Happy New Year!!

It's New Year's Eve 2011/2012! Yay!

Okay, that's enough exclamation points for one post. I really am just posting this to show you some photos from this fine evening.

People Watching in Airports

People watching in airports is hampered by security regulations now. This whole business that only allows ticketed passengers at the gate means I don't get to see people say their hellos or good byes. (Yes, I am that nosey.) It's different when I just see people gliding by on the automatic sidewalk. Or sitting across from me with their carry-on luggage and whatever crap they bought in the airport.

Christmas

Alright.  I need to savor this feeling right here.  This feeling of being surrounded by family,  of drinking great wine and of eating delicious food.  There is laughter, genuine affection and a general feeling of comfort.

I can say whatever I want and everyone will either laugh hysterically or look at me with an expression of, "What the hell?" and then laugh hysterically anyway.  And they're laughing with me, even as they might be laughing at me.  This is exactly what I want to feel, all of the time.

But.  But.  But if I felt this way all of the time I wouldn't appreciate this feeling as much right now, would I?  Or would I?  There's this whole idea that you don't appreciate the good times without the bad times, the light without the dark, you know?  I have always wished I had the opportunity to prove that wrong.

I don't know that it's possible, though.  To prove that idea wrong.  I've always had the bad times to interrupt the good times.  Always.  That's probably life.  I doubt anyone has all good times, all the time.  I really doubt that.

However, the week from Christmas to New Year's Eve is the perfect time to enjoy that great feeling 24/7.  I'm flying to Utah to spend 4 days with Paul and his Utah family on Wednesday.  That's going to be 4 days of Utah partying.  And I only work one day this week.  I get paid for 5 days but I'm only working 4 days.  I'm having a great week.

I love this feeling, whether it lasts or not.  And it probably won't.  But I love it all the more because of that.

Kids' Take on New Parenting

Samuel is harassing Miriam about something trivial.

She's exasperated and says to me, "Mom, make him stop this!"

I calmly reply, "You're a smart kid, you can work this out."

Miriam asks, "Why don't you ever help us out any more?!"

Solomon jumps in with, "It's not that she's isn't helping us.  She's just letting us figure stuff out on our own.  How else can we learn?"

Changing My Parenting

I've never been very big on self-help books or parenting books or anything like that.  They're preachy and condescending and annoying.  I am the authority on me and I don't need someone with a PhD to tell me how to deal with the stuff in my life.  Right?

But then one morning a few weeks ago I had a near-breakdown over not having enough time for breakfast or sleep or homework or to get to school and work on time or to do chores or to relax.  Not enough time for anything.  I yelled at the kids again and they continued to move at their snail's pace and they continued to walk away from their backpacks and jackets instead of picking them up and putting them on.

I have had this terrible thought over the last few weeks that I haven't been teaching my children responsibility.  Rather, I've been teaching them to respond to my yelling and frustration.  I'm talking at them until I'm blue in the face and my blood pressure is 162/98 and they're still forgetting that they need to take a snack to school or that they need to wear gloves when it's 19F outside.  I'm e-mailing their teachers weekly about homework and missed tests and issues with classmates.  I'm not doing them any favors like this.

So right then and there, leaning on the kitchen counter and breathing deeply, I bought "Parenting with Love and Logic" with the Amazon app on my phone.  It was one of those moments when I've just had enough.  Or too much.  I'd had too much and I couldn't take it any more.

When the book arrived I read half of it that same evening.  It's so simple, it's brilliant.  The premise is that kids are adults in training and if you don't treat them like that, they'll eventually become adults -- 'cause that's biology -- that act like kids -- 'cause that is what you brought them up to be.  It's much easier to let kids mess up now than it is to let them loose in the world where messing up means you lose a job or a house or worse.

So I've started stepping back.  I've stopped e-mailing the teachers, I've stopped pushing the homework, I've stopped the reminders about snacks, jackets and bed time.  That's done.

Instead of harping on weather appropriate clothing, I've told the kids what the weather is supposed to be like and let them dress however they think they'll be most comfortable.  If they don't wear snow boots and it snows and they have to walk home in it, they'll likely remember to take their boots next time there is snow in the weather report.

Instead of stressing out over a pre-set bedtime and getting all bent out of shape when it doesn't happen, I've laid out 2 requirements: 1) teeth must be brushed and 2) I don't see or hear any children in this house after 8:30, unless there is an emergency.  If they're exhausted at wake up time, they'll probably decide that getting a little more sleep is wise.

Instead of mediating the spats and the bickering I calmly suggest that they go some where else, together or alone, and deal with it however they think is best.  They're more likely to learn that hearing each other out, sticking up for themselves, making sincere apologies and having some patience work out problems rather well most of the time.

Instead of nagging the kids about leaving their things lying around, I've instituted the nightly sweep.  At 8:00 PM anything that is lying around in the common areas of the house is confiscated and place in the Confiscation Box.  On Sundays the sweep occurs at 5:00 PM and includes bedrooms.  Things that have been confiscated can be earned back by doing a chore.

Some amazing things have happened since all the Insteads were instituted.  The most amazing thing is that the house runs much more smoothly and there is a much lower level of stress for all of us.  I'm not so uptight because I've stopped making the kids' problems into my problems.  They're less stressed because I'm not hassling them all the time.

It's been slow going, but the kids are definitely stepping up and taking responsibility for a lot more things in their daily lives.  The mistakes they have made, while not catastrophic -- let's face it, they're kids -- have been true learning opportunities.  They take ownership of them and they work out some way to fix it, the best they can.  They're more likely to say to me that they messed up because it's no longer my "job" to preach to them about how they should have done things differently.  I listen to them and I ask them how they're going to fix things.  That's it.

This is the simplest and best change I've ever made to our home life.  I love it.

Expectations of Perfection

Solomon's first band concert was last week.  We have looked forward to this for weeks.  He is in both beginning band and beginning jazz band.  It's his favorite class.  Band was always my favorite class, too so I'm excited to see him this involved and engaged.

After the beginning bands played we heard the 7th and 8th grade bands.  I have to admit I was underwhelmed.  I thought, "I was once in junior high band.  I was once a musician with this level of experience.  And I don't think we sounded so ... unpolished?"  And then I reined myself in and thought what any reasonable adult should think when looking back onto experiences in their youth -- which is, "My frame of reference is skewed.  Of course we sounded unpolished.  We were 13."

On Friday night Jennifer, Caleb, Lance and I got to talking about what we remembered of our band experiences.  They all had the same thoughts I did during the band performances.  (Can I just say that it meant the world to both Solomon and me that they all came to the concert?  How fantastic is this family?)  Lance, being Lance, has recordings of his 9th grade concert performances and they're even on his iPhone.  So we did what anyone reliving their glory days of junior high band would do and we listened to one of them.  It's a piece called Havendance that my band also did in 9th grade.  It was my favorite concert piece ever.  It's demanding, difficult, beautiful and so extremely fun to play.

