I still can’t download photos from my little Leica, so last night when Nate came home with his new “daily driver,” I got out the big camera and got some fun shots.

Nate’s wanted a scooter for years and years. When it came time to sell his car last week (because it’s evil and needed to go), he decided to go for it. And yes, we know he’s going to get wet.

Congrats, baby! Be safe.

I have some really cute pictures, but someone that’s not me somehow crushed the cable that connects my camera to the computer, so I can’t download pictures ’til I get a new one, and I never think about it ’til I want to download pictures. So, no photos today.

But, Nate decided it was time to get out some of his old GI Joe toys, circa 1982 & 3, so the boys can play with them. They’ve been having SO much fun. It’s really cute. So there are about 40 action figures and a bunch of large tanks, armored cars, and fighter jets all over the living room.

The rubber bands holding the old action figures together have started disintegrating, so Nate and I opened up and fixed about 20 of them on Saturday night. Silly fun.

In other news, I started packing this last weekend, and took down some shelving. There are a number of boxes in the basement now. I started with my wool room, and I think today I’m going to pack some knickknacks off of bookshelves and glassware in the kitchen.

We still have 3 months, so I worry a bit that I’ll end up wanting to use things that I’ve packed, but I’m getting really antsy. I need to make some progress.

We have a showing today at 1. It’s 9 am now. I’m SO not motivated to get things cleaned up so that strangers can walk through my home. It’s gray, and cold, and very, very wet out. It has me feeling somber.

I work hard to keep my mood and my outlook positive. You choose what you think about, what you dwell on, where you let your thoughts go. Sometimes it’s easier than other times. But it’s always a delicate balance. It takes all my energy and effort, and when I’m hit with the negativity of others, it can really knock my feet out from under me.

I don’t feel like standing up today.

There’s not much going on at the moment. Well, other than mothering 5 crazy kids. So there’s always tons going on, but in terms of moving and such, not much. I think the bubble is going to pop at some point, and I’ll suddenly have to get the house packed in 3 days or something. There was a massive, crazy 3 week insanity, trying to get the house “good enough” to go on the market and show. Now, other than trying to keep it clean-ish at that level, I’m not doing much.

I think the next big thing would be cleaning out the garage so there’s a good place to store packed boxes. But it’s SO FREAKING COLD!!!!! And wet, and not nice outside, I just can’t get myself psyched up to do it. Plus, there’s a lot of hazardous chemicals and latex paint cans to deal with, and I flat out don’t want to.

However, I’m afraid that time is slipping away from me, and at some point in the future, I’ll be mad that I didn’t make use of every single day in getting ready to move.

But, there are still no offers on the house. Not a lot of traffic coming to look at it. We have to drop the price slowly to show the bank that it really won’t sell for more than whatever offer eventually comes in, so they’re more likely to accept it. Which again means that it’s going to go from “nothing’s happening” to “crap! I have no time” real quick.

And yet, I’m enjoying the lull. I’ve been knitting the last couple days. I can’t remember the last time I indulged like this, and it’s glorious. I’ll post pictures when it’s done, which will be soon. It’s kind of a funky, orange shawl that may end up being a warm house shawl/blanket type thing. It might be too weird to wear out in public, but I don’t care. I’ve wanted to knit this pattern for years and I finally have.

Here’s a cute picture I took for my Twitter account yesterday (I don’t post there, just internet stalk my favorite musicians). I really like how it turned out.

This past month has been both busy and extremely difficult. We are going to have to move, so we’ve been trying to get the house ready to go on the market. It went live last Thursday, and we WEREN’T ready, so the weekend was all sorts of fun trying to balance house work with people walking through and looking.

Ugh.

I really don’t have any idea where we’re going to end up. We’d like to move to Austin, TX once the school year ends. That’s what we’re working towards, but who knows what will happen between now and then? Certainly not me.

But I want to be warm. And I want to be near my sister. And I want to be somewhere with friendlier taxes for small business, and better cost of living. Plus, I’m intrigued by the whole “live music capital of the world” thing.

So, we’re hoping for Austin.

Regardless, we need new doors to knock. New bushes to beat. It’s not working here, time to go.

