for paper as a communication storage device, but it has taken much longer than I thought it would. And I find I'm not all that fond of a totally paper-free existence.

I'm talking specifically about report cards. I miss them. Our district went electronic this last trimester for middle school and high school and I almost forgot about them. Had it not been for an email alerting us that Hayley's grades were now posted on the website (the site is secure and individually password-protected, so NO, you can't go check out how well my children did in school this past year). I miss the excited dash for the mailbox on the day the report cards (although they haven't been "cards" in a while, they've been report "regular sheets of paper" since my children have been in school) were supposed to arrive. I miss the huddling 'round the kitchen table while we discuss with the children what they got. I miss sticking the papers in my organizer and mulling over what to do with them and then letting them sit there and gather dust, food particles (why, yes, the organizer is in the kitchen), bits of dessicated insects, and water spots for several years until I clean out the organizer in a once-every-three-years fit of frenzied cleaning. I miss having concrete evidence that my child went to school.

Now it's all imaginary, as all things on the computer are. They are only pixels now. Bytes, bits, pulses, changes in state of matter at the subatomic level, or fairy dust on the screen for all I know.

How do you yell at a child with no paper proof to wave around in angry hands? How do you high five a child for an A that can be erased with the click of the back button? I can't stick my computer screen to the fridge with a magnet.

And printing it out seems like I've forged it. Plus it wastes paper.

If it's not one kid, it's another

Other Jim* is home from EFY. He had a great time, calling it "the best place ever" (and making me a little sad that home isn't his most favorite place--I guess I'm not that great of a mom. He further wounded me by disagreeing with the missionaries, who we had over for dinner last night, when they said that yes, he would miss his mother when he leaves for a mission. Just kill me now. Sniff!). And he added his proof that it's a small world in the church. One of the guys in his group at EFY was a piano student of my mother's. So now Other Jim WANTS to go to grandma's house whenever he can this summer so he can bike over to Tyler's house and hang out.

*Other Jim is what I have decided to call Jimmy instead of Jimmy. Other Jim is now Jim at school and work, but if we call him Jim at home, mass confusion will ensue, destabilizing what little control I have over my brain. So I will call him Other Jim (when I remember. Otherwise, I'll probably end up calling him Jimmy). I tried to shorten Other Jim to OJ, but he would have none of it. And frankly, it's not a really nice association, is it?

Even though Other Jim is home from EFY, we are still operating with a one-child deficit (two if you count Katie, but we can't because she doesn't have any assigned jobs and therefore, we can't count her as an operational child in the household). Paul has gone to scout camp. He hemmed and hawed over his packing last night. What duffle bag to use? How many pairs of underwear to take? Are all the clothes clean? Cot or no cot? Jim (not Other Jim) is going up to camp on Wednesday and staying until Saturday so I will be operating under parental deficit as well for part of the week.

Speaking of Jim (not Other Jim. Should I call him Original Jim? Hmm, but he really isn't, is he? Because there is another Jim out there, and he reads this blog. Oh, my head! Must avoid confusion!), I hope he had a decent Father's Day. I made sure he had a nice cheesecake to nosh on, and I did the dishes (with the help of Hayley and Matt). Jim tried to help with the dishes but I had to shoo him away. And then Other Jim called with car problems so Jim (not Other Jim) had to stop relaxing and go do something (I think Jim-not Other Jim-was secretly relieved to have a problem or situation to resolve instead of just sitting around flipping the pages of Duma Key). Anyway, Jim (not Other Jim), thanks for being a wonderful dad, for always being there, for attending every concert possible, every sports event possible, for helping the kids with homework, for giving them rides here and there, for making sure kids get up in the morning, for letting the kids mow the lawn, for helping with dinner, for being a good example of a dad to the boys so they will know how to be a dad and to the girls so they know what to look for in a husband. I got lucky with you, sweetie.

Clearing out the camera

I just loaded a bunch of pictures onto the computer.

This is what you get when children steal your camera for their own nefarious purposes:Lots and lots of pictures of Star Wars Lego machines and characters.

Then this is what you get when something funny happens (say that Paul didn't know what Jimmy was making) and you think you can squeeze a blog post out of it and then you forget.You have a picture of chocolate pudding that Paul thought was a)frosting, b)Hamburger Helper, and c)ketchup. Jimmy laughed at him for a long time for not knowing it was pudding.

This is what you get when your son Jimmy convinces you to take several pictures of water streaming from the faucet because he says it'll look cool.
You get pictures of a really dirty sink (how did THAT happen???) that you have to crop so the filthiness doesn't show, because the water droplets really do look cool.

This is what you get when you really like flowers and can't stop taking pictures of them.
Purple!

This is what you get when you go miniature golfing at the same place as last year without Jimmy but with Hayley and you can't resist taking many megabytes of pictures. You get Matt in a stump.

