Baby, It's Cold.... Inside

We returned from a weekend at my father's to a cold house. This isn't too unusual, because the house is almost always cold. Except for those few days of the year when it is unbearably hot. Only a few, in spite of the heat and humidity that are possible around here, which is probably how we continue to survive without central air.

So the house was cold, but that was in comparison to the car, which was so warm with 5 people and 4 dogs in it that we had to turn on the actual air conditioning about 2 hours into the trip lest Universe Man get carsick. Something we would really much rather avoid.

After a while, I'm still feeling cold and realizing that even though it's during the day, it's the weekend, so really, the house should be warmer. I check the thermostat in the kitchen, which appears not to be functioning. This isn't too worrisome since this thermostat is known to be.... a little quirky, and you can fix that with an override, or if that fails, some begging. (To be fair, given that the thermostat has been replaced twice, it is probably just fine and dandy and it is something in the wiring somewhere that is temperamental, but we live with it.)

I wander into the family room and look at that thermostat. Um.... room temperature is several degrees below set temperature. That's not good. I confer with the LSH. The good news is that the basement is not flooded. The bad news is that the thing which heats the house (AKA a "boiler") is not doing it's job. At all. As in, it's not even on. Uh oh.

LSH flicks the emergency oil shut-off. No dice. He pushes the reset button on the boiler itself. Boiler turns back on. Water in the system starts to heat up. Checks a few minutes later. Boiler has shut itself off. Tentative diagnosis: control system (or some part of it) fried.

What I'm wondering is, karmically speaking, what did we do to deserve this? We already had an appointment to have the boiler replaced. On Tuesday. When the heating guys came for their annual "checking to make sure that nothing will blow up, catch up fire, asphyxiate you, or flood the basement," they decreed that, for a variety of reasons, we needed a new boiler. But it wasn't an emergency -- sometime this winter, better sooner than later, but it was a matter of months and not weeks.

Turns out they were wrong. The temperature in the house is 63 F and dropping. It's going to be a very cold couple of days.

The good news is that the hot water still works, and so do the oven and the stove. I'm thinking of running a load of laundry just because the dryer generates some waste heat. And it's a school day tomorrow, so it'll just be me freezing my nose off. Unless I decide to decamp for warmer climes. Possibly the library. Probably somewhere with coffee.

Nonsensical

I haven't been spinning much lately. Except that I feel like I have. It seems like I spin a little bit all the time. What I haven't been doing, even though I only have one project active on one wheel, is finishing anything.

It seems like a lot of my spinning time has been taken up with fiber processing. Two fleeces washed, into the third, and then I have to pick and card two of them. The third is much cleaner, with long, lovely locks, and I'm planning to spin that one from the lock.

So after taking nearly a month to spin 8 oz of wool as a sport-DKish (still not dry and haven't checked the floof factor yet) 2-ply, I decided I needed a nice, small spinning project for instant gratification.

I decided on 2.6 ounces of lovely, wonderful batts (from Corgi Hill Farm) in "Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang," and started spinning. A very, very fine laceweight singles. Because that should be a nice, small, instant gratification sort of project.

Pencils. With Erasers.

I think I need a T-shirt that says "I survived parent-teacher conferences."

'Parkle Girl's conference this morning was wonderful. No surprises there. She had the same teacher in the afternoons last year, and Mr. Personality had this teacher when he was in the pre-school. She undestands my kids.

Then, this afternoon, I spent TWO AND A HALF HOURS seeing 8 teachers. The boys actually have 10 teachers between them, but I talked to one teacher when I was at school on Monday, and I skipped another teacher because, well, there was nothing to be gained by seeing that teacher.

