Wordless

Fifteen Years Ago Today...

This beautiful light came into my life.

Happy, Happy Birthday Sweet Michelle!

	Beatles - Michelle .mp3
	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Michelle Frances

Still a cutie-pie.

Define Complex

 com-plex  adj. (km-plks, kmplks) a conceptual whole made up of complicated and related parts



 Anna, in cahoots with the kittycats, put cheese out to bait a mouse for them, then, when it actually worked, didn't know whether to be happy for the kitties or horrified for the mouse. She was both.  It was complex.

 

Makes My Monday

Teenage sons making good use of spare time...

Dominic's finished crucifix.

More Makes My Monday posts over at Cheryl's

Starting at I-70 mile marker 133

Mom's cell: Where are you?

Kev's cell: Rifle

Mom: Is this Dominic?

Kev: maybe

Mom:  if it is Kevin then give it to Dominic.  and it if is Dominic then slap yourself!

Kev:  hes sleeping

Mom: who?  better be Dominic

Kev:  dominic sleeping or dominic txting?

Mom:  Dominic better be the one texting if you re the one driving!

Kev:  muahaha maybe.  what's up?

Mom:  there's a cliff hanging over our heads... theres the sky and there's birds...

Kev: tho we would rather be in our beds... its too beautiful for words

Mom:  huh?  it's not our fault you dingdongs got up at 5 30... whiner.

Kev:  hey   it was poetry   gosh

Mom:   a half rhyme at best...

Kev:  heads and beds and birds with words = real rhymes

Mom:  I think we must a lost half your poem...

Mom:  oh.  oh.  duh.  we get it.

Kev:  haha ;)

Mom:the trees are green the sky is blue

Kev: where my mind has gone I have no clue

Mom:  i ve looked for it here  i ve looked for it there... up and down mountains   everywhere...

Kev:  but I think sometimes you might find that to find your soul you must lose your mind

Mom:  or at least your mind of worldly things and the trouble and worry that that brings...

Kev: aye worldly things and ice cream too  for i fear my tummys turned a purplish hue

Mom:  sayest thou thy tummy is sour?  wilt thou arrive within the hour? 

Kev:  within an hour it will be and thank the Good Lord for i must pee

Mom:  and watchest thou men kick a ball and run hither and thither 'pon grass et al?

Kev:  ahhh it is a good sport has always been and its always a blast til you re kicked on the shin

Mom: verily, those of us with better things to do will gladly meet you shin with shoe

Kev:  ahhh you re wickedly evil abjuration will make me cheer the win with more elation!

Mom:  but forgettest thou not my dearest son which side thy bread is buttered on

Kev: truth thou speaks and i proudly am covered one side with butter and one with jam

Mom:  in truth thou sayest what your mother knows best... a son who butters both sides makes a mess

Kev:  a mess I am i fully admit but the butter and jam was intensely good wit

Mom:  to wit indeed both jam and butter on the same side of the bread should please both dad and mother

Kev:  ahhh all i saw this texting time was a shocking lack of any rhyme!

Mom:  i bet pardon if you please.... surely you jest   clearly you tease...

Kev: teasing is not in my set of skills.... i just tell honestly and sometimes it kills

Mom:  methinks thou hast either a heart of stone or a head the size of the super dome

going through canyon  silencesilencesilencesilencesilencesilence going through canyon

Mom:  are you there yet?

Kev: yaaa we are at Smugglers cuz the people weren't ready for us to unload the truck

Mom:  ha!  order me a porter.  we re stopping at the house and then we ll be there 

 Ending at Smugglers sports bar with a glass of porter and a gyro, watching what us girls call "That Stupid Soccer Game." 

(Here ya  go, Kevvy.  Saved for posterity.  And our poetry is better than yours.   We don't care what you say.)

