I wrote a whole post about my crappy evening and deleted it, I feel better for having written it, but couldn't bring myself to share.

The kids are on snow day #3, I had Monday off, Paul took most of Tuesday off, but Paul just took the kids to work with him so that I can go to classes today. It's very frustrating to have my school suddenly mean I am no longer a SAHM, when that was not really the plan. I don't mean to whine (much) but it's hard to see my role as a parent shift so dramatically when I thought I had it all figured out so I could mostly be at home with them and still go to school.

I understand that if this is a goal of mine I will have to make sacrifices, but our parenting choices have never been an accident, and I have stayed home with my kids very purposefully. I do believe it's better for them and it's not like I am gone because we NEED money, (I am gone and it's costing us money.) Paul kept telling me not to worry, that they would be fine, but to be honest it hurts my feelings that they are fine, what the heck is the point of me being here over a nanny or anyone else if they are all fine without me?

I'm supposed to be important to the kids sense of security and development, and today I feel like a canceled/unreliable day care plan. (I know I am being silly, go with it.)

 Since I posted about Emmie, I guess it's only fair I say something about Isaac.


People have for ages told me I look like my mother and for ages I haven't really seen it, but when I got my school ID card I was blown away by how much I look like my mother in her 30s. I showed the picture to Paul, and he said that he couldn't see it, but maybe that was because he didn't know my mother in her 30s. So I showed it to Isaac and said,

M: "Isaac, don't I look just like Nana in this picture?"
I: sucking his teeth "um, not really"
M: "what do you mean not really, I look just like her."
I: "well, do you promise not to tell Nana?"
M: Yes, tell her what?"
I: "you are not old and wrinkly like Nana!"

Now anyone who has met my mother knows she is far from old and wrinkly, (she's only 50 and looks 45 at most except for how gray her hair is, and she has been gray since she was 35)  so I started to laugh. 

M: "why can't I tell Nana?"
I: "Because she will loose faith in me, I always tell her how young and beautiful she is, and I don't want her to loose all hope!"

Apparently he is convinced that my mother's hopes for beauty are all pinned on the flattery of a 9 year-old boy.  (So I obviously begged him to let me tell Nana, and when I did we all had a good laugh about it.)

 Emmie said a couple of things today that I thought were pretty funny, so I thought I would post them here so I could remember them later.

Emmie has been really worried about me going back to school, she is worried about what will happen if she gets sick at school etc. and I am not here to go get her. I never really thought about the fact that the kids have never had me anywhere but home, so it didn't occur to me that they derived any comfort from the fact I have always been available. I keep assuring her that I will keep my phone on me and come home if I am needed, and that I wont take any summer classes, but she still asks when I am starting all the time, and I kept telling her the date I might start if accepted for this semester (not a done deal since I was technically past the deadline.) 

So today when I got my letter of acceptance from the school I told her about it so she stayed in the loop of what was going on. When Paul got home I mentioned to him that I had called my mother to let her know what was going on (I wasn't too specific because we didn't tell the kids too much about what was going on with the possible job change.)

Emmie turned to me and said, "You told your mom about being accepted at school so she would send you school supplies?"
I laughed and said, "no, Nana won't send me any school supplies."
Emmie: "Why not, my mommy gets me my school supplies?"
Me: "I know, what a rip off huh?"
Emmie (getting indignant) : "Ya, a total rip off, alls you gets from Nana is a good luck!"
Me (trying not to laugh): "What the heck? Where are my school supplies?"
Emmie (getting more and more irate) : "Ya, and sometimes Nana tries to bite me!"

ummmmmmm........... okay. (to be fair my mother is a notorious baby nibbler, she loves to kiss and bite little cheeks)

Then we went to the gym (where Paul tried to kill me) and dropped the kids off at the play place. Paul and I went to workout (where he really did try to kill me) and for a run on the ellipticals. When we were done we decided to go and get the kids so we could go home and get cleaned up so we could go out for a celebratory diner. I picked the kids up, we all headed out to the car, and about half way home Emmie burst out in a pannic,

"Oh NO! I left that girl at the gym personal jinxed, what if I never see her again?"

we had to convince her that saying her name in the car counted, and indeed *Hope* will speak again.  