The most interesting thing I learned is that none of Mr. Personality's teachers knew how old he is (which is younger than all of his classmates). Sometimes that difference makes itself felt in his emotional maturity (or lack thereof, at such moments), and it's helpful for the teachers to be aware of it. Or so they told me. One of his teachers is concerned about how hard he is on himself -- he is a total perfectionist, which is something we knew about him and something his teacher worked on last year. All I can say is, "Good luck." In this personality trait, Mr. Personality is very much like my father, who is still very much a perfectionist. And everyone here at the SuperM household is awfully hard on themselves, so I don't see much hope of that changing either.

The big complaint? He doesn't bring enough pencils, the kind with points and erasers, to the class he has right after lunch. Also, he's very wiggly in that class, which seems a strange time to be antsy to me.

I was very nervous about Universe Man's conferences. Until the beginning of this school year, he hadn't had a single test in his entire school career that wasn't one of the end of the year standardized ones. He went to a school with no grades. At all. If he didn't finish his homework, he finished it at school, or fixed his mistakes. That's all different now. Just getting through the school day has required a level of organization that we thought might actually be beyond him.

Turns out it's only sort of beyond him. His locker is apparently a complete disaster. (I will be stopping in to organize his locker for him once a week until further notice. I can't wait.) He is chronically late to class. Nearly every class. The teachers feel this and the locker issue are related. And he often lacks.....wait for it....a pencil. Evidently this is a family trait.

In spite of all that, every single one of his teachers told me that academically he is doing fantastically. Even though he's missed a few assignments entirely (that whole lack of organization thing), his grades are excellent. They're all pleased with him and his work and his transition to a more typical school environment.

Now we just have to work on organization and the social things that come hard to him. Which may very well consume nearly all of our attention while he's blithely going about his school life.

The take-home message LSH got? Universe Man's language arts teacher is really excited about the way he writes. The teacher wondered if Universe Man might be the next S.E. Hinton. That's what LSH took out of the conferences.

Of course, he didn't have to stand around waiting in lines for two and a half hours.

Brief Shining Moment

For a single, wonderful moment on Sunday afternoon, there were no dirty clothes in the house.

Well, except for the things waiting to be handwashed or drycleaned, and those don't count. At least, not to me. I'm not sure when the last time this happened was. Usually, by the time I get through all of the wash in the sorting basket thing, there's more piled up in the hampers in the bedrooms.

But not on Sunday. Admittedly, there was a load in the dryer, and another load still in the washer, but when I looked into the sorting station, it was empty. Completely, totally, and utterly empty.

It was a beautiful thing. A wonderful moment. (Evidently worthy of noting publicly).

Then I found a dirty sock.

And now there's more laundry to be washed.

But for the moments it lasted, it was wonderful.



(Oh, and I finished Ladybuggy, but I have to get some halfway decent pictures. 'Parkle Girl loves it, even though she can't really fly when she wears it.)

Ladybuggy

'Parkle Girl needs a new 'tettie. (Except she doesn't say that anymore. She says "sweater" now. Another one of those bittersweet moments). I was all ready to make her a little swing cardigan and had even bought some pink yarn, when Ladybug appeared on the scene.

I showed it to 'Parkle Girl and she was just as entranced as I was. A couple of very lovely email exchanges with the designer and I was all set to find the perfect yarn for a fantastic sweater for the 'parkliest girl.

The sweater has been taking me a while, mostly because the black yarn I needed was backordered. Well, and also because I just don't have that much knitting time and I decided to make the size 6 so she'd be able to wear it for a few years.

'Parkle Girl has been watching her sweater take shape, and last Thursday there was enough of it to try on.


That's a dark picture of a little girl wearing pajamas and a sweater with part of a sleeve. I've finished the first sleeve and started the second, and she's starting asking the same question every morning.

"Is my Ladybuggy sweater done yet?
"Where are the wings?"
And then she says, "When it is done, I will fly and fly and fly like a bird."

I'm not sure if she's pretending (she is an excellent pretender) or if she really thinks a Ladybug sweater will make her fly.

Musical Chairs

Whatever it is that's making the rounds (is it the flu? is it a cold? it is something else? everyone here seems to want to call it "a flu-like illness) has landed here. Quite firmly.

