Adventures in Living!

Answering questions...

So, over on LiveJournal, my friend Bryce posted his responses to a series of five questions asked of him by another friend. I haven't done a meme in a while on this blog, so I asked him to give me five questions to answer. Here they are, with my responses:

1. What is the best quality of each of your kids? What is the worst?

With three kids in the house, there are also a variety of personalities and quirks. Sometimes it feels like there are *multiple* personalities. Kira's best quality is that she has a vast imagination and a way with language. Her vocabulary definitely outstrips other kids her age, and her ability to come up with creative insights and new ways of looking at things is amazing. Her worst quality is probably that she often looks at difficult things and thinks she can't do them, rather than jumping in and giving a try. Wren? Best is her boundless energy and rapidly developing wit. Worst is her boundless energy! And for my precious boy, Noah, he is so loving and happy. At his worst, he is supremely stubborn and given to wanting to do everything himself. I think all of my kids are wonderfully unique and vibrant, and really, their qualities change as they grow, so what's "worst" now probably will be different in a few years.

2. Beach or Mountains?

Yes. 

No, really. It's been so godawful long since we had a vacation (six years?), I'd go anywhere. If I felt like being picky, I'd have to say beach. Years of living in Miami, and then near the shore of Lake Ontario have made me into someone who loves the sound of the water meeting land, and the soul-clearing walks that can be had along the sand. It would figure I would marry someone who doesn't like the beach.

3. What are your top five desert island albums?

I so rarely listen to whole albums anymore, so this is a tough one.

In no particular order:

Van Morrison,  Tupelo Honey

Everclear,   Songs From An American Movie, Vol.1: Learning How To Smile

Yo-Yo Ma,  Complete Cello Suites

Billy Joel,  The Essential Billy Joel

Lunasa,  Otherworld

4. What was the first rock concert you went to?

INXS, on tour for the album, Kick, in 1988, which was the year I graduated from high school. I saw them in Miami, on March 1st at the Miami Sportatorium.

5. If you could own horses again, would you?

Absolutely, yes. I love horses, and I loved having them in my life and living on a farm. It's expensive and hard physical work, but I love them. I have been considering starting to ride again (it's been eleven years since I have been on a horse), but it will be a while before I am in a position to have a horse of my own again. I probably would need a full-time job and all my kids in school, at least.

We Love Halloween!

I was not impressed with the hot, sticky weather we had, but Halloween at the Brandel household was  terrific !

Friday night, we carved three massive pumpkins...

 

 

 

 

RAAAAWR!!!  (Wren is so awesome...)

Noah says "Raawr!" too!

Halloween Night...spooky dinner...Mummy Hot Dogs....Monster Face salad...and a glass of sparkling green Monster Juice to drink!

Getting ready....everyone gets glow sticks and glow bracelets.

Going out....the bat, the Tinkerbell, and Professor McGonagal (from Harry Potter).

At the neighbor's house....."Trick or Treat!!"

The kids had a blast! It was unseasonably hot and humid, which reminded me of Halloween nights in Miami. Travis and I were sweating by the time we got done. The kids were great; polite, cooperative, and everyone had fun. There was one fantastic house that was totally done up with spooky decorations and a fog machine and a scream soundtrack. Wren was a little unsure, but Noah just marched right in with Kira. We have to spend more time decorating our yard next year. I definitely want at least one inflatable things, and to put some ghosts and some lights up in the trees. I think we might need a spooky graveyard, too. 

Kids are in bed now, lights are off, and I am trying to stay away from the unsupervised pumpkin buckets full of candy. We'd set a big bowl of candy on the porch before we left, only to come back home to find someone had stolen it! Low-rent jerks! Ah, well, it IS trick OR treat, right? I can get another bowl next year.

I think I will also avoid getting started on my yearly Halloween rant about the people who DRIVE their kids from house to house for trick or treating. I could understand it if the houses were a quarter-mile apart, but this is suburbia! Sigh...you walk, or you don't go. That's how it should be. (well, unless you're two, then you can ride in the wagon)

Anyway.

I love Halloween. We had a great time! Hope everyone got lots of candy, got scared if they wanted to, and had the best costume ever!

A little better today

Still sick, but with a better attitude today, at least. So that's something. Right?

I'm going to take this opportunity to remind everyone that my husband is in fact the BEST. So there.

Random pictures from our household....

MY adorable dog, Ruby. Newest member of the Brandel dogpack.

Wren completed her first session of gymnastics. She's going back for another session.

Kira completed a wonderful project on the Lewis and Clark expedition for her Honors Social Studies class.

And that's all I've got for today....more later, I promise.

Been a long time...

Okay, I have been a slacker. I have failed to post now for ....many....days. It's not like there's nothing going on around here; hell, *something's* always going on around here! I guess I could just blame my recent attack of Life. Good excuse as any, I guess.