 We had a lovely and quiet New Years, we were supposed to go out, but Emmie had been hot and sleepy all day, so we decided to stay in so she had access to her own bed in case she was ill. I think she's actually growing again, since she does tend to get cuddly and sleepy (and she's a really hot sleeper,) whenever she's about to get 3 inches taller in the night. She has been coughing too, but it's not a sick cough, more of an asthma cough since it doesn't sound productive and it's mostly at night.

We stayed home and watched Ghostbusters 1 and 2, it was silly and the kids really like it. I think the older technology makes Emmie less scared, as she is nervous usually during movies like that, but she actually just thought the ghosts were funny. We ate masses of buttered popcorn, pizza, caramel popcorn, cookies, chips, and pop. We decided that if we were going to stay in we might as well pork out on things that were bad for us! Emmie kept almost falling asleep in her chair, but managed to persevere through till midnight where we celebrated with Martinelli's and party poppers.

Yesterday Paul and I vegged on the couch and managed to not turn the house alarm off all day. The kids played G.I. Joe up in Isaac's room most of the day because Isaac was finally given the entire set we have been giving him a piece at a time (Paul bought the entire 25th anniversary set for him over the last couple of years) and he was given the tank and red cobra car thing. I think Emmie was Cobra because they have the baroness, but they sure sounded like there was definitely a war going on upstairs.

We have been very happy with Emmie's kitchen, and she seems like she loves it a lot. Isaac and her have been playing in it everyday since she got it (they have yet to play house in it which to a degree alleviates my feelings of being a bad feminist for buying her a pink kitchen.) They always play fancy restaurant and make crazy concoctions. I love the little pot set from Ikea, it looks just like real pots and pans. And the cutlery is so cute too, I just love little things that look perfectly like the bigger version.  I will have to take a picture of her little cafe, it's in her window nook and it is just too cute it looks just like a little soda shop. Her bay window has the curtains on the outside and the inside is painted in a barcode style with all sorts of sherbet-ish colors and her rug is in the same colors with a square tile pattern. She has a little bistro table with 2 chairs in there too, so it really looks like a little kitchen.

Today I am taking Paul out to get his Christmas massage, I got him a gift certificate for a place in the Regency mall that has Asian massage (which is Paul's favorite.) His poor neck gets so stiff since he broke it 5 years ago, he really need a merciless masseuse that is willing to hurt him or else it does him no good.

We decided to talk as a family about the things we were most proud of ourselves and other family members for doing this year, and here was everyone's list.

( I wanted to save our list so I can remember it later. )

a tattoo link for halowenslut .

I have decided to share the love of my Gramma's Cheese puff recipe since I made them last night for diner and reminded myself how much I loved them. She is from South Africa, but these taste like yummier versions of Red Lobster biscuits.

Preheat your oven to 450F

1 cup of shredded cheese
1 cup of flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

mix all dry ingredients and then add 3/4 cup of milk. mix with spatula until combined.

Drop by heaping spoons full into a greased muffin tin (about 6 average sized muffins) and bake for 10 minutes at 450F

Seriously, from the time you think "I would like a cheese puff" until one is actually in your mouth, can be less then 15 minutes with this recipe and they are totally awesome. We eat them with tomato soup, spaghetti, breakfast, etc.

Anyone who has 15 minutes today really needs to make them and then comment to tell me how much they loved them!

This morning I couldn't find any matching mittens to give to Emmie, (she likes the knitted ones that are sort of thin) I did find 2 blue mittens, the only trouble being one was striped, the other was plain. I took The mittens to Emmie expecting her to get upset that I was going to make her look like a dork for having mismatched gloves, (7 is a very weird age where you get very worried about looks, all of a sudden she has opinions about everything she wears and not all of it is in good taste.) But instead of an argument I had this little moment with her.......

She was eating her cereal and I came up behind her and slipped her sweatshirt on and she gave me one hand for a glove, then the other and only when she went back to eating did she notice they didn't match.

E. "Why don't my gloves match?"
M. "Because I couldn't find matching gloves."
E. (in a super excited voice)"I'm going to have German gloves?"
M. "Exactly"
E. "Awesome!!!"

that was it..... I had girded myself up for a fight, expecting that I would need to explain about the cold, how she could take them off before anyone at school saw her, etc. I was even prepared to pull out "You have to wear them because I said so!" if necessary. Typically whenever we have dressed Isaac in Landsknecht we have tended to do mismatching hose just to add to his outlandish look and somewhere along the way Emmie has decided that the next natural progression is to modern gloves. I'll take it.