I’ve never successfully uploaded a video here before. Here’s another try.

I wrote it. I hope that…

1. you can see and hear it
2. you like it!

seein-you-again-movie2

Follow up- and it would appear that you have to click the link, then click the movie looking icon thing, then you can see it. Let me know if it works for you, or if you know how to post videos more gracefully. Thanks!

I couldn’t sleep the night before last because song lyrics kept running through my head and I got up to write. So yesterday I was super tired, but I also worked on recording the new song. Until someone decided that it looked like so much fun, that THEY should take over

and that pretty much wrapped it up for me.

My mom knows a guy whose daughter is getting ready to record a CD in Nashville. My stuff is hardly country, but we sent him 4 of my songs. He said she’d listen to them. Kind of cool.

I’ve had a juicer for quite a few years. I think we bought it in 2005, but I’m not really sure. In any case, it’s been an on again, off again thing for me. I bought a juicer so I could grow and juice wheatgrass. That’s how it started at least, but to be honest, I can’t even smell the stuff without gagging anymore, so the juicer has been sitting primarily in a drawer in my kitchen for a couple years.

However, every late fall/early winter when I see fresh cranberries hit the grocery store, I pull out the juicer for awhile because I really, really like fresh cranberry juice. Particularly when it’s combined with celery or cucumber and apple. Really, really yummy. This year was no exception. I saw bags of fresh cranberries. Bought one. Pulled the juicer out along with my most fabulous juice book EVER, and started juicing*.

Having officially decided that I’m “over” trying to juice wheatgrass this year, I took a more serious look at the juices in my fabulous juice book, whereas before, I’d just dabbled with them.

Oh my, have we been having fun. I’ve juiced parsley, garlic, sweet potato, parsnip, fresh ginger root, fresh mint, broccoli, beets with their stalks and leaves, watercress, as well as the cucumber, celery, apple, carrot, citrus, kale, spinach, etc that I’d done in the past. I love it. I really, really love it.

And so does Max. If that juicer turns on, he comes running, because he wants to do it.

and if he doesn’t do it, he’ll stand there and scream at whomever is doing it. It’s really pretty annoying, but it’s also really cute. On occasion, he’ll decide that he’s done and he’ll just start eating my stuff. I end up cleaning up the counter and throwing pieces of fruit or vegetable in the juicer with Max sized bites in them because he doesn’t eat all of it. Just bites.

We’ve been juicing a couple times a day for a few weeks now. Yesterday, Max drank some. He had beet, cucumber, apple juice in the morning, and carrot celery juice at lunch. I’m not sure how I feel about this, ’cause I don’t really want to share.

All of the kids have taken more of an interest in the juicer this year, frequently calling out requests (hello, this isn’t Jamba Juice), but their tastes bend more towards the fruit juices, one of their favorites being 3 oranges, 1 apple, and a cup of cranberries, whereas I really like the more bizarre vegetable and root varieties. And Clark just wants granny smith apple juice or “green” juice as he calls it. It’s surprisingly good, actually.

Clark is demanding breakfast, so I’ve got to wrap up.

Basically, that’s one of the things we’re up to right now. Fresh juice. And I love the way it makes me feel. I feel good. I’m eating less and craving less. Well, other than craving juice, like, all the time. I had to run to the store late one night because I HAD to have the cucumber apple mint juice before bed and I was out of mint.

That’s all for now. I’ll try to come back soon. I hope you all had a wonderful holiday. See ya!

*This book is out of print. The author has released a new version with much of the same content but based on my online perusal of the new one, I think mine is easier to use. However, if it was my only option based on availability, I would buy it without hesitation. It’s fantastic.

And to be honest, it looks better with the plaid ribbon, but…

Nate set up the tree on Saturday, I put on the ribbon, and the kids put on the ornaments, reserving the glass balls for me. Which I added yesterday. I hadn’t counted them before, or if I had, I had forgotten. We have 12 dozen glass balls that go on the tree. There are other glass balls that I have for decorating other things, but for the tree, 12 dozen. That’s tons! BUT, and here’s my magical-gorgeous-tree secret… (maybe this is already common knowledge), if you put a ton of cheap but pretty glass balls on your tree, it ties everything together and looks beautiful.

