Notes from the Journey

Just some musings through the past few weeks.

• Am on Day 40 of my “100 Days Offline (Mostly)”…. and surprise, surprise! I am still on “Day 2 Project” — our photo albums. I have finished SEVENTEEN photo albums so far, and I am 10 years away from being done. After buying a third album this month, I told dh, I know now what the problem is: we are far too attached to our pictures, that we keep every single one, even blurry ones and poor shots, etc. BUT. I will not worry about that now. I’m too far into the project to restart…. so I’ll just finish and go back to it in a few years…. I’m just glad the photos are now out of boxes and bags and envelopes and into photo albums so we can actually enjoy them. I am absolutely *dreading* finishing up 2003 and having to organize DIGITAL pictures. Between pictures in old desktops (two), two of *my* laptops, plus hubby’s laptop, and dd’s, and the ones already on CDs, plus some that are stored online…. hubby says again, “one project at a time, one day at a time”.
• Aisa is on break. A *real* break this time, where she actually has NO studying whatsoever to do, NO residual homework… NOTHING. So we’re having a GIRLS’ WEEK (WAHOO!! ) and taking a drive to Columbus for Pistacia Vera, Tensuke, and Wasserstrom. The last because she has a few more items she needs for her arsenal… namely, needle-nose pliers (for boning fish), clam knife, oyster knife, and fish scaler. Wishing now we had stopped by E. Dehillerin when we had the chance. Although, I have to say we have quite the selection in this country now, and it has just steadily gotten better since I got married 20 years ago when the fanciest piece of equipment I laid eyes on on my first visit to a real cookware shop was a chinoise. Have we come a long way since then.
• Camping time. Paco graduated from his leadership training camp yesterday. No voice at present, keeps saying he sounds like a girl as he can make nothing but high-pitched squeaks. Poor guy. But he came out unscathed and in good spirits, and raring to try out the things he learned. I will not post here what it means but I learned a new acronym this weekend — KIBO. These boys. Is that what roughing it does to them?
• Migi’s an altar server!! He got some training in last week. I love how he is at the age where he is really getting into the Liturgy and getting serious about catechism and apologetics and just asking question after question and really seeking to understand God’s word and His teachings. This is such a beautiful time and I cherish being able to share it with him. I *also* love that My Catholic Faith Delivered gives me “third party credibility”.
• Yena sang Born Free to Papa today for Father’s Day. I had her listen to it on YouTube after we fell in love with the book Born Free from our Africa Study. Papa used to sing it as I was growing up so the song holds many lovely memories for me. She’s such a sweetie and I’m glad Papa got to hear her sing it. Cannot wait to see them next month!
• Nino is such a daredevil. Today at the picnic he dragged me all over the playground, and chose to climb the big kids’ jungle gym and slide down the highest slide. He sure tired me (and himself) out. He’s currently zonked right beside me. Silly boy. You should have seen him make a beeline for the food table after his nth slide — apparently looking for something to drink.
• My oven is dead. Good thing “perfecting macarons” is #43 on the list instead of #3. I was briefly deliberating buying a Zoji bread machine finally and maybe giving up a real oven for a couple of years so we can save up for my dream wall oven…. but common sense has reclaimed its place, so I’ll be calling the repair guy tomorrow.
• DH broke my heart Friday. In mid-May the whole family dug out one of our garden plots, cleaned, weeded, and prepped it for planting. In the middle we put in a bunch of gladioli, the four corners got dahlias, and the sides got lilies. We’ve been waiting for them to bloom and finally the gladioli are showy in all their tall pink creaminess… the lilies are still hanging back behind the wings. Rather disappointed in the dahlias as they’re not as big as we had anticipated… but the kicker is that when dh mowed the lawn Friday he got overly enthusiastic with the weed whacker and cut down two of the dahlias too. WAAAAH. I *almost* threw a tantrum. Then he treated me to sushi, so now we’re friends again. Besides, it’s Father’s Day. …. I jest. If you knew my husband in person, you’d know how difficult it is to stay mad at him for any considerable length of time. Lord, thank You so much for sending me such a saintly man.
• One more thing about Nino…. the kids and I have been making it to morning Mass for the past month…. except the week we were sick… and the days Nino was sick… and the days Dad and Ais had the two cars… but other than that we’ve been good and I am ever so grateful that the Holy Spirit inspires my kids to jump out of their beds every morning eager to receive Jesus in the Eucharist. What a blessing!! Even were I to feel lazy about going (and I admit there have been days….) there’s no way I can let them down and ask that we miss Mass when they want to go so much! But back to Nino…. the kids have been going to Mass… but I rarely am able to stay for the whole because Nino’s at that age where he just can’t sit still or keep quiet for long periods. If left to his own devices, I’m pretty sure he’ll investigate every square inch of that church and still have energy left over to run outside.
• The Vita-Mix I got for Mother’s Day is getting used EVERY SINGLE DAY. I don’t think I’ve ever had a machine that got so much use the first month. It is a total workhorse and I’m so glad we got it. Everyone loves the carrot-apple-orange-strawberries smoothie, and the carrot-apple-orange-pineapple-peaches smoothie, with some coconut oil and flax seeds thrown in (and some hemp when I can get away with it)… but the chocolate-banana-strawberry-spinach smoothie is well-received only by the older set (Dad, me and the two big kids). I’ll keep working on it.

More to blog, but it will have to wait. Big plans tomorrow.