Thankful

We had a really great Thanksgiving this year. Usually we get to celebrate twice, with both of our families, but this year Nathan's parents are out of town, so it was just my family. Dave and Julie hosted at their house, and it was so wonderful. There were 13 adults and 11 children, and food enough for at least twice that! And the food....it was so good. We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, creamed corn, broccoli salad, jello salad, cranberry sauce, rolls, olives, several kinds of pie, a couple kinds of ice cream, pumpkin chip cookies, and a spice cake. Decadence! After dinner several of us and all the kids took a walk around the neighborhood, then came back and stuffed ourselves with desserts, then pulled out the games. We played Apples to Apples, Sequence, and Trivial Pursuit. Our little family left a little before eight, full, happy, and ready for bed (Judah and Micah, anyway).

This Thanksgiving has seemed especially poignant to me for some reason. Maybe it's because for the first time in my adult life the future seems uncertain. I feel like we're all at the edge of something that's going to change our lives, and not in a good way. There's so much craziness going on in the world right now, and I want to cling to normalcy in a way I never have before because it seems like we won't have it for much longer. I could be wrong. I hope and pray that I am. But this year I'm more thankful than ever for the things that are constant in my life, that I can depend on.

Nathan (always, always)
Our two sons who amaze and amuse me every single day
My parents, whose love I have never ever doubted
My brothers and their beautiful, strong wives who are role models for me
Nathan's family and their many personalities and strengths
Christi, the most faithful, merciful, generous friend I've ever had
All of my other incredible friends
The blessings of shelter, enough to eat, clothes to wear
Our many freedoms

Something I swore I'd never do

When I was growing up, my mom tried to teach me to cross stitch. I didn't like it, and it seemed like something that only people who were hopelessly old-fashioned did. Plus, most of the designs didn't appeal to me: I'm not a cuddly-kittens-in-a-basket, cartoon-pig-whistling-a-song kind of person. And "country" is a style I've never liked, and, to me, cross stitching great works of art just seems ridiculous (we once bought a refrigerator from a lady who had cross stitched a huge copy of the Last Supper - I kid you not. But that's another story).

Last summer I somehow came across a cross stitch of an orange crate label that my mom had started making for my uncle more than 20 years ago and never finished. I needed something new to do, so I thought I'd give it a try. I found that I really liked the process, though I still wasn't big on the finished product. But it was really calming, and actually required more discipline than I'd anticipated: I'm infamous for being a "starter" and not a "finisher." I can't tell you how many unfinished projects I have lying around! But since it was for someone else, I was motivated. I finished the orange crate label, and then found another cross stitch that I liked (a historical sampler, nothing cheesy or "precious" about it) and began that.

And then Jeff approached me with a new project. He'd found a program that converts a photo to a cross stitch pattern and wanted me to cross stitch a picture from his wedding to give to Heather for their first anniversary. I was excited because it looked really challenging. It was. Here's the pattern, based on a close-up of the picture above:


And here's a closer look:



Just the pattern itself was amazing! I took it on, almost lost my eyesight completing it :) and wound up having a lot of fun. It's all in shades of black and white: 13,300 stitches' worth. I loved doing it, even though I spent a lot of time sighing over how many times the needle had to be re-threaded, often times for just one or two stitches. And here's the end result:

The joys and pains of renting

Bad news: We discover a leak and lots of mold under our kitchen sink a couple weeks ago.
Good news: We're renting, so we call our landlord and he has a guy call us and arrange to come fix it.
Bad news: He's not a plumber, he's a handyman.
Good news: We don't have to pay for it, so whatever.
Bad news: He diagnoses the problem and says he needs to get materials and pre-payment for the materials, so he'll be back in a week to fix it.
Good news: We still don't have to pay....
Bad news: The next Saturday he calls at 9:40 and says he's running "a little late." He doesn't get here til noon.
Good news: He fixes the sink!! And cleans out the mold and replaces the rotten wood.
Bad news: Soon after he leaves, we discover that the faucet's not installed correctly and the pipes are STILL leaking.
Good news: We still don't have to pay to have him come back.....
Bad news: I run the dishwasher today. Apparently, the handyman didn't hook up the new garbage disposal and the dishwasher line correctly, and all our counters, the window, the kitchen rug, the kitchen floor, and the carpet outside the kitchen get SOAKED when the lines back up and spew water all over the place. Two baskets get drenched, the toaster is wet, we have to throw away two bags of bread, a bag of tortillas, and our phone. Hopefully my heirloom sewing bag is not ruined, but it will no doubt be stained forever.
Good news: (**crickets chirp**)
Bad news: THE SAME GUY is coming back to fix the sink again. Groan.