On Saturday morning, Mr. Personality woke up with a fever. His fevers are not for the faint of heart, and while they're normal for him, I've been known to use the number for the shock factor when I'm feeling that the pediatrician isn't taking me seriously enough. The poor guy missed his best friend's birthday part on Sunday. There was a moon bounce. He was devastated.

He stayed home from school on Monday, but it was very clear that he was on the mend. The first clue: he tried to negotiate with me about working on his social studies report. I turned the TV off until it was done. The TV never went back on.

Monday night, 'ParkleGirl woke up at about 3:30 and announced that she needed to sleep in my bed, and oh, by the way she needed a drink too. I felt her forehead, and didn't bother to get the thermometer. I knew she'd be home with me on Tuesday.

I've had the pleasure of her company yesterday and today, and will again tomorrow. She's been mostly cooperative about letting me work and not so sick that I couldn't run the really vital errands (groceries anyone?), but it's hard to get too much writing done when I've got her help.

I'm ready for the sick season to end, and it's only October. I think it's going to be a long year.

On the plus side this week, I have..... qivuit.

Rhinebeck, No

For the last several years (3 or 4 now I think), I've been trying to make it to Rhinebeck. Every year something comes up that absolutely prevents me from going. One year it was an LSH business trip and bad weather on the way back that delayed him overnight, another year it was me recovering from surgery. It's always something. I don't have this trouble with Maryland Sheep and Wool -- that I've made it to for 6 or 7 years running now.

Things were really up in the air until about 2 weeks before the festival. Then everything finally came together, and it seemed like it would really happen. I didn't take on a writing assignment that would have had me working over the weekend so as to be able to go, and I was all set.

Then it started to unravel. LSH needed to go deal with a family emergency. Not the drop everything and run because the world is ending kind of emergency, but the kind you need to go take care of without delay. I put him on a plane and figured that Rhinebeck was history. He didn't like that answer, and was, I think, more committed to me going to Rhinebeck than I was.

He thought he'd come home Thursday. Nope. He made a flight reservation for Friday, giving himself enough time to take care of the last few things and still make it home in time. Sometime Friday morning, it came undone. The flight came and went without him on it, and there went my plans for Rhinebeck. I was very, very disappointed.

I have to say though, that I got a lot of things done over the weekend. I dragged out my sewing machine for the first time since.... well, I'm not sure when, but the well pump went out in July and I didn't realize that I had no water for my iron until I went to use it to sew (no, I don't iron much), so it's clearly been a while. I made 'Parkle Girl the very 'parkly skirt that I had promised her for the beginning of school. I finished up a couple of muslin sandwhich bags for Universe Man. I even cut the pieces for a winter dress for 'Parkle Girl. I managed to get LSH to replace a light fixture -- only one to go, and it's only been waiting since August. The kids had fun. It was, all things considered, a pretty good weekend.

Just not at Rhinebeck. I think the universe doesn't want me to go to Rhinebeck. I wonder why.

Shoe Dropped

The shoe dropped this week. I'm not sure if it's the first shoe or the other one. I hope it's the other one.

When we decided to move Universe Man back to the same school as his siblings this year, we didn't expect it to be smooth sailing. I think the phrase was "bumpy transition." He attended Wonderful School for kindergarten, and to call it a disaster might not be much of an overstatement. He didn't go back, though Mr. Personality had done really well in the preschool, so we left him there.

Eventually, after some exciting (in the not good way) times the beginning of the next year, we found Fabulous School, a very, very alternative and very, very fantastic school that was just what Universe Man needed. It was a fantastic home for him for four years, but we knew that he would eventually need to become comfortable in a more traditional school setting, and after some long conversations with the administration at Wonderful School and some school visits, he decided he was ready to give it a whirl. After five years and two kids with us, the school had a better understanding of SuperM Kids than they did that first year, and we all felt that we could make it work.

