I want a nice pair of oxford shoes not sweatshop made. Leather, black. Suggestions welcome. I have huge feet, women’s 11ish, men’s 9.5-10 (US.) Best if priced under $100.
was the O’Melays, who were the visiting friends! I didn’t want to out them until they got back to their lovely farm. It was such a delight to finally meet Tabitha who I have known for almost seven years. The kids all got along swimmingly. Tabitha’s children are generally between my kids in age: Tristan is one year younger than Abby, Kassi is nine months older than Gilbert, Toly is nine months younger than Trixie, and Rome is nine months younger than Gloria. This meant that there were multiple playmates for each O’Melay. Tristan flitted between the older girls and Gilbert and Kassi played with Gloria and Faith. Toly and Bede wrestled with each other like puppies, and Rome floated around the edges.
Everyone got a mild cold and stuffy nose but the only one really sidelined by it was Tristan, who spiked a fever too. Poor dude!
Overall the visit was wonderful. They came down so Karl could build a wall in our new garage to partition it off for Sean’s office, and that was accomplished. Karl is amazing. Tabitha and I made food, as previously noted.
I also got other gifts: Sean got me The Complete Sherlock Holmes
So all told, a Very Happy Birthday!
Today is Wirt L. Harris’s birthday! Happy birthday, Dad!
My friends are here and have been here since Saturday morning. The house has ten kids and four adults and it is loud and happy! We eat a lot. On Saturday we cooked three dozen eggs, two pounds of sausage, a pound of bacon, two pints of beans and about eight pounds of venison. (Saturday was to feed sixteen people since Sophia nd Josh came too.) Sunday we ate some of the Saturday leftovers and also cooked eighteen eggs, a couple pounds of ham, two five pound chickens and two pounds of broccoli, along with three loaves of bread and twelve dozen cookies. Today we made an enormous pot of venison chili, ate it all, (again, with Sophia and Josh’s help) and finished off three-fourths of the cookies and another thirteen eggs.
I have to make bread tonight so I can bake it in the morning. Yum!
In other news, my birthday is tomorrow and I have my birthday present to myself: hardware and software upgrades for my beloved Dell Mini 9. He (his name is Aristotle) got a new hard drive, new RAM and a new OS! I’ve been accruing these bits and bobs for months and got the last piece of hardware today, an external DVD drive. It was all I was waiting on and now I’m installing Windows 7. I’m very excited!
We have guests coming this weekend. It’s a perfect time to visit because for the next month we have two houses, see, so there’s room! We’re going to build an interior wall to partition off part of the garage and get an idea of what new flooring will be needed.
I’m thrilled to see the folks who are coming. I plan to cook a lot today and tomorrow. I hope my friends don’t mind the mess. It’s a pity they know me so well, I can’t blame it on moving.
In other news, Beatrice Anna snuck in and turned four when nobody was looking. I’ve turned my birthday photographer hat over to my eldest, and she has yet to post the pictures, but when she does I’ll link a few. In the meantime, you might like to read her birth story. It was very exciting, in retrospect. The day it happened, it was like a moment caught out of time, and absolutely the most divine of all my births.
When I was in fifth grade, I switched schools. Someone there asked if I had been born in the UK, because I had a trace of the Queen’s English in my speech. I assure you it was not affected by me, but a natural byproduct of being raised in a home where the only thing on television was PBS, then recycled British children’s shows via 1985 Nickelodeon. The Third Eye, anyone? How about The Tomorrow People? The strongest, quickest and best, Dangermouse. And of course Doctor Who!
Thanks to the wonder of the internet I can continue this tradition with my kids. They are Whovians through and through, and Gilbert and Bede currently love Alphablocks, a CBeebies programme. Enjoy!
We’re signing the contract on it tomorrow! Go, us!
Sean just got back from a grocery run. It’s so satisfying to suddenly have the problem of too much food in my kitchen. I feel so rich when I open the cabinet and see twelve cans of tomato paste. It’s the little things.
I’ve been planning things for the new house in my mind. The kitchen there is much larger than the kitchen here, which has five square feet of counter space. We have room for a microwave, a coffee pot and a toaster and absolutely nothing else, no room to prep cook, nothing. Standing in the new kitchen is marvelous.
I’m going to take Trixie and Gilbert over there this evening, let them see it. I’m not taking Bede until we’ve finished the flooring changes because I don’t want him to have one image in his mind and get it all confused. I don’t anticipate him having much trouble with this move (well, no more trouble than a nonautistic six year old) but why take chances. Man, I am so looking forward to NOT HAVING STAIRS. While they have rocked my glutes with no effort (woohoo!) they are so dangerous. I worry daily that someone will be angrily shoved near the top of the flight and then tumble down, down in a sickening heap. Shudder! Soon, soon.
We’re going to get vinyl plank flooring for the living/dining room. Stuff’s badass, I tell you what. I’m willing to trade natural for waterproof, inexpensive and resilient.
My niece and her children came to see us today. Her daughter is Faith’s age and her son is a little younger than Gloria. The lot of them get on famously. After they left I finished baking bread and apathetically wondered what to have for dinner. I’ve decided on pasta with red sauce because the kids all like it and any leftovers can still be eaten tomorrow but honestly I’m in such a rut. I need to plan meals out for the week on Sunday and be done with it.
Gilbert has been trying to say words with no vowels and he sounds like he’s speaking Klingon. Cute, lispy, five year old Klingon. Think Alexander Rozhenko.
The apathy on my part is not shared by the ravenous children who are damn tired of their mother not feeding them dinner. So long, Internets.
You can sign in with your Facebook ID here. I mean, I don’t see it or anything, it uses Facebook Connect, which is made by Facebook. Anyway. Just sayin. And it should keep you signed in here if you do that.
So all of you who comment on Facebook and not here (Traci Foust, I’m looking at you!) have no excuse.
Gilbert’s favorite Wiggle is Sam Wiggle. (He is also partial to Greg.)
So I knit him this Sam Wiggle Sweater, which is to say, a taxicab yellow sweater.
He likes it very much!
Better shot of the actual sweater, vs. the boy in the sweater.
Our eyes are the same color, me and Gil.
Look, two little sisters as well!
Sweater pattern is the raglan from The Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns
Recent Comments