Sunday, September 29: Sacrament meeting was just awful today. I could barely sing or listen thanks to my children--all 3 of them-- misbehaving. Jay and Rose were squabbling and poking and fighting. Amber was being extra stubborn and kick-y climb-y. She pouted through the sacrament because I wouldn't let her draw, and I had to threaten to take away computer time later if she didn't sit down quietly and reverently during the sacrament. It took me the entire sacrament hymn to get her to sit down and stop attacking Jeff, who had hidden her notebook behind his back. The whole meeting was draining in a way that I haven't been drained in a while. I think it tapped out my patience reserves and made the rest of the day harder as a result. Anyways, sacrament meeting was a trial. We survived. Barely.
This evening Rose and I made an apple cake that did not cook all the way through (of course we didn't realize that until the cake was cooled). While we were making whipped cream for it, I tried to help Rose position the beater more centrally and ended up causing it to spin out of control, spraying our clothes and the entire kitchen vicinity in whipped cream. It was a huge mess. It took a while to clean up. I was even more drained afterwards. I felt like all I was doing was failing and things that are supposed to be simple. Ugh.
The saggy soggy apple cake of doom.
Making a Barbie book house mess in my clean family room right before bedtime.
We woke up to SNOW on the hills Monday morning, September 30th. September snow. Thankfully it warmed up into the 60s later in the week.
At cross country practice on Monday, we ran Lincoln Grade (3 mile HILL in Prosser). Kaylee and I ran it over a minute faster than we did two weeks ago!
Tuesday, October 1: Today I did something I haven't done in years: I got out my violin. I only had it out for about 15 minutes, and I spent nearly half of that time tuning the poor neglected instrument, but I played it. I have been meaning to get it out for a few weeks now, but kept putting it of because the first few weeks of violin-ing after so long of a hiatus are always agony, rediscovering my intonation, fingerings, bowing, and general style. This is going to take some work. I was never an excellent or bold violinist, but I did have good intonation once upon a time.
Tuesday morning I took Amber to the park during the big kids' piano lessons. It was COLD and Amber loved being able to see her breath. Her cloudy breath didn't show up in the picture, but she spent half the time hovering near me showing me her breath. I thought she was going to hyperventilate! I brought a book to read at the park but it was so cold I ended up sitting on my book to keep my bum warm!
Amber made a large plastic picnic.
Wednesday, October 2: OHHH I got my violin out again today (day 2) and tuned it using the piano (instead of just my ear). I discovered that yesterday I tuned it almost half a step FLAT! That's why it sounded so horrible when I played. I am out of practice for sure, but I have always had good intonation and I was concerned that I had even lost that ability yesterday. But no! It's amazing what a difference a well-tuned instrument makes. I still have a long way to go with "getting back into it" but at least I can play in tune now.
Oh Jay and his endlessly long shoe-tying routine. The boy takes forever to tie his shoes!
Amber bequeathed last year's pink boots to her 2 year old friend, Katelyn and I could hardly stand the cuteness of their identical pink boots on all the wrong feet.
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| Another kitchen problem: while I was shaking chili powder out of our Costco size bottle onto burrito meat, the spoon side opened and DUMPED. Now I need more chili powder. |
This was somehow our first time going into Pepe's Bakery in Sunnyside. Es muy deliciosa!
Thursday, October 3: This morning was like a comedy of errors. I got out all of the apple processing paraphernalia in hopes it would jump start my motivation to do the apples that have been crowding my tiny kitchen for over a week. The motivation did not come, but I jumped in anyways. I wore yellow rubber gloves the whole time to protect my already-winter-dry hands from the painful apple juice and 50 hand-washings that inevitably happen during extended kitchen time.
The whole process was annoying, from the little spritz of apple juice onto my glasses every time I cut an apple with the slicer to the skins dropping all over the floor as I cranked the peeler. My ancient apron has a hole right in the middle of the waist area--useless! Then the peeler broke down about 2/3 of the way through. Ugh! A gear stripped inside and there was nothing I could do. So I hand peeled the rest of the apples (about 8) by stabbing them onto the peeler and then twisting them manually. It was faster and more accurate than using a hand peeler. Barely. I made one pot of applesauce, one apple cake, and on sour cream apple pie (I didn't bake that one; I just saved it in the fridge to bake later). All of that apple-ing took me a solid 2 hours, counting the dread clean-up.
The apple peeler in the trash was the only picture I took during my apple-death-march. In years past I have happily taken pictures of my apple bounty. I was such an apple-Scrooge this year!
Amber was in full awesome form at cross country practice on Thursday, even if the runners near us in the back of the pack were not in the mood to run.
Amber drew hot air balloons that she remembered seeing at the Prosser Balloon Rally last week.