I found this today accidentally and now I want to stab people. This sort of thing made me want to go out and get a job just so I could never be accidentally associated with these people.

Here is a random article that blames syphilis for codpieces coming into vogue, sometimes I just don't know what to say.

Here is another article that makes me want to play spot the bad research and inaccuracies, we should see how many we can count, I'm sure there's a drinking game in there somewhere (at least there would be if I drank.)

These are from the 16th century in Hungry, here is my google translator link and if that doesn't work, here is the original in Hungarian.

We had a wonderful time at Jamestown, the food was fantastic and seeing lots of friends was great too. I primarily just walked around with the kids again, although I was able to give attack_laurel a bit of a break in the governors house a few times. (I really don't know how she does it for as long as she does, it is very tiring to talk to people so much on a continuous loop of information.) She had set out a very beautiful table of food that was constantly a source of ohs and awes.

Paul roasted a rabbit on the spit that was amazing, he had a tremendous amount of patience, but that is sort of how he is, if you give him a task he will keep going until someone says stop. The ribs, rabbit, Turkish pot of meat, and cheese pie were my favorite things we ate, all beautifully prepared over the fire and in the oven.

The kids had a wonderful time. They loved sitting by the fire (on the second day I had to tell Isaac that he was no longer allowed to help anyone with the fire because he is a little budding pyromaniac,) meeting and playing with people, and they loved the food. Emmie sat with me in the Governors house a few times, and she kept interjecting some of the information that she had heard either attack_laurel , or me give to other groups. They were so exhausted that they both fell asleep at 7:00 last night and slept for over 12 hours.

We only got a few pictures, but I think that our clothes turned out nicely.
( cut for pictures )

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I have a lot to be thankful for this year. Paul is home safe and sound, The kids are healthy and happy, and we are finally done with the remodel. There has been a lot that happened to us this year, and for good or bad it has all caused us to be who we are. We are thankful that we have had the chance to stretch ourselves and come out with a good outlook and a smile.

We are off to Jamestown for turkey day and Friday, I hope everyone's travels or the lack there of are a success.

Oh! and I am also thankful for all of you. I feel I wasn't the most cheery this year and everyone put up with a very stressed out me.

I have been sewing a lot lately, well I guess I always sew a lot, but it's been fun sewing recently. I picked up my (attack_laurel pattern,) coif again for the first time since I went to Italy last Nov. (I literally traced it as Paul was calling me to leave for the airport.) I worked on it a little on the flight, and a couple of times during the conference during lulls, but haven't touched it since because we came home and found out straight away about the deployment and PCS, thus starting "The Lost Year" we just had. Anyway, there is only a bit done on it, but I did work on it Monday night for a bit while halowenslut was over and sewing, and then last night I took it to FP. I think the big difference is that I put it in a big, hand quilter's hoop, so now I can work on it while seeing the whole design and it's a little more out and about. (Paul is going to make me some slate frames, it just hasn't happened yet*) Anyway, while the coif is embroidery not sewing, I still count it as falling in the fun sewing category since I am not really an embroiderer. I have also been working on an outfit for Paul to wear to Jamestown for foods and feasts (we will be celebrating Thanksgiving at Jamestown this year.) I have put myself in the position of the outfit taking longer then I thought because I decided to embellish it more then I really should have, and now I keep procrastinating finishing it (I should not be embroidering, so obviously that is all I want to do.) I am going to be making Emmie a new outfit because she needs a wool one, but the scale on that is so small it doesn't take more then a couple of days at most. So anyway I need to get my act together because I am down to a week at this point to finish his pants, then draft and make a doublet, hand sew a butt load of button holes, and then do Emmie's dress. I really need a better arrangement for what I wear, but it's not going to happen in the time I have left.

