The Joys of Hair Cuts

Dawn has given Sylvia and Erik haircuts. Sylvia's was just her bangs, so not very noticeable, but Erik basically got a buzz cut.

 

He was very happy with the result, and asked everyone 'Do you see anything changed about me?' Everyone looked at him for half a second and said 'Oh, you got a hair cut!'

 

This slightly disappointed him and he grumbled to himself 'How come that they all immediately know I got a hair cut!??? I wanted it to be a surprise!'

 

Sylvia dryly commented 'Maybe because you got balder?'

 

Love Thursday

Love is helping your little brother with his dragon puzzle.

 

Happy Love Thursday!

Stopped Smoking!

Last night, my sis decided not to go out and buy a new pack of cigarettes.

 

Instead, she QUIT smoking!

 

Please send TONS of quitting vibes, prayers, positive energy, anything her way, this is not easy for her. It is so much easier to be addicted than to break an addiction.

 

I put counter up (points to the right) to keep track of how many cigarettes she is not smoking AND not buying and now she will have money for chocolate! And ice cream! And a pony!

 

The Joys of Getting Things Done

Today, the day started early with preparing chocolate chip pancakes for my friend and my crew, who then left on their way to Six Flags. She is taking them to have fun, while I am getting things done. How cool is that?

 

In April, I filed for extension on my taxes. Never hard to get, but it does mean that eventually one has to actually DO them. That time has arrived. Today, I am doing tons of things, including getting a start on the taxes. Which sounds easy, but my administration have been somewhat in disarray because of the divorce and other stress. It has not been at the top of my priority list. Which gave me an excellent excuse for not doing the taxes ('I can't FIND anything!') but not sure whether the IRS will accept that one.

 

Because my life is never simple, this issue was further complicated by the fact that there had sprung a Mount Laundry in front of my filing cabinet, and I couldn't actually open it anymore and life was bleak and I was feeling sorry for myself and I was wondering how I would ever get out of this mess. Enter my friend who volunteered to come over and fold laundry for me, which she did last Thursday. Now not only my filing cabinet is reachable and can be opened, but I have clean underwear again!

Another friend had been doing some organizing on my 'metal desk on which I stack the mail in the hope that it takes care of itself' and between the laundry and the desk, I was all ready to get things done.

 

Today so far I have

• Run two loads of laundry (including folding and putting away one);
• Told the puppy 'No, you cannot get the Nutella from the table.';
• One dishwasher load of dishes put away;
• Told the puppy 'No you cannot play with the cat.';
• Made stacks of papers on chairs without any children knocking them over;
• Told the pup 'No, those papers are not yours!';
• Started my taxes by making a list of all the papers I need so I can collect all of them and cross off;
• Told the pup 'No, you cannot have cupcakes;
• Started going through my filing cabinet to find tax related papers and do any quick file maintenance tasks to help it start working again;
• Almost finished the first drawer (out of four) of said filing cabinet;
• Told the puppy 'No, that is not your boot. Not your hat either. And those are MY oven mitts';
• Ate a whole mango, ALL BY MYSELF! I did not share. With anyone!
• Told puppy 'Yes, I love you too, but now get your butt away from the fridge door so I can actually open it.'
• Appreciated how many friends and how much support I have to help me when I drop any of the balls I am juggling;
• Told the pup 'OK, we'll go out for a walk soon.'

 

I am getting things done while my kids are having a blast at Six Flags. I am grateful that I have this whole day of solitude and productivity. My friends are awesome!

Name Change Fun

I have been having fun trying to change my name at many places. The DMV was particularly amusing, since our 'own' DMV was closed for unspecified repairs and the replacing DMV is half an hour drive and only open on Thursdays and Fridays.

Last Friday I went and found out that I wasn't an American yet in their system. I could change my name, but would have to come back with naturalisation papers. Fair enough.

Yesterday, I went back. This time, the problem was that the name on the naturalization certificate didn't match the name in their system, and could I fill out the form again in the naturalization name? It took a while, but eventually I was allowed to use my new name on the form. The next problem was which code to assign it for the change. It seemed that there was no 'She turned American before her name change' code in the system, so they had a hard time deciding between 712 , 726, or 711, and finally decided on 727 for 'removal of restrictions'. Since not being an American clearly is a restriction, right?