You know what?  It sounded amazing, even coming from the tinny iPhone speaker.  The instruments were in tune, there was one tempo.  The dynamics blew me away.  So my frame of reference isn't as skewed as I thought it was.  We really were as good as we remembered.

Now, for a bit more reference.  Lance, Jennifer, Caleb and I all went to junior high in the same school district.  Caleb went to a different junior high than the other three of us but we knew his school and his band and he knew ours.  We went against each other regularly at all-region competitions for concert band and marching band.  We all went to the same high school.  Lance was a few years behind me in school, Jennifer and Caleb were two years behind me.  Jennifer and Caleb are the only two of us who played in the same band for the same years during high school.  Also, when I compare the 8th grade band here to the 9th grade band of which we were a part, I'm comparing students who've all had 3 years of band experience.   Middle school here is grades 6 to 8 and junior high there is grades 7 to 9.

Since we could hear such a vast difference in musicality between the 8th grade band of a few nights ago and our 9th grade bands of years ago we started talking about what the difference could be.  We've come to the conclusion that since, as a group, 12- to 14-year-olds are capable of the same basic things, it lies in the director.

Our junior high band director and the directors we had in high school were smart, passionate about music, passionate about teaching kids music.  They told funny and corny jokes.  But when it was time to rehearse, they could turn into the meanest, toughest, ugliest guys in the world.  They were perfectionists and they expected us to be perfectionists.  Making a mistake due to inattention was not tolerated.  We tuned ourselves against a devil of a tuner with an eternally spinning wheel.  When we had trouble sticking to one tempo, the Evil Metronome of Death was hooked up to a PA system and that beat was broadcast throughout the band hall at a deafening volume until we succumbed to it and, by God, we played in tempo.  It wasn't uncommon for one person to be singled out as the one who was missing the run of 16th notes in the 58th measure.  That one person then played those 16th notes alone half a dozen times in front of everyone until they were right.  I remember more than one temper tantrum from a director that consisted of throwing a baton, knocking over his music stand and stomping back and forth across the room.

Solomon's band director is a very sweet, personable woman.  She clearly loves what she does, she loves teaching, she loves music.  The kids love her back. I haven't spent any time in her rehearsals so I can't say what happens in them.  But if I were a betting person, I'd bet she doesn't tune kids and their instruments against a machine.  I'd bet there is no Evil Metronome of Death in her band hall.  I'd bet she does not stress to her musicians the importance of watching for down beats, for cues about when the melody cuts from the flutes to the clarinets.  I'd bet she does not express disappointment when things are not played the way they are supposed to be played.  I can be reasonably sure of winning all of those bets because what we saw and heard on Thursday night does not reflect a director who expects, demands and gets everything of which 8th grade musicians are capable.

I believe that my band directors bordered on abusive.  If a parent treated a child the way we were treated as a group, it would warrant intervention of some kind.  There's no doubt about that in my mind.  But you know what?  My band experience is one I would not trade for anything.  We had extreme pride in our performances, no matter what the venue.  We were really good and we knew it. Despite the yelling, the occasional humiliation and the frustration with not always being perfect, I never questioned enrolling in band every year.  I felt affection for my directors and consider them some of the most influential teachers in my entire school career.  Other people with a similar experience have told me they feel the same way.

I would venture to say that if we hadn't been as good as we were, if we hadn't had so much pride in what we did as musical students, we wouldn't have loved it so much.  And our excellence, our pride, was a direct result of the way we were taught.  I hope that the lack of pressure and the lack of expectation to work harder than he has before does not deter Solomon from future years of band enrollment.  I want him to make it to high school band where there might be a director that demands the best.

Satisfaction

Beginning a new job is nerve-wracking.  After the initial search, the call for an interview and all the interviewing. there's finally an offer and an acceptance.  Then the nerves jump in.

First, there is the prospect of learning so much new information.  There are new processes, work flows, co-workers, a new computer system, new bosses, new everything.  It's daunting.

Then there is the whole deal with getting to know new people, as people, not just as co-workers.  Personalities and work ethics are intricate things and each new one presents a new opportunity to learn something one wants to emulate or not emulate.  And one must decide how one's personal philosophies line up with one's co-workers' philosophies. 

On top of all of that is a much bigger issue: proving oneself to the new work world.  "Can I prove to them that hiring me was a good choice?"  "Will they regret hiring me and wish they'd chosen another candidate?"  "Do I even want to prove anything to them?"

Well.  I've now been at my new job for more than three months.  I'm off the 90-day probationary period where I could be let go fired for anything.  (Colorado is an at-will state but I'm part of a union now so I'm protected, to an extent.  I don't expect to need the union for something like that but it's comforting to know it's there.)  I can safely say that I like all of my co-workers.  The doctors with whom I work are fun, funny, down-to-earth people.  The environment of the clinic where I work is positive and professional with an air of "we like being here, we're in this together and we're all doing our best."

Furthermore, I've received several compliments on my work from various staff members and patients.  During a team meeting after just four weeks of being there one of the doctors remarked that it seemed like I was more experienced than just those four weeks.  I have received two personal commendations.  A patient's parent sent an e-mail to the chief of my department telling her how I made her day.  People come to me and genuinely want to know my opinion.  I feel like I'm valued.

And I am satisfied that I have proven myself.  These people want me there and I want to be there.

They like me.  They really, really like me!

(And all this is not to say that I didn't feel these things at my previous job.  I'm just very happy and grateful that I have found job satisfaction again.)

Snowy Day

Our "porch" and front "walk."

Notice I did not say "Snow Day."  A snowy day is merely a day with lots of snow.  A Snow Day, capital letters necessary, means a day with lots of snow wherein school and/or work are canceled.  We had a Snow Day a month ago and it was fun.  This week we are on our second snowy day in three days.  I'm loving it, especially because I do not have to work either of these days.

On Thursday we awoke to a few inches of snow with more falling onto it.  Snow continued to fall for several hours.  It took an hour and a half to get my three offspring to their schools.  That was not fun.  Not fun at all.  I really think they should have called an hour's delay, but whatever.  After that was done I made a quick stop at the produce market for rump roast (On sale! I love sales!) and fresh veggies.  The day before I had stocked up on pantry staples during my lunch break.

When I got home I made three loaves of bread -- one Italian, two of the regular sandwich loaves I make every week -- and started a lovely, aromatic, meaty Bolognese sauce.  I shoveled snow, sipped coffee and watched several episodes of Parenthood from last season.  It was a beautiful day.  :sigh:

And today.  Today, we awoke to more snow falling on the snow from 2 days ago.  I have great plans of straightening up the house and putting up our tree while watching our favorite Christmas movies and listening to our holiday play list.  We have Elf and A Christmas Story cued up.  We'll probably search Netflix for more options this evening.  I also want to take a nice photo of the kids in the snow for our holiday letter.  Yes, I'm one of those people that likes to brag about share what her family has been up to for the last year.  Today is going to be a beautiful day, too.

