One more reminder of my childhood has been taken from me! I hope to hang on to my one final baby tooth just as long as I can (at least until our HSA has recovered!) but as of mid-morning today, I had one less molar in my mouth and a few thousand dollars less to our names!
I'm about to put the first food into my mouth, and while quite hungry, I must admit to kind of wanting to keep everything as far away from the soreness as possible. During a delightful nap next to Alida the last of the numbness wore off. So I can feel my ear again! And my tongue, and that there is a large gap in my mouth and I'm also feeling some of the effects of the yanking and drilling. I decided this was not the post to include photos, though I did bring home my baby tooth to show Kali. I wonder if anything would happen if I put it under my pillow?
The good news is that I didn't have a panic attack or faint or anything like that. Emily joining me in the waiting room equipped with a head massager didn't hurt anything, instead helping me start in the most relaxed and calm state possible!
The bad news is that once the baby tooth was out he discovered something he had "never seen before" (not sure that is a compliment when sitting in the oral surgeon's office). He was just about to put the implant in when he discovered a soft pocket of tissue (called it a cyst). He removed it all and said it was like I had a "little cave" under my tooth. He could not in good conscience put in the implant knowing it would probably not take. So instead he filled the cavity with bone fragments and sewed me back. That will need to heal and the bone to integrate with mine and then in about 4 months he'll open it back up, drill into it again and attach the implant. Then I wait 3 more months and go to my dentist for the crown. So about the time we start eating fresh spinach again this should all be behind me (hmm, not sure if that is an encouraging way to think about it).
On the way home I stopped by Kroger to pick up my antibiotic for preventing further infection, which I'd like to do! I told the woman at the counter that I was sorry if I sounded funny but that half my face was completely numb. The woman in the back said, "that's okay you are not drooling yet." When I got back out to the car I looked into the mirror for the first time and realized they had only cleaned me mostly up and I still had blood around my mouth...but, as she noted, at least I wasn't drooling!
Friday, September 21, 2012
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Roses and thorns...
One of my new favorite traditions here at home is going around at our Wednesday evening Tangly Woods meals and sharing about our week. We started with two categories, roses and thorns, and have now expanded to six, adding buds, prickles, pickles and seeds. It's a great way to hear from everyone regularly and stay in touch with the good, bad, interesting, exciting, flavorful, hopeful, and dreaded things in each other's lives. And, as one might expect, an added benefit of that sharing and supporting each other is that the thorns and prickles usually become a little less intense in the process!
My own personal roses and thorns from this week are pretty clear in my mind and I'll dwell more on the rose than the thorn (though it has been hard for me to get it off my mind since I have a pretty clear physical reminder of it). One of my two baby teeth has become infected which has catapulted the process forward of "taking care of it." I'm on antibiotics (which I really don't like especially when nursing despite being assured it is safe for Alida to continue breastfeeding) to calm the infection and working at getting the extraction and implant process scheduled ASAP. I've never enjoyed dental procedures and so I'm working a lot with my own internal process as I prepare for this - it didn't feel like a particularly good sign that my body felt weak and all clammy just after making the appointment (which they later cancelled on me so the final plan is still pending). I know that there would be many ways to put this small "bump in the road" into perspective, and I'm working at it (that perspective-shaping is assisted in part by having a student in our program from Syria who is sharing updates and photos of the violence happening in his home country - it's hard to hold that together with my current reality!). But I have to admit that I keep coming back to the fact that they will be yanking out a tooth that is not loose and then putting something there in its place (with me awake!). Currently they want to schedule this on my birthday - it would make for a memorable 34th!
The rose is much more beautiful, fun, rewarding and life-giving. Sunday we had a wonderful day with good friends co-butchering and co-grape juice making. I have to admit that the whole butchering process has not gotten easier for me of late (but that would be a subject for a future blog post when my thoughts and feelings have sorted themselves out more), so I was quite happy to be absorbed in the tasks of child entertaining, feeding all the mouths in our home, and making grape juice. I LOVE making grape juice! I understand exactly how the process works but somehow it still seems magical to me to watch the hot sweet purple liquid pour into the jars. Kali, who has in recent months not been very interested in consuming much liquid, even guzzled two glasses full. Alida consumed her fair share of grapes, enjoying popping the juicy middles out of the skins. The house and homestead was bustling with activity all day and I smiled a lot. It was activities I love with people I love preparing food that is tasty and will add color and flavor to the table all winter long. At lunch when we all sat down for a hearty meal of baked lentils with cheese, swiss chard cheese bake, rice, and a grape rhubarb crisp, Jason commented how trying this life we are living is! It was a day of feeling full and rich, and tired by the end!
