Overwhelmedness

Still being overwhelmed with life, so sitting at my computer and blogging instead of doing things. Very effective, I know :-p

At least I got lots of veggies cut for tonight (thanks Tara) and I can think of something good to make for dinner. Maybe simple stir fried veggies and tofu over rice. That is one of my 'I have no idea what to make for dinner' meals to fall back on.

Last night I got to play a 9dan professional go player! So amazing. She played a simul somewhere in Vermont, and I got in. Loved, loved, loved, loved it! She is the second strongest woman go player in the world. Makes me want to get stronger even more!

Sylvia just is relishing so much in her abilities. She will climb on the chairs or the couch, and stand on the back, high up, just showing off that she can do that now. She is uber cute, even although she also is into everything, and is learning to throw some nice temper tantrums.

We have a homeschool support meeting at our house on Monday, I guess I should think about getting the house ready soon. Such boring work.

Pesto

A few days ago, it started getting much colder at night, and I started worrying about all the basil that's still in the garden. If we get the first frost, it basically will be ruined. So I got myself together, and picked a lot of it, and some parsley too. Spent more time than I really wanted to, but ended up with pesto for the freezer and for our dinner that night! That was nice.

Brought some basil over to a friend's house yesterday, but still have more in the garden. I am out of pine nuts though, so I will either have to make pesto with walnuts, or wait till I can hit the supermarket. Luckily it's raining badly today, so that I have a good excuse not to do it all today, since it won't be that cold tonight with all the clouds cover. Always nice to find good reasons to procrastinate :p

There are new tomatoes in the garden too, ARGH!!! I need to start leaving them in people's cars. Nobody would know it was me, right? And nobody would mind, those aren't zucchinis after all...

The joys of gardening :D

An Important Skill

Sylvia has mastered a very important skill. She now can take off all her clothes, including her diaper, whenever she wants. Within record time too. So she spent a lot of time at go club today practicing her skill, and I spent a lot of time chasing a naked baby through the hallways of the theater and cultural center.

Another important skill is getting the step stool and using it to reach whatever she otherwise couldn't reach. I was very impatient for that mile stone to be mastered. Life sure has gotten a lot more interesting since she can do that :D

Yes, I still do exist...

Just have been busy with stuff and more stuff. My mom visited me for a week, from the Netherlands, it was great spending time with her. Last time she saw Sylvia, Sylvia was only a newborn. It was nice to have her, although it's also nice to have our house to ourselves again.

We gave 8 rats back to the pet store, have only 6 left, one of which is going to a friend. STill more rats than I really wanted, but better than 14 of them.

Life is hectic as usual. I don't cook as much as I want to, but I did get to make pesto last night, quite some to freeze, and some to eat at night. I also froze more the 50 bags of tomatoes from our garden, this will be great in the winter. More later, but wanted to let people know that I am still ok, just overwhelmed with life.

Katrina

So many lives lost, such devastation. Hard to imagine.

Yesterday, I took all the kids, and we went out went to the grocery store, got a lot of stuff and brought it over to one of the Vermont drop points. I liked doing this as opposed to (or in addition to) sending money, because it was more visable to the kids. They went shopping with me, we talked about what the people would need, we consulted the list we had (from the news paper) and they helped carry the things in and out the van and at the collection point. We also talked about having to evacuate and having to decide what they would bring. And how horrible it would be to know that anything else would be gone.

When dh came home, I left him with the kids, and made another quick grocery run, dropped it off and then stayed for four hours or so, helping to sort and pack stuff. It was amazing how many cars came and dropped off things. This is not a very densely populated area, but it seemed like cars sprouted out of nowhere, and the stacks of donations kept growing.

I wish I could do more.

The rats are doing great, still amazed with how many we ended up. And here I didn't want a litter of baby hamsters...

Yesterday, we saw a bumper sticker on a car saying 'Fat people are harder to kidnap'. The kids and I were talking about it, and wondering why some one would put that on their car, and just having fun discussing it. Till Kate piped in with a 'I think they tried to kidnap a fat person, and it was really hard!'