School doesn't start until after Labor Day here, and with the way the holidays fell this year, in a certain sense the school year is just now getting underway. I've run into a couple of Universe Man's teachers at school and checked in with them informally, and things seemed to be going quite well, although I knew that he was really unhappy in Other Class. The teacher is new to the school, so I figured that I'd give her some time to get her feet under her before I said anything.

All that's sort of the backstory.

Turns out I didn't get to say anything. Or maybe that's need to say anything.

Apparently Monday was a really bad day in Other Class and Universe Man used his fingernail to scratch a disrespectful sentence about his teacher into his desk. Wonderful School thought he'd used a pair of scissors to do it, and of course, it turns out that he had no idea a fingernail could do any damage at all. Fingernails of steel.

When he was asked Tuesday morning if he'd done it, he answered honestly. Universe Man is very honest, so much so that when I get different stories from the boys I almost always believe Universe Man no matter how outrageous his story is. It's usually the truth.

So I got a call. I'd been waiting for the call, and am still pretty shocked that we made it over a month without one.

I heard what had happened, and we talked about what to do. We decided that community service in the school would be appropriate, because we didn't want the consequences to be punitivie. And I told the principal that Universe Man had been telling me about his difficulties in Other Class and that I had been hoping that the situation would improve.

Evidently they knew that there were some difficulties too, but no one knew quite how bad it was. I can't imagine how frustrated I would be trying to pay attention and learn in a class taught almost entirely in a language I didn't speak. The school was aware that Universe Man's language skills were way behind grade level for Wonderful School, and he seems to be doing fine in the language class itself, but he hasn't been able to understand enough of what was going on in Other Class to even tell me what they were studying.

Within hours, the school had reached a decision. Universe Man isn't attending Other Class anymore. Instead, during Other Class he's doing community service and independent study with his favorite teacher for some as-yet-undetermined period of time that could be the rest of the year I suppose.

Did I mention that this is a Wonderful School?

Breathe

AKA what happened to the summer?

I'm really not sure where the summer went. (The fact that it is now October has not escaped me, so it seems I've missed the beginning of fall too.)

I know where summer didn't go. It didn't go to the dyeing experiments I had planned, except for one teeny tiny one with 'Parkle Girl. It didn't go to sewing any of the projects I had planned, with or without that 'Parkley helper. It didn't go to weekend trips to our favorite outdoor and hiking spots. It didn't go to working on the landscape, or to organizing the house, or to cleaning out the basement so there would be room for a freezer.

Instead, it seems like the summer went to a school year that extended almost into July. Really. It went to getting Universe Man ready for overnight camp (and the less said about that, the better). It went to ferrying all 3 of the kids all over the place. It went to camp and piano lessons and speech therapy, and most of all, it seems, to work.

When I started this gig, the idea was that I would have more time to parent more effectively. And to keep the house more organized, but that was the fringe benefit. I have no opinion right now about parenting more effectively (though I suspect that at least two of my children might have very firm opinions about that), but I certainly don't seem to have more time to parent. As far as I can tell, I seem to have less. I seem to be spending more evenings and nights working, which means less time with the kids. I'm not entirely sure how that happened, but it's something that I've got to change.

Starting next week. I've got too much work this week.

Kitten Catcher

The kids invented a new game last night. The boys probably invented it, but their sister tried gamely to keep up.

The game is called kitten catcher and apparently the people (or person) being chased is the kitten. The kittens start in The Hole (Universe Man dug last spring) and have to race to the swingset, climb up the ladder, come down the slide, then race over to the clubhouse, climb that ladder and come back down and get back to the hole. All before the catcher catches them.

LSH gave the kids a head start.

Etheric Knitting

Last year when Rowan 43 came out, I fell in love with Ether. The yarn didn't appeal to me, so I found a likely substitute and got really excited and knit a swatch immediately. Then I got distracted and didn't get to the project so I put it away.

