Catching Up Post #1: July

I never made a conscious decision to abandon my blog; life and new priorities got in the way. I don't want to leave this space altogether, as I do enjoy coming here to look back over the years.  But as time has passed, I no longer write with a mind to "followers." I'm writing for me, so I'm glad if you're here, but you may find it a bit dull.  I refer you to more interesting blogs, say Small Things, or Wooly Moss Roots.

Really there is little to report.  The activity that keeps me so busy is not very interesting.  Math with almost all the kids.  Making butter, yogurt, granola, kombucha, wine, dinner, ice cream.  Writing (not blogging).  Laundry.  Laundry.  Laundry.

I can't possibly chronicle the past couple of months in a few words (I'm far too loquacious for that), so I'll just post some pictures, adding that I haven't even been very good about doing that these days.  I really need a lens with a wide-angle-to-zoom capability, as my 50mm is great for portraits, but a bit lacking when I want an indoor wide angle.  I have to back up practically out of the county to get everyone into the shot.

Without further ado, I give you bits of July:

Among the things of July that are not noted in the photos above, our heifer turned one on the fifth of July.  Lola is absolutely lovely and we hope to have her bred this fall or early winter.  Her mama, Fiona, is milked twice daily, which--since we have no hog to raise right now--provides us with superabundant milk.  We go though about a gallon a day in milk and yogurt, but I've had the kids skim the cream from gallons and pour it out on the grass, which is criminal in my eyes.  I need to start making cheese, but I don't know how I'll find the time!

Ironically, this is Una's first week going dairy-free.  A recent spell of near-constant head and stomach pain, plus a cough, had me suspecting a dairy allergy.  Since Sunday we've eliminated all dairy, and not only are the headache and stomach pain gone, she seems to be sleeping better and have less anxiety during the day.  I don't know if we'll try dairy again in a week or so to see if her problems are in fact due to an allergy, but it looks pretty hopeful.  I'm beginning to wonder now if all her fibromyalgia pain was actually an undiagnosed allergy.

As you can see in the last photo, my baby had a birthday and turned six!  Since I began this blog when Dominic was a toddler, she is the only one who's life is chronicled here from conception to now.  She's a bright little spitfire who will no doubt cause me a lot of gray hair due to her willfulness!  I'm tempted to refer to her as "sir".  But she's also a very loving kid with a healthy conscience, and she's usually eager to please.

Status on the new house?  Well, we're still not in it.  The wood flooring is down (still needs staining and finishing) and the stairs are in, as you can see.  But with Bret doing the work himself, it's not happening fast...

Living in the moment

It's been no less crazy than usual around here.  My determination to stick to some sort of framework for our schooling is not so much born of a need to organize (I have gone from hyper-organized to a happy, disorganized mess over the decades), but from a need to keep the kids occupied enough to make a dent in the petty bickering.  Seems that too much free time is not a good thing in this house.

Anyway, between staying on top of schooling 6 kids from Kindergarten through 11th grade, trying to keep up with the household stuff, making things and being the shipping department for our Etsy shop and attempting to cook everything from scratch these days, I barely have time for any hobbies.  I do my running at 6 a.m. for an hour, I exercise for 30 minutes in the evening, I knit in the van and occasionally in my chair when there's a good movie to watch, and I read for maybe 30 minutes before I slip into my 6 hour, nightly coma.  That is how I squeeze in personal time.  Which is why this blog has suffered such neglect.

As I write this at near-10 in the morning, I am looking out my workroom window at the pasture and the changing colors of autumn, my favorite time of year.  I have a few Etsy shop orders to pack up and of course school stuff to attend to, but I'm hoping to bake pumpkin bread this afternoon and maybe make some miniature cakes with Gemma in her little cake pans.  I like the kitchen so much more this time of year, when I'm not constantly perspiring.

This year is quickly drawing to a close, and it has been a hard one.  Financial struggles, personal demons to fight, worries about family members...I'll be 51 next month, and in all honesty, I think that 50 has been one of my more trying years.  Definitely a milestone year, and one I'm not unhappy to bid farewell to.  There's been ore inner upheaval than I've felt in decades, but it is finally winding down and I am finally feeling more settled...not totally at peace, but better.  The trick is to work very hard at living in the moment and casting one's gaze neither backward nor forward.  That's the key.

Birthday princess

Our littlest family member is five!  We celebrated her special day on Saturday with a carrot cake and presents from friends and family.  She had a wonderful day.  Gabriel commented that Gemma's birthdays are the best because of her enthusiasm.  She put on her "princess dress" and birthday crown, had her sister paint her nails with sparkly pink polish and made the most of the day.

With her being the youngest, such banner days are bittersweet, as I know that there are none to follow her.  But I cherish her special days and milestones all the more for that.

So busy...

 It's been over a month since last I checked in here.  There has been plenty going on, and I need to update a little.  In May we enjoyed a visit from my uncle and grandmother.  Grandma Fran is all over the kids, and Uncle Cliff is so funny, the kids enjoy their visits very much.  Cliff took us out to eat--in honor of Sebastian's birthday--to the same BBQ place we went to with them last year (incredible ribs and cole slaw!).  Grandma Fran will be 88 next month, and plans to come for an annual visit for as long as she is able to do so.