Inflammatory topic: consider yourself warned

For those of you still reading, you know that my blog is usually light, funny (I hope), somewhat self-deprecating. I don't write here to bring myself down, or others. But this issue has been on my mind for so long now, and today it totally smacked me between the eyes. So here I go.....this is your last warning to get out. It's probably gonna get pretty offensive if you don't share my views.

Reasons Slavery was an Abomination
1. It declared that one group (blacks) was less human than another (whites)
2. It stated that an entire group of people was the property of another group
3. It allowed slave owners to murder another person with no repercussions
4. It implied that a group of people was solely here for the convenience of another group, and
could be sold or killed when they became an inconvenience
5. It denied a group of people their basic rights as humans: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
6. It left a whole group of people without a voice

These are just a (very) few of the reasons slavery was such a hideous practice, such a shameful part of our past as a nation. I think that you all would agree with this, along with most of the people in this country. Here's the part you won't get people to agree with.

Reasons Abortion is an Abomination
1. It declares that one group (unborn babies) is less human than another (grown women)
2. It states that an entire group of people is the property of another group
3. It allows pregnant women to murder another person with no repercussions
4. It implies that a group of people is solely here for the convenience of another group, and
can be killed when they become an inconvenience
5. It denies a group of people their basic rights as human: life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
6. It leaves a whole group of people without a voice

Is this comparison full of holes? I don't think so. Every part of it is true. The pro-choice contingent argues that a fetus is not alive. How do they define alive? A fetus has a heartbeat at 22 days, measurable brain waves at six weeks after conception. Most women, especially women not expecting to get pregnant, will only be beginning to suspect that they're pregnant at the 22 day mark. So: if it has a heartbeat, let alone brainwaves, it's alive, right?

So why are we denying rights to a whole group of people? Mostly, it's for the convenience of the mother. The pro-choicers can cry about rape and incest and threat to the mother's life all they want, but statistics will tell you that those situations account for less than 2% of abortions, even when you include aborting a child because of physical abnormality. And even that percentage is high, because the number of abortions with rape given as the reason don't match up to the number of rapes reported in the US each year, and the probability of pregnancy from those rapes. It's complicated, you can see the research here. So, what people are basically saying is that they want to have sex, which can always result in pregnancy no matter what kind of birth control you're using, and not have to suffer the consequences. And society has done nothing but foster this kind of irresponsibility.

I am so, so tired of hearing the pro-choice women scream, "No one has any right to tell me what to do with my genitals/womb/uterus!" I agree. But we DO have the right to tell someone what they can and can't do with someone else's life. This issue does NOT hinge on the rights of the mother at all. It hinges on the rights on an entirely separate person. If women are screaming so loudly that they're responsible for their own reproductive organs, then they should BE responsible. DON'T have sex if you're not ready to bear a child. It's not that hard of a syllogism: IF you have sex, THEN you may get pregnant. If you don't have sex, guess what? The chances of becoming pregnant are nil. If you're so opposed to getting pregnant that you'd be willing to kill another person to avoid it, take the easy way out and don't put yourself in a situation where you'll get pregnant. But that action involves self-control, something that most people in this country are sadly lacking.

Let's take it to extremes. What if I get pregnant and I'm not ready to have a child, but I want YOUR child to pay for my mistake? Would you let me kill your child? Would anyone? Would anyone even let me kill an orphan with no parents to care whether it lives or dies? No. That's where the principle comes in. You can't kill a child that's outside the womb, even one that ostensibly no one cares about. If you do, the government steps in and you're in for life. Why can you kill one that's in the womb? Here's another: Lyle and Erik Menendez (remember them?) murdered their parents because it had become inconvenient for them to have their parents living. Was that okay? Under abortion reasons, that's acceptable. So why can someone murder an unborn baby when it's inconvenient, but not an inconvenient parent/child/lover/sibling?

Talk about brainwashed. The pro-choicers call us brainwashed, religious fanatics, uncaring holier-than-thous. This is not a religious issue, in the least. It's an issue of denying human rights to what is undeniably a human. There is nothing uncaring about standing up for a group of innocent people who cannot stand up for themselves. And brainwashed? I don't think there's a better example of brainwashing than half of a country being convinced, successfully, that a baby whose heartbeat you can see and hear, whose movements you can feel, is not alive.