Disturbing Thoughts

When Solomon was a tiny infant I was plagued by ugly thoughts.  I don't know if it was post-partum depression or simply the result of realizing just how helpless a newborn infant is or what.  I just remember sitting on the edge of my bed and staring into his completely helpless face for hours and thinking to myself, "There are people who would harm a tiny child just like this."  It was a terribly depressing and devastating thought.  It kept me awake, and for a mother who's just given birth, is feeding a baby every 45 minutes and isn't sleeping much, that's saying a lot.

In the last year I've had similar thoughts when tucking my children into bed at night.  For the most part, my children are not wanting for anything.  They have food, shelter, clothes that fit, support, respect, affection, a mother and father and extended family that love them more than anything, more toys than they can count.  They are fortunate children, whether they know it or not.  They have a good life.  Sure, there are things they want that they cannot have.  But they are not lacking in anything they need to become successful human beings.

There are times when I tuck them into bed at night -- clean, fed, warm, safe -- that I am overcome with sadness for the children that aren't.  The children that go to bed with a pitifully empty stomach or fearing for their own safety enter my mind and I am so saddened and disturbed that I cannot stand it.

Miriam has always been a fan of bedtime.  As a 6-month-old baby she put herself on a sleep schedule that allowed her two naps per day, an early bedtime and a consistent wake-up time.  She loves bed time.  She's the only one of my three children who will willingly say to me, "Mommy, I want to go to sleep."  She adheres to bedtime as if it's written in stone. She loves the routine of putting on pajamas, brushing her teeth, brushing her hair and being tucked in.  When I tell her good night and kiss her cheeks, she's the happiest she's been all day.  Her innocence and sweetness are heartbreaking in contrast to the children who do not get the same.

Every child deserves to go to bed with a full stomach, knowing that a good night's sleep is ahead and that security is on the other side of that night.  But they don't.  And there's not a damn thing I can do about it.

Thanksgiving Menu

I have no time off work for Thanksgiving except the actual day of Thanksgiving. This means I am not leaving Colorado.  I took the kids to meet the ex-husband today and now I am back home.  And by home, I mean Paul's house.  Paul's house with wine, cheese and This is Spinal Tap, which we just finished watching.  But that is neither here nor there.

What is both here and there is the Thanksgiving Menu.  It is as follows:

• Turkey, brined in a savory brine per Paul's request
• mashed potatoes, a la butter and cream cheese and heavy cream
• cranberry sauce
• the most delectable, buttery, flaky dinner rolls that you have ever had the pleasure of melting onto your tongue (at least, I think this is the recipe I use. I for sure have it saved on my phone. But my phone is charging on the other side of the room and I do not want to get up from this chair.)
• cranberry bars, a la Starbucks

That is the stuff that I am cooking.  I am having Paul and Cole to my place.  We have invited Jen and Scottie and Branden and Lance. We have also invited board games and music. We're gonna have a good time.

Paul is providing copious amounts of wine and a pumpkin pie. Lance is bringing canned cranberry sauce (his Thanksgiving staple) and some sort of salad, as yet to be determined.  Jen will cook:

• stuffing (which is totally To. Die. For.  And I'm not even a stuffing person. Unless Jen makes it.)
• green bean casserole
• gravy
• apple pie

I was going to attempt cherry pie but I attempted a cherry pie from cherries in my backyard a couple of weeks ago.  I bombed.  Completely bombed.  I think know that my cherries were canned too liquidy.  Unfortunately I am unsure how to remedy this.  And now I'm out of cherries except for the ones that have been designated for cherry-infused vodka.  Le sigh.

The point is that Thanksgiving will be a rockin', delicious time, as per usual.

True Feminism

I've been mulling over this idea for more than a year.  I've wanted to write about it for almost that long but I haven't been able to find the words.  A cousin posted something related to this on Facebook recently so I've been thinking about it more.  I'm still not sure I have the words but  I've decided just to take the plunge any way.

Feminism as a word has become distorted.  People misuse it and misrepresent it.  They use it as an insult or they're insulted by it.

Feminism as a movement was necessary and wonderful.  It was the civil rights movement for women.  It was a time when women decided they weren't going to be told what to do by men or by society just because they were women.  It was a time when women said that it doesn't matter if your chromosomes are XY or XX, you should have choices and you should have a voice.

Feminism today has morphed into this ugly, distorted idea that women are better than men.  I don't think that's what any Suffragists meant when they marched for their rights.  I think they wanted true equality.  I think they'd be horrified at the man-bashing that happens in so much of society now.

I see women today give their husbands and partners nasty looks that they'd never tolerate themselves.  I hear them say things about their men and to their men that are truly horrifying.  I hear condescension and patronization and disgust in their voices.  It's every where -- on television, in music, in daily conversation, in sweeping generalizations.

I know that not all women enjoy all the benefits that men do.  I know that in other parts of the world, the plight of women is as horrible as it's always been.  I know that even in the United States not all women make what their male counterparts make in the same careers.  I know that. For most of us, however, life is good and getting better.  And it certainly does not justify the anger that some women harbor toward men at just being a woman.

The pendulum has swung too far in the other direction in a lot of respects.  It's not right.

The flip side of this are the women who say with horror, "Oh, I'm not a feminist!" as if it were some horrible condition requiring an exorcism.  And to that I say, what's so wrong with being a feminist?  What's wrong with being on equal footing with men?  What's wrong with embracing all the choices you have and picking something you love because you love it, not because you're supposed to?  What's wrong with not depending on a man to provide and lead and make decisions?

Being a feminist does not mean giving up on marrying, having children, making a home, even staying at home to raise children while foregoing a career outside the home.  Being a feminist does not mean you're automatically a power-mongering, money-grabbing bitch.  Being a feminist means that you support your rights and the rights of other women to choose what to do with life.  It means that you have freedom.  It is not a bad thing.

The Good, The Bad and The Really Bad (Not Necessarily in That Order)

This week started off really crappily.  I was in a foul mood all day Saturday, for no good reason really.  I have a sneaking suspicion it was :ahem: hormone-related.  Whatever it was I just could not snap out of it.  I was grumpy and feeling bad and being short-tempered with the kids.  And that made me feel even worse.  Ugh.

Sunday morning I forced myself to have a better attitude.  I took Solomon and Miriam to Jennifer's house and left them there so I could spend some time with Samuel alone.  I've been aiming to do this for quite some time but it's hard to make time for stuff like that.

Samuel wanted to go to Downtown Aquarium so we went and spent a couple of hours looking at all sorts of sea creatures.  It's as pretty fantastic place.  We got to see a worker feed a tank of piranha.  We watched "mermaids" put on a show about cleaning up the oceans.  Then we ate lunch aquarium-side in the restaurant there.  We had a great time and it was a good way to start the week.

