chendea

"If" Revisited

2009-02-09T08:36:00.001-08:00

I found this in the dusty archives of my computer, and I haven't even re-read it yet, so don't blame me if it's... imperfect. Blame my 20-year-old self. :) I wrote it for a women's studies conference as a revision of Kipling's "If"

“If” Revisited

If you can bend, disallowing the world to break you,
And feel unnamable hurt but let it not contain you,
If you can own your body though gazes hit you
But seek pleasure within their wanting too,
If you can love but into it not wholly dissolve,
Or being lonely, feel your ancestors surround,
Or being slighted, balance forgiveness with resolve,
And yet not on the island of virtue run aground:

If you can rage -- and not make hate your language,
If you can grow -- and not desert your past,
If you can set aside any long-held grudge,
And make one sweet moment the whole day last,
If you can bear the fiercest loves all alone
Not waiting for Death to your truth impart,
Or watch the babies you gave your life to, grown,
And follow them on with a worn-out heart:

If you can make no enemies of near-friends
Though their disparate ways be wholly strange
And love the whole of life no matter the ends,
And never the free truth for lies exchange;
If you can suffer ignorance and edify it,
And allow every sprout of life to grow,
Weeding the poisonous with reverent quiet,
But not razing the whole garden fallow.

If you can lead the race o’er ground you’ve won
And uncover in your tender sisters buried worth
Though too many men call each child "son;"
If gentle spirits find your heart near the earth,
If you can accept all gifts but none prefer,
And remember in distress to seek salt water,
You are the Earth and everyone within her,
And -- always -- you’ll be a Woman, my daughter!

2009-01-30T06:09:00.000-08:00

Andrew's sleeping and I'm up getting some desk stuff out of the way. Wow, it's past 8 and he's still asleep, I hope he's not getting a cold.

So, of course I got distracted and started browsing diapers. It reminds me of the days before Andrew was born and I spent hours learning everything I could about cloth diapers, because it was a totally new world to me. Now, of course, I've diapered him for nearly 3 years and it's a little old.

But just look at these diapers! There's loveybums of course, I love those. I have a few of their wool covers, but their fitteds look soo cute. And then a friend loaned me a few little kissaluvs fitteds in the newborn size that are so soft and they have a snap in the front to snap down for the umbilical cord. And, of course, there's firefly. Oh, firefly. I've wanted to try their fitteds since I fell in love with their sister company's fuzbomb wool diaper cover.

Of course, all my love for fitteds and covers was kind of squelched (perhaps for the best?) when my husband found he much preferred all-in-one diapers. And wool covers are kind of a pain, anyway, so we only used them at night when we needed the extra protection. But I would still like to get my hands on a firefly fitted to see what it's like.

Anyway, I managed to protect my paypal account by convincing myself to at least HAVE this child in diapers first to see what we like to put on her before I buy anything. But OH those colors!

2009-01-28T11:41:00.000-08:00

I'm so glad that The Daily Show is still funny without Bush.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/54985/the-daily-show-with-jon-stewart-tue-jan-27-2009

This baby moves so much!

Calvin

2009-01-27T05:54:00.000-08:00

Me: Andrew, do you want to see pictures of your cousin Calvin?!
Andrew: Yes! What color are his eyes?
Me: I don't know, let's go find out!

(Andrew thinks they're dark blue, but it's hard to tell from the pics)

2009-01-20T14:23:00.001-08:00

What a glorious day!!

To-Do List Update... Week 3!

2009-01-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

So, this week, I:

hung up the ikea baskets we've had for months
hung up our curtains (actually Andrei did the blue ones in the baby room
put up hooks on Andrew's walls for this curtains
made deodisks for the diaper pails
tagged stuff for the consignment sale next month
made a grocery list of freezer meals to cook one/freeze one
made list of people to call/email when in labor and when baby comes
read the Vaccine Book and critiques, decided to talk to doc about delaying Hep B but do the full series on time
put labor music on iPod
put stash of water and food in my room
got groceries (oops, no more money!)
assembled some casseroles to freeze
processed the remaining beeswax (still needs to be melted and filtered a second time, but then I can make the candles!)
gave capsules and capsule machine to Suzanne
decided where to put birth tub (it comes tomorrow!)