* For the record, this was on the way over the mountains Saturday with our first truckload of "move."  Dan and the boys got up and left around 5:30 Saturday morning so they wouldn't miss any of the World Cup game which started at 12:30 here.  The plan was that they were going to pull over  at the nearest sports bar with the big ole' moving van wherever they were when the game started.  Oh brother.  Us girls thought this was just.  well.  silly.  But, then, ya know....

 Anyway, Cathy and I slept in until a reasonable hour and followed the boys in the minivan, so we could drive everyone back over to the farm Saturday night after we dropped off the moving van. Dan got to drive the 26' moving van, by the way (NO way I was gonna do it...), and Kevvy and Dominic  drove Dan's commuter car over so we could park it at the new house and not have to deal with getting it over later.   Anyway,  Cathy was taking dictation for our side of this texting conversation.  Who was texting in the other car is still up for debate, but Kevin takes credit for the poetry -- such as it is.)

Early Birds

I'm not really an early bird, but I'm not particularly a night owl, either.  I generally sleep best between 11 pm and 7 am.  Unless I have insomnia.  And then I am most decidedly not an early bird.

I had insomnia this morning --  what we call "reverse insomnia" because, instead of having trouble getting to sleep at night, I wake up in the wee hours of the morning and can't get to sleep.  So I was awake  this morning from 4 am until some time after 6:30 when I finally drifted off again. To be awakened at 7 am by my six-year-old wandering  around outside my bedroom window making "coo coo" noises at the top of his voice.  And then my four-year-old climbs in bed with me and snuggles in right up next to my back -- which is lovely, but not sleep-inducing.  Then at quarter of eight, my husband comes in and says, "There's a garage sale lady out there and she's buying all your wrought iron."

Well, it's wonderful that someone's buying all my old wrought iron, but, first of all -- well, seriously.  All the signs and the Craigslist Ad clearly state that the sale starts at 9 am, not 7:45 am.  And why on earth does my husband need me with this, anyway??

Well, he's adamant that he does and when he tells me why, I know I'm not going to get to sleep in. You see, in our family I'm the haggler.  He was perfectly happy  all day yesterday toting items back and forth to the garage for the sale.  He gladly helped load things onto trucks for people, and bantered with the good-ole-boys. He even took money if someone just walked up and handed it to him.  But he doesn't mess with dickering.  Period.  And, early in the morning as it was, and as much as he may have wanted to let sleeping dogs lie,  Dan had been presented with a haggling challenge he didn't feel up to.  Here's the story:

When we moved into this old farmhouse thirteen years ago, there was a massive old ice box in one of the outbuildings.  Not a refrigerator, but one of the original, aluminum-lined varieties in which our forefathers cooled food by means of a gigantic block of ice.  It is wall-sized, as heavy as a planet, and really very cool (if you don't mind the pun), wth decorative hinges, and history glowing through the cracks in the doors.  I've said for years I was going to restore it and maybe use it to store board games or something.  But it's a big project, not only because of its size, but one of the doors has a hole punched through the front of it, there are paint splatters all over it, the hinges are wonky, and there are multitudinous traces of generations of mice that have used it as a condominium.  And, with this and that, and all the good intentions in the world, I just never got around to it.

But, this morning at the crack of dawn, a lady spied that ice box in the back of the garage and had to have it.  Dan was out in the trailer doing some work and heard the dogs barking the lady in so he was the first on the scene.  But, he high-tailed it out, when she wouldn't give a price -- and he didn't want to set one either. 

So, he comes in and gets me.  There's no getting out of it; I have to get up, get dressed, go outside, and think before 8 am.    Sigh.  So, anyway.  I love my husband.  I go out.  The woman is very nice but to-the-point.  She looks like she's had her coffee this morning.  We tell her we've seen these oversized ice boxes in pristine condition on E-Bay selling for upward of $1000...  They're rare to find.   But, we know ours is not in great condition.  And we know that it's going to take the WWF to lift it up onto a truck. So, I say, "How 'bout starting at $300?" 