Monday and Tuesday were pretty crappy days mood-wise again.  I did get to meet with Miriam's teacher on Tuesday morning and have a conference with both of them.  It was nice to hear Miriam talk through her self-assessment in a grown up voice that I've only recently begun to hear from her. She's developing a confidence and a voice that I was unsure she ever would.  She's such an amazing kid.     

Wednesday morning Solomon and I missed his bus.  As a result, I missed the conference with Samuel's teacher and drove Solomon to school instead.  At lunch time things started looking up.  I finally got the snow tires put on my car after a couple of weeks of wrangling with the people at the tire place.  That's a whole other story.  Anyway, one of the guys there gave me a great deal on certificates for the tires and I got a discount just because of the company where I work.

I re-scheduled the conference with Samuel's teacher for that evening.  We talked about his struggles with focusing on work and with speech.  She showed me his work samples and how well he's doing when he can actually complete the work.  Fortunately in third grade they grade what's been completed so his report card looks great.  I still worry about later years when everything is graded regardless of completeness.  But we still have a couple of years before that.  For now I'm grateful that he's smart and that he tries so hard.  And I am eternally grateful that he was matched with this teacher.  She is a gift.  She works with Samuel so much and is so flexible and so understanding and truly appreciates the good in him.

Also on Wednesday I got a digital antenna for our TV.  I had been using Paul's rabbit ears to pick up local stations since the conversion to digital TV but they weren't getting ABC.  The kids and I watch Once Upon a Time on Sunday evening on ABC but we're missing more than we're seeing because the reception is so bad.  Anyway, Paul helped me get my antenna and set it up.

Thursday was a good day because the kids didn't have school on Friday which meant Thursday night we didn't have to do any homework.  Any night there is no homework is a fabulous night for that reason only.

Yesterday was a phenomenal day.  A co-worker agreed to give up two of her holiday days so I could have them.  I had put in a request for December 29 and 30 in hopes of going to Utah with Paul for New Year's Eve.  I knew it would be denied because I'm the lowest on the totem pole and everyone else put in their holiday requests months ago.  It was denied.  But then a friend gave up her two New Year's Eve days for me and now I get to be off work!  Woot!  She really did not have to do that but I am so grateful that she did.

Also yesterday, I got a call from the art teacher at the elementary school.  She told me that she's awarding Samuel a High Flyer Award for his work and his behavior in her class.  This is the highest award the kids can get at their school.  Solomon got one in third grade and Miriam got one in second grade.  I had been hoping Samuel would get one.  And now he is!

I was very worried that I wouldn't get to be at the award assembly for that because it's next Tuesday morning when I'm supposed to be at work.  I told my boss what a big deal it is and she said it that we'd work out something for me to be there.  Another co-worker agreed to trade shifts with me so that I'm the late person that day and my boss approved the use of 2 hours of flex time so I can come in late after the award assembly.  Best of all, Samuel has no idea that he's getting this award yet or that I'm going to be there.  I am so excited!

In addition to both of those wonderful things, I had to leave Solomon here all day while I was work and Samuel and Miriam went to day care.  He's done it before but I always worry.  Yesterday I laid out some plans for him like I always do -- a couple of chores to do, make up homework, food that he could eat, etc.  He made me so proud.  He planned out all of his homework and completed it!  And he not only did the chores I asked, but he did extra!  And he practiced his trombone for an hour.   He's such a fantastic kid.

Last night I had Jennifer, Caleb, Lance and Paul over for games and food.  We haven't done that in a long time because of new jobs and new schools and so much life craziness getting in the way.  We had a great time and I was reminded of just how fortunate I am.

This Keeps Happening

Grrr.  I keep going a month or more between postings.  I don't know what my problem is, other than parenting full time and working full time.  Hardy-har-har.  Actually, (and seriously, I'm kinda embarrassed to say this publicly but here it is -- ) it's much more difficult to open my laptop, log in, and navigate to this page than it is to unlock my iPhone and play Words with Friends or Angry Birds or the like.  It's so much easier that I do that most of the time.

I hate that I do that, too.  I can feel my brain turning to mush because I have not stimulated the writing neurons that exist up there.  They're being pushed to the side by the neurons that fling birds at pigs and concoct such thrilling words as "QI" or "ZA" for 8,762 points.  (Not really. 8,762 points, that is.  They are being shoved into the nether regions of my brain.)

In the time since I last posted anything meaningful, the kids have returned home for the school year (and gone to ABQ for fall break and returned from that, too.), I have started a new job, the gardens have been put to bed, I've taken countless pictures that I want to show you and we've had a couple of snowstorms.  Jeez, I kinda stink at this whole blogging thing.

I hope to get back into it.  I really do love it.  Maybe this will provide the stimulus to actually sit down with the laptop and a cup of coffee on Saturday morning.

Day 15, A Song that Describes Me

Keep drinkin' coffee
Stare me down across the table
While I look outside

So many things I'd say if only I were able
But I just keep quiet
And count the cars that pass by

You've got opinions, man
We're all entitled to 'em
But I never asked

So let me thank you for time
And try to not waste any more of mine
Get out of here fast

I hate to break it to you babe
But I'm not drowning
There's no one here to save

Who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

You sound so innocent
All full of good intent
You swear you know best

But you expect me to
Jump up on board with you
Ride off into your delusional sunset

I'm not the one who's lost
With no direction oh
But you won't ever see

You're so busy makin' maps
With my name on them in all caps
You got the talkin' down just not the listening

And who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

All my life
I've tried
To make everybody happy while I
Just hurt
And hide
Waitin' for someone to tell me it's my turn
To decide

Who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

Who cares if you disagree
You are not me
Who made you king of anything
So you dare tell me who to be
Who died
And made you king of anything

Let me hold your crown, babe
 

I'm posting the lyrics to this song because they're so powerful.  This song compares and contrasts the old me with the new me.  It's my personal anthem.  Every time I hear it, it's a reminder never to take my own independence for granted.  I've got smarts and I'm not afraid to use them.  I don't deserve someone else's maps, someone's delusional sunset.  I deserve to go where I want to go because I want to go there.  And I will go there, dammit.

Ten Years

It's surreal.  I can't seem to grasp that I lived at a time when something so horrible happened, that I saw it with my own eyes.  Even though it was on television the horror was so tangible.

Solomon had the assignment to talk to me about 9/11 for one of his classes.  I told him the grim facts just like I have a few times before.  But then I told him how terrifying it was.  How saddening to think about that much hate causing that many lost lives.  I told him what I saw and how it has affected me.  I told him that I still can't understand why or how.  I think he's old enough now to hear more than just the bare bones story.