Didn't:
sew anything, except for a fun little feely toy for the baby that Suzanne inspired me to make
learn the stitch for Andrew's wool blanket, or get the thread or anything...
make candles
order seeds (come on..)
finish freezing all the dinners I have planned yet

So the only things left are fun things! I get to wait around for the baby while sewing, making candles, ordering seeds, cooking, and generally relaxing and playing with Andrew. I can stop saying, "just a minute," and "later," when Andrew says those magical words, "Mommy, will you play with me?"

wow!

2009-01-16T05:41:00.000-08:00

I feel great today! This is really strange. All of a sudden last night I found I could touch my toes, and pick up my legs! And stretch and bend and even hop a little! Something must have changed about her position because I just don't feel like waddling and I even rolled out of bed this morning with no complaints. Although I did wake up at midnight, and 2-something, and 4-something...

To-Do List Update

2009-01-12T08:25:00.000-08:00

So! The to-do list was HUGELY helpful! I felt like a complete nerd a week ago when I put it into an excel document, sorted it by priority, and then assigned a day to do each item, no matter how small. But that only took about 15 minutes, and then I felt as if a weight had been lifted! And then I worked so hard all week. Phew. This is how I broke it down:

Monday:
wash and test the breast pump (yup all pieces there)
cancel B'buster subscription (we just aren't watching them enough, and we can rent them from iTunes for cheaper, if we're only watching 2 a month anyway)
pester water co. about overcharge (nothing done about it, maybe somebody was stealing our water? I don't think a leaky toilet could account for 40,000 gallons of water in one month.)
get missing pieces of snaps from snap store (done!)
tuck away the rest of the postpartum clothes (took the whole week to get around to it)
library books (finally, I don't want to think about the charges)
call about seeds to buy for this area (still haven't done this!)

Tuesday:
mix up herbal tea
make grocery list for the freezer menu and the week's dinners
make a list of my weekly chores for Andrei for the two weeks he's home on paternity leave
list schedule for starting seeds
type out some recipes
label files (Andrei wanted me to label his files neatly and I still hadn't done it, but I wonder when he'll notice that it's done now?)

Wednesday:
sew the rest of the diapers (this didn't get done until the wee hours of the night, but they look great!)
sew curtains for the playroom (still procrastinating...)

Thursday:
buy: shower curtain for the other bed, safety pins, lanolin, etc. (didn't do this until Friday. On Thursday I caught up with the rest of the to-do list, I think some diaper sewing... can't remember)

Friday, errand day:
get Recharge for labor hydration. yuck. will drink apple juice.
find Target gift card (yup, and I used it all up, too!)
put relaxing music on iPod (still on the list)
install car seat (did it Saturday, I was kind of a day behind because I spent Tuesday morning at the beach with Andrew)
oil change and car wash (and car wash, and car wash, for Andrew)

Saturday:
shop for freezer menu (phew)
hang baskets in my room (not done)
hang curtains in my room (not done)
put hooks on Andrew's walls for his curtains (not done)
rearrange the bedroom (this actually got done, it is fabulous!)

And then some other stuff got done along the way:
I made a ton of laundry detergent. I mean, a ton. I calculated that it will wash at least 400 loads of laundry. So, you know, it'll get me through the 4th of July.
I made January's cookie of the month.
I bought a mini spatula I love, I bought the fusible bonding and some material to make baby shoes (in the remnants bin! and they match!)
And I put together a basket of bath stuff for the baby next to the sink so it'll all be ready.