So last night I pulled out the swatch and checked the needle size. I thought it was a bit odd that I had used a needle larger than the one specified in the pattern, but you know, my yarn is awfully different too.

This morning, I cast on. (You can probably see where this is going).

It looked pretty large, but I intentionally used a really elastic CO, so OK, fine. I kept knitting. (But not too many rows because I was only knitting while I was working).

It looked big. Really big. I checked my gauge because sometimes swatches lie to me, especially in inelastic yarn. I was waaaaayyyyy off. I thought that was kind of odd, so I checked my swatch.

It was no where *near* gauge. Evidently I couldn't get gauge at any price last year, so I decided to rewrite the pattern to my own gauge. I have some vague recollection of this, actually.

Moral of the story: check the gauge of the swatch.

I Must Be Doing Something Right

Because Parkle Girl came to me this evening just before bed and said,

"Emah, you put this (showing me) shirt out for me to wear tomorrow. I can't wear this shirt tomorrow."

Me, "Why not?"

Parkle Girl, "Because, you know." (she is just 3 after all)

Me, "Oh, you mean because you didn't clean up the duplos when I asked you to and that was your consequence?" She nods. "Well, after you cleaned up the duplos, you cleaned up that other mess that your big brother made, so is it OK if I let you wear the shirt?" (A little duck and cover)

Parkle Girl, "Yes. I really want to. (she pauses). You silly goose!"

All that was after she told on herself for not cleaning up the duplos in the first place.

Now... if I could just get her to stay in bed tonight. So far she's only appeared once, which is a vast improvement over the rest of the week.

Random Things

1. We survived 'Parkle Girl's birthday party. It was a little more exciting than I would have liked because I misremembered what time it started. I was off by half an hour. As in, the first guest arrived and I thought, "gee, they're awfully early." Then the next guest arrived and I figured it out. Fortunately, the kitchen was clean, and the rest of the house was mostly ready, but the food wasn't quite done and I hadn't managed to pick up the lego debris left by the boys. One of the moms we've known for a long time helped with the fruit while I ran around like a crazy person. In spite of all that, I think it went well.

2. Overheard yesterday evening:
'Parkle Girl: Only girls can be doctors
Mr. Personality: No, girls can be doctors and nurse practitioners.
Universe Man: Anybody who wants to can be a doctor. Or a nurse practitioner. Or anything else.
I guess I'm doing a good job, and evidently all the kids' healthcare providers are women.

3. I've found my spinning mojo. I don't know where it was hiding. I think it didn't like the way I was spinning the merino batts.

4. I still don't know where my knitting mojo is. I hope it comes home soon.

5. Now that we've survived the trip to Hawaii and the birthday party, it's time to deal with Pesach. It never stops.

A Week Ago, We Were in Hawaii

Actually, it's suprising that I'm getting to posting something this quickly.

We returned last week from a week and a half on Maui with my in-laws. We had some wonderful times and some awful times, and about the awful times I'll only say that being sick on Maui is just as miserable as being sick at home and that there are pluses and minuses to having to work while you're on vacation. (One of the pluses is that you get paid).

We started out on what my in-laws call "the other side" at Kaanapali.


While there, we went whale watching, which was fantastic! LSH snapped this picture. We were very impressed.



The next day, we took the long and winding road to Hana. I didn't drive. This turned out to be a good thing, because I lack depth perception and on the way back, I felt as though we were going over the side of the road any number of times. LSH assures me that we weren't, and I believe him, but that's how it felt.

That began a bit over a week at my in-laws house. There were many exciting adventures, interspersed with relaxation, whale watching from the lanai, and coming up with ways to entertain kids who have only brought a certain number of books, toys, games, and videos with them. (The local public library and beaches were key with this last part).

Koki beach was a huge hit.








So was the black sand beach at Wainapanapa State Park. The sand there was declared excellent for building sand castles.



We celebrated 'Parkle Girl's 3rd birthday and she danced the hula for us.



