The Gamble Life

Doubly Lucky

I'd never seen a double rainbow before.  These happened in Denver this past August while we there vacationing (me & the kids), working (Chris), and visiting friends (all of us).  We just stepped out and there it was!

I think it must be enhanced by the wide open skies Denver has.  That feeling of openness is something that makes me feel at home.  I loved Durham and by the time we decided to move back to Austin I no longer wanted to leave and we probably would have stayed except for having all of our family here in Austin.  But when I first moved there I felt positively claustrophobic because there are SO MANY trees and those trees are so TALL.  You are just constantly surrounded by trees and there is no long view.

When we moved back this summer I immediately felt relaxed by the space.  Driving down the highway felt beautiful to me...not because our highways are beautiful (no, they certainly aren't) but because the sky was so beautiful and it was there, all around me, visible. 

I know people who didn't grow up here who feel like our trees are small and few, who see acres of dirty grass and dull ground, but I see space and freedom and beautiful skies and a truly majestic tree just right when you need one.  It's nice to be home. 

Good Byes and Hellos

I think we've been back in Austin long enough now that we are all realizing we aren't going back to Durham, we won't be seeing our North Carolina friends anytime soon.  It was really hard for Gus to leave his best friend (Vinicio; this is their very last good bye hug--it lasted over a minute) and he's started mentioning him a little bit more, wanting to write letters and things like that.  I know when school starts up again (Gus cannot wait and wishes school were here already several times a week.) that he will have less time to miss his friends but I am not hoping he just forgets about them.  It's a hard balance since there is no point in wishing we lived in NC because we don't, but those were important years for Gus and I hope he remembers them.

It's been a little bit hard for me too.  I still have very good friends in Austin and I've been seeing them and of course all our family is here which is just so wonderful.  But I miss my good friends in Durham too, and I miss our routines and favorite activities.  I do not miss our horrible rent house though!  And, I was worried that I had gotten so used to the North Carolina landscape (just imagine being in a forest of pine trees, even in your own yard) that I wouldn't like it here anymore but I LOVE it here.  It is so much more beautiful here (to me) being able to see the sky and having a few magnificent trees to look at and appreciate rather than 40 identical trees.  I grew up here and I guess it's affected my tastes because even though I wish summer weren't so hot and I wish more flowering things could grow here I think it's worth the trade to have sky and beautiful Live Oak trees and more space.

With only a month of summer left I really want to make the most of it so I'm working on a list of things to do...at least one thing a week out of the house out in Austin.  Enchanted Rock is one (which is a little bit crazy because it is going to be so hot, but I'll just sherpa up with a bunch of water bottles and snacks).  Oh my, that reminds me, it has been GLORIOUS having our refrigerator back!  It has in-door ice and cold water dispensers that I just love every single day.  I'll never take them for granted.  We'll go to the Children's Museum which I know Abe will enjoy but I'm not sure if Gus is too old now.  And I'm still looking around for 2-3 more good ideas.  Indoors I want to do some projects with more direction to them.  Gus just finished a great drawing class (I will scan his self portrait and post here soon...it's bigger than my scanner so maybe I'll take a picture of it?  I don't know, I'll figure it out.) and I want to build on that so I just requested Artist to Artist from the library.  I think Gus might find it fun to make artwork following the different styles.  I also found a used copy of Kristin Nicholas' Kids Embroidery and I think Gus will really like making some projects since he likes to sew.  Even Abe should be able to get in on the fun! 

We lost one fish but the other four in our new aquarium are doing well so maybe we can add a few more soon.  And Gus bought a chicken (a white silkie) to live at my mother's house.  That turned out to be a near-disaster when the thing was petted for one minute and then hopped immediately through the fence and disappeared!  Thank goodness chickens really prefer to be around other chickens because the darn thing did come back on her own and is now safely locked in a pen until she gets bigger! 

I welcome all great ideas for things to do with the rest of the summer!

Absent

Ah, I've really been gone for awhile.  It's not that I haven't been thinking about the blog because I have, but I've been busy and in a bit of a funk.  We have very exciting changes coming up but that doesn't make them easy.

We're moving back to Texas!  In just a couple of weeks, actually, and I've only gotten 20 boxes packed.  And Gus is pretty upset about leaving his best friend.  And Abe thinks he's helping if he tosses one toy in a box and then tries to insist that it be immediately closed up.  And I'm still competing in Sock Madness (just moved through to Round 6 after finishing 5th overall and 1st in my group for Round 5).  And and and and.  I could go on, but it would only get (more) boring.  Moving is hard even when you are excited about where you are moving to.