She says, "Oh, I just don't have that..."

And I wonder by her forced aplomb if  Dan had started off this sale by saying if it were him he'd give it away for free.  She looks like she wished I'd never come outside...  

I say something along the lines of,  "Well, this old ice box really is part of the history and provenence of this house... 

She says, " All I have is $90 -- and I'm on my way to work..." 

I think: Oh, fooey. This isn't fair.  I haven't even had my coffee yet and I think I forgot to brush my hair before I came out.

But I say, " Ya know, I'd love to see someone restore this... "

She says, "That's what I'll do."  And looks at me coldly, not taking the bait to come up with maybe a little more on her end...

I think, "Dang. I need some caffeine here."

But, I say, "Well, I'm not taking it with me.  And I don't know if we'll get a whole lot of other offers.  So.  You may be the one to do it.  $90 is fine." 

She gives me the $90, and tells me she'll be back with a truck after work.  And I think, but don't tell her, that I hope she has lots of very strong friends and relations to help her move it around.  And  that she just got a great deal.

I hate early birds.

Now where's my coffee?

Three Little Kittens

Have lost their mittens

But they don't seem to care.

"Oh, Mother, dear, it's hot out here;

It's summer in the Northern Hemisphere;

Our mittens we will not wear.

"Meow, meow, meow, meow,

Our mittens we will not wear.

"It's almost July in the temperate zone

And we've packed them  away in their summer homes

with our coats and boots and espresso maker. 

And to tell you the truth, Mom, we'd also prefer,

If it were possible, to step out of this fur

And lie around in our bones."

(Pictured l-r: Julia, Butch, Lizzy)

Tell Me Why...

* All the rain here lately has doubled the size of  the flowers in my flower bed but quadrupled the size and number of dandelions in my lawn.

* An open bottle of  vinegar appeared on my otherwise clean counter overnight last night.
(Sleepwalking chefs maybe?)

* Orange kitties seem to always be boys.  What's with that? (This one's name is Butch)

* William's plastic dinosaurs appear to be multiplying -- but, according to him, they're all boys.
(This, he tells me, is how a T-Rex stands...)

* As soon as you think you've got everything under control,  flying monkeys show up.

* There's never a pen/pony-tail holder/fly swatter when you want one.

* Dogs smile.  Cat's don't.

 Happy-go-lucky Noe on the left... Always-grave Lizzy on the right...

* Out of hundreds of children's books in our house, we have to read the same four or five over and over a thousand times.

(I Spy, Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs, The 46 Little Men, The Spider and the Fly...)

* Girls naturally coordinate their outfits and boys don't.

(I didn't get a picture, unfortunately, but you should've seen the get-up my better half was wearing yesterday... )

* The long days of summer seem so short.

 Check out these two.  Aren't they wonderful?  This song is an old standard around here.  Perfect for lullabies and harmonizing.  Judging by the Guinness shirt, etc, we think we'd really like this couple...

Riding Off Into The Sunset

Saying Goodbye to the Family Car of Our Childhood

  This VW microbus was the car my six brothers and sisters and I grew up with.  My Dad bought her a gleaming but practical young thing way back in 1977 when we were stationed at the Naval Base in Norfolk, Virginia.  And she's been in the family ever since.  She's crisscrossed the country a couple of times, east to west, north to south.  She's ferried many an outing to historic sites, cheauffered many a child to school, carried the family in finery to Mass on hundreds of Sunday mornings.  She's seen more than her share of squabbling siblings; she's heard many a rendition of my Dad's traditional  singing  of Men of Harlech and Old King Cole on long road trips;  she's endured spilled drinks and muddy feet and sticky candy on the seats.  But the old girl has always taken it all with good humor.  But then she would; she's a bit of quirky character, herself. Her horn sounds ridiculous, like honking Bozo's nose. Her seats are ridiculously uncomfortable and her interior has always smelled a little funny -- like gasoline and leatherette and my Dad's spearmint chewing gum. But she's special to us.