There was a fantastic hike at Kipahulu to Waimoku Falls. All the guide books tell you it's a 2 1/2 - 5 hour round trip, but it only took as 2 1/2 hours, and that was with 'Parkle Girl walking the top 2 miles or so (of the 4 miles) and a stop to eat and enjoy the falls at the top. I guess we're in better shape that I thought!



Later on, we went to Hana Bay, which the kids also declared excellent.





And then there was swimming (and sliding) at O'heo Gulch. The pools there are closed to swimming for safety reasons when there's been too much rainn and when we hiked earlier in the week, the pools were closed. We got lucky though, and when we called to check a couple of days later, they were open. We all had a fantastic time!


The boys even found a "water slide."



The family agreed that whalewatching and swimming at O'heo Gulch were the best parts of the trip, and the kids added Hana Bay to the list.

There was lots more fun and tons more pictures, but now we're all back home and I've got one question.

When do we get over the jet lag?

I'm so tired that

I just shook the cookie sheet instead of the can of cooking spray.

And then couldn't even write a sentence properly.

Packing Planning

I don't know how many other people plan to pack before they do it, but I do. Sometimes days (or in this case more than a week) in advance. Otherwise I forget all kinds of important things, and even with the advance planning and adding things as I think of them, I'll still forget something. I'm not sure I've ever arrived anywhere in my adult life without having forgotten something. Often something both obvious and important -- toothbrush anyone?

At the moment, I'm obsessing about what to pack. My mother-in-law has asked us to pack light. I like to pack light. There's a library where we're going and she has access, so that will help. She's planning to borrow toys from some of her friends, though I don't know how much *that* will help -- my kids seem to have rather unusual toy preferences. She has a washing machine, so I can probably manage to minimize the clothing. Which means that most of our luggage will be taken up by kid stuff, or more properly, stuff for the kids to do.

On top of that, I need to fit a lot of plane-friendly stuff for the kids to do into the carry on luggage. We've never flown so far before or so long. I'm honestly not entirely sure how many airs we'll be spending in the air without doing a whole bunch of time conversions and it's probably better that I don't figure it out in advance.

So far my packing list looks something like this:
Books (lots and lots and lots)
Games (card games for the plane)
Craft supplies (stickers, paper, colored pencils, markers, kid safe scissors, tape, who knows what else)
Small toys (Transformers have been requested, but not by 'Parkle Girl)
Knitting (what? Is there anyone who travels without knitting?)
DVDs

Oh yes, and Blue Blanket. I learned the error of my ways the one and only time I checked Blue Blanket (being afraid of leaving it on the plane) and the luggage was delayed. I may tie Blue Blanket to 'Parkle Girl, but we will bring him. Actually, considering the depth of the relationship 'Parkle Girl has with Blue Blanket, I think tying them together is superfluous and possibly redundant. I just have to make sure that she doesn't start disrobing, the better to feel Blue Blanket, since she's been wearing him a lot recently.

And for the rest of the trip we have:
Bathing suits
Water shoes
Shorts and T shirts
Sunscreen (lots and lots of sunscreen)
Homework (you pull your kids out of school for almost two weeks, you bring the homework)
Digital cameras and journals (see above) plus the battery charger for same
More games
Birthday presents for 'Parkle Girl. This would be the year of large birthday presents acquired or planned before the idea for this trip was even hatched. Those are staying home.
More knitting (what? it's almost 2 weeks -- I could go insane if I run out of knitting, and since I understand that we'll be pretty isolated, it's best to be prepared. In fact, I've been obsessing about the knitting for weeks.)

Time to start the real list.

Warping the Space-Time Continuum

Yesterday morning, I left the house at some unknown time after time X (where X is the time at which it is necessary to leave the house in order to get Universe Man to school on time). The traffic was normal, the kids were more or less well behaved, but I was stressed because if Universe Man is late, there’s a snowball effect because the traffic gets worse by the minute, which can result in Mr. Personality and ‘Parkle Girl being late. Mind you, nobody much cares if she’s late, but still.