 

My visit to the DMV was over and my sister managed to sucker me into helping her to juice 428 baby key limes, which was both a pain and a fun time together. At least she has almost a quart of lime juice now. Which I almost spilled when I tripped over the doorstep.

 

I am still in the process of changing my name at Paypal. First problem, trying to find WHERE to change your name on the website, since it seems more usual to change one's address than one's name. When I finally found, I read the instructions, which clearly said 'Send either copy of court document or copy of photo id.' I uploaded the court document.

Two days later, I get an email 'We cannot process your name change without a photo id.'
I was a good girl and sent them a copy of my photo id.

Three days later, the email states 'We really can't do anything without a court document.'
Um...
On Friday, I uploaded it again and now am waiting for the next email stating that they desperately need my photo id.

The joys of bureaucracy!

Bean Trellis Coolness II

Remember my sister's bean trellis?

 

Look how well the beans are doing!

 

Of course, the continuous rain is helping. Did I mention lately how it rains every single day?

 

We even found three baby beans.

 

Name Change

Last week, I went to probate court, and legally changed my last name and added a middle name, to signify a new start in my life. We celebrated by having a late breakfast mostly to tide over until the ice cream shack FINALLY opened. I chose pina colada ice cream, my sis had black raspberry and it was quite good.

 

We meandered through the country side and stopped at a beautiful pond. We picked mushrooms, and life was excellent.

 

I spent most of the week going many places to change my name, like the DMV and city hall and my local bank. Turns out the DMV needs my naturalization papers too, so I can go back there next week.

 

Since I changed my name, I figured I could as well change my hair too. It turned out a bit more flamboyant than I expected, but it should wash out eventually. I half love it, half am happy it will wash out ^^

 

Licorice Ice Cream

Every time I go pick up the girls from dance class, I drive past this ice cream place advertising '24 flavours of soft serve ice cream!' Every time I drive past, I wonder how one can even design 24 different soft serve flavours. So it was unavoidable that we found ourselves stopping there on the way back from dance class, especially since it was someone's birthday.

 

We stopped and studied the chart. I now realize I forgot to count the number of flavors, but there were quite a lot. Maybe I should go back another day to count how much variety they have. Just to make sure of truth in advertizing.

 

One girl chose espresso soft serve.
The next girl chose pina colada.
Third girl went for chocolate coconut.
And me? I couldn't resist the licorice ice cream.

 

It was surprisingly good and we all enjoyed our ice cream and life is even better once one knows where one can get licorice ice cream.

 

Hobbit Hole

First one in my series of 'Houses which fascinate me and I briefly considered, but then common sense took over and I didn't'

This is what they call an earth sheltered house, but I would call it a hobbit hole.



It does not have any heat source beyond passive solar, which might or might not be a good idea in Vermont.

It has many advantages, like low heating costs (I hope ^^) and it just is a very cool concept. How can one not love a house like this?



What did worry me was where it says 'Needs extensive work' I mean. I do have seven willing workers, cough, but somehow it still didn't feel like the best decision to move into this house and pretend to be hobbits.

A few days ago we actually tried to FIND this hobbit house, just to see what it looked like from the outside. We drove and we drove and we drove. Roads got smaller. Woods sprang up around us. Thunder storms were raging. We got farther and farther away from Vermont's major civilization.

After driving for an inordinate amount of time, we finally arrived on the right dirt road. We tried to find the correct house number, but the house numbers were not in any logical or helpful order. We went back and forth on this road for a while, but it was very clear that this house was a bit too private and far away for us.

Click here to see the house. Read 25 reasons to get an earth sheltered home. Here are some myths and facts.

Still, this house is not for us. Too bad ^^ It would have been fun to be a hobbit.

Weather Forecast

 

Today

 

Showers likely early...then a chance of showers

 

Gotta love living in New England...

 

Fire Tower

 

First fire tower climb of the season.

 

 

I LOVE the views.

 

Six Miles Hike

We went hiking / geocaching in Concord and had a wonderful time.

 

We were organized enough to have two cars, so we could park one on one end of the trail system and one on the other end, enabling us to hike all the way from one side to the other. It was a beautiful hike.

 

We met squirrels, who would yell at us for disturbing the peace in their forest.

 

We saw many frogs and toads.

 

It was a great day and I plan on doing many more hikes this summer.

