Category: Family

We are ready for Halloween Part 1 – The Jedi

October 15, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

As I’ve mentioned previously, Halloween is a big deal ’round these parts. This year Mim wanted to be a Luke Skywalker. I looked at buying a costume, but $35 for a piece of crap that likely wouldn’t last the month just doesn’t work for me. Fish helped him find a picture of which iteration of Master Skywalker he wanted to emulate and I plotted a way to create it out of items we have or could acquire at a relatively low cost. It is important to note here that I am in no way, no how crafty. Basically, I can use tape and operate a stapler. This had to be easy.

Black jeans and a slightly oversized black shirt would provide the base. For accessories, we needed a cape, boots, a belt and a light saber. The light saber was solved by an $8 purchase at the fair. Fish was tasked with creating the boots and the belt out of duck tape and brown, paper grocery bags and some velcro. For the cape, I went to Goodwill and bought a brown, mens, extra-large, hooded sweatshirt. The plan was to slice it right up the middle and use double sided tape to finish the edges, but Grammy stepped in and stitched the seams.

Light Saber $8

Gorilla Tape (couldn’t find Duck tape in Black) $8

Hoodie $10

Black Shirt $5

Boys black jeans $14

Total Cost $45

So, I actually spent $10 more than the pre-made costume, BUT, the jeans aren’t modified in any way, so he can wear those to school. He needs to wear the costume at least 3 times (maybe 4) and I’m confident even with his rough and tumble ways the clothing will hold up. The light saber, is iffy, but for the month of October, the light saber is ONLY for use with the Halloween costume.

He was pleased with the outcome and in the end, that’s truly all that matters.

Funky Chickens and Other Fair Phenomena

October 4, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

Fancy chickens in the poultry barn. Sometimes, sometimes it was hard to tell which end was which, if you know what I’m sayin’.

Required eating at the fair, pierogies and kielbasi for me, and chili in a bread bowl for A-man.

My crazy kid road this thing!!! What’s worse is that I let her!!

I take this picture every year, and the jeep keeps getting smaller. How does that happen?

Maximum Opportunity for Advancement.

September 20, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

Back in the days when we were DINKS (double income, no kids). I STRUGGLED to fit exercise into my daily routine. It was much easier to take off on a Sunday and ride into Boston to the Museum of Science (and back) on a 25 mile bike ride.

These days, I’ve still got the husband, but have added two kids and their activity schedules, and a fledgling writing career. Now? Now I REALLY don’t have time to exercise. I’ve made some attempts along the way, but have not been consistent. I don’t mind exercise and I truly do feel better when I’m exercising regularly, but it honestly has to be in my way to happen. If I have to make room for it, no way, no how it’s gonna happen. Sad, but true.

Last spring, Fish was promoted in karate, so our time at the dojo went from 45 minutes twice a week to 90 minutes, twice, sometimes three times a week. As I waited for her class to finish, I watched the BagFit class going on in the second dojo. BagFit is part cardio and part boxing, and from what I saw it also included a lot of sweat and laughs. The class was made up of women around my age, many of them karate moms. They finally razzed me enough about being a lurker that I decided to give it a try. I have zero upper body strength and am prone to tendonitis in my shoulders (I’d just come off 3 months of PT for my left shoulder when, with permission, I started BagFit). No problem. The instructor (one of the co-owners of the dojo), modified the workouts so I didn’t strain anything. After my two demo classes, I was hooked.

I tell people, I hate it when I start but by the time I’m done, I love it. I sweat like crazy, I get my heart rate up and I truly have a lot of fun. There is a lot of camaraderie in the class and we cheer each other on. I love that I can burn some calories rather than warming a seat. Like other martial arts programs, there is a belt system to keep you challenged and motivated. I started as a white belt and worked my way to a yellow belt by the end of the summer. I’m now working towards my orange belt.

My kids are into karate but with summer comes camps and vacations and other schedule busters. To keep attendance up over the summer, The dojo ran a program called MOA, Maximum Opportunity for Advancement, for all their classes. Any student that attended 18 classes June 25th and August 25th earned the opportunity to test early for their next belt promotion and they got a special t-shirt. My kids were into MOA. I was regularly quizzed about how many classes they had in the MOA count and if we missed a karate class on a given week they wanted to know when they were going to make it up.

When we were getting close to the August 25th cut off, the kids had more than enough classes, but it was unclear if I would make the 18 classes. Since, I’m a newly minted yellow belt, I wasn’t interested in testing, I just wanted the shirt! A miracle came through and I did indeed get the t-shirt. The belt tells my peers in the class I’m progressing, but the t-shirt? The t-shirt tells the world hey! I kicked some butt and took some names this summer, what did you do?

