Pudding Woes

Kevin wasn't coming home after work. No Daddy at dinnertime, no hero to put the kids to bed. Just me and my four children, all alone against the elements of a weeknight. A friend suggested I get my kids to help me make mini-pizzas followed by that pudding/banana/Nilla wafer dessert. This would pass the time and hopefully make the evening fun.

I made a grocery list for our menu, and lucked out when another friend kept the older three kids while John and I headed to the store. Once home, I realized I had gotten everything except the pudding, which is kind of crucial to the dessert. I called or texted all six of my neighbors, hoping someone had a box of vanilla pudding on hand. Nalleys - no. Mayers - no. Earlys - no. Elisaldezes - no. Kings - no. Rickards - yes! This was great news because I really had no energy or desire to load up the van and go back to the grocery store.

I procured the pudding and mixed it with milk and THEN noticed that I had a smaller box than the recipe called for. But I'd already added the larger quantity of milk. Texted Derryck Rickards again: "Do you happen to have TWO boxes of pudding?" The reply: "Sorry, no." Called Kristi and asked if she would interrupt her own dinner prep and evening craziness to come hang out at my house for 15 minutes while I ran to the store without kids. She said yes.

I was in a rush. I grabbed the pudding and narrowly missed colliding with a guy in the baking aisle as I attempted to dart between him and his cart while he looked at something on the shelf opposite. He finished looking and turned to his cart, not knowing a crazy lady with three boxes of vanilla pudding would be zooming by. Mutual apologies.

Shrewdly, I bypassed all the long lines at the checkstands to use the self-serve. Scanned the first box of pudding and an annoying pop-up informed me that "the attendant has been summoned and will help you shortly". Out loud, I said, "Seriously?" and scooted to the next station. I'm not sure if the attendant ever appeared. I think the attendant is a ruse. The whole point of the self-serve is to eliminate humans, right? That's my impression.

At home, I ripped open the new package of pudding, but just before adding it to my earlier mixture, Kristi stopped me. She noticed that instead of instant pudding, I had bought the "cook" pudding. I was crestfallen. Despondent. Frustrated. Hopeless. Pitiable. Angry.

Since I'd purchased three boxes of pudding, I scrapped the original batch and cooked up a new one. Kids cut up the bananas and we layered them with Nilla wafers and pudding. Even though this is the easiest recipe in the world - so easy even snakes can make it (and they don't have arms!) - mine turned out terrible. The pudding never set properly and was runny. I left bananas exposed at the top, so they browned. Frankly, I'm surprised toxic fumes didn't come rising out of the dish and wipe out my family.

The day was done. We ate the runny pudding. We brushed our teeth and went to bed. Next time I make dessert, I'll stick to what I know - chocolate chip cookies. In fact, this might be a great time to bake up a batch for all of my wonderful friends - even those who don't keep vanilla pudding on hand. Because I am a COMPLETE loser in the kitchen, but I sure have good neighbors and friends.

Picture of the Week

Here we see the dashing tiled entry way of a house not far from mine. Know what's special about it? Some really cool people are moving in to the house that boasts this entry way. All the way from Bakersfield, California. And they picked this neighborhood voluntarily! That means they must think it sounds acceptable to live close to us! (I know that the irresistible lure was Mike Nalley's home-cooked Chateaubriand --- but for the record we are still awaiting an invitation to dine there.)

Just this week they found out that their offer was accepted and now I'm counting the days until we have some (more) fun friends just a few houses down.

Mouse? Or Dinosaur. You Be The Judge.

Today, the girls got out the modeling clay. Bethanie made a pink bowl, lined it with paper, filled it with rocks, and placed it out back in the sun to bake.

