a birthday

The bagging and boxing continues unrecorded. Today got two more boxes of books.

Today is also Trixie's seventh birthday! Happy birthday, Trixie.

Faith made her a card, which you will appreciate most if you are a My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic fan. The brony scene is thick here.

It says "The Great and Powerful Trixie (and also Faith) wish you a Great and Powerful Birthday!

Pony Trixie is using her unicorn magic to float seven cakes around Human Trixie. Human Trixie was OVER the MOON about her card. Gonna be a tough act to follow.

happy girl

Almost 8 months.

another day, another bag

I can't remember what day it is, and simple subtraction eludes me. Anyway.

Today's bag, modeled by the lovely Faith, who mustache you a question. It's diapers - cloth ones, of course - which I am giving away instead of trying to sell. Trying to sell diapers makes me insane. Giving them away makes me happy. It was an easy choice.

death rocks from the skies

Asteroids! Meteorites! PANIC!

Today's bag o' stuff. All trash today, rundown cardboard and irreparable books.

 With bonus Gilbert.

But it did remind me that we need fire ladders for the new place, since it's two story. If anyone has any recs, please do tell. They will probably be deployed by children, if that makes a difference.

thoughts on plenty

I have some. But the crying baby makes it impossible to write them down. Watch this space!


So, cleaning things out makes me feel ashamed. Not of my clutter and disorganization, that's just who I am, but of my overconsumption of STUFF. And then, I buy more STUFF, maybe because I feel bad. And then, Tabitha pointed out, maybe because I want to feel bad, because then I'll be ashamed again and so I get to punish myself.

Which brings me to my Lenten point: shame is not a particularly good penitential emotion for me. It's so self-directed, selfish really, where I'm concerned. It quickly moves into a more comfortable self-deprecating mess of pity, and self-loathing. Not good! What is good? Repentance, which is other-directed. So there you go.

Look at all my plenty, that I don't even want! Why did I get it to begin with? Why did I purchase it? To assuage some inner emptiness? Because I was bored? (likely.) Because I thought, right then, that I needed it? Things for the kids, I get because I love them and think the thing will make them happy. But mostly things just make them unhappy. They fight over things, want more things right after getting them. They agonize over getting rid of things even more than I do. And yet the things they have slowly grind into shreds of paper and tufts of polyester fur, little shards of plastic. Nobody wants the things they have - they want to want, and not to have. Sometimes they want to have, but really they want to make another child want! And they always, always want to GET.

Am I different? Not so much.

40 bags: bag 2

Passing on some baby clothes, toys, and a DVD player. Keeping Dorothy.

40 days, 40 bags

I'll be doing this.

I have 3 bags in reserve that just got donated yesterday, and a big box of books that just went. So I get 4 days "off".

Today's bag:

(Trixie Gleeson added for visual interest. I'll be keeping her.)

Today's bag has an outgrown coat, some tee shirts, and some unused crib sheets and blankets.

Snow

getting to the point

I can't draw. Like, at all. Nor do I feel called to learn how to draw. So I really don't care what kind of pencil I use, if I use a pencil. But I married an artist, and bore him seven children, and quite a few of them are also artists.

And one of them is Very Particular about pencils. And it's not Bede, or Abby (they don't care.)

It's this kid. The bigger one.

Her favorite are Dixon Ticonderogas, but they stopped manufacturing them in the US and the quality has really tanked. Off-center lead, broken lead, etc. Also they put Microban on or in them, which, no. So we've been looking for an alternative for quite a while, and I am happy to say she is satisfied with Palomino Prospectors from pencils.com.

A gross of them are on the way. Now to find her a better sharpener, which she also does fuss about...

Cookies, a love story

Dorothy likes...

CHOCOLATE!

(Her first chocolate!)

Thanks Baker Faith! You're my favorite not-quite-13 year old.

Roof! Oh, roof!

The addition has a roof and walls! With shingles, and glass windows! Pa Ingalls would be impressed.

It really is coming right along.

We were too sick for Mass this morning. We probably could have gone but we didn't want to share our germs. Sean went and stood in the back... with Bede, who really, really doesn't like to miss Mass. A far cry from the boy a year ago who never wanted to go. They went to a closer English Mass, and Sean said Bede was a bit put out by their persistent use of English. Sean said he seemed to think it was all one really long epistle. The second or third time they changed posture, Bede asked "When is it going to be the Latin, Dad?" and sighed when he was told it wasn't a Latin Mass. Then every time they stood and sat, repeatedly, yet with no Latin, he sighed again. Afterwards he said "I like St. Damien and the Greek and the Latin, Dad."

(Me too, Bede!)

I wrote this on Google+ but I'll write it here too: Abby's assessment was last week. Her official diagnosis is ADHD-PI. That's a lot of alphabet soup to say Dreamy Creative Writer Girl. (Really Smart Dreamy Creative Writer Girl, actually. Her IQ is quite high. I don't have numbers until I get the full assessment in the mail.) So that means we'll be playing to her strengths and compensating for her deficits. I'm re-reading The Edison Gene. Here's an excerpt.

I sure am tired of our endless low-level illness this winter.