I am enjoying the house soooooo much. It is so nice to be in a clean, finished, efficient, house. I love actually feeling like doing things, and being able to get out and see people etc. The last year just sucked for me in a way I feel incapable of expressing; we definitely grew a lot this last year but the growing pains were awful. We keep calling it "The Lost Year," because we feel like we just didn't get one. Between the deployment, the move, the remodel, our loss of Courtney, etc. we have been left wanting a do-over since last Nov. This year we are determined to put up Christmas decorations, and live without the cloud of stress that hung over us all through last year.


*see The Lost Year

I have come to the conclusion that I am not too sure about the way information is spread on facebook. I thinks that it has gotten to the point where we know too much too soon about some situations because there is almost this anonymous feeling of shouting something in a private room without realizing that everyone you know can hear you from there. I have heard about friends breaking up, or dating someone new through a little blip in their change in relationship status, I found out my cousin was engaged through facebook, and I have heard of hospitalizations through it. I know it has gotten to the stage where is is easier then making lots of phone calls to let people know what is happening, but it feels very impersonal too at a point. My cousins in England keep having drunk partying pictures uploaded and tagged with their names so I can see them, if it were not for facebook I guess I would never see that side of them? It's not that I don't want to share in the joy of my friends and family, but sometimes I am just not ready to know everything out of real context.

My alarm didn't go off, so I woke up at 7:30 instead of 6:45, I jumped out of bed and rushed to Emmie's room only to find she wasn't there, then to Isaac's room, and it looked like he wasn't there, so I wondered if Paul took them and turned off my alarm to let me sleep after my headache - I decided to double check Isaac because his comforter was a bit of a pile. He was indeed in the little pile, so I wake him up quickly and start calling for Emmie. "I'm on the stairs studying my spelling words!" comes the response. Emmie was fully dressed (including her coat and backpack) sitting on the stairs double checking her words for her test today.

Anyway, I managed to get them to school fed and with packed lunches by 8:10, but seriously the fact that my 7 y/o has her act together better then me this morning...........not my finest hour.

 I am too busy to do any real posts right now, we have the house warming in less then three weeks and Paul's Parents come into town in about 2 weeks, so I am a chicken with my head cut off right now. We are going out of town this week for 3 days, (we should technically not be taking the time off,) but Paul and I only get a 10th anniversary once and then the following day is Isaac's 9th birthday. Isaac was rather put out recently that his birthday is the day after our anniversary. I think it's the first time he's had to explain to the kids at school that no, mom wasn't pregnant at her wedding it was a year later. 

Anyway, I was just emailed a copy of the pictures that were taken of us at the AFA diner, so I thought I would post them here instead of a real post. I love my hubby in uniform!

 I don't think I can even express my pleasure over them being back! I love having them home, but this summer has been a tough one with the remodel and all. They both looked cute and happy as they headed out the door into the rain, with only one umbrella between them. (They can't walk straight when sharing the umbrella, who ever isn't holding the umbrella usually crab-walks the other into flowerbeds, the middle of the street, etc.) 


as a side note, I did not send a note with them refusing to allow them to listen to the President's speech. I only mention it because I thought it was really lame when the school called telling me I had that option. I don't  care what political affiliation anyone is (I tend to not get publicly political ever because I like to think certain things are personal) BUT, refusing to even listen to what someone else  has to say EVEN if they may have a differing opinion is just plain rude. The only reason I would not allow my children to listen to something is if they were going to swear, have sexual content, advocate for drug use, or show violence. Since I doubt that either a Republican or Democratic President would do that I am open to listening to what the POTUS has to say. I plan to listen to the speech myself, I also plan to have a discussion with my children afterwords about what I felt had value and merrit, and also about what (although I seriously doubt there will be anything) I personally didn't agree with, and allow them to form their own opinions. For goodness sakes people, it's the President, not the Democrat's president, not the Republican President, OUR president for the next 4 years at least. 


Edit: here is a link to the speech, it's actually a very lovely, well written and inspirational speech that I am proud my children will be hearing, I hope they take it to heart. 

 I love getting packages in the mail! Even if I ordered and paid for them they are like getting a present. One of the packages I got today had three pairs of shoes in it, the kids and I are now the proud owners lachet shoes from a really great cobbler in England!

We spent quite a bit of money on them (well compared to what I would usually spend on children's shoes,) but they are so cute. now if I can just get clothes for Jamestown done for more then just Isaac we can possibly have a place to wear them.