So now the updated list for next week:
Monday (today, eek!):
Hang baskets in my room
Hang curtains in my room
Put hooks on Andrew’s walls for curtains
make deodisks for the diaper pail
tag items for sale

Tuesday:
include freezer casseroles in grocery list
make a list of people to call after the birth
read the Vaccine Book and review vaccines
put relaxing labor music on iPod and put players in each room

Wednesday:
sew baby shoes
sew curtains for playroom (easy but boring and I'm procrastinating)
sew nursing pillow

Thursday:
put a stash of water and food in each room
get groceries

Friday:
Make Feb and March cookie dough and freeze
assemble casseroles to freeze

Saturday:
process beeswax

Sunday:
learn stitch for red blanket
make candles

Can I do it? Tune in next week, same bat channel...

Lasagnas

2009-01-07T12:26:00.001-08:00

I can now officially assemble 3 lasagnas in 1 hour and 20 minutes. I wonder if it will take that long to do the dishes? I spy an airplane wash in Andrew's immediate future.

Jen

hiccups

2009-01-05T21:30:00.001-08:00

Liliana has the hiccups. :)

2009-01-03T14:10:00.001-08:00

Things I checked off my to-do list this week:

-hang a rack over diaper changing table to dry diaper covers
-contact water company about overcharge last month
-update baby registries at cottonbabies.com, amazon.com, and wists.com/babyc
-sew diapers (got 2 started)
-sew baby shoes (started)
-check diaper inventory
-check baby clothes and sort by size
-put together birth kit
-get out and clean lasagna and casserole pans
-plan 40 freezer meals (decided to buy the Saving Dinner freezer menu in addition to my recipes)
-decided on a "reward meal" for Andrei to cook an hour after the baby is born, as per midwife's instructions (spanakopita and lentil stew)
-look up which seeds to start
-mix dirt for the empty garden bed and fill
-finish and order the book of photos from 2008 in i Photo (bonus: finished '07 too!... to the tune of $40 each)
-order capsule filling machine for herbs after birth
-dip and freeze "kotex" pads for 24 hours after birth, in herbal sitz bath mixture
-get out non-maternity and nursing clothes from storage, put in drawers and closet to use after birth (still not quite finished, but I do NOT want to do this one week after the baby comes like last time)
-get car seat out of storage
-get shower curtain for covering bed
-make a ton of dishwasher detergent so I won't have to make some for a few months
-buy diaper sundries: extra covers, diaper sprayer
-plus all of my other chores, except I skipped the weekly home blessing because we weren't in our house the week before to dirty it up!

Still yet to do:
-tuck away the rest of the postpartum clothes
-write birth plan (oops, too late, oh well)
-put relaxing labor music on iPod and put players in each room
-start seeds
-sew curtains for playroom (easy but boring and I'm procrastinating)
-install car seat (soon.. do not want to do this in the three days between the birth and the doctor visit)
-pester water company until they get back to me about overcharge
-get together capsules and capsule machine and give to Suzanne (with her xmas present..)
-post boys' clothes and other stuff to sell on diaperswappers.com, but if I wait much longer it'll have to just wait until the consignment sale in March
-shop for freezer menu and assemble meals and freeze
-assemble 3 lasagnas and some casseroles and freeze
-sew nursing pillow
-make a list of people to call after the birth
-test the breast pump
-read the Vaccine Book
-put a stash of water and food in each room
-get 3 qts of Recharge for labor hydration
-get shower curtain for other bed
-make deodisks for the diaper pail
-make a ton of laundry detergent so I won't have to make any for a few months
-buy sundries still not gotten: lanolin for wool covers, lilypadz breast pads (?), diaper liners, etc.
-sew the rest of the diapers (approx. 8)
-get the missing pieces of my snaps from the snap store
-decide where to put the birth tub
-sew baby shoes

There's more, I'm sure, I'll post as I think of it. Thank goodness there's another 3 weeks! I need it to be done soon so I can relax and labor in peace, though. I was having early labor (don't dare call it false!) 2 weeks before Andrew was born.