. . . and Then There Were Two

September 10, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

Our flock is a mixed flock. I’d love to tell you that the breeds were picked for their superior laying ability, but the truth is it came down to appearance, availability and egg color. Yes you read that right, egg color. You’re probably most familiar with the quintessential white egg. Here in New England we have brown eggs (sing with me now, brown eggs are local eggs and local eggs are fresh). Some of the fancy breeds lay beautiful pastel color eggs, but A-Man and eggs have not always had the best relationship. In college he experienced salmonella poisoning and a reaction so severe it required an ambulance ride and hospitalization. It’s only been relatively recently that he started eating eggs again.

Despite the fact that the perpetrator of his illness was a western omelet, something about the fancy eggs brings back bad memories. So our girls will only lay white and brown eggs. The majority of our flock are reds 6 New Hampshire and 6 Rhode Island. Our next largest population are the barred rocks then we have 3 Leg Horns and 3 sex-linkeds. well, we had 3 sex-linkeds.

Last week the circle of life continued. One of our flock became another creature’s lunch. One of the other Mother Hens (the human kind) was nearby at the time, but the exact details of the demise are unclear. The girls were out and about foraging for bugs and at one point there was a big kerfuffle that involved the dogs throwing a ginormous hissy fit, a flurry of feathers and lots of squawking. Things settled down pretty quickly, so no one thought much of it at the time. When we did our nightly headcount we discovered that one of the sex-linkeds was gone. A search was conducted but every other hen was in the pen and the saying “birds of a feather stick together” is true. Not to mention, that no bird EVER misses out on a bowl of dinner scraps. Holding out just a smidgen of hope, we waited 24 hours before before we broke the news to our respective flocks, but she didn’t return.

So now we’re down to 23 birds. I suspect this will not be the last time this happens, nature of the beast as they say. The birds go off in the woods to forage. The collies have decided that the birds occasionally need to be herded. If the hens move too far away from home base, Mork, the older one will circle them back in with calm and patience. Dory, the younger one demonstrates no finesse whatsoever and just runs at them barking until they move back to where she thinks they should be. However, the dogs are limited by an electric fence. If a chicken strolls beyond the fence they will lose their protection detail. “Oohhh I’ll take a jolt in the neck to chase a chicken”, said no dog ever.

Learning As I Go

September 4, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

A-Man gifted me with a fantastic DSLR camera the Christmas before last. I’ve taken some great photos with it, but most of those have been luck combined with the camera’s automatic settings. I decided it was time to learn how to get the shots I wanted rather than snapping 100 pictures in search of the one good one.

I’m reading Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. I like the book at times it’s very beginner and at other times, I feel like I walked in the middle of a topic. However, I suspect that is my non-numeric brain more than Peterson. I can’t remember a time since I finished college where I actually took notes while reading a book. The relationship between aperture, shutter speed and ISO is taking a while to sink into my head, but I’m really enjoying the process. there is nothing quite like the thrill of snapping a shot and realizing it came out exactly as you intended.

August 2012

August 28, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

August was busy. Good, but busy. More to follow soon!

Last Lunch

July 31, 2012 · 2 Comments ·

Fish went to an overnight camp recently. She was a little nervous, but mostly excited. This is her third year going to camp so she really knew what to expect.

One of the things she expected was the food. It’s, well, it’s camp food. She’s been to this camp before, so she was looking forward to the spaghetti and maybe hot dogs, oh and breakfast was usually pretty good. Other than that, well, it’s camp food ya know?

I offered to take her out to lunch before I dropped her off and she chose Boloco. Not a bad choice, but then I reminded her about the clam shack not too far from camp. Now we’re talkin’!!

So, what’s on the menu for the last lunch before camp? I’m glad you asked! Steamed Maine clams, lemonade and carmel, chocolate peanut butter cookie dough ice cream. Hopefully those memories lasted her the week!

Real

July 25, 2012 · 1 Comment ·

“You were Real to the Boy,” the Fairy said, “because he loved you. Now, you shall be Real to every one.”

– Nursery Magic Fairy, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams

When my daughter was an infant, my mother-in-law gave her Bear and my dear friend Jeanne gave her a purple Comfort Silkie Blankie. Fish took to them almost instantly and the two traveled everywhere with us. B&B were a team. I wasn’t able to locate another bear, but we bought several more Blankies and rotated them regularly so they wore relatively evenly. This way if one were lost, (GOD FORBID), Blankie would not be gone for good (and Mom & Dad could still sleep at night). For most of the first two years of her life, Fish thought there was only one Blankie. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she discovered the Blankie stash. It was like Christmas. She grabbed them all and snuggled them close.