You get Children of the Sunflowers (not as scary as "Children of the Corn"). Can you spot Matt?

You get visual proof that you have passed on your genetic tendency towards "Fashion Fail" to your daughter. (Note to self: do not let Hayley buy tennis shoes at garage sales anymore. And don't let her roll up her sweat pants past her knees) Poor girl!


You are reminded that playing checkers is fun, especially when it's played outside on a rock table and the metal checkers go PLINK! when you drop them.

You catch Paul enjoying himself even though Hayley and Matt and his mother are his only companions.

Uplifted

I LOVED Up.

In need of a lift

I'm in a foul mood. I used to wonder why my mom used to say that she really wanted to become a hermit. Now I understand. I would love to go into full hermit mode and be totally antisocial (this does not include family. I'll always like to talk to family and do things with them).

But instead I'm going to go to a movie. I'm taking my youngest two plus a friend of theirs that I invited, Hermit mode doesn't include this particular friend either because he plays well with both Hayley and Matt and therefore enables my hermitic (eremetic?) desires by keeping them out of my hair.

The movie? Up in 3D. Yes, I am finally going to see it. I'm generally not a person who has to see a movie the MINUTE it comes out, especially if it's going to be a blockbuster hit. Crowds and I don't get along so well. Maybe that's not quite it; I guess I just don't mind waiting. If I can avoid the hoopla and excitement, I will. I like a nice quiet half-empty theater. Besides, my talking through the movie will disturb fewer people. Say I had gone to Twilight the night it opened--I would have been injured by hundreds of irate teenage girls who would have taken severe umbrage at my snide comments and laughter punctuated by loud snorting.

I need Up today. (Up, ear number one, ear number two--12 points if you can tell me what I'm quoting)

Summer begins

And we started the summer off by shipping Jimmy off to EFY* in St. Peter. One down, three to keep occupied. Jimmy will be gone a week and has every intention of having a good time, despite the potential dangers of sharing a room with a kid (a friend from church) who has spent the weekend being sick. Cross your fingers and knock on wood.

Then after dropping Jimmy off at the friend's house (they are all riding to St. Peter together) I loaded up the remaining children and we spent an educational two hours at the science museum learning about the Titanic. Some things I learned from the movie/exhibit:

• I don't think I'll ever be a Jacques Cousteau-type person. Even a movie about a submersible makes me claustrophobic.
  
• If I ever do go down in a submersible, I will try not to sit so that an old man's face takes up my entire scope of vision.
• This particular old man had a veritable forest in his nose.
  
• And they sweat a lot when going down in a submersible designed to explore ocean depths of up to 20,000 feet.
  
• People who are paid to dress up and wander amongst the exhibit, telling their "stories" to the patrons frighten me a little. I don't want to hear their spiel. Please don't follow me, "Captain"
  
• But I did find "Victoria Jessop"'s head piece fascinating.
• I wanted to try to sit in the "lifeboat."
• But I probably would have gotten stepped on. There was no lifeboat, except for a lighted floor plan projected onto the floor.
• I tried very hard not to imagine being one of the 3rd class passengers trapped on the Titanic.

As we were looking at the menu options for the various "classes" of Titanic passengers, Matt told me that he would have rather been a 3rd class passenger. I asked him why and he said "Because I like the food on the 3rd class menu better. I recognize almost all of it." So I'm a 3rd class cook. Granted, I'd probably rather eat barley soup, boiled potatoes, stew, etc, than Vegetable Marrow Farci (served in to first class passengers) anyday.

All joking aside, it is a very sobering exhibit. There is a computer-generated video detailing how they think the ship sank (time-compressed, of course). There is a big sheet of ice that you can touch and imagine as an iceberg passing close by while you are strolling on the promenade. There are many artifacts recovered from the wreck and several stories of passengers, both survivors and those who didn't make it.

*Especially For Youth--a conference for LDS teens

Plans

I can take summer only a week at a time. Next week will be a very good one since I don't babysit and somehow outside forces have not pestered me to schedule a lot of non-family events in my calendar. If I can help it, I will be saying no to any requests to do things with people other than Paul, Hayley, Matt or Jim. Jimmy will be gone for the week and Katie has been whooping it up in Vegas and will probably need a nap when she gets back home (which of course, won't be til July anyway).

So far, the kids and I will be checking out Titanic at the science museum, seeing a matinee, mini-golfing at an arty golf course, and berry-picking somewhere. (Yes, Katie we will go back to the Titanic exhibit when you visit) Maybe we'll take in the Como Zoo too (Marissa, Owen, Steph, Kayla, Anna, Dylan, and Maya--would any of you be up for a Thursday or Friday Como Zoo outing?)