Cayna made a mouse. Here she is with her work in progress:

While she worked, I noted the long legs on the mouse. The word "brontosaurus" came to mind. But I don't even think they call the brontosaurus a brontosaurus anymore. I think he's a brachiosaurus or apatosaurus or some such thing. I just kept my mouth shut as my sculptor daughter added the ears, whiskers, and tail. Just like I keep my mouth shut when she chooses her outfits, spells her words phonetically, "cleans" her room, styles her hair, and asserts her will-that-is-always-opposite-of-my-will in every area of a seven year-old life.

Here is the finished... mouse, I suppose:

Smiley thing, eh? And long-legged. Have you ever met a long-legged mouse? Ever met a mouse that peed in a litter box? Meowed? Wiped small villages out with its tail?

Whether I agree or not, the creator has declared this a mouse. So a mouse it is. In motherhood, I've learned, things aren't always as they appear.

Shortly after the mouse was presented to me, the girls went back to work upstairs and manufactured this, their boat:

It "sailed" out of Joe's room to music Cayna makes. Music which sounds like trumpeting and humming and a repeating drum line all wrapped into one. They had worked hard on their boat, and I was relieved to recognize it as, indeed, a boat. Take a close look and you will see the "driver" up front, the toilet in the very back (shield your eyes--someone is using it) and two little girls with all the time in the world to build boats and craft bowls and... mice.

School Switch

We're making a big switch in our homeschooling. At least for Joe. As of today, we are re-registering him in public school - but he'll still be homeschooled. He will be a student at Nevada Virtual Academy, using K12 curriculum.

What motivated the switch: 1) I had pared down Joe's daily lessons, eliminating parts of his curriculum that were overly dry, in my opinion. He was left with less than two hours of schoolwork a day. He needed more work and more challenge and I couldn't pull that out of his current curriculum (or create it myself) without expending loads of energy I don't have.

2) My concerns about "compartmentalizing" faith, schoolwork, friend time, sports, and other activities - which drove me to choose a Catholic curriculum initially - were unfounded. As Kevin and I have talked about this, we realize that since we live out our faith and try to follow Jesus every day, there is no way that faith could be relegated to a separate compartment. Our faith permeates everything we do, and I am no longer concerned that it will be removed from other parts of our lives.

3) Community. We have none. Even the Catholic families who homeschool in our very same neighborhood do things so differently and have such varying life circumstances that we rarely get together. We are also part of a vibrant Catholic homeschool group, but, sadly, most of the families in the group are on the other side of town. We can enjoy occasional get-togethers, but I'm not seeing friendships grow between my children and theirs. There is too much distance and not enough time. Admittedly, I have hopes and expectations that we will develop some community through this "school" and it will help me feel less isolated.

With everything that I've recently learned about Classical education, Kevin initially pointed out that this seems a step away from my ideal. Yes, but it isn't any further than we already were. And thanks to the learning I've done, I've been able to implement new principles in our school day - principles which won't evaporate when we start this new school. This might be an on-ramp to eventually enrolling in a school like the Catholic Liberal Arts Academy - but let's see how an online school works a little closer to home first.

There is the worry (for a home-birthin', home-schoolin', home-cookin' kind of a gal) that I am selling out. I may be. Certainly it will be odd to have report cards and standardized tests become a part of our lives again. But there is hope in change, and this change comes with much prayer and the wisdom God has given me.

Mrs. Personality

If I could earn my Masters and PhD tomorrow, I'd do it in a heartbeat, and then I would use my illustrious degrees to travel around and give personality tests to people in corporations and organizations. They would all hate me, because I'd be interrupting their workday, but I would have so much fun!

If I didn't think it would cost me friendships, I'd go around all day administering personality tests to everyone I know. And then talk about it. Endlessly. I just don't get bored of it.

Which is why today I added my Myers-Briggs letters to my blog header. (ENFJ) Maybe people will read that and suddenly realize why they love me so much. Or why I drive them bonkers. Layla will simply realize I copied her.

If you are intrigued by the idea of a personality test, or a "type indicator" or a temperament analysis - you can find free Myers-Briggs mini-tests online. Or pay the $29.00 for the whole shebang. Or call me! I'll pose as the PhD I want to be and analyze you for FREE! (Yes, I realize this is how men and women end up in jail every day... so on second thought, I better not do any such pretending.)

