My brother-in-law is getting married this fall. Precisely, on October 31st. Halloween. The reception will be a costume party, so I started searching online last week for Halloween costumes. We weren't sure what to do exactly: should we have a family theme, or should we all just be different things? Husband said, "whatever," so we (I) settled on "different things." I searched for a costume for Baby Girl first, because that seemed easiest. I knew I needed a costume that would be warm because, did I mention, the wedding/reception is outdoors at the Oregon coast. In the fall, mind you. It may be a wee bit chilly and wet. I found the perfect costume for her. This little butterfly getup is from Old Navy. It has fleecy pants, plus this fleecy jacket with hood. It's going to be perfect. It just arrived the other day and is adorable. I'm hoping that she'll be able to wear it next year as well, since here in the northern regions it'll be frigid come Halloween.

So I moved my search on to me. I was APPALLED at what I found. First off, almost every single costume for women is some sort of sexy thing. If it's a nurse, it's a sexy nurse. If it's a ladybug, it's a sexy ladybug. If it's a hippie, it's a sexy hippie. Frankly, it's disgusting. I tired quickly of looking at cleavage and seductive poses. That's not my style. I'm not going to let it all hang out. Especially at a WEDDING. With my IN-LAWS. That kind of attire is just not my cup of tea. Frustrated, and not finding anything appropriate for me, I moved on to find a costume for Husband.

Here's the shocker. There are no "sexy" mens costumes. I hate the double standards! Not that I was on these site hoping for some "soft born" (substitute that b with a p) but really, it stood out that most of the men depicted were fully clothed and did not have their hips jutting out at weird angles. Take a look for yourself, you'll see what I mean. Click here. Then here. Then here. Now here. See? Argh!!

But back to my story. I didn't really find anything for Husband, either. So I went back to me. I did finally find something suitable. It would keep me fully clothed, which met my goal of not dressing like a hussy at Husband's brother's wedding and my goal of being warm at the coast. Plus, it was cute and whimsical. And it happened to be an insect. A bumblebee to be exact. So now we have a little butterfly and a bumblebee on order.

Hmm, I see a pattern emerging here. Looks like we are going thematic afterall. With my costume finally settled and a change of plans created, I went back to looking for Husband. What sort of insect could a man be? We thought a caterpillar would be great (then we'd have a family of insects commonly found in a flower garden). I found a costume for $200 bucks. Whoa! Back the bus up! Not spending that much money. I'm figuring about $20-$40 per costume. So I moved on. I searched all over for a spider costume. Apparently only women can be spiders. Scratch that, sexy spiders. So I tried searching for an ant costume. Nada. The only insect I could find was a cockroach. Doesn't quite fit the whimsical theme I was going for. Plus, how would I break that news to Husband that he gets to be a cockroach. Whoohoo! Sounds like fun! Right, Honey?? Surprisingly, he seemed okay with that. He thought it was pretty funny. So now one cockroach has been ordered.

And there you have it: A butterfly, a bumblebee, and a cockroach.

Last week Toddler Boy was away on vacation. It was pretty quiet around here, and a lot cleaner! I had no idea the impact one little boy could make on my house. I had decided to use the chaos-free opportunity to work on potty training Baby Girl. A long time ago, we started it. She went pee pee a lot in the potty chair, then poopy, freaked out and wouldn't go near it again. Until lately, when she has requested to use the potty chair. Yeah, that's right: she's ASKED to use the potty chair. So I started thinking, hmm, maybe I should try pushing this again.

I had backed off, because the one thing I've learned so far about potty training is to wait until the kid is ready. So perhaps now she was ready. Last Monday was the first day. I dressed her in pull-ups. I brought her potty chair to the living room with us. Every thirty minutes I had her sit on the potty to try to go pee pee. Nothing happened. Tuesday, I did a repeat of Monday. It seemed as if I was catching her in between the correct time. By the time I would have her sit down, her pull-up was already wet. But, I didn't get discouraged. I had promised myself I would give it the week and just see what would happen.

Then Wednesday hit us. On Wednesdays I have the extra little toddler around, and because he and Boy Child are so rambunctious when they play, I moved the potty chair back to the bathroom. Without the visual reminder, I began slacking on the "every 30 minutes." But we still made a few trips in to the bathroom. That day I began the bribing. If you go pee pee, you can have a sticker! Didn't work. Thursday I put her in a pull-up, but completely forgot to even have her try the potty throughout the day. Friday I put a diaper on her.

So I've shelved that task again. But, I want to give Baby Girl some credit. She would go willingly with me to the potty, and she would sit on the potty chair and wait. After a short while she would stand up, turn around to take a look, then say, "Nope, try again!" and sit back down to try again. So at least she tried, and was willing, and there were no power struggles or any such thing. I guess we still need to just give it a little more time.