Let me just slip in some other random newsworthy items here before getting on with this very rainy day - good for napping which might be why Alida is still sacked out at 8 a.m. (not sure why our eldest was up at 6 today - when the birds started singing she told me that it would now be impossible for her to fall back asleep).
A garden update! This picture can speak for itself. Needless to say, Jason was a bit surprised (and pleased) to unearth a partial hill of sweet potatoes when doing some weeding. They are HUGE! Let's hope we can figure out a process for curing them this year that doesn't half bake them in the process. We should be all set with a great source of vitamin A for awhile. We are still harvesting okra, basil, swiss chard, kale, peppers, amaranth, and an occasional watermelon. What we'll enjoy of tomatoes and beans are now tucked away in the freezer and cans. We are feeling overwhelmed with the generosity of neighbors who are sharing their surplus of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant and squash. Lots of good eating happening around here.
Maybe that accounts for some of the incredible fast growth in the kiddo department. I finally admitted that Alida did not have many clothes that fit her in her drawers. During a nap this week I made my way to the attic and pulled out the 2T clothing. I remember Kali wearing these things! I just had a hard time bringing myself to believe that our baby was ready for them. Well, I may have missed my chance because her belly is already exposed in some of the 2T shirts so I'll likely be headed back up there for the 3T box before much more time passes. Oh, it is going so fast! The shocking part of it was that Kali is also growing but mostly up. She came out to the kitchen giggling the other day with a pair of pants on that Alida had been wearing the night before. They fit her - they were capris on her, but they were snapped and zipped just fine and they had not been any too big on Alida. Kali was quite tickled that they could wear the same clothing. The shirt of Alida's that she had on was not quite so nice a fit.
We've been enjoying seeing more of our neighbors along Happy Valley Road. We've been doing the hard task of trying to limit our involvements, which has meant letting go of some things we genuinely care about. Part of that process has involved trying to assess what gives us the most energy, where can we contribute the most, and what seems most life giving for our whole family. It seems that putting roots down in this place and investing in our community here is what really thrills us. And there are all sorts of fun connections and synergy that seems to go along with it, as well as learning about fun happenings. The girls were invited to come down the road on Saturday for some pony riding and pony cart riding. They loved it! Alida was particularly impressed with her bicycle helmet "hat." CUTE!
My own personal roses and thorns from this week are pretty clear in my mind and I'll dwell more on the rose than the thorn (though it has been hard for me to get it off my mind since I have a pretty clear physical reminder of it). One of my two baby teeth has become infected which has catapulted the process forward of "taking care of it." I'm on antibiotics (which I really don't like especially when nursing despite being assured it is safe for Alida to continue breastfeeding) to calm the infection and working at getting the extraction and implant process scheduled ASAP. I've never enjoyed dental procedures and so I'm working a lot with my own internal process as I prepare for this - it didn't feel like a particularly good sign that my body felt weak and all clammy just after making the appointment (which they later cancelled on me so the final plan is still pending). I know that there would be many ways to put this small "bump in the road" into perspective, and I'm working at it (that perspective-shaping is assisted in part by having a student in our program from Syria who is sharing updates and photos of the violence happening in his home country - it's hard to hold that together with my current reality!). But I have to admit that I keep coming back to the fact that they will be yanking out a tooth that is not loose and then putting something there in its place (with me awake!). Currently they want to schedule this on my birthday - it would make for a memorable 34th!
The rose is much more beautiful, fun, rewarding and life-giving. Sunday we had a wonderful day with good friends co-butchering and co-grape juice making. I have to admit that the whole butchering process has not gotten easier for me of late (but that would be a subject for a future blog post when my thoughts and feelings have sorted themselves out more), so I was quite happy to be absorbed in the tasks of child entertaining, feeding all the mouths in our home, and making grape juice. I LOVE making grape juice! I understand exactly how the process works but somehow it still seems magical to me to watch the hot sweet purple liquid pour into the jars. Kali, who has in recent months not been very interested in consuming much liquid, even guzzled two glasses full. Alida consumed her fair share of grapes, enjoying popping the juicy middles out of the skins. The house and homestead was bustling with activity all day and I smiled a lot. It was activities I love with people I love preparing food that is tasty and will add color and flavor to the table all winter long. At lunch when we all sat down for a hearty meal of baked lentils with cheese, swiss chard cheese bake, rice, and a grape rhubarb crisp, Jason commented how trying this life we are living is! It was a day of feeling full and rich, and tired by the end!Let me just slip in some other random newsworthy items here before getting on with this very rainy day - good for napping which might be why Alida is still sacked out at 8 a.m. (not sure why our eldest was up at 6 today - when the birds started singing she told me that it would now be impossible for her to fall back asleep).