I'll close with a quote from a saint which I could argue has something to do with personality:

"Do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly.” - St. Francis de Sales

Teri David Thoreau

I don't know what y'all were doing today mid-morning, but I was sitting in my van outside church while Joseph altar-served at a 40-Day Memorial Mass (a Filipino tradition). Yes, I might have run home to clean something or to Target to buy something, but I opted instead for some quiet alone time with my book and my iPhone.

I'm still reading Walden. I've been reading it for well over a month, maybe it's even two now. I don't hate it, but it certainly isn't a page turner. Today I thought that if Henry David Thoreau knew I'd read his book intermittently playing Words With Friends and checking facebook - he would probably puke. And I'll admit, some of his philosophizing is lost on me (when occasionally I realize I've read half a page whilst daydreaming, I rarely reread it), but since I reached a section on "Sounds" today I made a note of what I was hearing.

My van window was down. It was a beautiful day. Do you know that in Edmonton Alberta, they've been dealing with a blizzard and temperatures reaching 36 BELOW? Below freezing. How inconceivable is that? And there I was with the window down in January feeling the warmth of the sunshine enough to park so that it wouldn't beat down on my face. But back to what I was hearing. First I noticed the chirping of the birds. Maybe just one bird. My ear isn't trained to decipher how many birds, but I'm fairly sure it was a genuine bird. In some young tree in our parish parking lot. Next the whirring of a small-engine airplane overhead. Do you ever stop and listen whether the whirring is getting louder and faster and closer? As if you're about to make the evening news when it crashes near you in a cornfield? No? Me neither.

After the chirping and the whirring was the hum of the cars going by on the parkway. When that quieted, I could hear the buzz of the power lines. In my observation, the buzzing grew louder as the morning wore on and I had to deduce that people were awakening in their Saturday-morning houses and turning on their coffee makers and griddles, hence more power line activity.

Finally, there was the settling-ticking sound of an engine cooling in the parking space next to mine. It was a silver Lexus. With a rosary wrapped around the rear-view. While the Lexus cooled, its driver mourned - but I just sat there with my Thoreau and my facebook.

All this from just one hour of solitude. Imagine if, like Thoreau, I parked my booty on Walden Pond for a few seasons and tried to grow beans. My blog would become intolerable. That's all I'll say.

Except... look at that post time! (Below.)

A Resolution and a Challenge

Kevin signed me up for a free photography class at REI. I was very excited until the day of class came. Suddenly I had fears out of nowhere: What if no one else signed up and I'm all alone? What if it's only twenty-something single men? What if it's only forty-something moms?

I went. Me and my camera and the camera bag that makes me look like I know something about photography (which I don't - I owe it to my brother for telling Kevin and me exactly what to buy). I moseyed fake-confidently into the warehouse classroom and sat in my folding chair among about 25 other people of varying ages and genders. (Interestingly, there were only about seven women and it occurred to me what a female-centric life I lead. It was fun to be in a group of people discussing a topic removed from my usual daily life.)

Learning to use my camera and more about photography is one of my resolutions for this year. It ain't gonna come easy. Between aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and all the myriad of corresponding numbers and adjustments - I truly feel like I could study and practice and shoot five thousand photos a day and still not get very far before 2012.

I am kinda discouraged but I have two things keeping me going: 1) The profound wisdom from Mike Nalley that Kirsten shared with me recently: "Everything is hard until you learn how to do it." and 2) I know about myself that I shy away from things that are difficult. It is good and healthy and invigorating to tackle these difficult things!

Our instructor gave us his e-mail address and said he'd be happy to give us homework. As soon as I finish reading my owner's manual for my camera, I plan to e-mail him and see what kind of assignment he'll come up with.

Stay tuned for photos by Teri. Meanwhile, I wish you strength and success as you meet your own challenges this year.