Let's see....the kids are all back in school. First day was successful for Kira at middle school, and the little guys are loving being back in preschool. Honestly, Mom loves them being back in school a little bit, too. I like having structure and some semblance of order to my day, and the little bit of free time and peace and quiet doesn't hurt, either. ;)

Travis and I continue our quest to obtain motorcycle licenses and scooters. I cannot wait. We got a little piece of junk Chinese import scooter the other day, and Travis ahs been working on it and we have both been riding it around the neighborhood. It's really fun, and it totally solidifies my desire to have a bigger 'real' scooter SOON. It's only 50cc, so top speed is 40mph if we're lucky, but it's prefect for practicing riding around and stopping and turning and such. I feel so much more confident now, especially with turning, since I have been riding it.

This is not our 50cc scooter. This is Kira's Razor scooter, which is battery-powered and attains a top speed of 10mph. Noah loved riding up and down the driveway on it with me. Poor Wren is dying for her own scooter.

We went to the Children's Museum with my brother and his two kids and my mom. It was great fun, especially since we just about had the place to ourselves!

Noah has the worst case of strep I have ever seen in one of my kids, so he is down for the count, but rallying back with some antibiotics. We were so sure it was the H1N1 flu -- super-high fever, lethargy, vomiting -- but thankfully, he "only" has strep. Yay for bacterial infections.

Today my mission includes ridding the house of all the outgrown kid clothes, putting things in the attic and taking things out of the attic, and planning an assault on the bedroom of my pre-teen, who seems to be incapable of throwing anything out. This weekend looks to be full, with a trip to the farmer's market, the Richmond Folk Festival, and other enjoying-the-fall weekend fun.

Pumpkins must be obtained, and costumes decided upon, as Halloween is coming! I need to develop the pre-trick or treating weird and wonderful dinner menu. Last year's supper included such delicacies as Worms On A Bun and Dirt Dessert, so I want to find something equally startling to eat this year. I love Halloween!

I also have a rant going on in my head about the people who continue to refuse vaccination for their children and place all of us at risk for resurgence of crap like smallpox, polio, diphtheria and widespread measles because of their uninformed opinion that vaccines cause autism.

Additionally, I have something to say about awarding the Nobel Peace prize to someone based on the things they *might* do, rather than the things that HAVE been done to further world peace, but hey, then I'd be branded a hater, and I don't have time for refuting that kind of nonsense today.

And the proposed names for the Richmond minor league baseball team? Seriously, the Richmond Rockhoppers? Flatheads? Flying Squirrels? HAMBONES!? What. The. Hell? If I cared more about baseball, I'd probably be more upset, but since I don't have a dog in this fight, all I can do is shake my head incredulously at the dorks who are potentially making my beloved city a laughingstock.

The tourism people should be having a cow about now.

Ah, well. Lots to do. Guess I'd better get to it.

Playing in the Kitchen

So, my kids really like to play 'kitchen' and use their (and my!) pots and pans and plastic food to make dinner and serve snacks and all that. We used to have a big, upright Little Tykes kitchen for Wren that we got from Craigslist, but over the year or so we had it, it got kind of trashed to the point that it wasn't fun to play with. Plus, it was a fairly good size, and took up a lot of room.

Once we started the remodeling of our living room/library area, it had to go. I kept all the nicer pots and pans and utensils and play food in a large fabric bin for the kids, and just ignored the fact that there was no kitchen. I noticed recently that both Noah and Wren were getting into kitchen play, and this time, they were using all kind of flat surfaces for their stove. I thought how nice it would be if they had a kitchen again, but there really isn't room for one, even in our larger living space.

Hooray for the internet! I found a blog, Balancing Everything, that featured a tutorial for making a fabric roll-up kitchen play mat!  It was really cute and looked like something the kids would love, so I read through the tutorial and adapted it for my own purposes.

Took me about two days and I am especially proud to say that I bought nothing to make it. All the fabrics and embellishments were already in my stash! Yay !

Anyway, here it is:

 

It has a grill in full flame, a sink, and four stove burners. I used bleached muslin for the top, with cotton fabric for the appliances and various ribbon and felt scraps. The electric burners are detailed using a big fat Sharpie marker, and there is dimensional fabric paint for the stove knob tops. I drew the sink drain with the Sharpie, added a few water droplets with a glitter paint pen, and used packaged tubular bias for the grill grate.

The whole thing is backed with a layer of cotton canvas and a cotton print. I sewed a strip of bias binding to one end to use as a tie when it is rolled up. The three layers of fabric have a nice weight, and it rolls up and stores in the fabric basket with the kitchen toys.

Best of all, the kids love it!

Here is a detail of the stove:

 

and a shot of the sink:

 

and the grill:

 

Noah really liked it; when I took this picture, Wren was busy gathering her 'gredients' for the lunch she cooked.