After a while, Fish settled on one specific Blankie for comfort. Thankfully by then she was able to keep track of Blankie herself and the world did not come to a screeching halt if Blankie could not be immediately located. Blankie’s importance has definitely diminished over the years, but she remains part of Fish’s inner circle of confidants. We kept the others (down to two from a high of four) in a drawer “just in case”.

Lately, poor Blankie has been showing her age. Her flannel side is thread bear and has disintegrated in to long shreds. Her tag (probably her most important part) is literally hanging on by a thread*. She’s had to stay home a few times for fear of not surviving camping or air travel. Still she perseveres and provides much needed comfort. She’s a trooper!

Bear too is showing her age, she’s lumpy and has required several nose jobs over the years (props to Grammy and her mad sewing skills), but she has been Blankie’s faithful nurse and companion and she too is a member of the inner circle. I’m grateful to them both for their service. Not many would tolerate being smooshed under a feverish child, being drenched in vomit or stuffed into a small backpack to travel on adventures. Still, they provide comfort and keep secrets and are to be lauded for their efforts.

Someday, they too will be Real.

*Right after I wrote this, the thread broke and Blankie and her tag were separated forever.

“I now sleep with one of the replacements. I’ll never give up the old one until she’s a few threads held together by nothing but love.” – Fish

Weir’s Beach

July 23, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

“What Are We Going to do For FUN today?”

That is the question I hear most mornings during summer vacation. Some days it is pretty cut and dried. 99 Degrees? 100% humidity? We’re heading to Aunt Jane’s and swimming in the pool.

Last Friday was less clear. It was a beautiful summer day, a few puffy clouds, minimal humidity, highs in the low 80’s and a light breeze. I had a deadline in the morning, but the afternoon was ours. I lobbied for a bike ride on a local bike trail, but I got out voted. After consulting our list of things we wanted to do this summer, my son proposed Weir’s Beach.

I grew up with the Jersey Shore, within reasonable driving distance. So, the beach and the boardwalk are not foreign too me. Weir’s Beach is kind of like a mini Jersey Shore. There is a beach, the MS Mount Washington sails from the pier and there is a boardwalk and arcades.

Before our trip, I scouted things out and identified a specific location for treats and also found a coupon for FunSpot, a year round bowling/mini-golf/arcade located just up the road from the boardwalk.

Fish kiboshed the beach right off the bat apparently we’d been swimming too much this week. I didn’t realize that was possible. We got a late start so her brother & I agreed to this condition and we set off (A-Man had to work). We explored the boardwalk and were able to just glance at the arcades because I promised a full service arcade at FunSpot. While at the board walk, the Winnepesauki Railroad pulled in and we agreed that would be a fun trip for another day.

We picked the perfect time for Fun Spot. Everyone else was enjoying a perfect beach day (not such a great thing for a family with albinism). Between the WOKQ Buyers Club and an online promo code, I was able to get $50 worth of tokens for $22. We played video games, skee ball and air hockey. I got my annual Pac Man fix and we still have tokens left! The kids cashed out their tickets for the requisite junk and we headed on to the Kellerhaus for treats.

My daughter hit the sundae bar and Mim & I hit the candy shop. The Sundae bar looked amazing, but my logic was that a Pecan Turtle was fewer calories than an ice cream sundae with all the fixin’s. My caloric math, might be flawed, but the Turtle was yummy. 🙂

I like being a tourist in my own backyard. I can imagine we’ll head back to FunSpot when the weather turns cold. They offer two kinds of bowling (candlepin AND ten pin) and we still have about $25 worth of tokens burning a hole in our collective pocket.

Cape Cod 2012

July 12, 2012 · Leave a comment ·

Every year, my family on my mom’s side gathers on Cape Cod. My Aunt and Uncle have a beautiful home that used to be a bed and breakfast. Their five children, chip in and rent the house next door. Just the five kids and their families can equal 30 plus, but not everyone can make it every year. If there’s room, we contribute and zip down for a few days. The first Sunday night my Aunt and Uncle host a lovely part (with the help of their kids and grandkids). They invite cousins and friends who are within driving range. It is always a good time.

It’s a long drive and my time with them is always too short, but at the same time, it if bursting with laughter, good food an memories. I’m so grateful for even these few moments together.

Live Fearless Lee

Or at least that's what I tell myself