Seriously.

I had a friend stop by yesterday and comment on how nice the tree looked and how our ornaments are all coordinated, whereas hers are a mismatched hodge-podge.

Not so. I walked her to the tree for a closer look. We have oodles of kid ornaments made over the years. The paper mittens connected by yarn, the foam star with puffy glitter glue that says “Olivia,”

popcicle stick Christmas trees with glued on sequins (which are really cool, actually, but they’re still popsicle sticks), the sticky bow hung by a piece of yarn

as well as all the mis-matched ornament gifts we’ve received from friends over the years and purchased ourselves. Not the least of which are the many superhero ornaments, which, to be honest, are the only reason Nate hauls the tree up from the garage and sets it up every year.

I have my porcelain ballerina set ($1 each at Fred Meyer 10 years ago) and barnyard animal set (don’t remember where they came from, but they hardly match the ballerinas) and a number of non-coordinating dough ornaments… to name only a few. There are tons. And before the glass balls go on, the tree is just ok. Not all that pretty.

Glass balls are awesome. I bought ours in 2005 at Michaels. They were having some sale, Buy 1 get 1, or buy 2 get 1, or buy one get one half off…. I don’t remember. But they were super cheap. And I love them. Most of them are the smaller, plain ones that come 12 to a box, but there are some bigger, patterned ones (still cheap) that come 4 to a box that make it look amazing.

If you’re interested, I can get a little more specific. I chose one main, large patterned ball (red on red stripes). I have 20-24 of those. I have a couple sets of other larger patterned balls that don’t match, but look nice together. Then I have about 7 dozen small, matte red balls. I bought them at different times, so the exact shade of red varies a bit. Doesn’t matter. 2 dozen small, shiny gold balls, and 1 dozen small light green ones. I think the key is having mostly one color, with significantly less of the others, just to accent.

It’s not all matchy-matchy, especially when combined with the hodge-podge of ornaments I mentioned earlier. But it looks really nice.

There’s my tip.

It makes me so sad when people come over, see my tree, and then say things about how I’m creative and have a gorgeous tree and they aren’t and don’t.

Oh, don’t say that! It’s not hard.

And you don’t have to spend a zillion dollars on expensive matching ornaments. More than that, you don’t have to hide or get rid of the sentimental (not necessarily pretty) ornaments that don’t “match.” It all adds to the charm.

Finally, there’s Kringus.

(A little info if you’re lost. And you most likely are).

I know he’s not for everyone, but he cracks the heck out of us. I think we’re going to laminate the eyes this year so we can reuse them. We’re also going to laminate a set of eyes for each of the kids so as they move on, they can take Kringus with them.

Happy Christmas!

Nate came home with some cool stickers last week, so the Yellow Submarine had to move

I also scored a vintage Elvis Costello sticker from the ’70s. How cool is that? When I got the camera out to take a picture of the new stickers, Max had a lot of fun sticking his face in the camera and laughing at me

This case has been fun to decorate.

Abby has finally decided that she wants to read Harry Potter. She’s been resisting, because she tends to resist things that “everyone else” does. But she’s been in the mood to read, and was having difficulty finding enough books to keep her occupied. The Harry Potter series has, what, 5000 pages? I think the sheer quantity was appealing to her. Liv thought it was a good idea to read them again, so here the two of them are, reading big books in front of our little fire, trying not to freeze to death in our cold house. It was cute.

I’ve had an ugly ball of handspun yarn on my bookshelf for a long time now. I haven’t wanted to take it down to the yarn room in the basement, because I knew it would never resurface. It was some merino/silk/angora that someone gave me to spin in very soft, pale shades of pink, green and blue. Well, it spun up pretty muddy and bleh. On Sunday night, I decided to just jump in and make a small scarf with it, hoping that it would look nicer knit up than it does as a ball of yarn. I’m nearly finished.

I think it does. I go back and forth

It’s not quite as pretty in person as it is in the pictures. Especially that last picture. It’s much more muted. But it feels dreamy and it will be warm, and that dumb ball of muddy yarn isn’t going to stare at me every night as I get ready for bed anymore. Win win.