Rose did her own hair, which has been hard for her since it's been shorter. Her hair is growing out a little bit and she is enjoying being able to do it herself again.
Friday, October 4: This morning I made a big batch of my very own recipe of honey almond granola. It turned out beautifully toasted. (What's that? A kitchen success? About TIME!) Several batches of granola trial and error over the past year led me to this light crisp sweet healthy winner of a recipe which I now try to always have on hand. In between stirring the granola, I played piano. After the granola came out, I decided it was time to bake yesterday's sour cream apple pie. I quickly scooped some of the oddly runny pie filling into a mini loaf pan so the brim-ful pie pan wouldn't boil over as it baked, then slid both the pie and the mini loaf pan-pie into the oven. At that point, I was ready to get out my violin to play during the bake-time, but Amber was ready to go outside on a walk together. So we compromised.
I brought my violin outside. We walked through the deep grassy field to our favorite spot by the creek and our two willow-tree-friends. Amber dug in the dirt and I balanced my book of 300 Fiddle Tunes in an eye-level crook of the willow trunk. It fit perfectly! I put my violin to my chin and played some music with the rushing creek/irrigation ditch water in the background. It was a completely new-to-me way to "commune with nature." I loved it! I didn't get to play for long though, because Amber had to go to the bathroom and my pie was in the oven. But I played some fiddle tunes and a verse or two of For the Beauty of the Earth (it fit the sunshiny moment) before we hiked through the deep grassy field back to the house, where the oven timer was beeping.
Opening the oven, I discovered that the pie had boiled over in spite of my careful preparation, leaving a massive ringed pool of sticky juicy sugary goo bubbling on the oven floor. I took a picture to add to my massive file of recent kitchen-distress-photos, then sighed and reluctantly cleaned it up. Thankfully the goo hadn't had time to really bake too hard onto the oven floor in too many spots, so I was mostly able to scrape it off with a spatula and wipe up the liquid with a rag and several paper towels. But STILL. That blasted pie always overflows every time I make it. Next year I'm making a half batch, if I even make it at all. I feel tired of apple desserts. This week alone I have had apple spice cake, "good neighbor" apple cake, sour cream apple pie, and an apple fritter from Pepe's bakery. And none of it has satisfied my craving for BROWNIES. Sigh.
I bathed Amber and cut her hair cute and short (it was getting long enough to be unruly), then drove her to preschool. For the haircut I simply kept the child in the bathtub after her shower and snip-snip-snipped away. When I was finished cutting, I scooped up most of the wet curls from the bathtub and tossed them in the trash. Then I sprayed the rest of the bathtub (and Amber) down with the shower hose. It was the quickest, easiest haircut of all time! Amber did squirm a ton, but bless her wild curly hair--I can't even tell if it's uneven!
After dropping Amber off at preschool, I dashed to Walmart even though I have already decided that going to Walmart is a total waste of precious preschool time. But I had to get donuts for cross country practice and PBJ supplies for the meet tomorrow and more toothpaste for myself, so I went. I was in and out of there in a speedy 19 minutes flat. Then I went home, had second lunch, and read my current Sammy Keyes mystery until practice.
Cross country practice today was much better than yesterday. Everyone more or less ran, Jeff pushed the stroller, and after the team did strides Jeff gave them an inspirational Donut Pep Talk. He made it up as he went along, and it kept getting better and better. I can't really recreate the buildup to his message, but the gist of it was "When things get tough, you can either break like a Pop Tart or roll like a donut. Be like a donut! Roll with it!" He had the team cheering and laughing their heads off with his last minute silly speech. I knelt behind him and took pictures of everyone's faces while Jeff held up a donut and talked.
Amber was more than happy to take 50 pictures of me playing my violin in the aire libre.
Next time I should wear a long flowing dress or something more graceful than my practical rubber boots and windbreaker.
An instrument made of wood next to living wood. It all felt so...in touch or aligned somehow, haha.
Sadness and frustration.
The wild bedhead pre-haircut picture.
Washed and ready for a trim.
It doesn't look like much, but that was a lot of hair. It came up in a huge handful when I cleaned out the tub.
Excited to show her preschool teacher her new haircut. Ms. Mary was suitably impressed and adoring, and Amber felt special and pretty.
The Donut Pep Talk. In college our beloved coach gave us a donut pep talk once, using a jelly donut and a completely different wacky metaphor. Jeff was not present for that donut speech, though, but he was able to invent his very own awesome donut inspiration. Afterwards we gave everyone donuts. I've never seen 3 dozen donuts disappear so fast! (cross country practice attendance was down last week due to homecoming--grr)
A chocolate frosted donut in one hand, a rock in the other: Amber got just what she wanted out of cross country practice.
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