Over the last thirty-three years, my Dad's old VW has seen all of us children grow up and move away.  My Dad was still driving it when I was in college, then after I married and had children of my own  they learned to recognize, like we always did, the trademark VW-putput sound of Grandad coming up the driveway.  But my Dad got old and the old microbus got old.  She needed more and more care and was just not as comfortable as my parents' new, plush car.  So, my brother, Steve, who is a mechanic, brought her out to the farm and put her out to pasture.  The idea was that he would find time to work on the old girl.  But, you know how that goes...  He never did find the time.  And now we're moving.  It's time to pass her on.
 
So, we saluted as we watched her drive off into the sunset... 

With a very sweet and perky college-age girl named Chelsea whose Dad is going to make a project of it with his daughter.  It will be a labor of love because Chelsea has always wanted a VW bus like the ones she used to see when she was growing up in California.  Her Dad's a mechanic, you see, and she's an artist.

And Chelsea is giddy with excitement about having a car just like this one:

The young lady told me she'd e-mail me some pictures when she's finished with it. 

I'm not going to show them to my Dad.

Makes My Monday

This house.

(From the road)

(Across the back pasture)

(One of the good climbing trees.  A swing will be going on this one...)

So, check it out! (I'm so excited!!)  This is the house we found after looking at a crazy variety of affordable rentals in the area we want to live in.  We saw a gorgeous house on 35 acres on the top of a mesa with a panoramic view of the San Juans and the surrounding countryside that was stunning and a house that was perfect -- but it was almost an hour from the church.  We saw a house within ten minutes of church that was big and functional but in the most awful, ugly junkyard of a property you can imagine.  We saw a very affordable house that looked cute from the outside, was nestled in a beautiful grove of trees five minutes from church, but it smelled of smoke, was in bad shape, and was too small. 

And then there was the one we really wanted.  Here's the saga:  We've known about the above-pictured house for some time;  we'd seen it in the local paper and called on it a couple of weeks ago, but the owners wanted a rent-to-own situation which was just too expensive for us to consider and they didn't really need plain old renters because they had some good folks renting the house already.  So we'd written it off as a possibility.  Until... 

On the way over the mountains Thursday, we got a call from the owner who told us the renters were buying a house somewhere else and they wouldn't mind if we looked at their house as a straight rental.  We thought that was cool, but were afraid it would still be too expensive...  But we were curious about it --- aaaaand, well... you just never know....  So we set up a time to go take a look.   And we were excited.  Until...

About a half hour before the showing, the owners called and told us "Never mind.  The current renters had decided to buy the house."   We were bummed.  But we figured it was God's will -- and it was probably going to be too pricey, anyway.  So, we puzzled on what to do next.   Until...

 Bright and early the next morning the owner called.  He was a little flustered.  You could tell.  It seems that over night the renters had a chance to consider the ramifications of a big mortgage and changed their minds.  They wouldn't be buying, but moving out of our house as soon as possible to rent one of the owners' other properties.  So.  Huh.  Go figure that. We went to see the house.  We loved it.  (I knew we would.) And the owner being a nice fellow, and feeling, I think, a little embarassed by the confusion of the whole situation let us talk him down considerably.  It all had to happen just like it did.  There are no accidents in the universe... 

And so.

God willing our house-closing here at the old farm goes through on the 1st of July, we will be living in a log house three doors from the church -- with a path through a hay field for the children to walk to school -- and for us all to walk to morning Mass. 

Can you feel my astonishment?

Can you hear the whiz of all the lists I'm making in my mind right now?

Oh, my gosh.  Can you believe it?

Our life is changing so quickly my head is spinning.