Today, we left the house at time Z + 7 (where Z is the time necessary to leave the house to get Mr. Personality to his before-school piano lesson). As we made the left turn, he reported that he had not packed his piano books, which meant we needed to turn around and get them, resulting in us leaving the driveway (for the second time) at Z + 10. In spite of this, and the fact that it is known that it takes a minimum of 12 minutes to get to school, we arrived at school at time P + 1 (where P is the time piano lesson starts). A measly minute, but still, it was real.

I’ve been trying to repeat this feat all day, but alas, it appears that it only works while driving kids to school.

I suppose I should take what I can get.

Yoked to a Turtle

I started a sweater for LSH a long time ago. Actually, I started several sweaters for him a long time ago. But this particular sweater I started about 10 years ago (and yes, there’s another one of his that’s been a UFO even longer).

It’s a perfectly nice sweater in a perfectly nice pattern, but as often happens, I got distracted. By what I really couldn’t say, given that it was so very long ago. The sweater itself has been moved 3 times since then, with not a single stitch knit in the intervening time. It’s a very traditional looking Lopi sweater with a circular yoke. The body is finished up to the yoke. One of the sleeves was within an inch and a half of being finished up to the yoke. And that’s how it stayed.

I had a pretty good idea how much of this sweater remained to be knit, so I hatched a scheme. I’d knit it when he wasn’t around and give him a surprise gift for his birthday at the end of March.

He left on Monday for a week long business trip, and Monday afternoon ‘Parkle Girl and I hit the stash. There it was – right where it was supposed to be, in a box all the way down. We retrieved it, I found the pattern, and I was ready to go. By the time he got home, I’d finished the first sleeve (up through the yoke) and was about 10” into the second. Now I just have to wait until he’s very distracted or busy and see how much knitting I can sneak in.

5 a.m. Wake Up Call, With Soup

Finally, a use for robo-calling! I woke up yesterday morning to the sound of two phones ringing at once, just after 5 a.m. I’m thrilled that the new automated calling system functions so very, very well, and I know that they need to let families know as soon as school is canceled, but still, it was a very, very abrupt awakening.

Instead of the regular Wednesday routine, we had a nice, chaotic, but somehow relaxing day at home. Universe Man showed me his literature project, which was hysterical, and Mr. Personality finished the first draft of his book report. All by himself. It will need some editing, particularly because he quoted an important letter from the book verbatim (with quotes though, so no plagiarizing) and also some formatting. I’m very impressed with his work, even so.

It wasn’t all work yesterday, though. Mostly, it seems to have been cooking.

Universe Man decided that he wanted to cook soup for everyone for lunch. From scratch. Without a recipe. He told me what vegetables he wanted to use (potatoes, carrot, cabbage, peas), and asked for some help in organizing how to cook it, took a little bit of guidance about which (really, how many) spices to add, and cooked soup. It was actually rather good. So rather good that Mr. Personality went back for another bowl during dinner because I have to admit that Universe Man’s soup turned out better than the new soup recipe I tried.

During the end of ‘Parkle Girl’s nap, Mr. Personality and I started the baking I had planned. We tried a new cake recipe, to mixed reviews, and made some corn muffins for dinner. Then we made some corn chowder (the new recipe, which I could tell would likely be lacking in flavor when I read it, but thought I should follow the first time through. Lesson learned), and Mr. Personality and ‘Parkle Girl learned about the blender. No matter how we tried (and I even consulted the resident mechanical genius AKA Mr. Personality) we could not get the food processor lid back on after I washed it. I don’t think it’s broken because it worked just fine for the cake, but after 10 minutes of fiddling with it, I gave up, got the blender out, and used that instead. Life without kitchen gadgets would be a terrible, terrible thing.

Today, the sun is shining, the ice appears to be melting, and the kids are at school. I’m back to my usual, but I must say, it’s a lot less fun than I had yesterday.