Jen

Christmas Budget

2008-12-30T06:06:00.000-08:00

I have gotten sucked into a little debate about Christmas spending over at the Crunchy Chicken blog. It's one of my few regular blogs, and I don't usually post, but I just couldn't get over the idea that $600 was supposed to be a ridiculous amount. I felt I was very frugal, and at times even felt a little stingy (come on, $10 for a teacher? she takes care of your kid's brain all year, for goodness sake!), and we spent more than our budgeted $800. I posted a long comment about it over at the comments for her blog post, but it was so long (and I made a mathematical error) that I decided to post it here. I changed my error to reflect real math, not, um, child-yelling-in-my-ear math.

I'm really annoyed with the idea that spending $600 must be a decadent, consumerist Christmas. Are you kidding me? We were quite frugal and still didn't keep it under our usual $800. I think people who spend much less must be skimping on gifts (come on, people, it's about GIVING!) We save money each month all year for Christmas, nothing goes on credit. We have an explicit budget and we don't go over it:

parents: 30 (homemade stuff does cost money for materials..)
in-laws - 30
niece and nephew - 25 each
3 sisters and brothers - 40 each
neighbor kid - 20
hubby - 100
me - 100
mailman - 10
5 teachers - 50
our son - 200
stockings for everyone present at xmas morning (6 people) 190

Total: 875

That doesn't include the money we used from our own "allowances" that is basically mad money, and I spent about 75 from that, and that included taking some out-of-town visitors out to lunch, an expense I considered a holiday expense, and chocolates for stockings. I assume my hubby spent about as much.

We bought from thrift stores, made items like cloth napkins, bought gifts from eco-friendly companies (lots of people got stuff from Lush.com this year), and got things that we would otherwise have bought anyway, like collapsible shopping bags, clothes, cooking items, and sewing supplies. There were no impulse buys or cheap plastic crap. And all of the budgets included shipping to respective places, including overseas.

And 200 may seem like a lot for our son, but a $60 toy treehouse made of all wood, a $40 remote control car, and some legos ate up most of it.. does that seem extravagant? It doesn't seem like much to me.

Not only that, but I spent an additional 35 on reusable bags and boxes on sale after Christmas so we could avoid the whole wrapping paper issue.

So altogether at least 980 was spent from our household including all holiday-related expenses. This DOESN"T even include the extra money on groceries and sundries to have out-of-town visitors.

It seems totally reasonable to me. :)

And now I'm going to add that I did all this while still trying to really think about what people might want, not just blindly throwing money at them. This year, I really wanted people to open their gifts and smile, and feel a little pampered. It was overwhelming to try to do that for 20 people, (even though some of them were hubby's tasks, not mine) while 8 months pregnant, planning for having company, and especially when hit by a nasty cold that lingered for weeks. But it mattered to me.

And this year, as I opened presents that I got, I got teary-eyed. I remember being a kid and being overwhelmed by the "stuff" of Christmas, the consumerist side of it, and just not really getting it. But this year, I got some gifts from family and friends that were really loving and thoughtful. Among other things, a crystal on a beaded string that my friend made, earrings from my husband that replace the earrings he bought me years ago when he was out to sea that have since been lost, a pressure cooker and a popcorn popper (oh yay!) framed pictures of my son, a book I really, really wanted (actually 3 or 4 of those from different folks), a gift certificate for sessions with my acupuncturist that will really help me out because they are not cheap, a Himalayan salt lamp (how did they KNOW I wanted one?). Something as small as a seam ripper for my sewing kit because I broke mine and would never buy another one because I can just make do (painfully) with what I have, or a book on first aid because I took a class this year were really touching to me.

So whereas I do have my favorite charities, I don't think that precludes giving thoughtful, meaningful gifts to those you love. I really think the people on that blog who posted that they spent $30 or $50 or whatever must just not have people in their lives they care about. I mean, I know that's probably a narrow view of it, and of course you can show love without giving THINGS, but I still think the act of filling a little hole in someone's "thing" life can be really sweet.

