What lovely woman did to herself was nothing compared to the eccentricities of male attire. Consider one of the illustrated manuscripts still in existence which gives a picture of the young king (Richard II).  His robe is of blue, lined with ermine, and his legs are encased with a trimness which led at this time to the coining of the word “tights.” Richard’s tights were parti-colored in a diamond-shaped pattern of maroon and pink. His shoes were so long and pointed that the toes curled up and had to be banded to his knees. To climb a stair he had two courses open; he could remove his shoes or go up backward. It was necessary to keep his arms folded in order to save his sleeves from trailing on the ground. A very odd-looking figure he cuts, without a doubt; quite as absurd as the Tudor courtier of a later century with his neck ruff like the cart wheel of a fairy coach and his sleeves puffed up like colored clouds. (The Last Plantagenets, Thomas B. Costain, p.6)

Mystie posted on her blog yesterday: “I know Elly began before I dared to start but when the longing was on me (39 weeks), but I don\’c3\’a2\’e2\’82\’ac\’e2\’84\’a2t know what has come of that fit yet.”\par
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Ah, yes, well… ahem.. my 6:00 initiative has been sporadic at best – every evening meeting/party or out of town visitor has been allowed to throw off the routine. Fortunately, I’m still able to get to sleep fairly quickly at night when we go to bed at 9:00, and without being totally weary to the bone. But\’c3\’82\’c2\~I do miss\’c3\’82\’c2\~being up-and-at-em (bed made, dressed, bible read, hair done, etc.) before\’c3\’82\’c2\~the boys really start moving in the morning. I need to try to get back into that. This last week has been a complete failure, as I could’ve\’c3\’82\’c2\~ gotten up at 6:00 every\’c3\’82\’c2\~morning – but just plain haven’t. I didn’t even rationalize, I just refused. And next week I’m going to my parents’ while Michael’s out of town, so you can bet I won’t be getting up at 6:00 there!\par
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At the beginning of the year I started using a planner Michael got at a time-management class he attended. It’s one of the Franklin Covey ones. I even tried to do all of the thinking through your life/roles/goals stuff at the beginning, but gave it up as unneccesary. My roles are pretty well-defined, and my goals are either very nebulous (ex: “raise godly children”) or else very short-term (ex: clean off the bar counter today). I have benefited from the “Plan your week out at the beginning of the week (or before it starts)” idea. It has allowed me to plan my major projects for the week, and then try to fit everything else in around them. As a result, I’ve gotten more big things done lately than I used to like caulking, fixing the wallpaper, polishing my silver, finding a birthday present for Michael, organizing Judah’s room so that it’s not always a mess, etc. But unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to take much in the way of an extra-normal project to throw off my normal functions, like laundry, dishes, light housecleaning, and the constant battle against untidiness. Sooooo… while I’ve gotten a lot of long-held goals accomplished, my house is still a mess. So you can determine if that’s a success or a failure!! I guess I’m thinking now, that major accomplishments count more than minor ones, because when I finally do catch up on the minor necessities of life, the major things will still have been done – as opposed to having had the minor necessities done regularly all of this time and the big projects being still unstarted. Also, I’m expecting a baby in May, and am thus not expecting to get much done (other than feeding and nourishing and caring for a tiny helpless human being) for a short period of time before, and a long period of time after the birth. So I’m trying to do things now that I won’t have the time or energy to do later, and if little stuff falls by the wayside… well, hopefully I’ll catch up on that too, before I completely run out of oomph. It’s also nice to have the past, present, future cohesiveness of one planner, rather than a bunch of unorganized lists and a largely unused calendar. \par
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In terms of a daily schedule, I still don’t have one (mostly because of my sporadic rising time). I do “school” with Judah in the morning after they’ve been fed and dressed, then I have a productive time in the morning, a long break in the afternoon, and another productive time in the late afternoon for about 3-4 hours before dinner. Then we scramble to eat dinner, clean up, do devotions, play with the boys, put them to bed, and get any other absolutely necessary things done: so we can go to bed. The evenings aren’t relaxing anymore, which is why I take a break in the afternoon during the boys quiet/nap time. All of the above assumes that we don’t go anywhere in the morning or afternoon to throw off the schedule, you understand – errand days work out differently.\par
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Well, I don’t know if anybody really cares about the details of my daily routine, and organizational attempts, but I thought Mystie’d like to know, so there it is. \par
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Better get back to work – blogging at 10:00 in the morning is NOT on my list of things to do!