I heard a story today, told by a nurse who worked in a large hospital. She said that in the hospital there were many abortions performed, some of them late term, and sometimes the baby survived the abortion. If this happened, the baby was taken to the soiled utilities room, where, amidst the blood- and urine- and feces-soaked linens, the biohazard waste, and a urinal in the corner, he or she was placed on a shelf and left to breathe its last, alone in a vile place, when, with a little care (or a decent mother), he or she could have lived. Can anyone, in good conscience, tell you that that is not one of the worst atrocities they've ever heard of?

I'll leave you with one more chilling statistic: about 90% of unborn babies that are diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted, with the government's blessing. So what they're saying is that one group can be deemed inferior, less human, less deserving of life than another group. I think I've heard that idea before, from another dynamic, persuasive leader: his name was Hitler.

Camp Malabucha 2008

Don't ask where the name came from, no one really knows. It's just a funny word that stuck.

Last weekend was our annual camping trip to Pismo Beach with Nathan's family. This was my eighth trip with the fam, the first one being in 1998. I missed 1999 and 2000 because Nathan and I were broken up, then joined back in for the 2001 trip and we've gone every year since except for last year, when Micah was born. Camp was awesome this year, and we had our biggest group ever. From left to right, above, we are: John, Rachel, Jenna, Naomi, Elly, Jeff, Micah, me, Heather, Judah, Nathan, Eszter, Sophia, Ashlee, Ken, Brian, and Josiah.

We finally had to resort to two campsites this year, but it worked out really well. We had so much space! And with that many kids, that was a very good thing.......
Judah and Eszter had a ton of fun together, running all over the place and telling each other what to do.
Judah spent a lot of time kicking dirt around, much to the annoyance of the family. We had to designate a dirt kicking area just for him, far away from where the rest of us hung out.
We walked over the dunes a couple of times to the beach, where we collected tons of sand dollars and clam shells. The water was freezing! But felt great, since the first two days we were there were sunny and hot.
Nathan displaying his mussels and muscles.
This may have been the only time Micah touched the ground the whole trip! He wanted to crawl, but there were just too many things he would have eaten, the worst of which would have been the hundreds of eucalyptus berries lying around.
Clam chowder in a bread bowl from Splash Cafe: the reason we go to Pismo.
Judah, acting like a little punk at Splash.
The first night in camp Ashlee and I had to make a run to Target because Nathan and I forgot to bring our pillows. While there, we explored the clearance section and found a couple of wooden puzzles for Judah and Eszter. They were a big hit and kept them entertained for quite a while.
On Friday, I experienced one of those heart-stopping moments that no mother ever wants to go through. I was on a walk with Nathan, Jeff, Judah, Eszter, and Micah, and we had stopped to sit on some logs for a minute. Judah and Eszter ran off to play with Jeff. A minute later we heard Jeff yell something and I looked over toward them and saw my child standing paralyzed in the middle of a swarm of wasps. Let me tell you, that feeling is nothing I ever want to feel again. I froze, Nathan, fortunately, didn't. None of us can quite remember the exact sequence of events, but we were all running and the wasps just kept following. Nathan wound up with Jude, Jeff had Eszter, and I had Micah. Somehow, I wound up running with Judah for a little ways, but Nathan had him most of the time and we eventually got back to camp where the kids went into the motorhome and Jeff and Nathan and I stayed outside killing wasps. Jeff got stung seven or eight times, Judah got four, I got two, and Eszter got one. Fortunately, the stings turned out not to be serious, but it was pretty traumatic. Judah and Eszter were both pretty well shaken up, and after Judah finally stopped crying he fell fast asleep on Nathan's lap, something he never ever does. It all ended well, but it was pretty scary.
I had to throw in a picture of our campfire, one of my very favorite things about camping. I loved the evenings, after the boys were in bed (they both slept great in our tent) and we all sat around laughing and telling stories.
Breakfast at the kids' table.....
.....and at the adults' table. I love camp food! There's a place in Pismo called Old West Cinnamon Rolls, and their rolls are to die for. We got them for breakfast two of the mornings we were there. I would be in serious trouble if I lived anywhere near there.
This stump formed one of the boundaries of our site, and the kids loved it. It played various roles over the weekend: car, rocket ship, fishing dock. Oh, and also it was Judah's pouting spot, as in this picture. But he looked so cute sitting there that I didn't mind the pouting so much.
Saturday and Sunday were overcast, and I loved the foggy beach. It looked endless.
Our tent city: our tent is on the far left, then Bri and Ash's, then Ken and Elly's motor home, then John and Jenna's tent, and then Jeff and Heather's.
On our way out of Pismo we went with Brian and Ashlee to the spot where we take our traditional picture every year. We hope to have a whole collection of many years someday. After this picture we jumped in the car for the long drive home.....Nathan and I have agreed that this was one of our favorite years at Pismo.