Also I'm starting to think about finding a job, which I want and need to do, but which will also be a big change for the family.

I still am operating on Chris' old laptop while all my photos and other stuff are on the desktop upstairs that he is using for his work these days.  It won't be until sometime later this summer that I get to have all that back again and that also makes it harder for me to update. 

Anyway, all to say that I may continue to be absent more often than not for just a bit longer but I swear I will be back once the dust settles a bit.

Baby Days

So the other day I read a really great book, The Host by Stephanie Meyer (yes, that Stephanie Meyer, the author of Twilight et al).  It's science fiction, but also a really human story and just very compelling to read.  I recommend it.  I was so into the book that at one point I had given Abe a snack and I knew he was doing something with it that I wouldn't ordinarily let him do but I just didn't care because I had to keep reading.  And what was little Abe doing?  Filling my bag with cheese, of course.  And taking it out, and putting it back, and so on.  He was really happy doing this!  I got to read a lot of pages!

It was, however, the last straw for my trusty and well-used diaper bag/purse.  Chris gave me this bag when Gus was just born and I carried it for three years with him, and almost two years with Abe.  The piping was coming apart, it had grime on the inside that just wasn't budging and I had already realized that it would be all used up as soon as Abe potty trains.  (It's a BIG bag--marketed as a travel bag--so perfect for carrying the many changes of clothes you need when a little one is learning to use the toilet reliably.)

After the cheese incident though it's retirement date had to be moved up.  Now I love bags, and I love shopping for and buying and using new bags, so this wasn't exactly heartbreaking.  Except that in a little way it was.  Somehow, giving up this diaper bag and buying a smaller, somewhat cuter but probably less utilitarian bag, made me really sad.  Abe is my baby and he isn't a baby at all anymore.  He'll be two in less than a month and he can and does so many, many things all on his own now. 

I am not at all comfortable with being done with the baby stage of my life.  I feel like I waited my whole life to get here and it's over in a flash.  I'm not saying it's all roses and sparkles, lots of it is really hard, but it is also really great, and for me, it is the one thing I always wanted and never changed my mind about.  And now it is probably over and that is heartbreaking for me.

I don't know if we had one more whether I would feel this way when that baby was turning two, or if I'd feel okay with it.  Right now, I think one more would feel complete to me the way two feels incomplete, but who knows, maybe this is just the way it sometimes feels when your baby days are over.  I'm going to keep hoping Chris changes his mind though, even if I'll feel exactly the same way again.

Catch-Up

Ooh, it's been ages.  Chris is using the computer all day long now so until we get another computer (soon I hope!) it is just going to be difficult for me to get on here.

I do have a winner for the dump truck: 

True Random Number Generator

Min:

Max:

Result: 1

So, Rachel, you are the winner and Jonah is the lucky little boy who will get this dump truck!  Yay!  I'll be sending you an email.

In other news, keeping up with posting my pictures of the day was too much.  So I'm going to post a mosaic at the end of the month.  Also, this way you can look at them in more detail if you are interested and not if you aren't.

We watched the movie Taken last night and while I obviously knew going in that it wasn't going to be the next Schindler's List, it was really pretty terrible.  Also it gave me nightmares.  The action was exciting but the whole story was so implausible that I just had a hard time accepting it. 

I'm also sorely behind on all the books I've been reading and knitting I've been doing!  I'll try to catch up this week.

No Changing the Past

Do you ever find yourself going back over all the dumb or mean things you've done in your life and wishing you could somehow go back and change your behavior?  I have a, well, a list of things that I wish I hadn't done or said (mostly said) and every now and then I just can't get them out of my head.  I know I'm just human like the rest of us and we all hurt other peoples' feelings sometimes, but something about these situations won't go away.

So I've been trying to figure out what it is about these particular occasions that sticks with me.  Most of them I won't be sharing, but here's an example.  Seven years ago I went on a knitting retreat weekend with one of my friends.  It was super fun and someday I hope to do something like that again.  Anyway, one of the classes was taught by a woman who had just completed everything to be a "Master Knitter" certified by the national knitting guild (I no longer remember all the specifics).  It's a rigorous process that usually takes a knitter a year or two to complete; the last task is to design a garment from scratch.  She was telling us about how her garment had been accepted for publication in a knitting magazine (called Spin Off or something like that; I can't remember exactly which magazine anymore).  So what did I say?