I just moderated 385 comments on my site. I marked them all as spam and ushered them out, only glancing at the comments made in the last 5 days. I don’t want to read any more of them, because I think perhaps I’m not old enough or gross enough to want to read them all! The point being that if anybody I know made a comment that was NOT spam, I’m sorry, I probably sent your baby out with the bathwater. But that’s unlikely, as I haven’t written in the last couple of weeks, anyway, so I’m not too worried. Have a good Monday!

Yesterday, while my friend Mystie was still here my mother-in-law, brother-in-law (same age as Judah), and sister-in-law came over to meet Mystie and to have a play-date for all the boys. We had 5 boys, 3 and under at our house in the morning. It was rather chaotic and noisy, you might say. To put it mildly, it was a madhouse. But nobody got seriously injured (although Hans’ hand got pinched in the closet door), and eventually everybody was fed and dispatched safely to their respective homes. But in the midst of all of that chaos, I couldn’t help but feel very satisfied to see 5 small boys who represent the strength of the next generation. As Mystie said later in the day, the blessing of children is not in the pitter patter of little feet, but in the expected fruitfulness of these future adults. These little guys might wear us out, (sometimes just from laughing so hard)\’c3\’82\’c2\~destroy our backs, carpets, furniture, and sanity, but when they are grown they will be our greatest accomplishment and our blooming pride and joy. \’c3\’82\’c2\~They will (Lord Willing!)be strong warriors for King Jesus and\’c3\’82\’c2\~the faithful fathers of our multitudinous grandchildren.\par
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This is why both Mystie and I want more children. Lots more children. Not because we love babies (though we do), and not because we find great fulfillment in managing a home and children (though we do), but because raising these kids and sending them forth is our greatest job, and the most productive thing we could possibly be doing with our time. And even though there are bad days now (see my previous post), and will be even harder times in the future, I try to keep my eyes set 20-30 years in the future, when current difficulties will be dim memories, but the fruit will (Lord Willing!!!) be very sweet.\par
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Why this sudden break from my usual household stories? Comes from drinking way too much coffee with a good friend and visiting for hours! But I thought I’d write it down so that I can hopefully look back and read it on some future bad day and get a second wind!

What a blessed holiday! This morning Judah woke up around 7:00, but we didn’t get up until around 7:30. Ezra wasn’t awake yet, and there was a large surprise in the living room so Michael played with Judah in his room while I made breakfast (raspberry buckle – blueberries were too expensive).\par
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When the breakfast was in the oven and we could wait no longer, I woke Ezra up and we took the boys out and let them open their stockings. Judah tore through his pretty quickly, but Michael had to keep encouraging Ezra to take more out, which was to be the pattern throughout the day. They both had cars and trucks which they were excited about, but Ezra thought he had died and gone to heaven when the first item on his menu for the day was a chocolate covered marshmallow Santa Clause.\par
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After that mess had been cleaned up, the buckle was still in the oven, so we returned to the living room and\’c3\’82\’c2\~had our final Advent time – a short reading in the Bible and lighting all 5 of the candles. Then we let the boys pull the afghan off of the top of their new bouncing stationary rocking horse! Ezra was quite enthused about the stranger in the living room – patting it on the side and going up and trying to touch his nose to the horse’s. Judah was a little nervous, though, when he tried to ride the horse and ended up deciding just to stand at the side and rock it back and forth for a while. We let the idea settle and opened the rest of our Christmas presents. Judah was very excited about the Playdoh (from Grandpa Lew and Phyllis), although he was disappointed not to be able to play with it right away.\par
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Breakfast was ready, so we ate that, then prepared to go to Michael’s parents for our family Christmas celebration. We got there around 11:30 and soon opened our gifts from them and vice versa. The boys had a blast playing with their new gifts – and all of Uncle Zane’s new toys as well! We had to keep trying to calm Judah and Zane down as they were continually going crazy in that typical 3-year-old-sugar-high-excited-out-of-their-mind sort of way!\par
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The rest of the day was spent in eating good food, watching old family videos, supervising boys (although all three took nice long naps in the afternoon!), watching football (not I!), playing Sudoku (myself and Rosanne, who helped me), reading, chatting, and playing poker (Michael and his siblings). It went quite well, and was fun for all.\par
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When we got home around 8:00 the boys were still full of energy, so they played some more with their new toys. Judah has lost his shyness regarding the new horse and it promises to provide hours of fun in the future! Unfortunately, Ezra can’t get up on it himself, but he’s still a little nervous about being actually on it anyway, so short supervised bouts are about all he needs.\par
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We put the boys to bed (although they weren’t really tired), and that brings us to now! It’s been a good Christmas, worth all of the preparation, but I am so happy to be done with it now! No more makingn cards, no more shopping for gifts, no more parties – just normal life for a week and then tax season. I’m even kind of looking forward to tax season as I tend to think of it as the time when I get my life in order!\par
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So, Merry Christmas to all, and a Happy New Year! God Bless!

