House news

So ... we sold our house (long story!) and closed on it last week.

We are staying in Bryan. However, since our plans aren't what you'd call, uh, firm, and the only rental house I could find that was A) in our elementary school zone and B) in our price range becomes available mid-August, the stuff had to be stored. (But don't get me wrong - Bryan has lots to offer and I am so grateful for our school, our neighborhood, our ward, the new Target being built in Bryan, our proximity to lots of other places, like College Station - ha ha - and most of all, a support network of simply lovely friends!)


I rented a storage unit but due to high (Aggie student) demand in the summer time, it is a bit on the too-small side. Thanks to my friend Jen who nobly donated her garage to the effort. (Note: this is not her actual garage.)

On moving day, I SEVERELY underestimated the amount of work/boxes/stuff/degrees Fahrenheit that we were dealing with. Wonderful church friend Rebecca arrived, began boxing, loading, cleaning, etc. Garage Jen came too, with Matt and kids in tow, to try to make a dent in the tidal wave of work. (Hmm ... I like my mixed metaphor.) Rebecca brought her son Layten to do a little heavy lifting and loading.

While I had a truck reserved from my storage unit, the office mixed up the times and only let me have it for a few short hours. Hence, the call placed to U-Haul. I was shocked & pleased that they had one available Right Then. As the day wore on, the work remained, and I will be forever grateful (not an overstatement) for the waves of ward friends who showed up to help. Every auxiliary and quorum was represented in our work crew - primary children, youth, RS sisters, the EQ, the HPQ, even the bishopric. Load after load was placed in the truck, then unloaded from the truck. Cupboard after cupboard was scrubbed clean. Pizza after pizza (brought by Amazing Jen) was devoured. Water bottle after water bottle was downed. Someone brought those too ... a smart mover indeed.

The feelings I experienced:
1) Embarrassment - for not realizing how much work a move would require. (Since I had already packed up all my books and shelves, I guess I figured half the work was done.)

2) More shame - when the fridge was pulled out and the scum revealed, I wanted to crawl under the house. But my friends, including Jen who scrubbed the oven ?!?!?!?!, Rebecca who worked AND brought macaroni salad and more boxes AND offered her house as babysitting central, Judy who shared that she'd seen worse & tried to comfort me mid-breakdown, Janine who cleaned while 8 months pregnant, Allison who worked so pleasantly that I almost thought she was having fun, Sara who worked on the fridge mess and Sarah who used just the right tone when asking me what went where, kept plugging away. All that was left for me to do was a bit of sweeping.


3) Gratitude - for a ward family who served without judgment.
Even our realtor was impressed: "You have a lot of friends," he said. I haven't even mentioned the guys: Ryan who talked sense to the situation, Cory who brought up "The Office" as a welcome conversational diversion, Sam who had a ready laugh, Dave who had a ready dolly, Chris who walked up ready to work, Mike who appeared to never break a sweat despite multiple loads, Nick T. who came as a new member of the ward, Lonnie who came as an old friend, Jason F. who gave up leisure time to work, Bro. Farnsworth who was a trooper, Bro. Olsen who came after work, Bro. Russell who sweetly told me our furniture was nice, Ben who helped send out the S.O.S. call and worked with a smile, Layten who helped move the heaviest pieces, MaryKathryn who did what was needed (I know she isn't a guy) and Matthew who even drove by at midnight to help unload even more boxes. And the Samuelsons who lugged many a houseplant to their front porch. And if I forgot anyone, please forgive me. It was a haze of sweat! Kyle worked too, drove the truck, and went through several shirts in the effort.

4) Amusement - at the silliness, the smelliness, all of it. It was funny, in a sad, twisted, dusty, heavy way.

5) Extreme desire for water in all forms - to drink, to bathe in, to clean with.

Summer maintenance

Well, there's MUCH to update ... and frankly, the only reason I have a chance to do that now is because the Houston Temple is closed for summer maintenance. So while I was planning to be at the temple today, I am actually here at our motel, blogging away in our houseboat-esque room.

Graham and Annie are attending the American Diabetes Association's Camp Rainbow (for diabetics & siblings), and I was thrilled at the chance to be able to attend the Houston Temple Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of this week. I've never had a chance to go four days in a row, but since we are staying at a motel in Spring for the week, and since the kiddos are off at camp until 3 p.m., it was going to work out perfectly.