A garden update! This picture can speak for itself. Needless to say, Jason was a bit surprised (and pleased) to unearth a partial hill of sweet potatoes when doing some weeding. They are HUGE! Let's hope we can figure out a process for curing them this year that doesn't half bake them in the process. We should be all set with a great source of vitamin A for awhile. We are still harvesting okra, basil, swiss chard, kale, peppers, amaranth, and an occasional watermelon. What we'll enjoy of tomatoes and beans are now tucked away in the freezer and cans. We are feeling overwhelmed with the generosity of neighbors who are sharing their surplus of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, eggplant and squash. Lots of good eating happening around here. 
Maybe that accounts for some of the incredible fast growth in the kiddo department. I finally admitted that Alida did not have many clothes that fit her in her drawers. During a nap this week I made my way to the attic and pulled out the 2T clothing. I remember Kali wearing these things! I just had a hard time bringing myself to believe that our baby was ready for them. Well, I may have missed my chance because her belly is already exposed in some of the 2T shirts so I'll likely be headed back up there for the 3T box before much more time passes. Oh, it is going so fast! The shocking part of it was that Kali is also growing but mostly up. She came out to the kitchen giggling the other day with a pair of pants on that Alida had been wearing the night before. They fit her - they were capris on her, but they were snapped and zipped just fine and they had not been any too big on Alida. Kali was quite tickled that they could wear the same clothing. The shirt of Alida's that she had on was not quite so nice a fit. We've been enjoying seeing more of our neighbors along Happy Valley Road. We've been doing the hard task of trying to limit our involvements, which has meant letting go of some things we genuinely care about. Part of that process has involved trying to assess what gives us the most energy, where can we contribute the most, and what seems most life giving for our whole family. It seems that putting roots down in this place and investing in our community here is what really thrills us. And there are all sorts of fun connections and synergy that seems to go along with it, as well as learning about fun happenings. The girls were invited to come down the road on Saturday for some pony riding and pony cart riding. They loved it! Alida was particularly impressed with her bicycle helmet "hat." CUTE!
Bubbles and sleep...
Someone loves bubbles:
Another someone is convinced she doesn't need sleep and even has a clear reason as to why she rubs her eyes at night:
Another someone is convinced she doesn't need sleep and even has a clear reason as to why she rubs her eyes at night:
Tuesday, September 4, 2012
Apron dance and more...
I intended to write more to go with the two videos below, but if I wait for time to write more, these videos will likely be a thing of the past. So here they are!
It wasn't long after I finished the clip below that both girls had added a wooden spoon each to their dance for an added feature!
Alida is taking after her big sister in her enjoyment of reading books - but she hasn't quite figured out how she would fake us out better regarding her reading abilities if she held the book right side up!
It wasn't long after I finished the clip below that both girls had added a wooden spoon each to their dance for an added feature!
Alida is taking after her big sister in her enjoyment of reading books - but she hasn't quite figured out how she would fake us out better regarding her reading abilities if she held the book right side up!
Friday, August 31, 2012
Ahhhhhhh....
I"m sitting in the recliner by our front picture window looking out at the "blue moon." Alida is sacked out on my chest. Gone are the days when her little body tucked up under my chin and didn't even reach my waist. But she still fits and so I'm trying to savor it while it lasts. I'm not sure what was bugging her such that it was hard for her to settle tonight, but I wondered about a tummy ache, possibly spurred on by her and Kali eating close to a quart of frozen blueberries this afternoon?! They are quite the pair these days! When they tired of shoveling them in their mouths, Kali got paper for them to make "blueberry print" drawings.Today was my first Friday at home after a somewhat grueling stretch of work, putting in about 35-40 more hours in two weeks than I normally do. Have I mentioned that I love my days at home? Today was one of those days where my list of things I wanted to do kept growing and growing and I reassured myself by remembering that it was only Friday and I have the weekend at home yet. What a fun day it has been!