I can't believe I have another senior in the house now. Jimmy is officially nearly done with public education. My self-proclaimed "wacky boy" (he said to me one day many many years ago after I called him a goofy boy, "I not a goofy boy, I a wacky boy.") is all grown up. He has grown into his ears and his eyes. He has grown out of his attention deficit ways and willful disobedience. And now he has to start thinking about his future, his adulthood. He's taking a few forays outside the nest and pretty soon, he'll be flying solo. Hopefully he'll do as well as Kate has.

Transition

The last day of school is here. We're getting out a lot later than other schools, and the kids have been chomping at the bit. But it's here, and as usual, I have mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand (the good things):

• no more making sure the kids are up. The big boys have done a wonderful job of getting themselves up early every morning so I never worried about them, but Hayley was a bit of a layabout and sometimes Matt had to be muscled out of bed.
• no more big school projects to worry about. No more last-minute requests for posterboard, money, paints, craft items, or special snacks that caught me off guard.
• no more homework to distract the children from helping with the housework/meal preparation :)
• no more paper piling up on my kitchen counters--no more health forms, permission slips, lunch menus, advertisements for after-school classes, letters regarding sports, etc
• time is now mine to do fun things with the kids (if I don't babysit that day--next week I'm totally off babysitting and I plan to take kids to a movie, to the science museum, to miniature golf, to whatever else I can pack in that one week of freedom)
• I can exercise right when I get up instead of waiting for Matt to be off to school to go on a walk. Not that he needs to have me there, but I always have to make sure he did everything he was supposed to before he left.

On the other hand (the not-so-good things):

• no more quiet.
• I will feel compelled to nag about the daily chores
• intersibling squabbling will increase dramatically
• I can't seem to get my own assignments done when there are people around
• I'll still have to babysit, which means all kids/all the time.
  

And so I sit here, watching the clock with a mixture of fear and relief, waiting for Jimmy to morph into a senior, and Paul to a sophomore, Hayley to a seventh grader, and Matt to a fifth-grader.

foot vs. meter

Did you miss me?

I'm focusing my attention on poetry right now (and I've forgotten to bring my camera to post-worthy events) so I haven't had the energy (or pictures) to post. I didn't blog about the track banquet (Paul got his letter for track and got his Sub-5 club t-shirt)and...well, that was about it, really. Last night was the end-of-the-year Carillon Children's Choir concert, which I accompanied. It went well. And it was Hayley's last time; she's 12 and now too old.

This is what I've been doing in my blog-absence. I've been practicing my accentual-syllabic verse-writing skills.

1. 2 lines of anapestic trimeter verse (BOLDed syllables are where the stresses are)

From the BED to the WINdow it FLOATS
On a BREEZE from some LAUGHing wee STOATS

2. Rhyming couplet in iambic pentameter

he CALLED my NAME from UNderNEATH the TREE
"come HOLD my HAND and SAY you LOVeth ME

3. Tercet with an aba rhyme scheme in iambic pentameter

i MOPPED the FLOOR with RAGS and WAter HOT
some GERMS to STOP. a CLEANer FLOOR now WAITS
for BOYS with CLUMsy HANDS to DROP a POT

4. Two lines of blank verse

when TIRED of WORK i SIT and KNIT and THINK
of WORK i NEED to DO when KNITting ENDS


The assignment didn't say it had to be GOOD poetry.

I'm off to write more. Next up, a sonnet and a villanelle (whatever that is. I suppose I'll learn)

Prettiness therapy

This is sort of related to cute therapy (scroll down to the last picture), which my sister recently needed.

I need a little prettiness therapy today. My house is not under attack from the rain, as my sister's was; I'm just a little on the sniffly side today (and not in the "I think I'm getting a cold" way). I could whine and moan about it, but I don't want sympathy comments. Or any "you are loved" comments.

So this is what I use to make me feel better when there is no one around to be my friend (I could be in a room full of people I know--who aren't related to me genetically and maritally--and still have no one around to be my friend).

The oak tree in my front yard. Who couldn't be heartened by the cute baby acorns?
My little spruce tree with new needles. I like to pet them while the new needles are still soft and pliable.
Pea plants hugging the little trellis! If I stood by the pea plants long enough, they'd hug me.
Baby carrots! So fragile-looking! And lacy. I hope for some caterpillars later this summer that I can catch and put in a jar so I can watch the transformation into black swallowtail butterflies (more prettiness therapy)
A newly opened white peony. I'd put a scratch 'n sniff patch of it on my blog if I could find an app like that. These smell homey, musky, friendly, happy, burbly, soft, velvety.
The showy pink peony. It knows it's pretty, but it doesn't judge. It would talk to me if it had a voice.
The begonia in my favorite color--yellow fading to orangey red set off by purplish blues, a very cheerful and self-confident color palette.
A yawning begonia. "I'm up, I'm up! (not quite) Snzzzzzz" it says.
Yes, I would include this in my prettiness therapy, although it is tempered somewhat (or a lot) by the fact that it is hanging on the eaves of MY house and the residents of this will eat my apples later this fall. Why do I like it? Geometry. I find the honeycomb shape to be efficient and pleasing (and tasty when applied to cereal). I will have to evict them (and probably commit waspicide and infantwaspicide) but I do actually like watching nature do what nature does. I like progress too. This nest was only a few cells wide at the beginning of spring.
And lastly, but not leastly, but certainly beastly, the CUTE therapy. I give you Servo, who is acting like a baby kitty and probably trying to weasel a treat from me. Just try and convince me that you don't want to rub that kitty tummy and get the warm fuzzies available from it.