The Bean Mom bestowed on me this sweet little badge. Thank you!!

I'd like to pass the blog bling on, in no particular order, to the following:

1. The Semi Desperate Housewife, because she writes like we're really good friends talking over a cup of coffee. Plus, she was very honest when she left a comment on one of posts once, so hey, she rocks!
2. Canape, who writes so beautifully about motherhood -- both the ups and downs -- and captures so well what we all often feel.
3. WhyMommy over at Toddler Planet. Through her blogging she spreads awareness about Inflammatory Breast Cancer.
4. Swistle. She also writes like we've known each other forever and I love reading her posts, which are always entertaining.
5. Jenna at Cold Antler Farm. She's following her dreams and nothing will stop her!
6. Joanna. For the beautiful photography and the wonderful companionship.
7. And lastly, for Michelle, my youngest sister, who is about to start her second year teaching First Graders. I think all teachers deserve more kudos than they get.

And here the rules, if you'd like to participate:

Put the logo on your blog.
Add a link to the person who awarded you.
Nominate at least seven other blogs.
Add links to those blogs on your blog.
Leave a message for your nominee on their blog.

The weather has turned chilly around here, giving hints of the coming autumn. I know it'll warm up again, and probably even get HOT again, but this week, with highs in the sixties and days of constant rain, has made me yearn for my favorite season: autumn. I've started thinking about all the fun things we will get to do this fall, like go to a pumpkin patch for the first time ever with Baby Girl. Or go apple picking at a local orchard. Or tour the countryside looking at the gorgeous fall foliage.

I'm already looking forward to freshly baked bread, chilis and soups simmering on the stove, and the opportunities to wear sweaters. Speaking of clothes, I realized the other day that we will need to buy Baby Girl a winter jacket. Her previous two winters (ahh!! When did that happen??) found her swaddled and bundled in hand-me-downs from my older sister's clothes. But since she has recently moved to Texas, and we're in northern Idaho, I don't see the whole clothes swap thing working out too well anymore. So for the first time in Baby Girl's life, I need to do some serious clothes shopping for her. Most importantly is the winter jacket.

I hopped online the other night (because that's how we shop out here in the boonies...why drive 2 hours to the nearest city when they can bring the goods to your very door?) to start my shopping experience. I hit all the usual suspects first: Old Navy, Gymboree, The Children's Place. Nothing. Well, except for lightweight hoodies and such. So then I moved on to JC Penney, Target, Macys. Still nothing. I was starting to get worried. Perhaps I'm jumping the gun here? Am I simply too excited for fall and winter and not waiting patiently for the proper timing to buy winter clothes?? I don't know...In my experience it seems that retailers think "the earlier the better." Less than a month after school lets out, Back To School items begin appearing, right? So doesn't it seem like NOW would be a good time to sell fall and winter clothing, at the end of the summer season? Granted, I'm basing this on our summer season which will be ending in about a month.

So I'm a little concerned here. The only place I was able to find a good winter jacket -- and by good I mean it can withstand single digit temps AND multiple feet of snow PLUS "grow" with my daughter so that it lasts all season which could be 7 months long like it was last year -- was at Columbia Sportswear. But guess what? Apparently they don't sell things ONLINE. Oh, and the nearest store to me? Doesn't exist. Plus, the jacket I found that would be ideal...there's no cost listed on the site. Never a good sign.

But while I was on the Columbia site I was reminded that I will need to buy Baby Girl a snowsuit as well. Geesh! Hadn't thought of that one! And she'll need boots, too. And new socks, undershirts, longs sleeved shirts, possibly some pants, and definitely some slippers. I did happen to pick up two fleece jammies at Costco the other day, so she's set there. Most of the clothes won't be a big deal, but that elusive jacket might.

So either I'm starting to shop way to early, or I've already missed the window of opportunity and everything I'm seeing now is for Spring/Summer '09.

The Bean Mom had this meme on her blog, and I just couldn't resist it, being a huge book lover myself. I was surprised to see a lot of books that I've read more than once, but also several books that I've never even touched! This is the start of my next reading list, I guess!

Bold means I've read it, red means I've read it more than once, and blue means I've tried to get through it but have not finished.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville (I think I read the whole thing in high school, but can't recall)
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce (again, I think I read it all, but I can't remember for sure)
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


If you're up to doing this meme, feel free to do so! But, I'll officially tag Heather and/or Nick over at The Tyrrell's Jr. since I know they both do a lot of reading.

Do I even remember what my resolutions were anymore? The month of July slipped by, and the end of August is inching closer and closer, and I realize I need to review my resolutions.

So here goes.