On the counter is a canner load each of pickles, ratatouille, and green beans. In the fridge is a large batch of pesto. A double batch of green rolls and a large batch of green pasta were made from lambsquarter, swiss chard and amaranth greens picked from the garden this morning. The large batch of mint tea I made is almost history and the girls enjoyed a bedtime snack of a portion of the triple batch of granola that came out of the oven while we were eating a late, but scrumptious dinner at 9 p.m. or so. On the stove is several gallons of tomato sauce that will simmer down overnight to be ready to can tomorrow sometime. The diapers and laundry are clean, while the rest of the house is hoping for a bit more attention tomorrow...I could wish that these days would end slightly earlier but they just seem to go so fast and before I know it midnight is quickly approaching. Our eldest is not bothered in the least by this, as she continues to hold fast to her conviction that she does not need sleep. It seemed that her doctor got a kick out of her at her yearly appointment earlier this week when her main questions for the doctor were about how to be able to drink more, how to not forget things, and how to not have trouble getting her chores done (these are from a chart that she made up but that she is considering modifying when she needs a reprint so that there aren't so many - we could argue about whether it entails much work or not...). Anyway, I was super thankful that those were the most pressing concerns for her yearly exam - she checked out super healthy growing over 2 inches since last year.
Today wouldn't have been nearly as fun without the girls around to add spunk and laughter to the day, as well as loads of cuteness. And I wouldn't have gotten near as much done without the help of fellow Tangly Woods women (thanks, Joyce and Rachelle!). Having folks close by that the girls love to be with continues to be so heartwarming for me. And having friends to chop veggies with, share food with, and converse with as we work side by side is about as good as it gets for me. |
| Our dinner: Tomatoes, greens, beans, corn, basil, & garlic from our garden. Cucumbers and dill from neighbors and friends. |
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Kali is 9!
Kali doesn't get her fair share of exposure on the blog these days. She is also cute and fun and creative and huggable and all those things. But she is not nearly as busy. And it would be a very boring video to put a clip up of what she is doing for many hours each day! We have ourselves a tried and true bookworm! She devours chapter books at an impressive rate. She is very into the Mandie series (after Joyce, who lives with us, gave her over a dozen). She came home from the library the other day all excited to report to me that there were more in the series than she knew (40!).
It appears that she is enjoying community living as much as the rest of us. She also enjoys her post as "mail lady," though she has given herself Wednesdays off.
She had a very fun week transitioning from 8 to 9 years of age. Her actual birthday was celebrated at the Rockingham County Fair. We were all pretty bleary eyed when we arrived home close to 1 a.m. after a full evening of rides, a birthday picnic, looking at animals, going to a hypnotist show, riding more rides in the dark and then ending the evening with ice cream and a few presents (the evening doubly fun since Emily and Jonas joined us for the festivities).
We recovered from the fair just in time for our first ever New Fool's Day party. The mystery dinner was almost over when I realized I was having so much fun and so busy serving that I did not take any pictures of the meal (I never really did get good pictures) The menu included:
take a stab at it
weed strips
T
bumpy ride for an ant
big bird would feel right at home
a relative of a snooze
energy saver's delight
eco-friendly and good for your heart
a cuddle
if chickens grew on trees
food needing an antidepressant
don't scare the birthday girl
midnight ball drop
You are welcome to try to match them up to lambsquarter pasta, fancy cut carrot circles, black olives, no bake chocolate peanut butter cookies, string beans, fried eggplant, frozen blueberries, sesame seed bread, a spoon, fork, knife, napkin and tea.
The rest of the evening was spent having fun with water balloons, playing attraction repulsion, eating funny cake pie, sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows and trying to think of jokes, dancing out on the lawn, being unsuccessful at finding a single lightning bug to release at midnight, toasting toast (and sparkling juice) to ring in the next year and finally crashing after 1 a.m. (of course Kali was not tired!)
I, on the other hand, am happy to admit that I'm tired. And for that reason here are two other random fair pictures that I'm putting at the bottom of this post because the formatting is going bonkers with me trying to insert them where it makes sense to put them! The month of August is nearing the end, and I'm about as tired as I expected I would be. But it has also been a really good and fun month in so many ways. There have also been some very visible changes outdoor as Jonathan (part of the Tangly Woods crew) and Jason get more into some of the permaculture mapping of our place (and designing some areas, which includes clearing, which means big visual changes). I'm noting here, as I know is a goal of both Jason and mine, that we are going to work at slowing up this winter - at least for a little bit!
It appears that she is enjoying community living as much as the rest of us. She also enjoys her post as "mail lady," though she has given herself Wednesdays off.