 

I have to say that normally I HATE machine applique, so in making this project, my skills were definitely tested. However, it really came out nicely, so I am not complaining. And it kind of encourages me to do a few more projects with machine applique.

Hmmm....maybe Noah needs a toolbench....or a soft busy book to practice dressing skills...

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To all of my friends who are traveling to Charlotte this weekend, safe travels, and give our love to Valharic. Please let him know we are thinking of him.

Summer season

The scenes of summer, here at our house.

riding on the Washington metro, June 09

  nasturtium flower

the herb garden, early July

Hershey Park, Hershey, PA with the Girl Scouts

playing in the pool

  gathering from the garden

tomatoes by the wagon-load this year

Wren goes adventure riding, August

Ah, summer. It's been a great one, and although I am seriously done with the heat, we have managed to ahve fun, grow vegetables, and travel a small amount. Fall is coming, and I am waiting.

Philosophy

"Life's too short to be taking risks on things that may be considered fun."

Illustrious wisdom from a family member of mine whom I love dearly, but who obviously has a much different perception of what living is all about.

I know what was meant in the above statement: that risk-taking is a dangerous thing, and life is too precious to just cavalierly participate in an activity that could end your life. I have much to live for, and people who depend on me and love me, and I cannot be selfish and do what I want without regard for them.

And that's true, for the most part.

I guess the part where I have a differing view comes in with the concept of risk-taking and potential selfishness. I see all of life as a risk-taking adventure. Especially in modern times, where we (literally) go faster, have developed more technology for adventure sports, and have conquered (we think) so much more of the natural world. The world itself is larger, more accessible, and the sense of community most of us has encompasses the 'global village', rather than just the folks down the road or in the church pews.

The old chestnut, used when talking about risk assessment, "I could get run over by a bus tomorrow!" still stands, although I am not sure how likely I am to get run over by a bus in an area that doesn't really have sidewalks to step off of, much less a proliferation of city busses.  Now, I am no adventure-sporting adrenaline junkie. I like my adventure relatively tame, on the whole. Riding horses, flying in small airplanes, moving to a new area without excessive amounts of research....you get the picture. Not exactly setting the world on fire, except in my own little corner of it.

Oh, I dream of learning to kayak the James River one of these days (but not the class V rapids), and of learning to rock climb (but not free-soloing), and one of these days, I am sure that I will. I also have an intense desire to travel, to get out and see the world for myself. I'll get to all that. I know I will.

It's been a long time since I fed my personal sense of adventure, and I don't mean by having another child. Lord knows, life can be enough of an adventure with my bunch! No, this time it won't be horses or airplanes or moving house, or joining the Peace Corps.

I'm going to get a motorcycle license.

It's something I never saw myself doing, not really ever, particularly since I am not much of a biker chick. But it will allow me to safely and legally operate a 125cc motor scooter on the non-interstate roads of the commonwealth. This one, in particular. 

Right now, I am going to take the Basic Rider Course from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation, buy my helmet and gloves, shop for a motorcycle jacket that IS NOT PINK (or baby blue or white, for that matter), and save money like a crazy person.

Hopefully, I'll be scooting around town by next spring.

I can't wait!

There's a reason this blog is called Adventures in Living.....

I try, oh, how I try, to look at life as an adventure. There are so many things to do and try and see and people to meet and good food to eat and places to go that it would be impossible to get to them all in one lifetime. I try not to focus on that, because the possibility of missing out on some really cool stuff is depressing, but rather to make my little journey through life with a sense of wonder and uniqueness, and focus on the opportunities I have and the things and people around me. It's not always easy to remember that life is about the journey, that it's not about always doing the 'perfect' thing, or even the 'right' thing, or worse, the 'always expected' thing. You get bogged down in the dailies: money (or lack thereof), job (or lack thereof), raising kids, keeping the roof from leaking, taking the dog to the vet, buying groceries, paying the bills....you get the idea. Some days it's hard to remember that YOU are a real person with real, interesting ideas and desires. Some days it's hard to remember that your life is your own, and while it is important to take certain people and things into consideration, ultimately, YOU are the one who lives your life.

Picasso was quoted as saying, "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up." It's one of my favorite quotes. I think there are a lot of descriptive words that can replace 'artist' in that quote...'every child is a dancer'.....'adventurer'.....'is creative'....'is fearless'....'is non-judgmental'...

Lots of things.

Then we grow up, and Life takes over, and before you know it, we are all afraid. Maybe we don't call it fear, but that's really what it is. Afraid to take that trip, afraid to run out of money, afraid to get hurt, afraid to screw up your kids, afraid to climb that mountain, afraid to lose your job, afraid to be alone, afraid to die. The path you travel becomes straight and narrow and limited, and the journey is more about some 'destination' -- lots of money, prestige, power, material goods, 'making it big' -- rather than about what you encounter on the side of the road. Sometimes there's a big stinking hole, but most times there are so many interesting and wonderful things to be found....rose gardens, and picnics, and castles....people with courage and interesting stories and new ideas...art...languages...mountains to climb. Why miss out on all of that?