Nachos and Cheese and House Hunting

I grew up in the Netherlands, where there is not much variety in cuisines beyond Chinese food, which usually is actually Indonesian over there. My mom was a typical Dutch person with a healthy suspicion for any food which wasn't Dutch or Indonesian, so we ate boiled potatoes and boiled veggies and meat. We definitely never ate nachos and cheese. Heck, I am not sure whether I even knew about the existence of nachos and cheese.

When I moved to the States, I heard about them, but it took awhile before I actually got to eat them. Once I did... I was addicted! Somehow I never learned how to make them though. So much life, so little time. A a few days ago, I decided to start to learn. I was home by myself and put some nachos with grated cheese topping in the oven. Not bad, but not really what I wanted. I was envisioning the gooey yummy cheese sauce I am used to see on nachos.

Fast forward to tonight when I tried this recipe from the Big Red Kitchen. I was attracted to the simplicity of the recipe. I mean, I wanted to make nachos and cheese, but I didn't want to spend tons of time to prepare before I could eat them. They turned out very well with sharp cheddar and mozarella (the cheeses we had available) and everyone enjoyed them. Well, the ones that like nachos and cheese that is.

 

On Friday we spent our first day house hunting. We looked at four houses. First one was old town offices, a lovely house, school with big playground and ball field in the back yard, and interesting attics. The drawback was a very old, very small kitchen and the biggest drawback was the very busy road in the front yard. Both the house and the front yard location didn't feel like our best choice.

Second house was boring looking on the outside, but excellent on the inside. It was a newer house, built in 2003. Four bedrooms, everything in such good shape. Walk out basement, nice big backyard, and to make it really Vermonty, it was at the end of a dead end dirt road. This house gets the top place for now.

 

Third house had The Best Kitchen Ever, and was in good shape. It had a cemetery behind the backyard, which the realtor was apologetic about, but we reassured her that we would be fine with that. What I wasn't fine with was yet again a very busy road in the front. Not to mention that the 'river frontage' which had been advertised as something wonderful and perfect, was on the other side of the road. Let's just say that kids and busy roads do not go together well. It would be a great house for a family with older, or no kids. But not for us.

Fourth house looked great in the pictures, but was in bad shape and built by a do-it-yourselver who wasn't a very good do-it-yourselver. It had many weird issues, and it again wasn't our best choice for a house.

 

One out of four isn't bad though, is it?

Tonight, we spent some time driving past more houses. Some got rejected when we couldn't find it after driving for three hours on a smaller and smaller dirt road and STILL not being there. Others got rejected for other visible reasons when we drove by. It was interesting to drive around on unknown dirt roads and NOT knowing whether this was either a dirt road which went somewhere, or a dirt road which would disappear into mud and nothingness. With big drop offs next to the road for good measure. Making me wonder how I would EVER be able to turn around the van here if needed.

Did I mention how it was raining? And we drove through a Very Impressive Thunder Storm and I did not like half of the dirt roads, and life was wet and that is why we needed nachos and cheese when we came home.

 

Born Under A Maple Tree

Five years ago, Sylvia was born under a maple tree in our front yard.

 

Now she is running around under the maple tree and letting me take her birthday pictures. What a wonderful five years it has been! Before she was born, I had many miscarriages and things were not easy. She was my sticky baby and so very welcome.

 

Watching her grow up with six older siblings has been fascinating. I think being the youngest of seven teaches one both lots of good qualities ('If they can do that, so can I!') but also some bad qualities ('I am just the baby, so I can get away with anything'). Overall, she is a well rounded and pleasant person though, and I feel blessed to be her mother.

 

She tells everyone 'I used to be four, but now I am five!' just in case they didn't realize she has had a birthday. She also will tell people 'I am Sylvia and my totem is a deer.' when they ask her for her name. Somehow people don't always know how to answer that one ^^ She is very aware and pleased that her name means 'From the woods'.

 

Happy birthday, little girl!

Playground Pictures

Today was one of those crazy days, getting five kids to three places at four different times, and that was only the morning. The rest of the day was just as complicated.

 

I didn't get much done beyond all that, but the good news is that I had some leftover blueberries and made an awesome blueberry buckle for dessert. We ate it with ice cream. Yum!

 

The other good news is that Dawn brought some fresh organic lettuce from her job at the farm, and we had a very nice salad. Mostly appreciated by Dawn, Sylvia and me, the other kids think that green vegetables should be outlawed.

