Lesson in Instructions

The other day, I was feeling very lazy.  And as it turns out, it was a great thing that I was.

We were all in the living room and I was on the floor flipping through a recipe book - must have been trying to decide what to have for supper.

My son was across the room and asked me if we could put on the Thomas tape.  Yes, we still have a stereo with a cassette tape and we still have a Thomas the Train story book on tape.

I said, "Sure".  Then he asked if I could get up and do it for him, even though he was standing right by the stereo.  This is where it was a good thing I was feeling lazy.  I did not feel like getting up and decided he could do it himself.

I said, "No, you can do it; I'll tell you how."  So I proceeded to issue him instructions.

First he had to find the Function button, to switch from the radio to cassette.  He cannot read yet but recognizes all his letters so I told him to look for the button with "F" "U" "N" on it.  He found it.

Then I told him to find the "Play" button down on the cassette controls.  He found that.

But the tape was at the end on that side.  So I instructed him to find the "Eject" button and press that.  He did.

Then I told him to flip the tape over.  I think he got it upside down so I told him to turn it over with the fatter part going in first.  He did that.

Finally, I told him to find the "Play" button again.  He did and the tape started!!!

Wow, what a lesson in instructions!  I thought about it afterwards, the letter recognition he had to employ, following instructions exactly, manipulating the tape, etc.  That was rather complex for a 5 year old.  And he did it with flying colours!

Thank goodness I was feeling lazy.

Frugality

Some may have a problem with this label, but I do not.  I will happily label myself as frugal.  I don't take frugality to the extreme, but I try my best to not overspend on things we do not need.  I see it as a good thing, because at the end of the day, who really need more STUFF to clutter up their lives?  (I already have enough.)

I am sure psychologists have studied the whole "money personality" issue and have ideas about when in your formative years your attitudes towards money are formed.  I thank my parents for both being "savers" rather than "spenders" and obviously for instilling this trait in me, whether purposely or not.  I would much rather see that money in the bank (or investment) than in my hand at the check out aisle. 

I really don't like spending money.  I can get caught up in spending once I get started (like at Christmas time) but I often come home, look at my receipts and my purchases and feel some remorse.  My husband jokes that I am good at spending but equally good at "returning"!  There is almost always a shopping bag near the door with something I bought and have since decided I am going to return, if I can keep track of the receipt.  Psychologists probably have a label for this type of behaviour too but we won't go there right now!

There is one problem with this frugality trait - I also have trouble spending my own GIFT money.  This is money, free and clear, intended for my purposes only, given freely and lovingly by my father-in-law and my parents almost without fail for my birthday and Christmas every year.  I currently have $400 of gift money, sitting around, waiting for me to decide what to spend it on.  How silly is that?! 

Now sometimes I like to save up a couple rounds of gift money to buy something more substantial, like when I purchased a good pair of binoculars a year ago.  I was glad I had not spent the $100 the minute I got it and saved it up to be able to buy something I have and will continue to make great use of for years.

So now what to do with $400?  I just recently finally pulled the trigger and purchased an iPod, taking care of almost $300 of gift money (yes, I had $700 saved up!).  I have considered buying a sewing machine, something I currently do not know how to use but would like to learn and be able to make a few pieces of clothing for my kids.  Or I have considered waiting to receive another round of gift money and put it all toward a digital SLR camera or a spotting scope. 

I guess there is no harm in having this money under my mattress but I think maybe I need to learn how to spend and enjoy some of it...soon.

MUD!

I cringed but I let the kids run amok in the muck today.  In the words of my almost 5-year old "MUD, Glorious MUD!!!"

Motivation

....has been seriously lacking for me this winter.  I just cannot seem to get much accomplished, besides putting my feet up to read when I have a spare moment.  But with the impending spring (it really will have to arrive someday), I am starting to feel some motivation return.  I need to harness that to do a MAJOR spring cleaning in my house.  We still have many boxes from our move almost 4 years ago.  What's in those boxes?  Some of them I know, some of them I don't.  But of course I won't allow myself just to take an unopened box to Goodwill; I will have to open it, go through it, save what I want and try to steel myself to get rid of some of the stuff in there that I haven't needed or cared about for 4 years.