I watched a documentary on CBS called 9/11: Ten Years Later.  It was very well done and I think it's because the two brothers who filmed it didn't even know what they were filming.  They started out to tell the story of a young firefighter working his way through the ranks in FDNY and ended up getting a front row seat to the carnage that was and is 9/11.  They told the story with such grace and sensitivity that I got chills several times.

I want to go to Ground Zero some day.  I don't know anyone who was lost there but I feel like it's important to go anyway.  It's part of life as an American now.

Day 14, A Song People Wouldn't Expect Me to Like

This video is really long, like ridiculously long.  I first posted a different version on Facebook but that one had disabled embedding so I couldn't put it up and I had to settle for this one instead.

I think this category is a little weird.  One, I don't know what people expect me to like.  Two, I don't care.  I've gone to great lengths to stop thinking so much about what people expect of me and focus more on what I expect of myself.

Anyway, I thought that an older song might be something that people wouldn't expect me to like and I really love this song by Dire Straits so I decided to post it.  Then I was telling Paul about it and he said that he would totally expect me to like this song and I said that was because he knows me better than most people do.  So Paul started trying to think of something that I like that he wouldn't expect me to like.

After some discussion he finally thought of dubstep.  And of course, he's right.  I hadn't even heard of dubstep until a few months ago when Paul and Cole told me about it.  Dubstep isn't a specific song, it's a genre of music that Paul really didn't think I would like.  But I did.  So here's a sample.

Day 13, A Guilty Pleasure Song

I think guilty pleasure means that in some part of yourself you think it's not okay to like something but you do anyway, consequences be damned.  So this song is only categorized as a guilty pleasure song if there is some reason I should not like it or some reason I should not like Christina Aguilera.

If I were a lesser person I might say that Christina Aguilera's music is a little *ahem* bubble gum-my.  Or I might say that her "Dirty" phase was a touch crass.  Or I might say that the tendency to call her Xtina bugs me because of the whole Xmas and Xtian thing.  But I try not to be a lesser person so I'm not saying those things.

What I am saying is that I love this song because it makes me feel very RAWR on days when I don't even feel very  meow.  I like that the song is full of contrasting imagery because I very often feel that way myself.  I can be up, I can be down, I can be weak or strong, happy or sad.

Day 12, A Song by a Band I Hate

I have nothing against this particular band or this particular song. However, I absolutely detest this genre of music. Can't stand it. Not even a little bit. I hate that the rhythm follows the weird up beats on

Every.
Single.

Song. 

I hate the constant, repetitive accordion. I hate that the lead singers in these types of bands always force their voices through the larynx and into the nasal cavity. I hate that they never sound like they have enough air. I hate it all. It's nauseating.

I didn't even listen to the whole song because it makes me want to pierce my tympanic membranes with a blunt stick. I just googled this band and this was the first song that came up. So here it is, in all its gut-wrenching, brain-grating glory.

Day 11, A Song by My Favorite Band

Bendita la luz - Mana y Juan luis guerra by sanshiro

Just like favorite song, I cannot choose a favorite band. But if I had to choose one band to listen to for the rest of my life, it would be Maná. Or Adele. Or Depeche Mode. Or maybe Steely Dan. Or maybe they'd just have to kill me. What? You know, the people making me choose just one band's music for life -- they'd have to inflict whatever consequences there are when I couldn't choose one band to listen to for life. Side note: I don't really understand that whole dilemma when people say, "If I had to choose just one band/food/shirt/color/whatever for the rest of my life ..." Who is going to make you do that?

Or!  There's this song, done by the above band covering it after it was originally recorded by Marco Antonio Solis.

Day 10, A Song That Makes Me Fall Asleep

I can't think of a single song that will actually make me fall asleep or even feel sleepy.  The box fan in my bedroom, though?  Puts me right out.  But that's neither here nor there.

Once upon a time Miriam was the happiest, mellowest, most pleasant baby ever known to man.  Until it was time to ride in the car.  The instant she was strapped into that car seat she morphed into the angriest, scream-iest, most stressful baby ever.  And then one day the ex-husband and I discovered that this song instantly tamed her.  She stopped crying, she fell asleep and we arrived at our destination much less harried.  We wore out that CD.

Miriam still adores this song.  It's on her MP3 player and she listens to it regularly.  And you know what?  She's one of the happiest, mellowest, most pleasant little girls ever.  Until it's time to ride in the car.  Just kidding!  She did grow out of that.

Day 9, A Song to Which I Can Dance

This is the only thing to which I can dance.  I am sorely lacking in the rhythm department..  Also, if you do not like having this song run through your head all week I suggest not actually viewing the video.

Day 8, A Song to Which I Know All the Words

One thing I cannot abide is the atrocious grammar in the posted rules for the 30 Day Song Challenge.  Today's title says, "a song that you know all the words to".  I don't consider myself to have perfect grammar but I do make an effort. That whole thing about the ending preposition is just something I cannot stomach. So I'm being a nerd and re-wording the title.

So here we have it -- a beautiful melody by Amos Lee.  It's mellow, it's pretty, it's kind of melancholy sounding.  I love it.  And I know all of the words.  That's not something I can say about very many songs.

Earth Weirdness

Last night we got home from the Astros' game about 11:00 and the kids went straight to bed.  I did too but I didn't sleep right away.  I have to catch up on Words with Friends you know.  That takes a while.  Plus, I just updated Angry Birds Rio and this requires that I attempt all levels as soon as possible.

So there I was, lying in bed freeing little birdies, killing marmosets and constructing words I didn't know were words until WWF came along.  I was just starting to feel sleepy and about to shut off my phone when my bed moved.  I am not kidding.  It was a very slow, steady movement back and forth, 3 times.  At first I thought one of the kids was climbing onto my bed.  They weren't.

And then.  Then.  Then my hyperactive imagination went straight to the Boogey Man.  Don't laugh.  I had this fear as a kid that there was a Boogey Man under my bed that would grab my ankles when I tried to go to the bathroom or something.  For that reason, I always leapt off my bed a good 2 feet or so when I had to pee in the middle of the night.

So what did I do last night?  I leapt off my bed, turned on the light and flipped up the dust ruffle, golf club in hand to smash the Boogey Man in the face.  There was no Boogey Man. Whew, I dodged a bullet there.

I lay back down wondering what in the world would have caused my bed to move like that.  And I had this fleeting thought, "What if it was an earthquake?  Is that even possible?" And then I laughed at myself. That's about as likely as the Boogey Man scenario, I thought.  And then I went to sleep.

But wait! We did actually have an earthquake in Colorado last night. Its epicenter was near Trinidad, which is one of the two towns where the ex-husband and I meet to trade off the kids. Apparently people felt it a good 75 miles north of here, even. So weird.  Maybe I need to re-think the likelihood of this Boogey Man.

