Back from a fun weekend of go

Spent last weekend in the Catskill Mountains, playing and studying go. What fun! I learned a lot. I took Sylvia, Cees, and Tim with me, the other kids stayed home with hubby. The only negative things were Timmy puking like seven times, and Sylvia having diarrhea. Nothing like playing a game, and being interrupted by Cees coming in with a happy 'Tim puked again!' Oh well.

The week had just normal stuff, LLL meeting, homeschool club, go club, and such. It rained and it rained and it rained. Did I mention the rain? Very depressing!

The garden is still spitting out tomatoes, but I don't really feel like picking them with all the rain. Amazing that it's October already and we still haven't had our first frost.

Stuff

Long day today. The kids really wanted to go to Borders, so we planned that for the morning (after doing some go problems of course). Sylvia is at the age when it's challenging to take her to a book store, there are just so many books to be pulled down, so many things to get into. Heaven for her, frustrating for me. But at least she is uber cute while she does all her things. I am grateful that at least she didn't take off all her clothes.

We picked up some lunch, and went to the playground, where the kids played, and I did go problems. Sylvia is sure she can do all the same things the older kids can, and usually she is right too. Amazing body control for a 16mo. Yes, she is 16 months old today, time just flies.

Back home, getting ready for karate (three girls), starting bread, getting them to karate, doing some dishes, getting them from karate, baking bread, making soup, doing go problems, doing lots of other stuff. Busy day. But no, I didn't get any tomatoes or basil picked.

I signed up for a Tactical Self Defense class at our karate school. Sounded interesting and useful, looking forward to it!

Just heard that a good on line go friend still is in the hospital, with his broken leg, and it turns out that he might lose his foot :( Please send good thoughts his way.

Apples

Yesterday was a potato day, today was an apple day. We went apple picking with our homeschool support group. Started out with a tour of the cider house, and then we got a wagon ride to the apple trees to pick. The kids had a wonderful time. Sylvia was sure you had to eat at least three apples at once. Kate had a hard time deciding on which apples to pick. Tim's apples had to be just perfect. Cees just went for fast and big quantity. Tara and Jane went off and did their own thing, returned both with a bag full of apples. Fun how they all did it differently.

Ended up getting some cider and a pumpkin and every one was happy. We now have enough apples to last us for the next three years or so...

Put some tomatoes and basil in spaghetti sauce for dinner, but still tons of tomatoes left to harvest. Guess I need to do that soon!

Potatoes

Gorgeous weather today, so I wanted to do something outside. My potatoes had been beckoning for a while. This was the perfect day to tackle them. Tara and Sylvia both helped, Tara was more effective at it than Sylvia. But at least Sylvia now knows that potatoes grow under the ground, and that they come in the colors red and purple. She really enjoyed walking around with potatoes, I wouldn't be surprised if we find them everywhere for the next three months at least.

I also went out to scout out a place for a night time cache. Sylvia didn't want to bother with those pesky clothes, so she took them all off about halfway the hike. Oh well, at least she is cute. Then she spent a lot of time throwing her clothes on the ground, so we could pick them up for her. She has trained us well.

There were 32 mallards, and 17 Canada Geese. The geese were amazing, honking and loud and just fun to watch and listen to. They were so noisy! I loved watching them.

Farmer's Market

Last month of our farmer's market, it's bittersweet to think that the season is almost over. It was a gorgeous day, and the atmosphere at the market is always great. The kids got their bakery treats, and home made ice cream. They ate honey samples, chatted with friends, and had a great time.

I got a card to send to a friend who's in the hospital, it has a close up of a cow, looking straight at the camera. Turns out that the cow's name is Blossom. I'll tell my friend that Blossom wishes him well too. I have been sending cards and letters to people, which I enjoy doing, but hadn't done in ages. I have so many people I would like to write a letter or a card, but I was unable to do it since shortly after Sylvia was born. Things just weren't right, and somehow I couldn't find the energy to send cards or letters. So I am very happy that I am getting back into the habit, I hope that it lasts.

This afternoon I went to go club. Sylvia had a great time running around and climbing on everything. I spent a lot of time chasing her instead of playing. She is so cute though, that I didn't care at all.

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!'