So boxes is one major thing to tackle.  Then some closets (which also have a fair number of boxes), and then painting some rooms.  I already managed to repaint our entry way and hallway, a much lighter, brighter shade of beige than the institutional, unwashable, crappy grey that it was.  I need to decide next upon the upstairs bathroom or the master bedroom.  The bathroom I almost have paint and the theme picked out (rain forest frogs and monkeys if I can pull it off), but our bedroom is still up in the air.  I think we need to pick our bedding and then base our paint selection on that.  Trouble is I cannot find bedding that I like.  Or I find some but I am not paying $400 for a bedspread!  Maybe I'll have to find material I like and find someone to sew me a duvet cover, curtains, shams, etc.  I look forward to creating a nice, relaxing haven in our bedroom, and ridding it of the deep forest green walls of which neither of us are fond.

It will be nice to get some of these cleaning and redecorating projects done in the next month or two before the beautiful summer weather is upon us and my motivation will be outside playing with my kids!

 

Sap is flowing!

And we have seven of our taps in the trees as of 1 PM today - yay, that means spring really isn't far off!  We really enjoy having the maple syruping season to look forward to, that somewhat inbetween winter and spring, snow and mud, cold and cool.  We'll get the rest of the taps (I think we only have 25 total) in tomorrow and hope for cold nights and warm days this week to get the sap really going.  Perhaps by this next weekend we'll start up the fire and begin boiling it down.  And not a moment too soon; I think we only have a pint left from last year's syrup and we sure wouldn't want to have to go buy any from a store!



Do we have sap???





Mmmmm...spring tonic!

Here's to a great 2011 season!!!

Domestic Spurt

Tonight I made a wonderful Chicken and Wild Rice soup from scratch, put the chicken carcass on the back burner to brew up some more chicken stock for the freezer, and cooked some Italian sausage to store in the freezer for future pizza or addition to some venison meal.  All while the kids managed to give me the necessary 45 minutes to get most of this done without too many interruptions - I felt like I was on a roll!  Yesterday it was Italian bread in the bread machine (okay, not exactly "handmade" but close) and Pumpkin Chocolate Chip cupcakes with cream cheese frosting.  I love to make things from scratch when I have the time, which is most of the time but not always.  I think these last two days though just about uses up my domestic quota for the week!

Artist in Residence

With all the cold weather we have been having, we end up spending the majority of our days inside.  We had a bit of a break from our usual TV watching for 2 days as punishment for a rough, rowdy bedtime a few nights back.  That means we had to keep busy with other things during the hour we usually watch a bit of PBS.

Thanks to Uncle Chris for bring us a BIG pack of construction paper!  We have a whole fleet of paper airplanes to zoom down the hall.  Because I decided to just let them at it, keep the paper out where they can reach it and not ration it out like I usually do, Jonathan has gone hog-wild drawing.  A while back he went on a drawing binge and filled up our door with machine pictures:

His new subject is bioluminescent fish.  Yes, he can say it and even knows what it means, thanks to a book we have on ocean life and "Finding Nemo".  He even "taught" the word to his preschool teachers the other day when he was drawing in class and wanted them to write down what his picture was.  So now there is a big stack of fish drawings on the table, some have been made into books with stories (LOVE these!), some are designated to give to friends, and some will end up in an envelope to Grandma for her birthday later this month.  Here are a few samples:

I just love the creative mind of a four and a half year old!

Not to be outdone, Sarah has been busy with paints herself.  A messy mess ensues but she has a great time!