And there was another earthquake, a bit bigger, near Washington, D.C. today. What must the incredible odds be of earthquakes as big as these in two places so unused to having earthquakes? In the same 24 hour period? I'm telling you, this is serious weirdness.

Day 7, A Song That Reminds Me of an Event

This song is one that I have related to for a few years.  It reminds me of my move from Texas to Colorado 3 1/2 years ago.

I listened to it repeatedly when I was longing to make that move.  It was during that time that I realized home is not as much about the location as it is about the people that are there.  Home means comfort, contentment, love and peace.  It's the feeling I have inside that tells me I'm in the right place.  Every time I hear this song I'm taken back to those feelings of sadness and loneliness and I'm reminded of how good I really have it right here, right now.

P.S. I skipped Day 6, A Song That Reminds Me of Somewhere because a) I couldn't think of one and b) we went to the Rockies vs. Astros game last night and did not get home until reallyreallyreally late.


P.P.S. There was an earthquake last night! No worries -- we are fine. More about that later.

Day 5, A Song That Reminds Me of Someone

Paul has introduced me to a lot of new music.  This is one of the first songs he played that I had never before heard.  We were in his old car (old as in he no longer owns it, not old as in actually old) on our second date and he put in a CD to listen to while we drove to Spudnik/High Dive.

Day 4, A Song That Makes Me Sad

Johnny Cash's cover of this song is, in my opinion, so much better than Nine Inch Nails. He put so much feeling into the music that I can feel it. Unfortunately, Nine Inch Nails sounds like an emo kid inventing imaginary ills to cry about.

Day 3, A Song that Makes Me Happy

This isn't actually a music video but that's okay because the 30 Day Song Challenge is not about the video, it's about the music.  There might be a Video Killed the Music Star joke in there some where.  Let me know if you find it.

Anyway, this is one of my favorite songs because it just oozes happiness.  Plus, Marc Broussard's voice is nothing short of amazing.  Whenever I'm having a bad day, this song always makes me feel better.  Always.

Day 2, My Least Favorite Song

I despise this song with the heat of a thousand white hot suns.  It represents everything that is wrong with most hip hop music today: it's vulgar, unmusical, repetitive, stupid and utilizes no talent whatsoever.  I hate it.

For Next Year's Garden

We have learned a lot in this short bout of gardening. Next year we want to:

1. Till up more land.  We will use the extra space for more pumpkin vines and more of the things we really liked from this year but haven't had much of -- green beans, peas, carrots.
2. Plant onions and garlic.  We cook with these a lot but didn't think to plant any this year.
3. Plant fewer grape and cherry tomato varieties and more of the bigger ones that are good for canning.
4. Plant earlier.  We realized that we could have planted several of our seeds outdoors much earlier than we did this year.  Even with occasional late snow storms in May, many of the plants that do not do well with transplanting can go into the ground in late April.
5. Rig up a rudimentary greenhouse with plastic sheeting and 1 X 2 lumber pieces, low to the ground.  With some strategically placed slits in the plastic we think we can let in plenty of water while still keeping in enough heat to protect the seeds and young plants.
6. Plant more things directly into the ground and not transplant as much.  We have noticed a marked difference in the strength and production of plants that were not transplanted.  With the greenhouse system this should be possible.
7. Plant carrots in stages with several re-plantings all summer.  This was recommended by several sources but we didn't get around to doing it this year.  Also, give the carrots lots more space.  We've thought about dropping a new seed into the hole when we pull a carrot to maximize our space and time.
8. Cage or trellis the tomatoes and peas much earlier.
9. Possibly plant only one zucchini and one yellow squash.  Those have been prolific producers and we're running out of things to do with them.  If my freezing experiment goes well I'd like to plant as much as we did this year because we can eat frozen stuff for a long time.  If the freezing does not go well I'm happy with just one plant of each.
10. Maybe start tomatoes earlier.  We're struggling with this decision.  Tomatoes take so long to get going that it would be nice to start them earlier.  However, they would need to be moved from small peat pots into larger pots and kept inside for several weeks to avoid snow.  If they stay in pots all summer we run into problems with getting them enough water because this climate is extremely dry and pots are difficult to keep sufficiently watered. And there isn't an easy way to water pots if we're gone for several days at a time.  I think we could start Siberian tomatoes (the colder weather variety) inside in March and then move them outside into our greenhouse contraption in April.  Maybe.
11. Plant lettuces.  They're a cooler weather plant (I had no idea!) and we could definitely put those in our green house in the spring.
12. Maybe apply some sort of weed killing treatment to the soil early on in the spring.  The weeds have been out of control and it's very frustrating.  We're conflicted about this, too.  On one hand we like the idea of keeping this organic and using only natural products.  On the other hand -- Weeds!  Argh!
13. Plant some strawberries and raspberries.  I made jam out of the sour cherries in my back yard and it's delicious.  I'd like to make more jam of different kinds because we like it but it's difficult to find any in the grocery store without HFCS in it.

So far this is what we've discussed doing differently.  I'll probably be updating this list as the garden progresses through the end of summer and into fall.

Gardening Endeavours

I've meant to write about our garden for months and months. But I kept running into other things to do and then more time passed and the prospect of writing such a long post and adding so many pictures to it seemed so daunting. But this is me, finally sitting down to write about this project.  It could take a few days of editing and revising.

Paul started by hiring a guy with a tiller to come out and till up the plot. They mixed in a bunch of soil amendments since the soil in Colorado tends to be very alkaline and most veggies do better in more acidic soil. They rolled out sheets of weed blocking material and then Paul arranged soaker hoses over the weed block. This was in late March.

A couple of weeks after that Paul purchased a soil test kit and we tested our soil's pH and its content of nitrogen, potassium and phosphorus.

 

Around this time we began planting seeds in paper egg cartons and peat pots.  We planted several varieties of  tomatoes and peppers, watermelons, two types of cucumbers, broccoli and pumpkins.  We also purchased seeds for green beans, peas, yellow squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, beets and carrots.  We didn't start any of these in cups because their instructions stated that they are best started outdoors and do not transplant well.

 

We tended our seedlings indoors for almost a month with about 10 days of outdoor hardening and then finally decided that it was time to put some outside.  We did this on May 14th.  On May 15th we had a huge storm that lasted for 48 hours.  We got several inches of freezing rain and snow and gave up completely on the idea that any of our plants would survive.  Fortunately, we had only transplanted about half of our seedlings so we still had some to work with.

Near the end of May we started our outdoor seeds and moved the rest of the seedlings outside.  Everything transplanted pretty well.  I think we lost a couple of cucumbers and some peppers but we had plenty of both left.  By this point most of the snowstorm transplants had died and we pulled them up to make room for healthier plants.  We had a few tomato plants persevere -- namely a variety called Siberian that is cultivated in colder climates and can produce fruit all the way until the first frost.  We had a sturdy pumpkin vine pull through as well.