Pass the kerchief

In keeping with the theme of embarrassment this week, I just want to say publicly:

Mother,
I am deeply sorry that, as a teenager, I ever despised going out in public with you while you were wearing your kerchief (all my siblings know of what I speak--the brown, faintly cordouroy-ish triangle with a brown floral pattern on the reversible side which was tied together by some sewed-up bias tape?). I am sorry I ever grumbled with embarrassment at having to walk within 50 feet of you while you wore it in Dayton's at Ridgedale while shopping for designer jeans. I have learned the error of my ways. Kerchiefs are not evil destroyers of the public image or reputation of teenaged daughters; they are workers of good at every turn. I have worn a kerchief, and in public! And despite thinking that they make my face look fat!

With much repentance of my childish and ignorant ways regarding kerchiefs (but not regarding those Bass shoes),
your daughter

Who now wears kerchiefs (or babushkas, depending on which term I favor at the moment) out walking and to the grocery store. Next up, pants shopping with Hayley!
I even made the kerchiefs myself. My mother always favored brown in just about everything, but I never really cottoned to brown. I like color! The purple one has a coordinating color on the other side. The pink one is the same on both sides. And in other news designed to embarrass my teenage self: I OCCASIONALLY WEAR A SHOWER CAP TOO.

I think I see a trend here

I've written about my attempts at biking before (here and here). But it's late spring and therefore, it's time to start writing about biking again, and we all know that writing about biking is much better than actually biking, don't we? Because...

Today I got up and thought, "It's been awhile since I rode the bicycle for the purpose of exercise or any other purpose! I should get out there right now and utilize the bike I got for free right now!" (no, I don't actually think like that. My thoughts exactly were probably more like: "(picture of me being fat), (picture of a bike), (picture of me being slightly less fat)." Never mind that biking has never actually made me less fat--or any other activity--my brain refuses to believe that it is physically impossible for me to lose weight. And so I keep trying)

So as soon as Matt went off to school (heaven forbid he should be within 50 yards of me when I get on a bike!), I stuffed my non-biker thighs into some stretchy pants suitable for my endeavor and went out to the garage. (and yes, I was wearing a shirt too)

First of all, I had to dig the bike out from under all sorts of garage debris. (yack, we seriously need to clean the garage!) Check for spiders. I can't exercise on the bike if the bike is infested. No spiders. Breathe a sigh of relief. Assure myself that breathing a sigh of relief does not constitute an acceptable amount of exercise, and repress the urge to go back in the house and check Icanhascheezburger.com again.

Drag bike out onto the driveway. Hop up on the bike and...

Promptly fall over just as the garbage truck driven by two hunky guys goes by my house.

The trend? Embarrassing myself. First the dropped yarn, and now falling over while attempting to ride a bike. They say you never forget how to ride a bike--technically that may be so, but that does NOT mean you'll look good doing it. Sigh.

Time to check Icanhascheezburger.

While I'm waiting for the swelling to go down

Eyelid swelled up good this weekend. Doctor thought it was allergies. Turned out it was a stye. I lanced it myself because I couldn't stand to have the thing swell up any bigger. Sorry, no pictures.

And so I sit here thinking about how non-eventful life has been since Saturday, barring the eyelid swelling.

Which did cause me a little embarrassment, but not in the way one might think. No, I was not embarrassed about the Quasimodo eye (yes, my left eye looked just like Quasi's left eye), I was embarrassed because of what happened when I went to Urgent Care. I brought my knitting because you never know just how long you'll have to wait. So there I was, knitting and knitting, while half listening to some silly infomercial about cooking omelettes and stuffed french toast, and the nurse called my name. I jumped up and trotted to the door. I got half way into the assessment room when I noticed I was being followed by a long line of yarn. I had dropped my yarn ball back in the waiting room and had left a spiderwebby trail through the waiting room. I even captured in my small web of red yarn a very large baby stroller. I had to backtrack and pick up the 50 feet of yarn in front of a whole waiting room full of people who apparently weren't so sick that they couldn't chuckle at a person whose face was as red as the yarn she was knitting with. Sigh. That'll teach me to try to be productive while I sit in boring waiting rooms.