Life is about risk. Every single day is about taking risks....big ones and small ones. If you spend all of your time trying to figure out how to avoid all the risk, you remove yourself from the possibility of encountering real pleasure, and of finding out things about you that you didn't know.

Life is too short NOT to try out whatever you want to try. Someday you're going to be gone, and the best legacy is a life well-lived.

"Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, Chocolate in one hand, strawberries in the other, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming WOO-HOO! What a ride!”

Amen.

Status report

avoiding: chocolate chip cookies, candy and ice cream. For today, at least. Apparently my daily dose of these items is not helping my weight. Plus, I am exhausted from being up constantly with Noah for the past few nights. I tend to overeat -- especially sweets -- when I am very tired.

eating: leftover roasted potatoes, tomato salad, and a nectarine, all from the garden or the farm market.

feeling: too old for this getting-up-all-night-with-a-teething-kid crap.

watching: Wren discover some basic principles of magnetization and poles.

thinking: about a variety of things, none of which are very productive at the moment.

hoping: Noah feels well enough to sleep all night tonight.

wishing: I could take advantage of this rainy afternoon and pass out on the couch for a few hours.

loving: the fact that Wren is playing "farmer's market stand" with some of the veggies from our garden.

MeMe from Kitty

My friend Kitty posted this meme a few days ago, and it's cool, so I thought I'd participate.  She gave me five words that remind her of me and now I have to explain what they mean to me...

creativity  --  This is a HUGE part of my life, and the act of being creative is a necessary thing, like water or air, for me. It's interesting to me how the definition of 'creative' has changed and shifted over the years. At first, it applied to my ability to dance, but since then, it encompasses everything from baking to art glass to sketching to sewing to daily life with my children. I try to find some time in every day to make something, even if it's just something small. Without that, I truly feel aimless and agitated.

I think everyone is creative, and I know there are SO MANY people out there that think they are not, but it's a basic human instinct to create. Most people have learned somehow that 'being creative' only applies to what you can do with art materials, and that's So. Not. It.

Maybe my second career will deal with helping people recognize and learn to embrace their own personal creativity.

yoga -- I'm finding out these days that moving is another necessary thing for me in my daily life. I love the way a daily practice of yoga makes me feel. I eat less, I feel stronger, calmer, and more beautiful. My joints don't hurt, my back is painless, my various tendinitises (is that even a word?) don't bother me. So why don't I currently have a daily practice? Because I think I am inherently lazy sometimes. I fall off the wagon, and lie there on the ground bitching about how old and crappy I feel, and the memory of the peace and lightness of yoga seems so distant. Ugh. I get trapped by the misperception that I don't have time. I do have the time. Ineed to get back to it.

Misconceptions abound with respect to yoga....it IS a great total-body AND cardio workout, if you practice a certain way. You don't have to embrace the spiritual aspects of it to reap it's benefits, but if you choose to, you find even greater reward. It doesn't matter at all if you are not especially flexible or if you can't fully express each pose...yoga is accessible to everyone, all the time, and a skilled teacher can always help you.

green -- Well, my favorite color. So restful and reminiscent of the natural world. It's also the color of my eyes, and one of the colors of our SCA household.

I don't consider myself as particularly ascribed to the current vogue meaning of the word, as in 'environmentally conscious', but I do try to incorporate some sense of stewardship for the environment into daily life around here. Plus, 'being green' even a little can be a money-saver. Right now, we are growing a lot of our own vegetables, composting the leftovers, and using and re-using whatever we can. I adore the lush landscape we are creating in our backyard, and the sight of our garden just absolutely bursting with growth is awe-inspiring. Being able to eat something yummy that I grew is just blissful.

competitive -- Yep, that's me. For better or worse, I am a competitive person. Most of the time, I wish I wasn't, but sometimes it serves me. I push myself because I want to be better. Better than you? Maybe, but it's rarely that personal anymore. When I was a dancer, it was definitely personal. It was that way for all of us, all the time. It was important to be thinner, stronger, have better extensions, be able to do more multiple pirouettes...you get the idea.It's hard, after so many years of that type of conditioning, to let it go and relax about stuff, but I try. And I think for the most part, lately, I am succeeding.

Comfort -- For me, comfort embodies a number of different concepts. Comfort food is a biggie...yummy goodies that are delicious, remind me of home and family, and make me feel good. I love to cook and eat, and I love to feed the people I love. I also consider comfort in the context of being comfortable in one's own skin. Mentally, spiritually, emotionally, I am usually pretty comfortable....but physically, I can't say that I am, always.