By this time we were getting really frustrated with the weed block material.  It's kind of a pain to work around and it doesn't do much to block the growth of weeds.  We've found ourselves reaching under the sheets to pull weeds that are out of our reach otherwise.  Quite annoying.  The one thing it is good for is holding in water that might evaporate from the soil without some extra cover.  We haven't decided if this is a worthy trade off yet.

It's difficult to tell from this photo but the weed block sheets are bulging up due to the large masses of weeds beneath them.  Weed block my foot.  And of course there are lots of weeds between the rows.  We weren't worried about those because we walked on them so much they weren't much of a problem.  A couple of weeks after this photo we realized that some of the weeds are climbing, viney species.  They like to use the stems of our plants for climbing.  So every once in a while we have to untwist a vine from a plant so it doesn't strangle.

It wasn't long before we began seeing flowers on many of our plants.  This was so exciting!  It was tangible evidence that something was going right.  It would still be a long, long time before we got anything edible but that didn't matter.  We were growing things!

Broccoli is a strange plant.  We have 16 of them and they're huge.  Not as big as zucchini plants but pretty darn close.  They've all had a tiny sprout like this in them but they progress quickly from this to all out flowering if you don't watch closely.  Flowering broccoli is bad because that means it's done and you won't get any more broccoli.  So we're being careful to snap off the sprouts in hopes of getting bigger sprouts.

The green beans have been delicious and plentiful.  We're going to plant more of them next year because we've enjoyed them so much this year.  These were our first beans, quite tiny little things.  They quickly grew to a nice, edible size and they've continued to produce well for several weeks.

The peas haven't done very well.  They got hit pretty hard by a rabbit or two and the wind was really harsh to them.  We've decided they need more trellising than most of our tomatoes.

The first things we harvested were squash and zucchini.  Those plants are taking off like you wouldn't believe.  Well, you might, especially if you've ever grown your own squashes.  They thrive in Colorado.  Actually, they more than thrive -- we need a new word for how well these suckers grow here.  It's kind of insane.

The pumpkin vine is growing a good sized pumpkin but it's just growing that one.  We have decided that we will plant 4 vines next year in hopes of getting one pumpkin from each so all four kids can have their own pumpkin to do with whatever they would like.

We have some promising looking peppers, both sweet and hot varieties.  The tomato plants are laden with green fruit.  I can't wait until they ripen.  We're going to have a canning party!  And lots of fresh salsa!

We learned that carrots need way more room to grow than we thought and that it's really worth it just to plant one seed at a time, no matter how tiny they are.  We had to thin them mercilessly and we missed out on a lot of food that way.  Also, the ones left behind have been puny and not as sweet as I'd like.

This is a cantaloupe.  We planted these because Miriam loves, loves, loves cantaloupe.  I really hope we get something edible from this vine.  There are half a dozen small fruits growing.  I heard from another, much more experienced gardener that they don't do very well here.  We'll see I guess.

This is an eggplant plant.  We purchased two from the local garden supply store when we heard that they do well here.  It was late in the season to start new seeds and we wanted to try our hand at eggplants so here it is.  No fruit yet but they do produce some beautiful purple blossoms.

This is our first lemon cucumber.  These little things were a fun surprise.  I'd never heard of them until I saw the seeds at the store.  I am so glad we have them, though.  The green variety we're growing has very bitter skin and we're pickling most of them.  The lemon cucumbers are perfect, though.  Exactly what summer should taste like!

Beets did absolutely nothing.  We even planted a second round of several beet seeds when we realized none of the first round had sprouted and still got nothing.  I'm not disappointed as I do not like beets.  Paul likes them though so he was kind of bummed about that. 

And this is just a plain gorgeous look at several yummy things we harvested!  We did it!  We're doing it -- growing our own food!

Day 1, My Favorite Song

Apparently I've become a terrible blogger.  In an attempt to get myself back into the groove I'm doing the 30 Day Song Challenge which means I have to post at least one thing every day.  I think this is really a Facebook thing (it's where I got the idea and the rules and such) but I want to have all these songs easily searchable by me so I'm putting them here, too.



There is no way I could ever pick a favorite song of all time but this is a current favorite.  Love the harmonies, love the style, especially love the video and how it perfectly complements the style of the music.  Superb all around.

Well, Hello There!

Yes, I'm still in existence, although I think I've forgotten how to blog.  It's been about 2 months, hasn't it?  Ah, well, I have good reasons.  Reasons like moving and finals (in the same week! Egads!), the kids' many end-of-year engagements at school, me starting the summer term, getting accepted to nursing school and then the nursing program shutting down.  (Yes, they really closed it. Grrr.)  So that's what's been up.

First things first -- we got into the new house.  It's awesome.  The open space has become the kids' new favorite place to play.  We have the second (or fourth, depending on how you look at it) unit in a row of 5 so there are neighbors on either side of us.  One of the units is empty and the other has a very quiet, very nice family living in it.  I can only hear them very faintly on the rarest of occasions.  And it's never screaming swear words and such.  I'm growing some flowers in the front yard and trying to grow some vegetables in the back.  Paul and I are planting my herb garden this afternoon.

Speaking of gardening, our massive veggie garden in Paul's backyard is doing quite well.  We have no actual food yet but it's getting there.  And it's a lot of work.  A whole lot of work.  But it's rewarding and we are having a good time with it.  We're also taking notes so we can do this better next year because we have learned a lot in the short time we've been working on this.

The kids have left to spend the summer with the ex-husband and the step-mom.  Solomon has completed elementary school and will be going to middle school next year.  I can't believe it.  Miriam will be in her last year of elementary school next year and Samuel will be half way through, in the third grade.  It's shocking that this has happened so fast.  I swear, just a few days ago I was changing their diapers and sitting through marathon nursing sessions.

I finished microbiology with an A.  Woot!  That turned out to be a really fun class.  My professor was terrific and our experiments were a lot of fun.  My unknown specimen was Proteus vulgaris.  At least, it was, until it became contaminated with something else (I suspect E. coli since all three of my lab partners all had E. coli.  Someone -- maybe even myself -- was not perfect with their sterilization technique.) and messed up my last few test results.  No worries, though because the professor said that happens in all her classes to someone.  Our grade was not based on maintaining a pure sample, but rather on testing appropriately and demonstrating that we knew why tests were performed and what the results meant.

And algebra ... well, I'd rather not talk about that.  We'll just say that I ended up passing but I hated every single second of it and I'm not proud of my grade at all.

Nursing school in general is a huge mess and I'm still trying to sort out how to reach my goal.  It's all being reworked and will probably take a very long time.  Ugh.

So that's what's going on here.  I'll try to keep up better for the rest of the summer.

We're Moving Again

My lease was up at the end of February.  Paul asked me periodically throughout January if I was going to sign another lease or look for some where else to live.  Honestly, I was resigned to signing another 12-month lease because I knew there was nothing else in this school district that we could afford and moving the kids to another school is not an option.