Time for a change

Because it's fall, and this is what I do in the fall.

Re-discovering an old friend

On the day Nathan and I got married we left the reception and headed straight for Santa Monica. Once there, we walked over to Third Street to have dinner and relax after a beautiful but somewhat stressful day. We decided on Trastavere, and as we were walking down the street to the restaurant we spotted a kiosk selling some interesting and really original jewelry. We stopped to look, and Nathan told me to pick something out for myself. I chose a moonstone bracelet that night, and every year since then we've visited the Antiqua kiosk, where Nathan buys me a piece of jewelry for our anniversary. It's a tradition that I love and look forward to every year. This year, alas, we couldn't find the kiosk. And the mall at the end of the Promenade is pretty much gutted at the moment, so Antiqua's permanent mall location wasn't available either. So a couple of weeks later we took a trip to their main store on Pico in LA. After looking at some necklaces that were surprisingly expensive (compared to the reasonable prices at the kiosk) I settled on an old looking locket on a long chain.

I decided to put a picture of Nathan in one side of the locket and a picture of Judah and Micah in the other side, but found I didn't have any pictures I'd be happy using. So to take the pictures I wanted I resurrected my old camera, the one my dad loaned (gave?) me years ago. It's a 1976 Minolta, and I haven't used it really since I got a digital camera. It's completely manual, which means that action shots are kind of out of the question, but the advantage is that when you press the button, the shutter opens immediately, not a second later, like on a digital.

I got the pictures developed yesterday and remembered instantly why I love that camera so much. The digital I have is a really good camera, though it's not professional quality, and it takes good pictures, but my old camera...... There's just something about it. I don't know if the pictures will look that special on a computer screen, but the prints are amazing. Here are some of the shots from our "photo shoot" a couple days ago.





And here's one I took of Judah at Little Corona del Mar two years ago with the same camera. It's our favorite picture of Judah ever.

Another season, another playlist

More than any other season, fall inspires me to create playlists of songs that seem to fit the new feel in the air. And since we're almost to fall, here's my most recent.....

Never Meant - American Football (from an album that inspired Dave to say to me, "Do you actually like this stuff?" Yes, I do. Very much.)
Porrohman - Big Country
I'm Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How to Dance With You - Black Kids (SO much fun!)
Two More Years - Bloc Party
Sunday - Bloc Party
Jesus Christ - Brand New (get past the title and check this song out, it's really interesting)
Slave to Love - Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music (I can't help it, I'm a sucker for this song)
Blue Eyes - Cary Brothers
Viva la Vida - Coldplay (after hearing a bit of this album, I'm beginning to think they MIGHT actually be the next U2)
The Last Day of Summer - The Cure (find this on iTunes and buy it immediately, you won't regret it)
Pictures of You - The Cure (many times the best part of a Cure song is the instrumental part, but in this case the lyrics are perfect as well)
#41 - Dave Matthews (from the Live at Luther College album, incredible acoustic guitar)
Lover Lay Down - Dave Matthews
Come Away to Sea - David Wilcox
Brothers on a Hotel Bed - Death Cab for Cutie
The Winds that Blow - Duncan Sheik
Some Distant Memory - Electronic (a little Smiths, a little New Order, a lot perfect)
Let Go - Frou Frou (the best part of the nearly flawless Garden State soundtrack)
Thinking About You - Ivy
Keep Moving - Ivy
Lullaby - James
Cloudbusting - Kate Bush (keep an open mind if you listen to this....)
Ride With Me - The Lemonheads
Bengali in Platforms - Morrissey
Turn - New Order
A Question of Travel - The Ocean Blue
Poor Souls - Owen (I don't think anyone expresses longing quite as well as Owen)
This Must Be the Place I Waited Years to Leave - Pet Shop Boys (left over from my college days)
High and Dry - Radiohead
Little Wonders - Rob Thomas (this song chokes me up almost every time)

Micah's Beach Bash

We threw Micah his first birthday party on Sunday night. Since summer's almost over, I wanted to make it like the last beach party of the season, but I didn't actually want to throw a party at the beach, so instead I turned our backyard into a beach. It turned out to be a really fun day. Our family all came, so there were about thirty of us, which was the perfect sized crowd. I couldn't find a good way to create an ocean in our backyard, but other than that we did pretty good! Micah enjoyed the pool filled with beach balls especially....