She had a very fun week transitioning from 8 to 9 years of age. Her actual birthday was celebrated at the Rockingham County Fair. We were all pretty bleary eyed when we arrived home close to 1 a.m. after a full evening of rides, a birthday picnic, looking at animals, going to a hypnotist show, riding more rides in the dark and then ending the evening with ice cream and a few presents (the evening doubly fun since Emily and Jonas joined us for the festivities).We recovered from the fair just in time for our first ever New Fool's Day party. The mystery dinner was almost over when I realized I was having so much fun and so busy serving that I did not take any pictures of the meal (I never really did get good pictures) The menu included:
take a stab at it
weed strips
T
bumpy ride for an ant
big bird would feel right at home
a relative of a snooze
energy saver's delight
eco-friendly and good for your heart
a cuddle
if chickens grew on trees
food needing an antidepressant
don't scare the birthday girl
midnight ball drop
You are welcome to try to match them up to lambsquarter pasta, fancy cut carrot circles, black olives, no bake chocolate peanut butter cookies, string beans, fried eggplant, frozen blueberries, sesame seed bread, a spoon, fork, knife, napkin and tea.
The rest of the evening was spent having fun with water balloons, playing attraction repulsion, eating funny cake pie, sitting around the fire roasting marshmallows and trying to think of jokes, dancing out on the lawn, being unsuccessful at finding a single lightning bug to release at midnight, toasting toast (and sparkling juice) to ring in the next year and finally crashing after 1 a.m. (of course Kali was not tired!)I, on the other hand, am happy to admit that I'm tired. And for that reason here are two other random fair pictures that I'm putting at the bottom of this post because the formatting is going bonkers with me trying to insert them where it makes sense to put them! The month of August is nearing the end, and I'm about as tired as I expected I would be. But it has also been a really good and fun month in so many ways. There have also been some very visible changes outdoor as Jonathan (part of the Tangly Woods crew) and Jason get more into some of the permaculture mapping of our place (and designing some areas, which includes clearing, which means big visual changes). I'm noting here, as I know is a goal of both Jason and mine, that we are going to work at slowing up this winter - at least for a little bit!
Alida update
The little gal is sleeping (which is the only reason I can sit here typing) and what am I doing - blogging about her and watching little video clips of her. I guess we don't get enough of her in her waking hours... She is one busy girl these days. She now has a full mouthful of 20 teeth, her vocabulary has exploded and she has quite the sense of humor as this first video will show. Her little "what?....ahhh" routine is a current favorite:
She is loves to stand on things - small things. And in the case of the toy pictured here, she found a new way to play with it without her hammer.
And, finally, Kali's birthday (which I hope to at least report on briefly in my 3rd post of the evening) could have been Alida's birthday as she was quite fond of the county fair. We even paid for her to have an armband to go on the rides, though she was too short for most of them. When we finally went to the barn with the cows in it towards the end of the evening, we realized that that was where she would have gladly spent her entire evening, running up and down the long hallway pointing out all the cows to us. Here she is petting the cows from the very herd where we get our milk.
Thankfully Alida still very much enjoys doing things with me in the kitchen - if that ends, I'm in trouble (or let's hope it hits in the winter and not canning season). She is quite the "helper" peeling garlic or better yet taking things to the compost for me. It's still a bit of a balancing act to start AND complete a canning project with her in tow, but we are finding our way, and normally all feeling pretty cheery throughout.
This week I put in a 50-60 hour work week due to new student orientation for the graduate program. It felt like LONG days. Most evenings (into the night) were spent canning and freezing. This week we've put up pesto, salsa, peaches, peach rhubarb jam, green beans, pickles, and okra. We've been grateful for some extra adult hands around every now and then, for chopping or playing with the girls. I had a hunch I would enjoy community living again, but I'm even surprised how fulfilling and fun it has been!
She is loves to stand on things - small things. And in the case of the toy pictured here, she found a new way to play with it without her hammer.
And, finally, Kali's birthday (which I hope to at least report on briefly in my 3rd post of the evening) could have been Alida's birthday as she was quite fond of the county fair. We even paid for her to have an armband to go on the rides, though she was too short for most of them. When we finally went to the barn with the cows in it towards the end of the evening, we realized that that was where she would have gladly spent her entire evening, running up and down the long hallway pointing out all the cows to us. Here she is petting the cows from the very herd where we get our milk.
Thankfully Alida still very much enjoys doing things with me in the kitchen - if that ends, I'm in trouble (or let's hope it hits in the winter and not canning season). She is quite the "helper" peeling garlic or better yet taking things to the compost for me. It's still a bit of a balancing act to start AND complete a canning project with her in tow, but we are finding our way, and normally all feeling pretty cheery throughout.
This week I put in a 50-60 hour work week due to new student orientation for the graduate program. It felt like LONG days. Most evenings (into the night) were spent canning and freezing. This week we've put up pesto, salsa, peaches, peach rhubarb jam, green beans, pickles, and okra. We've been grateful for some extra adult hands around every now and then, for chopping or playing with the girls. I had a hunch I would enjoy community living again, but I'm even surprised how fulfilling and fun it has been!
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