However, Paul knows how much I hate living in these stinking apartments and he wouldn't let it go.  He looked on Craigslist, he looked at other online sites, he looked on the board at his work, he looked every where.  And every once in a while he'd mention something he found.  Each one was either too expensive or across town or had only 2 bedrooms or something else that wouldn't work.

Until.  Until one day he called me at work and said, "Quick, call this guy now, this house is going to go fast!"  I took the information and my hopes were raised a little when I heard what the rent was (exactly, to the dollar, what my rent would be on another 12-month lease).  And even more when heard the ZIP code (the same as ours).  And even more when Paul said that the major cross streets are the same cross streets for my apartment.  I estimated it to be less than a mile away.

I called the guy immediately and he said I was welcome to come look at it the following weekend but that he needed to warn me that someone else had already called so they had dibs.  (Yup, it's gonna go fast.)  So we went on a Saturday morning to check it out.  The owner told me that the other interested people had seen it that morning, too and since we'd both seen it, whoever was ready to sign a lease first could have it.

It's great for us.  There are 3 bedrooms (that disappointed the boys a bit, but at least their room will be quite large) and 1 bathroom (I'm a titch nervous about that) but aside from that, it's perfect.  The living room is large enough to accomodate all of our current furniture and then some.  The kitchen is huge compared with what I'm used to.  There's a pantry that is easily 6 times larger than the closet I call a pantry now.  Can we say Costco membership?  There's an attached garage -- no more hiking up to the third floor in snow and ice with sleeping children and/or groceries!  There are small front and back yards -- yards tend to be pretty small in this area as it is and this neighborhood has even smaller than usual yards.  But, our back yard faces out to a dedicated open space with a biking trail, a creek and lots of blue sky.  We can even see a bit of the mountains from the back porch.

I called the owners that afternoon and told them that I wanted to look at their lease.  Within 3 days, it was all signed and accepted.  We're moving in on May 7.  I am so excited about not having screaming neighbors on the other side of my dining room wall any more.  Actually, excited doesn't begin to describe how happy I am about the whole situation.  Woo!

Quintessential Colorado

Fat Tire. Bicycle. Subaru.

Winter is Ovah!

Officially over! Today is the spring equinox!  I know that doesn't mean a whole lot of anything in Colorado but it means a whole heck of a lot to my mental health.  It means that summer is coming.  And that means driving with the windows down, wearing flip flops and tank tops, sitting on the patio with a glass of cold riesling and playing kickball.  It means grilling and having a beautiful array of fresh, delicious produce bursting out of all my cooking.  It means swimming and sunshine and thunderstorms and nearly daily rainbows.  It means motorcycle trips and wine in Palisade.

I'm not naive enough to think we don't have any more wintery days in our near future.  In fact, Paul and I were talking about this a few days ago and I said something about bracing myself for a blizzard any day now.  He poo-pooed that and said we were done with snow until next fall.  I poo-pooed that and reminded him that since I moved here all the kids' snow days have been in March.  So we made a bet that within the next 30 days -- that 30 days ends on April 10, I think -- we'll get at least 5 inches of snow in a 24-hour period.  Psst ... I'm gonna win.

Anyway, whether I win the bet or Paul wins the bet, the cold mistress known as Ms. Winter is officially over! Everyone join me in a happyhappyhappy dance!

The Dryer, Part 2

 

This is my dryer.  It stopped working.  It was running just fine and then it stopped.  There was a slightly smoky smell to the clothing inside and I was worried that there was a fire some where in the recesses of the motor.  There wasn't.  Very glad about that, I am.

These are the magnets that profess my love for Jim The Office.  I think they're funny.

This is the dryer with its top removed.

This is the dryer with the front opened.  See those flimsy little wires near the bottom?  They're the only thing connecting the front to the rest of the machine.  Those little wires were a constant source of worry to me during this whole process.  They go to the door switch and if I broke them I wouldn't have light in my dryer any more.

My method for keeping track of the various screws and where they belong on the dryer.

This is the dryer when I finally got the flingin-flangin-belt off the drum, motor and idler pulley.  That took some serious contortions and a bruised arm.

The freed drum!

The empty housing.  At this point I still had no idea what caused the malfunction.  I was just happy to have it mostly taken apart.  Getting to this point took the better part of 2 hours.

The back side of the drum.  Paul thought the bearing kit was bad.  That's the round, sort of pointy looking thing in the middle of the drum.  I had no idea what a good or bad bearing kit looked like.  I did notice that spotty gray scrape mark going around the outer edge of the circle of triangular cut outs.  It was clear the paint had been scraped off with something but I thought it was normal wear and tear.  (Hint: it wasn't.)  Also, Paul was not here during any of this.  I sent him pictures of this and a video of me moving the bearing kit around and asked if it looked normal to him.  He wasn't sure.

Being the clean freak I am, I had to vacuum the copious amounts of dust and lint and a few lost buttons from the floor of the machine.  It was very therapeutic.  I also had a high time digging out great handfuls of lint from the door and vent tube.

At this point there followed a lot of speculation on both Paul's and my parts regarding what the problem was.  It clearly was not the belt because that sucker was very much intact when I opened everything up.  Everything else appeared to be in good repair as well so we decided the thing to do was order a bearing kit.  I did.  When I picked it up I felt a sense of foreboding -- it looked exactly like what was attached to the drum.  This likely mean that the kit I had was fine.

Paul studied the dryer some more and found a tiny broken wire at the bottom of the dryer housing.  My Dyson missed it.  It's actually a good thing it did or we might not have figured out the problem.  Paul realized that it had broken off the heating element causing the element not to connect at one of its terminals.  This meant the end of the element was scraping the back of the drum, hence the scratched paint I noticed.  It also burned up all the lint that was stuck to the back of the drum, hence the burning smell.  I'm really lucky the whole thing didn't burst into flames with our clothes inside.

So I ordered a new heating element and took the bearing kit back.  I lost a 10% restocking fee on the bearing kit. Who invented restocking fees?  I'd like to give them a piece of my mind.

Paul was nice enough to string the new heating element for me.  That's his mostly consumed beverage off to the right there.  He said that stringing heating elements required limeade with a splash or two of vodka.  I happily obliged.

All finished!  It's much shinier than the old one.  And, most importantly, it's intact!

So we put everything back together, plugged it in and crossed our fingers as I switched it on.  It ran smoothly.  It did not blow up.  It did not catch fire.  I did a little happy dance.

Parts that were left over.  Only I think the beebee and the little screw looking thing were part of Samuel's collection that got lodged in the dryer some where.  Not sure about the washer.  That might have been part of his collection, too.

Now that is the complete saga of the busted dryer and how I took it apart and Paul helped me fix it.  We rock!