I said "oh, that magazine is full of really dowdy patterns."  Nice.  I still feel bad about this.  I know I tried to fix it some by saying "I'm sure yours isn't and every issue has some patterns I like, they are always technically great, blah blah blah".  I was rude and I shouldn't have said that; why didn't I just keep my mouth shut and say "Congratulations!"?  I think I was feeling a bad combination of insecure (because her technical skills were better than mine) and conceited (because I was probably the best knitter at the retreat).  Not an excuse of course.

Another time I was probably about 8 or 9 and my mom had a little frozen yogurt shop in a room that faced the street but that was attached to a bar.  I used to check under all the pool tables for dropped quarters and one of the bartenders was really nice and one day he called me over to give me a free maraschino cherry.  Now, I didn't say this to him, I said it to my mom, but he was standing on the other side of her...still, I said "Gross, I hate these rubbery cherries."  Okay.  What's wrong with "thank you" and just tossing the cherry out of his sight?  Or giving it to my mom, who for some unfathomable reason actually likes those things?  I don't know.  Sure, I was young, but still, I should have known better.  I did know better, but a lot of my childhood involved me learning that I wasn't the most important person in the room (maybe everyone's is?).

There are more, and unfortunately I don't think I'm even done making this kind of move.  I know I did it within the past couple of years and that's one I won't put here.

Today these are just running through my mind making me feel bad.  And I'm trying to figure out, did I just do this again and don't realize it yet?  And I about to do it again?  Is it just a mental alarm that reminds me every so often in order to hopefully prevent any more incidents?  I don't know.  Anybody else have something like this that they keep coming back to?

Great Day at the Butterfly House

We were at the Butterfly House and the Museum of Life and Science on a warm day and it was one of those lucky days when we find a butterfly who is new, dying, or "friendly."

I even caught a copycat shot of the picture I took two years ago!

What a difference two years makes!  Same kid, same personality, but so different at the same time.

Obviously we take birthday celebrations pretty seriously, but I have been wanting to do something more meaningful to mark the boys' birthdays, especially Gus since he is older.  Or maybe to mark some of them more.  I remember when I turned sixteen and my dad took me out to a fancy hotel lobby for a drink (I did not have an alcoholic drink, just a regular drink, but the atmosphere was fancy) and gave me my first fountain pen.  It was really great and I felt very grown up.  Maybe it's too soon for this kind of thing, but I do want to think about it for the future.  What do you do to mark birthdays?

Happy Birthday to Me!

Actually, my birthday was Sunday.  I turned 40 which is startling but obviously a positive thing.  I think it is an unwritten blogger rule that when you have a birthday you make a list of the things you are going to do that year, matching it to your age, so I should come up with 40 things to do.  I could come up with a list of 40 books I'll read!  I actually tried but the list was just turning into the same old list (get in shape, clean the house every week, make a quilt, go on more walks, etc. etc.), not exactly scintillating to read about or to write about.  And not exactly what turning 40 makes me think about or feel either.

So instead I've come up with four lessons (one for each decade of my life) that I want to keep more aware of as I go about my daily life.

Age 0-10:  When In Doubt, Include Everyone 

I think all kids go through times when they relish hurting another kid's feelings, and probably times when they are the kid with the hurt feelings.  This is actually a lesson I've continued to learn (from both sides, I'm sorry to say) over the decades since I turned 10.  Of course you can't be best friends with everyone you meet, or always invite all your neighbors over for dinner because you want to invite one of them.  But there is no reason to have a party and invite all your neighbors except the one you don't know very well or think you don't like very much.  The majority of the time when I go ahead and include the whole group I've been very happy with the outcome.  There is something (sad to say, but true) that feels good about knowing there is a person out there who wants to be included and you hold the power to exclude them.  But there is something that feels even better about including them.  I am going to remember to include the people around me.

Age 11-20:  Enjoy Yourself

God, what amazing wonderful years these are!  I had so much fun.  I even loved Junior High.  I am lucky in that I don't really get embarrassed by a lot of things.  I've always thought that if you do the silly thing or show that you aren't perfect, people relax around you and like you more.  They turn off their internal judge and quit worrying that you are going to judge them.

High school and college are the years I said "yes."  Yes, let's go to that party where we only know one person.  Yes, I'll try out for the soccer team even though I've never played before.  Yes, I'm going to be a rower even though I'm short (for a rower) and don't even like water that much (best decision of college, by the way).  Yes, I'll take that incredibly hard science class and see what happens, just because I'm interested in it.