Christi came over a couple nights before the party and helped me frost sugar cookies to look like beach balls. It was a little challenging, and some of them kind of look like the Romanian flag (and the one at the top looks A LOT like a "VOTE" button), but we did our best, and a couple hours and a powdered sugar fight later we had our beach balls! They tasted delicious, thanks to the almond flavored icing.
Ever tried to bake a half-sphere cake? I have now.... I solicited advice from a bunch of sources (thanks go out to Shayleen in particular), and in the end my friend Aimee gave me the easiest and roundest solution: you bake it in a pyrex bowl. She made a monkey head cake for her son that way last year. My mom did the frosting. Good team effort!
Micah got his own little cake to destroy, and when the time came he wanted nothing to do with it! Looks like I finally found something Micah WON'T eat. I knew he'd reject something eventually, but I never guessed it would be PURE SUGAR. Wow, that's a win, I guess....
Judah was completely overjoyed at the prospect of all these beach balls to play with.
Naomi and all the girls spent a while at the craft table filling baby food jars with colored salt, an old craft I revived from my Girl Scout days. They looked cool, plus it was a way to re-use all those baby food jars we go through on a daily basis. Yeah, we're so green around here. :)
Part of the fam hanging out on the patio.....
And Christi and Dean, who aren't technically related, but might as well be. People used to ask Christi and me if we were sisters so often that we began to wonder if we were. The sad part about that was that they'd ask us if we were sisters AFTER we told them our names.
Brian and Eszter, and.....
Sophia and Josiah munching on some dogs.
Heather and Jeff, or, as the kids call them, Uncle Teffy and Auntie Ha'er.
I bought a bunch of sand to create a beach/bonfire area. Did you know that 150 pounds of sand doesn't really go that far? Next time I'll get 300 pounds. It went just far enough, though, and the kids had a blast digging and scooping. After Nathan lit the fire we made s'mores and the smell was heavenly.
Micah rejecting the cake. Not only did he not like it, I think he was actually a little scared by the way the other kids gathered around to "encourage" him and to sneak bites of their own!
Present time! Micah totally scored! He got lots of new cool clothes that he needed for the fall and for our upcoming camping trip, plus a swing, some toy cars, a Little People garage, and a Little Einsteins "rocket." Judah was more excited than Micah, but in the days since Micah has become interested, too, and we've been having to remind Judah that not ALL the toys in the house are his, these ones are Micah's. He either doesn't get it or he's in denial.
Micah loved the musical card from Grandma Marie! He was dancing every time we opened it.
The morning after the party, hanging out on his new rocket car. Thanks, everyone, for making Micah's first birthday so fun and special!

One short year

Micah is one year old today. I can hardly believe it! This year has gone by so quickly! Micah is such a joy to us, such a happy little guy almost all the time. I'm not a morning person, so I'm usually grumpy when I walk into his room each morning to get him out of bed, but I am always smiling within seconds, because I love the way he jumps up in his crib when he sees me, screeches, and starts laughing and babbling with a huge smile on his face. We love this boy so much! And we are so thankful for him.

At one year, Micah.....
weighs 20 pounds
is 28 inches tall
has 8 teeth (I think....I'm not brave enough to stick my finger in there to check)
says a couple words (Mama and uh-oh)
loves his big brother and watches him whenever he can
is sitting in a forward facing carseat and isn't sure if he likes it yet
loves the metal stars that hang from his ceiling and points to them all the time
loves bathtime
tries to eat anything he can pick up
can stand by himself for a few seconds at a time
crawls like the wind
has permanently dirty knees from crawling
loves his toy tambourine
does not like peas AT ALL
can "bonk" his head to someone else's when requested
raises both arms above his head when asked "How big is Micah?"
claps for himself
drinks milk from a bottle (FINALLY!)
has never worn shoes
has hardly ever even worn socks
loves to follow the cat around
has white-blond hair that curls above his ears
has blue eyes that make strangers stop and look
wakes up happy almost every time

What a wonderful little guy he is. Happy Birthday, Micah!