First I'll start with the easy ones:

Flossing every day? Yep.
Eating at least 5 fruits/veggies a day? For the most part, yes. Sometimes more, sometimes less.

Now the harder ones (or rather, the ones I've been ignoring):

Expanding spiritual mind? Nope...haven't done a darn thing, except read one book earlier in the year. Well, I guess I could count the "moment of silence" our family has reinstated at the beginning of the dinnertime. But really, I had wanted to read some inspiring texts, and I just haven't done that. By the time I have a chance to read, it's bedtime and that's certainly not the time to be doing "heavy reading" as I call it. I've even been ignoring the discipline book I bought to help cope with the terrible twos! Now that I have a bit of time freed up with daycare, maybe I should start focusing on this again.

Vote for someone I believe in. Well, elections haven't happened yet, so obviously I haven't done this. BUT, I did finally register to vote (yeah me!) so at least I have that outta the way. And I pretty much have my candidate selected in my mind, but I still need to get on his website and review his stand on certain things, just to make sure.

Staying under budget for groceries/household items? Budget? We have a budget? Ha ha ha ha ha!!! Ha ha haaaaa haa ha...ha.......ha...............ha. Oh, I was serious. Yeah, so that budget thing kinda isn't working out. Truth be told, when I started daycaring and pulling in the big bucks *snort*, the budget went to to the wayside. Every month we struggled to come in under budget, while still trying to buy good food (read: not Top Ramen). The thing is, I'm a bit of a food snob AND we live rurally. Those two things combined equal expensive food. For example, we prefer Tillamook Cheddar Cheese. Here in our local grocery store it's $9.99/ brick currently. Now, I did find it cheaper over at the Walmart for $6.59, so I buy it there. Then there's our milk we drink. Because we are vegetarian, I like to buy the organic milk with the DHA added to it. And because I buy a half gallon of whole for Baby Girl and a half gallon of reduced fat for me every week, we are spending almost $9.00 on milk a week alone. Then we have to buy soy milk for Husband, because he can't drink milk. So that's just a couple of examples of how our food budget starts to spiral out of control. And, let's be frank, the cost of food has risen, so really I should raise our monthly budget. And shop at Costco more often.

Also, more truthtelling: what I spend on household items USUALLY comes under budget each month. (Yeah me, again!)

That brings us to my last resolution of blogging every friggin' day in November. Based on what we've seen here, I don't think that's going to happen.

BUT...I will try!!!! There is still plenty of time left in this old year to make up for my slack.

I'm over it. I'm tired of doing the haiku thing every Sunday night. I originally started it as a way to reflect on the weekend and create a focus for the coming week. But now I dread doing it. I sit in front of the computer, hemming and hawing, trying to write a haiku all while other thoughts swirl in my mind.

Plus, I think I suck at writing haikus. Husband is really good at it, so clever with word play. I thought maybe I'd get better as time went on, but nope.

So it's turned into something I don't want to do, and since this is my blog, guess what? I ain't doin' it! Well, a haiku may surface here and there, but for now I'll write what I feel like writing.

Sunday nights I usually find myself thinking about all that I did over the weekend, and I have a feeling this slot will be filled with a brain dump of my reflections on the weekend. And I would do that now, because we had a pretty good weekend, but we've been boating both days and I've got that weird water feeling. You know the one, where you feel like you're bobbing up and down like you're still on the water. It's making me sorta dizzy, and it's actually kind of hard to stare at a computer screen.

Anyway...no more haikus. Instead, look for recaps of the weekend.

Now that's something to look forward to!

Can you tell I wear the exact same shoes every day? And that I don't really remember (or have time) to put on sunblock?




And p.s., I'm still waiting for a pedicure...

In front of our house there is a path along the street that acts as a pedestrian corridor between a park and a larger trail system. I love that this path is right outside our front door (well, at the end of the driveway, anyways). There is a constant flow of people throughout the day, biking or walking or jogging or skateboarding. People wave and call out greetings to us as they pass by. There is a real sense of community along this path, running parallel to our neighbors’ driveways and connecting one end to the other.

Through my kitchen window, while I prepare a meal or wash dishes, I am often entertained by those passing by. There was the Norman Rockwell incident that I wrote about, and other funny sights, like the bike-riding family. The parents were on a tandem with an attached ride-along bike pulling a trailer, while two other kids rode their bikes independently. What a crew!

Aside from the occasional entertainment (moose included!), there are the regulars. As these people walk by, I often wonder what the rest of their lives are like. I only glimpse them for a short while, as they pass from one end of my yard to the other. If they wrote blogs, what would they say? I often wonder.

• There is the old woman, who walks steadfast, with her head always bowed to the ground. I have rarely seen her look up. Why doesn’t she look around and enjoy the scenery, instead of staring at the asphalt? What burdens has she carried in life to round her shoulders so, giving her a dejected look?