Another Christmas related social event! Last night we went to a Christmas party at some friends’ up in Washington. The event could’ve been highly unpleasant, with the prospect of shepherding two crabby, tired boys around all evening keeping them out of things, but it turned out surprisingly well! Ezra had a nap in the car, and then played happily until around 8:30, when he went to sleep, with very little protest in our portacrib in a strange room. Amazing. Judah stayed awake until 11:30 – but never melted down. He just happily played with the toys provided (the hostess is a grandma) until he finally couldn’t take it anymore at which point he asked me to pick him up and laid his head on my shoulder and went to sleep.\par
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This makes me realize why it is that people frequently stop at 2 children – with no babies in our future we could actually enjoy most of the parties we attend for the next 25 years!

I’ve been trying to figure out how to deal with explaining my grandmother’s passing to Judah. He’s nearly 3 years old now, and he doesn’t seem inclined to merely forget Grandma inside a few weeks. Which is good, I think, but it leads to interesting misunderstandings and odd feedback. When she first passed away I explained to him that we weren’t going to see here because she was sleeping and wasn’t going to wake up. He received that without comment, but later I heard him explaining to his aunt how we hadn’t gone to see GG because she was sleeping – so he had remembered. A few times, when he was feeling the need to get out of the house, he has suggested that we go see GG and I think I may have told him she wasn’t there anymore. Today we went out to Molalla to get the death certificates, a copy of the obituary, and to go to her old room to\’c3\’82\’c2\~get her TV for my brother. As I was getting his shoes on for him, I explained that we were going to Molalla and he said something about seeing GG, but that she was asleep – his solution was that we would sing to her (as we had been the last few months when we were visiting her as she wasn’t capable of conversing). Really, that comment made me the most sad, since her passing. That and going through her room picking up miscellaneous things that I wanted since what we left would be given or thrown away by the staff. Judah of course noticed that she was gone, as I told him she would be, but I really don’t know what he thinks about the whole thing. I shall have to ask him.

Yes, my grandmother, Mildred, passed away at 12:30 am Wednesday morning. My mom called in the morning as I was getting breakfast for the boys. I had been planning on going to see her that morning. She passed peacefully, and one of the employees was with her at the time.\par
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There’s a curious sense of finality about the whole thing. Kind of a shock to think that we can’t go to see her anymore, and that she will never again be involved in our lives. Also I think of her\’c3\’82\’c2\~at odd times,\’c3\’82\’c2\~like when I put on the coat she gave me for Christmas yesterday.\par
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How to explain it to Judah? He knew we were going to see GG Wednesday morning, but then of course, we didn’t. I explained that GG was asleep – and wasn’t going to wake up. How do you explain death to a 2-year-old? I hope he remembers her – he’s the only one of her great-grandchildren that will. And he was her light and joy in her last 3 years of life. That’s a sweet thing to remember.

My grandmother is failing pretty rapidly right now. She’s living at a retirement facility in Molalla, OR. I go and see her every Wednesday, though I think I’m going to go and see her today (Monday) as well. It’s a very odd thing in a way to have a grandparent die of old age. I feel in a way like I should be there all of the time, but with the two little kids, I can only stay so long, and a half-an-hour trip to Molalla and back is something of an undertaking. We’ll go today, and perhaps again on Wednesday, but then we’re going to be out of town Thursday through Saturday.\par
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My grandmother has been been slowly going downhill now for several years, and it’ll be two years since she moved out of our basement in January. Her passing has been so gradual, in a way. The other day I was thinking that it seemed like I hadn’t seen her in a while – but I had, just the previous Wednesday. That’s when I realized that I hadn’t really communicated with her since early summer – she’s been whispering and just listening with her eyes closed most of the time since then. The odd thing is that, because her movement out of my life has been so very gradual, that when she does pass, I don’t know what I expect to feel. I don’t know how I feel now. Her current existence is pathetic and unpleasant, and I wouldn’t wish her to linger in it any longer than necessary. And yet I worry for the state of her soul. And should you ever wish for anybody to die?!! But if I could prolong her life for a week longer… would I? She herself is ready to go.\par
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In away, one expects the whole family to gather to say “goodbye,” and yet, we all did that when we thought she was failing in August, and it seems odd to do it again. It is very strange.