 

I never made any pictures today, so sharing some playground pictures instead, from the playground at the farmfest a few weeks ago. All those pictures were taken by Jane.

 

New Post at Largerfamilies.com

Please go visit Loving Kindness and Baby Steps at largerfamilies.com.

 

Enjoy and don't forget to be nice to yourself. You deserve it!

Why One Should Label What One Puts In One's Freezer...

Remember the move? I have no idea yet when, but there will be one in our foreseeable future. In a moment of feeling organized, I decided this would be a perfect time to start emptying that basement freezer. The one that I put stuff in, and sometimes label, sometimes not. I am sure I can come up with many excuses why I sometimes don't, but I'll leave that as an exercise for the reader.

 

Last night, I took an item out of the freezer. I had No Idea what it was, and I have to admit that I am still not sure. For now I am labeling it as a lentil soup, and I have a bunch more containers which look similar. I don't think I particularly like it, although I don't hate it either, so I am eating it for dinner and pretending I am organized and on top of things.

I am curious to see what other things will show up from the depths of the freezer. At least all the placentas have been buried by now. And I think we don't have any dead rats anymore either.

What is your freezer like?

Farmfest

Meeting animals up close.

 

We had a fun day.

 

Even the parts when it rained.

 

Sylvia got to bottle feed a goat, how cool is that?

 

Cees

This was before he turned American.

 

About six years before...

Happy Independence Day!

Today, it is exactly one year ago that me and the boys got naturalized.

 

Last night, our town celebrated by organizing a big fireworks display. I went there with five of my kids and a bunch of friends and we had such a wonderful time. Even although it had been rainy all week, the weather for the fireworks was quite good, and everyone ignored the occasional drizzle during the display.

 

The kids were running around, we bought light sticks, we had good food and junk food and lots of fun and I was grateful for the opportunity to become an American. Although it is hard to imagine that it already is a year ago.

 

Time flies.

 

Today is a quiet day, since we had the fireworks last night already. Did I mention it is raining today?

Happy Independence day to all my readers!

Proud of My Sister Min!

Another one of my brilliant sisters to be proud of. She graduated from Dartmouth College with a Master's degree.

 

Wow!

 

We attended the graduation, which was rainy. Big surprise, eh? ^^ We had a great time anyway, especially when we found an indoors location to watch the graduation on a huge screen. After watching our sister graduate, we made our way to good food and had even more of a wonderful time.

 

Congratulations, fabulous sister, you did it!

 

More pictures can be found in this album.

Bean Trellis Coolness

My sister is in a wheelchair, which makes gardening a tad more challenging, to say the least. Luckily, she is just as brilliant as I am (ok, maybe even MORE brilliant, since I wouldn't have thought of this) and designed this super cool bean trellis.

 

She had a friend cut down a bunch of saplings and tied them together into this trellis. She added boards to the soil in between the trellis poles and she can ride in through her own bean trellis and pick her very own beans! Without having to borrow my or other kids to help her.

She rocks!

Now if it would ever stop raining...

Strawberries and Chocolate

So many strawberries. Good tasting ones at that.

 

We found small ones, we found big ones, we picked and picked and picked.

 

The kids thoroughly enjoyed the harvest.

 

And even although it seemed impossible, we still managed to increase our happiness by adding chocolate to the strawberries. Chocolate dipped strawberries right in our own kitchen. How much more decadent can one get?

 

No one had the patience to wait for the chocolate to cool down and harden around the strawberries. The temptation was just too big. Sometimes giving in to temptation is just right.

More Festival Pictures

 

 

 

 

Strawberry Festival

This year, life had been crazy (unlike other years when nothing was going on ^^) and last week I guiltily realized that we might have missed the opportunity to go strawberry picking. Which obviously is not the end of the world, but it was slightly disappointing and added to my 'I should be more organized and be able to do everything!' feelings.

 

Imagine my happiness when I realized that not only did I not miss the window of opportunity to go picking, but in addition, there was going to be a big strawberry festival at one of our local organic farms.

 

On Saturday I heard about the festival. On Sunday I grabbed six kids, we drove over to the farm, saw a baby fox on the way, and had a great time.

 

I met friends, the kids met friends, we picked strawberries, we did wagon rides, and for a change it did not rain! Well, at least not much of it ^^

 

On the way back we saw two deer. What a great day!