Jen

Menu Monday

2008-12-22T10:46:00.000-08:00

Menu Monday.. apparently this is some kind of blog thing. Mondays, millions (or 10, I can't tell) of bloggers sit down to type out what they've planned to eat this week. Well, Mondays I spend hours doing my Weekly Home Blessing Hour (actually, it only takes an hour, because I use my timer like a good flybaby, it's just the interruptions that take time... letting the dog in and out and in and out, putting the laundry out to dry, reading a story to an insistent kid, dancing to said kid's favorite song, making him a snack, making him lunch, resting for a moment while I have a snack, etc.).

Tuesdays I make my menu. And mail cards, and balance the checkbook. It's desk day. But the menu hardly looks like: Monday Chili, Tuesday Pasta, etc. It looks more like a list of meals that are scribbled somewhere (currently MIA) that I know I have the food to cook, and will get cooked sometime in the next week, or perhaps two. Today I was planning on making crockpot chili, but I should know better than to plan a crockpot recipe on WHB day, because it's now 1 PM and I have not yet finished the Weekly Home Blessing. Oh, yeah, I stopped after the mopping to let it dry and have some lunch. Like I said.

Andrew the storyteller.

2008-12-17T06:26:00.001-08:00

Last night Andrew totally suprised me. We were both up late, of course, because he slept all afternoon. We went to sleep finally around 11, I think, although there's no clock in our room. But before that, I worked on a diaper in the sewing room while he played. He wanted to wrap a present for Dakota, and he found a jewelry box in the wrapping supplies that had been wrapped green, so he got out a big orange bow and stuck it on top, then he wanted me to help him cut ribbon. So he came over to the sewing machine, I held the ribbon, and he used my grown-up scissors to cut it.. he even used them the right way, with the fingers in the oblong side and the thumb in the round! Daddy had been working on that with him while they opened the Pampered Chef packages that came yesterday. Then he got out the tape, and his dexterity with it was shocking. Where did this kid come from?

Then after he got tired of that, and I made a tiny sewing mistake I need to correct (the first diaper is almost done, though!), we went into our bedroom for stories. I told him I wanted to read the Night Before Christmas, but he said, "I can tell you a story!" So he sat down and began, "Once upon a time..." and rattled off a story about an old woman looking for Rudolph. "She wan't looking for him to kill him, or to hurt him, just to return him to Santa Claus." It was so cute! And he said, "the end," when he got to the end! I asked him if they'd been studying storytelling in school and he said yes, but who knows where this came from.

Also he's been reiterating parts of his favorite movie, the Polar Express, in surprisingly coherent ways. For example, he was telling me as I was at the sewing machine about how they keep all the presents at the North Pole, and Santa is the expert on presents. He went on about it more, but I can't remember now, I just remember that he had really grasped whatever concepts they were and turned them around a different way, which impressed me. What a smart kid, I'm so proud. :)

Beeswax

2008-12-13T14:25:00.000-08:00

A few pictures from this morning:

A big bucket of beeswax, detritus, and honey from Grammy and Grampa's neighbor.

A messy workstation, with some cooling beeswax in some makeshift molds.

And the final product! About 2-3 pounds of honey and 1.5 pounds of beeswax.

2008-12-13T13:15:00.001-08:00

Today I melted and filtered a big bucket of beeswax from my folks' neighbors. Pictures to come. Wow, what a learning experience. For now, though:

2008-12-11T22:00:00.000-08:00

Sick sick sick... I went to bed before dinner, which I halfheartedly attempted to cook, but Andrew's been sick all week and I just got it. I'm hopeful I can fight it off, but of course I need to rest. I got about 3 hours and then Andrew came into bed with me for cuddles and woke me up. Then he fell asleep and started coughing like nobody's business, nonstop. So I sat him up in my lap, which helped his cough but not my sleeping, so I laid him back down and turned on the humidifier, which eventually helped. But then I was awake and hungry. So I got up to eat a PB&J and some milk. Now I'm awake.

While Andrew was getting some cuddles, before he fell asleep, he had his arm draped over my belly, and the baby moved. He said, "I feeled her move!" He was so excited. Then she did it again, and he said, "She kicked me!" It was my favorite moment. Then he said, "I think she likes me." Aww.