As we get older we feel we have more to lose and start saying yes less often, which ends up causing us to lose out.  So I am going to say "yes" to the little adventures and interests that pass my way.

Age 21-30:  Work Hard

Going to law school, starting my career, being independent and responsible, running a marathon.  These were wonderful years.  I learned how hard I could work, how capable and smart I am, how strong I am.  I gained confidence with every challenge that I met and at least tried to conquer. 

I am going to remember that hard work brings big rewards.  I am going to tackle the things I want to tackle, find time for them, and expect myself to do an excellent job.  My life now may revolve largely around the needs of others but that is not an excuse to skip the things that make me feel like me.

Age 31-40:  Assume The Best About Others

So many things in the past year have reminded me that first impressions can be wrong, that most people are trying hard, that we all deserve second chances and the benefit of the doubt.  Becoming a mother is like entering a crazy world of judging, judging, judging.  You judge yourself, you judge your friends, you judge strangers and you imagine that they are judging you.  Ugh.  But every time I stop the judging, take people for who they are, assume less and ask more, I learn good things.

Moving across the country has also reminded me that you don't know someone until you've known them for a long, long time.  It takes more than a year to become good friends with someone.  If you decide too soon that they aren't for you, well, you might miss out on your new best friend.

Even some person driving like a bozo might have a good reason.  And if they don't has it hurt you to assume that they do?  Nope, it's probably kept your blood pressure down which is good for you!  So this year I am going to assume the best, stay patient, and wait to learn more.

So Happy Birthday to me!  I had a fabulous day that my three guys gave me, from start to finish, and I feel so very, very lucky to be here, to be 40, and to have my wonderful life.

Sugar

So over the past year I've noticed that my and my family's sugar consumption has gone up up and up.  It's so unhealthy and I especially don't want my kids asking for a dessert or a "treat" every day and Gus has gone from never asking to asking at least a couple of times a week.  I think those difficult months with a young baby led me buying more treats for myself at the grocery store and that turned into a habit, and of course my family wants to share whatever treats I bought.

I was thinking over what I cook and I can't think of a single recipe (excepting actual desserts) other than pancakes with sugar as an ingredient and can think of no reason why pancakes really need the sugar.  Especially since we eat them with honey once they are cooked.

So...anybody have tips or suggestions or dire warnings for me?  I'm not sure how Chris will take this, but I know it will be healthier for all of us.  I have no objection to a real treat every now and then either, like at a birthday party.

Edited to add:

Kristin, great questions.  I am not really worried about jarred pasta sauce that might have a little sugar in it.  I already shop pretty carefully so for food items like pasta sauce I already buy one that is low in sugar and also uses real sugar vs. high fructose corn syrup or something like that.  I am really thinking about desserts.  I've gotten into a bad habit of buying a package of cookies every week!  Or buying Izzi sodas because they are on sale.  Or baking a cake for no reason except that it is fun, but then I end up eating half a cake over the next week!  Things like that.  I don't really know what non-dessert recipes I make that have sugar in them except for a bean soup recipe of my grandmothers (that I haven't made in years) and pancakes, and I really think I can leave it out.

I do my weekly shopping tomorrow so maybe I'll check the labels for sugar and find out that I'm totally wrong and there is lots of sugar in the stuff I'm buying.  I hope not!

For now though, I guess what I really want to do is cut out the desserts.

Kitty Hawk

Part of our vacation was a visit to the Kitty Hawk memorial/state park.  It wasn't as great for kids as I was hoping, but it was okay.  We also happened to be there on an extremely hot day and the walk up the hill that I did with the two boys left the three of us pretty wiped out. 

So I've started working on my list of things to do on the weekends that I mentioned.  I'd like many of them to be specific to Durham, NC, or the area, but of course not all.  So...does anyone have ideas for me?  Here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Duke Gardens
2. special events at the Life & Science Museum (Butterfly Bash, etc.)
3. more hiking at Umstead Park
4. hiking at Jordan Lake
5. tree rubbings (Gus added this one)
6. visiting an aquarium
7. visiting the zoo (I have conflicted feelings about this one)
8. visiting DC
9. Gus' birthday party
10. Abe's birthday party
11. botanical gardens
12. visiting Austin (two weekends in October)
13. my cousin Sofia's wedding
14. Chris' cousin Keaton's wedding

Oh my gosh, I just realized that I was planning to do a birthday banner before Gus' birthday!  I'd better get cracking on that.