Mid-January Blah

It's cold.  We haven't been outside, other than to and from the vehicle, since last weekend when we briefly went ice-fishing, even though it really was too cold for that too.  Today I decided I needed to pull out two of the activity books I have that are full of ideas for "unplugged" play.  You would think I could come up with some of these things on my own as they are not that in-depth or off the wall - such as playing "Restaurant" - but I get in a rut and become uninspired to do anything but play with the toys that are scattered in the living room.  It is time to branch out a bit, add some variety and maybe even some learning into our daily play.  I just flipped through the books today, marking pages, and hopefully tomorrow when we are stuck inside all day again, we can try "Letter Scramble", making our own modelling clay, or even paper mache, if I feel like facing the mess that may result!  Good luck to anyone else feeling cabin fever during this mid-January cold snap and perhaps I'll have some art projects to post about next time. 

Books, Books, and More Books

I have been an absolute reading fiend lately.  Since early December I have finished reading 7 novels.  Part of the reason for my all-consuming obsession is that I was trying to reach my goal of reading 24 books last year.  That may not be a big amount for many, but two books a month for me means I generally have to read frequently during nap-times and after the kids' bedtime, with housework often suffering.  I have been keeping track of the books I read during a year since 2005; just one of those silly things I like to keep track of with a list.  The most I had read previous to last year was 22 so the goal of 24 seemed relatively attainable.

It would have been if I had not gotten behind on the plan of two novels per month back in May.  And it was my own fault.  I chose "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte as our book club selection for the month because I have never read it and I wanted to read a classic.  Well, I really got bogged down in it and shamefully did not even finish it for the meeting date.  I wasn't reading another novel at the time, as I often have two on the go, and I tried after the meeting to keep at it and get it finished.  I failed to finish it then and still have it sitting on my nightstand (at the bottom of the piles!), with great intentions of finishing it "someday".  That seemed to set me back for the rest of the year, along with the wonderful summer weather that beckoned me outside rather than curled up with a book.  I had to read a lot in the last few months of 2010 to try and pull off my goal.

I did manage to get 24 novels read, with a little cheating.  On December 31st I finished reading "The Long Winter" by Laura Ingalls Wilder which I have been reading aloud to Jonathan at bedtime and which we were about two thirds done.  I suppose it is not really cheating as I did read all of the book.  For that matter, I could also count in my tally for 2010 the first four books in the Little House series which I read to Jonathan.  I guess because they are considered juvenile fiction I did not really want to count them, but in the end I did.

In case anyone is at all interested, here is a list of the books I read, an asterisk noting which were for book club:

Birding on Borrowed Time - Phoebe Snetsinger

Heaven's Keep - William Kent Krueger

The Story of Forgetting - Stefan Merrill Block

Three Cups of Tea - Greg Mortensen and Davic Oliver Relin*

Fieldwork - Mischa Berlinski

The Alphabet Sisters - Monica McInerney

Abercrombie Trail - Candace Simar *

The Year of Living Biblically - A.J. Jacobs*

Staggerford - Jon Hassler *

The Next Thing on My List - Jill Smolinski*

Where Men Win Glory: The Story of Pat Tillman - Jon Kraukauer

Streiker's Bride - Robin Hardy

The Appeal - John Grishom *

Streiker's Killdeer - Robin Hardy

Half Broke Horses - Jeannette Wells

In Cod We Trust - Eric Dregni *

The Glass Castle - Jeannette Wells

The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho

Anne of Green Gables - Lucy Maud Montgomery *

The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein *

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson

Rough Country - John Sandford

Room - Emma Donoghue

The Long Winter - Laura Ingalls Wilder

This year I haven't really set a goal, yet.  It would be nice to read another 24 books and considering I have already finished two novels this year, I'm off to a good start.  I think instead I would like to read mostly classics this year.  And likely I won't be whipping through them, if "Jane Eyre" is any indication.  I think I have on my Facebook page a list of "100 books you should read".  I am not sure if that is because they are actual classics per se or just noteworthy books, but I think I'll be picking a few from that list for the year.  If I read ten from that list along with my book club books, I'd be very happy with that accomplishment.

If the stacks of books around my nightstand are any indication, I will not be lacking reading material for awhile!