But, mind you, we're not counting our chickens before they're hatched.  We're doing "remote" packing, making calls that can be easily reversed if things don't go through, doing some thorough planning and organizing -- but not moving anything over the mountains until we know for sure all deals are on.  Still praying.  Slightly skeptical in light of other house-selling experience.  But hopeful.

Deep Breath.

Anyway -- Quick specs for anyone interested:

11 irrigated acres, worked by the owner, planted in hay
single story log construction
4 bed/2 bath
Great Room (YAY!  Always wanted one of those!)
Huge laundry room with space for extra fridge and freezer (Yes!)
Humongous barn
Chicken coop for Cathy (or I should say: Cathy's chickens)
Climbing trees
Paths to explore
Retirees as our closest neighbors
But, old friends and their kids a little walk away through the fields
Jesus a hop, skip, and jump through the hay field, over the fence, 'round the school building, up to the chapel...

God is so so good.  We beg (shamelessly) for continued prayers for the house deal to close, for Dan's business to take off (since our savings will only last but so long), and for gratitude for God's many blessings in our lives, with or without this house.

More Makes My Monday Good News Posts over at Twinfatuation!

Happy Fathers' Day to All the Beloved Fathers in My Life

Clockwise:  Two of our favorite Padres, Fr. A. who baptised our last three children and who continually blesses us with his counsel and his sense of humor and Fr. G. who performed Paul and Nicole's wedding ceremony and who, together with Fr. A. has had profound infuence on our teenage boys, esp; my brother Dave and his little girl Savvy (baby Elijah not pictured); our son, soon-to-be Daddy, Paul standing next to my Dad; my big brother, Steve, father of our beloved two neices and nephew;Grandpa, Dan's Dad -- the game-;master, and last, but not least, the love of my life and most beloved of Dads, Dan.  And the following most honored and beloved needs no introduction... 

Happy Fathers' Day to all the Daddies out there!

So, Here's the Scoop

The inspection came back without a mention of the drainage issue.
YAY!
But it was full of little nickel-and-dime electrical problems.
BOO!
And they wanted $3,000 to add gutters and drain spouts to the house.
BIG BOO!
And they wanted an inspection of the chimney and a liner added.
ANOTHER BIG BOO!

We countered that we would cover most of the electrical dings and we'd already done a chimney inspection and we'd give them $1500 for the liner we'd been told it needed, but we'd split the cost of the gutters, etc.  What they're going to find out is that this house's roof is too steep to put gutters on it.  It's been here for 100 years without gutters, too.  So, well, good luck, anyway.  We expect them to take the compromise.  The extra expense will land us right exactly at our bottom dollar.  But in this market, one can't be greedy.  We're just thankful.  WAHOO!  No more showings.

And we only had to have one.  Isn't God good?

So, anyway, we just have to wait til the buyers' property closes this weekend to be mostly sure the deal will go through.  (Mostly sure, I do say.  We won't really believe it's happened to we get the check...)

But, assuming that everything is moving smoothly enough to take the chance, we're traveling over to the Western Slope for a couple days to look for a house to rent!

Say a prayer, if you don't mind?  (St. Anthony please remember us!)

Wordless (Almost)

The things a kitty has to endure...

Life is Hard.... Can I Have Mine With Chocolate?

Scene I: For the last week or so, Catherine has been watching a nest full of eggs which is rather precariously built in the lower branches of one of our backyard trees.    She's been carefully climbing up every day to spy when the mama, a robin, wasn't around.  She's been giving us daily progress reports, anticipating the arrival of baby robins with the intensity of an adoptive mother.  Yesterday the big day finally came: two of the four eggs hatched and Cathy was thrilled!

"They're so cute, Mommy!" she enthused.

"Really?" I said.  "I'm sure they have no feathers or anything yet, do they?"

"No, but they're so cute!"

M-yeah. Truly, mother love if I ever saw it.