I even had to get a new temple recommend a few days before coming to Houston because my old one was stolen. Because of our move (I'm getting to that), I couldn't find any church clothes. Typically, when I go to a temple recommend interview, I wear a dress. Or a skirt. Or even nice dressy pants.
But last week, I went in a black t-shirt and olive green capri pants. Sandals too. Argh! So, I was ready to go. I checked the temple website and there was no indication of summer maintenance closing, but when I drove up to the grounds this morning and saw the big front gates closed, I had a sinking feeling. I actually burst into tears, because I was so excited for this once-in-a-lifetime chance. Maybe next year when we come back for diabetes camp, it will be at a time when the temple is open.

Diabetes article

I've gotten lots of good info from The New York Times on diabetes. This article wasn't exactly a pick-me-up, but it made me want to be even more vigilant with Graham's care. We are going to start something called Multiple Daily Injections later this summer, and I need to get all the formulas sorted out in my mind. It would probably be a cinch for many of you, but mathematics in my head ... well, not my strength.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/01/health/01well.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

**I'm sorry. I tried every which way to get the link to work, but it will not cooperate. I'll try again, but here's the URL if you want to clumsily paste it in yourself.

Bedtime talkies

Graham and Annie share a room and a bunk bed. Often, I lay down next to Annie on the bottom bunk and help coax the children to sleep. These moments - after prayers, teeth brushing, snacks, but before actual slumber - yield some pretty fun conversations. When the kids are tired, the conversations tend to go negative ("I never want to go to school again", "Fine, I'll never have any friends for the rest of my life"), but when they're sleepy but happy, I chuckle in the bed.

Tonight's convo yielded two funny moments for me.

This afternoon, Graham and Annie got to play with Gwendolyn, Linus & Baby Casper. Graham was SO excited that Linus had an Arizona T-shirt with a scorpion on it. Not only a scorpion, actually: "A scorpion, Mom, and a tarantula and a horned toad."

For those of you who know Graham, you know that he has several intense interests at any given time. He wants to talk about those interests A LOT. He wants to learn about them. He wants to talk about them again, often saying the same thing. So right now, one of those interests is bugs (insects, arachnids, arthropods, crustaceans - see my earlier post). {FYI: his other interests, as of Right Now, are baseball and chess.}

So tonight (at 9:30 p.m.) he was in his Super Graham mode, talking faster than his tongue can move, raving to me from his top bunk about the t-shirt. (You'll just have to imagine Graham's vocal inflections.)

"Mom, I loved Linus' shirt. It had a scorpion, a tarantula and a horned toad. I mean, I know that the horned toad isn't a bug or an insect, and I'm into bugs. But I'm also into any of these crazy, cool, out-of-their-mind desert creatures."

I'm not kidding nor exaggerating. Those were his words. I almost got up right then to write them down. Because I'm also into crazy, cool, out-of-their-mind creatures, including my own son.

Somehow, the conversation then veered to hot dogs. Hot dogs, hot dogs. Even before I was a vegetarian, I didn't like hot dogs.

"I don't know why they call them hot dogs," wondered Graham. "They aren't made of dog."

"They really should called them killed pig," chirped Annie sweetly from her flowery pillow.

Nighty night, everyone.

Our photag

Annie really loves to take pictures. She tries to get her hands on our digital camera every chance she gets & I often find interesting shots that I didn't take when uploading to iPhoto.

This photo of Graham probably isn't the best indicator of her talent (ha ha).

Now I've taken to encouraging her interest, and I mentioned to her that she could be a professional photographer when she grows up. "Mom, there's just one problem," she said. "I don't already have my ears pierced."

Hmmm. I didn't see the career connection there, but all in good time. (Right along with wearing make-up in public!)

Our neighbor Lucy came over, and the two girls had fun taking pictures of each other.

Lucy did a nice job capturing Annie in the backyard.

Summer scenes

Graham, airborne


Annie, soaked


Kyle, rhythmic

Judith Warner on Hillary Clinton ... and us

http://warner.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/of-mice-and-women/

I have to admit: Sometimes Judith Warner's NYT blog "Domestic Disturbances" really irks me. There is something self-righteous in her tone that rubs me the wrong way at least every other week.
And I didn't think I was interested in reading anything more on Hillary Clinton.

But after spending a week with just women/girls at our church Girl's Camp, I had some new thoughts about female interaction. I thought Warner's piece was well done.