Winter Wonderland

The first full week of January in Ironton has been COLD.  We have had below average temperatures with nothing higher than about 18F (that's about -7C for my Canadian readers) and usually with a wind so it has never even got close to feeling like the actual air temperature.  But, being January in Minnesota, this is pretty much expected.  We haven't been able to venture outside much, and now both kids have pretty good colds, so we won't get out much in the next few days until they are feeling better. 

We received rain and then a good 6 inches of snow on December 30 so it has been extremely pretty outside.  The ice and snow covered branches are beautiful right now and the winds haven't been strong enough to knock much off.  I am struck by all the picture worthy scenes when I am driving:  willows weeping under the weight of the snow; dark pines and spruce boughs sharply contrasting with their snowy burden; picturesque snowed-in trails, all shadowy blue in the weak sunlight.  We went for a drive on New Year's Day and here are some of the sights:

Snowy roadside scenes, January 1, 2011

On January 2 the sun was shining and I took some photos of our yard from the comfortable side of the window.



Love the blue shadows on the snow!



Some sun, but not much warmth



When we did get out that day, at least the sun made it feel a bit better.  The kids played for a while, digging our snow fort and climbing the big snow piles in our yard.

       Jonathan, happy to be outside, even it is cold!

Sarah's snow angel



Frosty little cheeks!

I cannot remember what Sarah was crying about, but Mom wanted a picture taken anyway.  Yes, I know I have a tag still on my hat; it was a Christmas present and I was trying to decide if I liked the size.  A bit of the "mad trapper" look I suppose but it was warm!

Rob took a walk later that day on our property and this shows the snow down our trail.

On January 1st I always start a new year list of bird sightings.  On our drive we got a wonderful view of some Pine Grosbeaks, something I don't think I have seen while in Minnesota.  They do regularly occur here in the winter, I just haven't gone out to search for them.  I would really love to get a spotting scope and get into digi-scoping photography of birds.  For now, you'll have to believe me that those little specks ARE Pine Grosbeaks.



And we start a new "yard list" for the birds we see only in or flying over our property.  Last year's list had 53 species; in 2009 we had 58.  I am hopeful I will be able to bird a little more during spring migration to get this year's number over 60.  Starting off the 2011 yard list was a great look at our ever-present Pileated Woodpecker, attacking his favourite snag.

So it may be cold but I am thankful for the beauty of nature and experiencing this winter wonderland.



Time to Start

I've been wanting to start a blog for some time now.  The problem is finding the time.  I assume I will start out slowly and learn this whole blogging thing as I go along.  If I wait until I feel like I know what I am doing, I would never get started!

The purpose of my blog is simply to share my family's daily happenings with family, friends and loved ones near and far.  I am a regular on Facebook and manage to enter a status update a couple times a week.  But often I want to write a lot more than the 400 and some characters that the status update box allows.  So I decided I would begin a blog for that purpose.  Now I can ramble on a lot more than before, and you, dear reader, can choose to visit this blog or not.  Do not expect anything too profound or deep or inspiring - mostly it will be simple news, things that my wonderful kids are up to, what we did as a family on the weekend, maybe some photos and videos if I ever get that part figured out and such.

I have, however, off and on since 1994 been a journal writer.  I just poked around in one of the many moving boxes still lurking in our basement and dug up my first journal.  A simple coil bound notebook full of early 20-something angst - believe me, that book is NEVER going to be read by anyone!  Over the years I have kept a journal to pour out my thoughts into.  Some periods of my life I have written a lot and frequently; sometimes months and months go by without any entries.  Like now, I probably have not written anything for several months as I am too busy just living my day-to-day life.  But no matter what, and even if I never show what's written to another soul, they are still important to me.  I enjoy writing, to record momentous events and feelings, to capture the experiences I had when I did some travelling, to bitch about someone but not to their face, to have a place that is mine and mine alone to express myself.  It is a creative outlet I hope to devote more time to in the future and perhaps see if it could lead to something else.  I think this blog may be a little bit of an online journal for me now too.

So here's to a new year and trying something new!