Scene II:  Our good friends from church brought a litter of kittens to give away a couple of weeks ago, and much to Anna's delight (Anna is our kitty girl), we said she could choose one to bring home.  Thus:  Princess Julia Ravenlocks Davis I.  Remember this one?  Anna loves this kitty.  Oh my goodness. 

 But she thought Julia needed some friends to play with and we always appreciate having a goodly number of barn cats so I told her I'd look around for some free kittens and we could get one or two if I found some.  And I found some last week.  Thus:  Butch and Lizzy.  Butch and Lizzy don't hold the same place in Anna's heart as Princess Julia, who is a snuggle-kitty, but everyone generally likes them.

Scene III:  Late Monday afternoon a piercing shriek splits the air.  Butch (the tabby) has climbed the tree and attacked the robins' nest.  Catherine is horrified, anguished, but powerless to do anything.  One of the hatchlings is knocked from the nest, the other one is Butch's dinner.  The girls are screaming to get Butch out of the tree and away from the other two unhatched eggs.  The mama bird has returned and is dive bombing Butch.  The girls are throwing sticks up into the tree.  It's an awful scene.  But Butch doesn't seem to understand that he's the cause of it.  He looks down from the tree with casual interest, somewhat bewildered by the sticks that are whizzing by him.  Finally he decides he'd better find a safer place and climbs out of the tree. 

All the girls are upset, but Catherine is heartbroken.  She scoops up the baby bird and its heart is still beating, though it's very weak.  She brings it in to try to save it, placing it in a shoebox with a warm towel by a hot lamp.  She makes bread soaked in milk to try to feed it.  She sleeps next to it, keeping an eye on it through the night, but by morning, the little thing has passed away.  It's a sad morning.

But by the time I've gotten dressed and poured a cup of coffee, Catherine's gone out and climbed up the tree.  Her duty to the baby bird now over, her first thought is to check what, if anything, is left in the nest.  She comes in, happy to report that two eggs survived the upheaval.  And she's consoled.  We all are.

But everyone is still sorry about the loss of the two little baby birds.


Wrap Up: This incident is just one of many hard realities the children will have to live through.  Relatively speaking it's a small thing, but it's terrible to see them cry over it.  Heaven knows, it's hard enough for me to understand why bad things happen, but harder to help my children understand.  I can try to explain it:  It's a simple fact that cats are hard-wired to prey on birds.  But that doesn't make it easy to accept when you see it happen.

There are so many hard lessons in life.  Why do cats eat birds? Why do foxes eat chickens?  Why does it hail and flatten our flowers?  Why do our big brothers have to grow up and move away?  Why do people we love get sick sometimes?  Why do they die?  Why are there tornados and floods and natural disasters that kill innocent people?  Why does there have to be war?  Doesn't God care about us?  Why does He make us suffer?   Why doesn't He protect us from bad things? 

The only answer I could give the girls about the kitten and the baby birds is that the predator-prey thing is part of the natural order that God made for our world.  One event or instinct brings about another event.  A bird that builds its nest too low in a tree sets itself up for disaster.  A farm without a good farm dog may have its chicken house invaded by foxes.  People who build levees and live right next to the river can expect to suffer from floods.  Tornado alley is going to have tornados.  Countries whose borders are in drought zones will have trouble feeding their citizens.  People who suffer from the fall of Adam will learn from their own greed and corruption.  Mortal bodies die. 

But our souls live forever. 

And this is what we have to depend upon.  God wants us to care for our mortal world and our mortal bodies, but they are not what our lives are about.  We're here to save our souls.  And that means we have to learn the hard lesson about mortality.  Our mortality.  And the mortality of little birds.  Sometimes it's best to learn it a little bit at a time -- as hard as it is --  the fact that nothing on this earth lasts forever.  Not the good times. But not the bad times either.

The first hatchlings are gone.  But we have two more eggs to watch now.  And trees all around us full of nests.  It's all good. 

The kids and I are learning it together.

And if we want we can take it all in with optimism and understanding -- and chocolate.