• There is the man who walks his dog in a unique fashion. The big dog lopes along the road, tongue hanging out, as the man drives slowly along in his big Oldsmobile. I judged this man for a while, wondering how he justified burning gas to walk his dog. Why couldn’t he get off his lazy arse and get some physical exercise – and fresh air, to boot!? Then one day, over the winter, I was outside shoveling and I saw the dog coming, trailed by the car. As the car inched ever closer to me, I could see the handicap sign in the windshield. I felt bad; I had judged someone I didn’t know, and didn’t deserve it. And now I see the situation differently. The man cares enough about his dog to walk him in some manner, even if it does hold up traffic on occasion and could be embarrassing. I haven’t seen this pair lately, and I wonder, Did the dog die? Did something happen to the owner? Did the car break down?

• There is the elderly gentleman who bicycles past on a yellow bike, white helmet, blue windbreakers, and orange work gloves with matching safety goggles. The first few times I passed him on the path when I ventured out with the kids, he never returned my greetings. Slowly, over time, he has started to say hello back.

• There is a woman who, from my kitchen window, looks to be about my age. She goes jogging by with a belt cinched around her waist. Attached to the belt are the leashes of three large dogs, who run in sync with her. When the windows are open I can hear her coming, the jingling of metal clasps heralding her arrival. She usually jogs by on Sunday mornings.

• There is a man who is slightly overweight and walks by on occasion using ski poles as supports. Except he strolls so slowly he doesn’t seem to lean in to the poles, and their support seems irrelevant. Whenever he walks by I wonder, what’s the point? But, at least he is still making an effort.

• One of my favorite passersby is a young woman who always gives a hearty wave and a big grin as a greeting. She always has her little lap dog with her, and sometimes an older woman (her mother?). No matter where we are…if we are in the yard or on a bike ride and our paths cross…she always greets us with enthusiasm. It’s as if we’ve been friends forever.

At the risk of sounding like I don't do anything at all except people watch out my window, I'm posting this. I find these people curious...I can't help it. I wonder who they are, where they live, what they do in their day to day lives. My curiosity is just a natural reaction as I see these same people day after day after day. I spend enough time in the kitchen making meals and cleaning up from meals, so it seems only natural I would start to notice these people.

There, my disclaimer is over. Please don't think I'm psycho.

So what's the best way you can think of to end a Tuesday? How 'bout a skunk under the house? Sound good? Yeah, we thought so, too. That's why we currently -- we think -- have one under the house.

Washing the dishes up after dinner tonight I saw one come running across the road, headed straight towards our yard with a very determined look on it's face. I quick ran to get our two cats off the back deck, because I knew I didn't want them tangling with a skunk. I got one cat in the house, and right before I grabbed the other cat I saw her perk up with interest at something over there. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement, heard some rustling, and then...nothing.

What does this mean????

Our neighbor, who had been in their front yard, confirmed that the skunk had indeed gone under our fence into our backyard. So where did it go? I don't think it's under the deck, because there's lattice all around it. But I think there is a hole of sorts into our crawlspace. So I'm guessing that's where the skunk went.

Great.

Just what we need.

Just so long as it doesn't set off it's sprayer.

My in-laws told me a trick of ridding oneself of skunks is to play loud music. Apparently they -- the skunks, not my in-laws -- don't like loud noise. But, how will we know for sure when the skunk(s)* is gone, so that way we can block up the crawlspace hole and the fence hole? Because what we REALLY don't need is a trapped skunk under our house that would eventually die. Nope, don't need that.

Ugh.

*My neighbor informed me this is the 2nd or 3rd time she's seen this skunk come into our yard. The neighbors across the way have a family under their house/deck, and the other neighbors have been catching some and releasing them out in the woods. Good times.

Every afternoon, around the time the first parent arrives to pick up Baby Boy, Toddler Boy starts to get fidgety. He knows that soon his mama will be here to pick him up. We spend the next 45 to 60 minutes in a looping conversation of Mama here? No, Mama's still at work, but she's coming...

When at last his mama's arrival is announced, Toddler Boy shrieks with joy, calling out Mama! Mama! and runs to the front door, jumping up and down, and smiling so big. He is so happy to see his mama -- there is pure joy on his face. When I open the door he leaps (he's been taking gymnastics) into her open arms and gives her the biggest hug, arms wrapped around her neck and legs tightly around her torso.

What a way to end your work day, huh? Such a happy blissful moment. I think I'd look forward to that all day long.

The sun has set down,
and the moon slowly rises.
Winter is coming.

The water sparkles,
sailboats flit by, skidoos zoom.
Lunchtime by the lake.