 Our hens have been laying well, but yesterday there was a sudden drop in egg-count, and so we need to go on an egg-hunt and find where the girls may be leaving them.

The kitty above is Jake.  His sister Lizzy went missing last month, and he's been a little lonely without her.  We are guessing that a car or coyotes took her.  she was around 8 years old, which isn't bad for a barn cat who hasn't set foot inside any structure other than a barn her entire life.

Fiona, our Jersey, is due to freshen any day now.  She is bagging up and moving around very slowly.  It will be nice for us to have our own milk again, although less nice for Sebastian, our primary milker who will have to go back to work, and Gabriel, who will be milker-in-training.

 We drove to Franklin, TN for what was a first concert for our kids (a drawback of rural living is that it is a bit tougher to get to cultural events).  Music City Roots, live from the Loveless Barn, is aired on radio weekly.  We drove an hour and a half to get there and ate Little Caesar's Pizza in the van to save money!) and had a wonderful time.  Our main reason for going was the indie band Scythian.  I am a huge fan of theirs, as are a couple of my kids, and it was a delight to watch them live for the first time.  We had to leave before the very end of the show, as Gemma was beginning to fade.

This past weekend we went to the Chapel of Divine Mercy for an ordination Mass.  Ordained to the priesthood was Deacon John Broussard, CPM.  The photos above are of his first blessings--to his father, to his superior, Fr. David Wilton, CPM, and to his sister, who suffers from cerebral palsy and whose sufferings she attached to her prayers for her brother's vocation.  It was a beautiful Mass.

In other news, the drywall is up in the new Patch O' Dirt farmhouse, and next week the taping and finishing of it will be started.  Bret has hired that work out, and is working a few jobs to pull in some money before he gets going on doors, floors, light fixtures and trim.  It's neat to see it with the interior walls finally up!

And it is the end of an era:  we got a mini-van.  We are getting ready to sell our 12 passenger GMC now that everyone but Gemma is out of car seats, and we purchased a Chevy Ventura.  It should cut our gasoline costs in half, which, if you live in the middle of nowhere, can be considerable.  However, if you happen to be in our region and looking for a dependable gas-hog for your burgeoning family, email me and I'll hook you up!

We are getting ready to celebrate Father's Day on Sunday with a cholesterol-laden meal of pork ribs, beans, potatoes, corn, maybe coleslaw, and a cheesecake for dessert!  Too rich for me--I'll likely stick to the sides and pass on the cheesecake...every time I eat too many different things at one setting, I end up with a stomach ache and feeling miserable.

Oh--and I'm still running 6 miles, 3 days a week.  But I decided on Monday to see what I could do, and I went 8 miles, non-stop!  I was pretty excited, having been a non-athlete all my life.

And that's all the news worth telling.  We'll see when I make it back here!

Zoom!

Maybe that's why when we get to a certain age, we say we are "over the hill"...it appears to me that things are picking up speed as I roll on, and I go to Mass on Sunday, and the next day is Monday and always so busy, and before I can figure out where the week went, it is Friday once again.  The landscape of my life is going by in a blur.  Did we actually have a January this year?  Really?  Alright...I'll give it some thought, and maybe some details will come back to me...

Last week we had dental appointments for five of the kids, and then an orthodontic consultation for one.  It took up the better part of the day.  And there were preparations for Adrian's birthday.  His 9th birthday was actually on Wednesday, but we weren't celebrating until Saturday.  Still, I made naughty chocolate chip pancakes on his actual birthday (okay--not so naughty--I did use some whole wheat flour, ground chia seed and coconut oil), gave the kids the day off from school and let them watch a disc of Superman from Netflix.

His actual birthday celebration was great.  I made a fantastic carrot cake with cream cheese frosting (and the kids all agreed that neither the cake nor the frosting was too sweet--their usual complaint about cakes and frostings).  I did reduce the amount of sugar by 25%.  He was very happy with his presents--Legos, pajamas, two stuffed animals--one of them a rather adorable oppossum--a clip-on lamp for his bunk bed so that he can read and write in bed, a hat he requested I knit for him, and the last part of the animated series, Avatar: The Last Airbender.  He also received some greatly appreciated monetary gifts from family and Godparents.  I received several kisses from my sweet boy, thanking me for such a wonderful birthday.

On the one hand, I really hate the idea of my kids growing up and moving on (Adrian is making things easier on me by not growing too fast. I know it is a point of frustration for him, but I love that I can still pick him up and carry him around, he's so darned light!); on the other hand, I really love watching them unfold.  It's like watching butterflies emerge from the chrysalis...Adrian is a smart kid, a thinker who often throws out philisophical observations and astounds me often enough.  He's a talented drummer who is longing for a drum set (hoping there will be money in the budget for it, and room in the new house), and he's made great strides in maturity this past year, learning to get a grip on that fiery temper of his.  I love his gravelly whiskey-and-cigars voice (so amusing that it comes out of someone so small!) and I love his crazy imagination.

So glad to have been entrusted with such a fascinating soul...