This week I reinstituted our daily breakfasts, but of course got thrown off by the cold we got. Monday muffins, Tuesday toast and eggs, Wednesday waffles, Thursday toast and eggs, Friday wild card, Saturday cereal, Sunday whatever. I love my eggs, but Monday muffins are my favorite.

2008-11-26T18:11:00.001-08:00

Today was a really frustrating day for me.. things that normally don't bother me just got under my skin... I must be stressed out.

But I wanted to share one really cool thing that happened today: I was feeling really stressed out and I sat on the floor and told Andrew I felt really bad (for yelling at him) and I was just in a bad mood. He cocked his head and said, "It's okaay. Accidents happen and that's okay." :) Then he hopped over to his snack cabinet and shared his pretzels with me.

2008-10-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

"Mommy, lone rangers don't smile."

2008-10-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Some lego creations of Andrew's, and you can pretty much tell how this photo session went.

2008-10-30T08:25:00.000-07:00

Andrew's favorite non-toy, the nesting baskets from Gaiam.com.

Nibble Day

2008-10-01T16:49:00.001-07:00

Andrew had a nibble day today, one of those days when he eats very little and saves up his appetite for the days that I spend barely keeping up with him, scrambling 3 eggs and then 3 more, emptying the box of crackers, slicing strawberries, smearing PB on bread, etc. I went to the thrift store and spent a solid hour weeding through their children's books, spent $12 and got a nice stack. Some of them were really neat books. Then I came home and can't find a place to put them! I'm leaving out only a few books at a time for Andrew to peruse, and rotating them often, and I have some other shelves in the back of the house for the currently out of favor books, either too young or too old or just not interesting him now.

The baby is moving a lot, but Andrew hasn't felt it yet. Andrei has, and Mom, but Andrew just doesn't have the patience. Andrei wanted another picnic dinner tonight, so I threw together some cukes, tomatoes, leftover potato salad, hummus, bread, chik'n nuggets, etc., and all were happy.

New blog

2008-09-30T19:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I can't remember how to get into my old blog, which is probably good because it's embarassing how long it's been since I updated it. :)

I have been just a glutton for toys and books lately. I found a puzzle for Andrew that he LOVES! And thus I discovered the joy of hitting the sweet spot of Toy Readiness. It's the Melissa and Doug Puzzles in a Box series.

And we have settled into our public library, after paying some fines. (eek!) Favorite books are the Ali Mitgusch Start to Finish Series (I LOVE these! I cannot get enough of them, I'm holding myself back from buying them all.. we have Rubber Tree to Tire and Cacao Bean to Chocolate), the artists series by Laurence Anholt (I LOVE these, too! I have been looking for these exact books for YEARS! They have them all at the library.) Andrew also loves the various others we've found, some more than others, but those and the Berenstain Bears are really great right now. This list looks good, too.

In the meantime, I've fallen in love with the (kids'?) books, the His Dark Materials series. It's really fun to read, and everyone loves a good book-to-movie series these days. All the better if it's panned by the Harry-Potter-hating type folk. And also from the library, I'm rededicating myself to learning to bake whole wheat bread, even after the catastrophic loss yesterday of my sourdough starter. Oh, the humanity... I guess I didn't feed it often enough. Andrei thought it was creepy anyway.

Yesterday Andrew was so excited that I showed up at school with a snack that he suggested I do that every day! When I asked what I should bring, sitting under the little tree outside his classroom, he said, "I know! You can go by J's Bakery and get me a cookie!" I feel like all I say is, 'sugar is bad for your teeth, it's a sometimes food..." He gets it straight from Daddy and Grampa.

Speaking of teeth, he had his first dentists' visit last week, and they didn't even look at his teeth. We did a lot of looking at mine, and he held "Mr. Thirsty," the little vacuum that sucks the spit out of your mouth, and wore blue gloves, and got a new toothbrush. And fed the fish! Pretty fun. :)