I remember a man in Les Miserables who married unsatisfactorily and proceeded to cheat on his wife whenever the opportunity arose. Peace with his neglected wife was therefore bought at the price of releasing the financial reigns to her hands, which lead to his subsequent penury. At least, that’s how I remember the story, although at the same time I kind of think that he was the proverbial “rich uncle” who left his money to the main youthful protaganist… so I’m not sure. But I distinctly remember the “if you leave me be, then you can have my money” theme.\par
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This story comes to mind every time the urge to shop comes upon me when Michael’s been scarce for a while. He is, of course, a faithful husband, but his job and community-mindedness leads to frequent busy periods throughout the year, and oddly enough I really do start to get the itch to go out and spend some “real money” (at least $30!) during these periods, and not on diapers and handsoap, either!\par
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Fortunately for Michael, my point of sale reluctance to buy anything not strictly necessary or at least economical is about on\’c3\’82\’c2\~the level of my initial reluctance to mop the floor, so I almost never make good on my mental threat. Last week I went out with the urge to spend and managed to make it home having only spent $3\’c3\’82\’c2\~at McDonalds so that the kids could eat their beloved French Fries and\’c3\’82\’c2\~play in the play structure.\’c3\’82\’c2\~Today we went out\’c3\’82\’c2\~to the mall and to Costco and\’c3\’82\’c2\~the only though I bought at the mall was a 3-piece outfit for Ezra with the last of his birthday money. I even refrained from buying the goldfish crackers on my list at Costco, since they are, after all, rather a luxury item. \’c3\’82\’c2\~

I feel like I haven’t posted pictures in quite a while. But I really haven’t taken many recently, either, so I haven’t felt the desire to come down and download them off my camera. Sometimes it just seems like nothing is particularly picture-worthy. Not because the kids aren’t cute… just for some reason I don’t find myself saying “Oh, that’d be a cute picture” and racing to try to take it before the situation changes (which it almost always does). I did take a picture of the look on Ezra’s face as he squashed the tomato last week, though. I’ll have to try to remember to post that sometime.\par
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We went to a new homeschooler meeting today: Honeycomb Kids. The idea is that people with little kids (say, under 10) can have a time and a place to perform the things that they’re memorizing. They’re hoping to meet every 7 weeks. There were only about 6 maybe that were old enough, so the reciting bit went quickly (which was good because their younger siblings can only sit quietly for so long), and afterwards there was a lovely, noisy, confusing playdate for all of the kids. My boys sure had a great time! And I did too, listening to all of the triumphs and disasters of the other moms. Made me think that perhaps waiting for a little while longer to get started on baby #3 was a good idea.\par
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The playdate\’c3\’82\’c2\~was also good for Judah ,especially, to have an opportunity to learn the proper way in which to interract with other kids (sharing and cooperation) and to be corrected for improper ways of interracting with other kids (whacking and kicking). Initially one feels rather shamefaced that one’s child is misbehaving, and then I realized – “no, this is exactly what we’re here for! How else is he going to learn these things?!” So it was all around a good experience, hopefully one which we’ll be able to repeat regularly.

I tried to do some goal-setting for this next year last week. I read a book Michael got out of the library and used the do-it-yourself workshop at the back of the book. The book was all peppy and me-centered, but I thought the idea of sitting back for a moment (or a day) and trying to decide which goals to pursue first\’c3\’82\’c2\~ (yard vs. house, sewing vs. crocheting, reading aloud vs. artwork, etc.) was a good one. The idea is to set your goals, try to develop a positive mindset (stop telling yourself you can’t because….) and then train yourself to spend time doing important but not urgent things vs. important or unimportant urgent things. That way you’ll be ahead of yourself because you’ll have done the important things before they become urgent and you’ll hopefully have spent time on the things that will make a material difference in your life rather than frittering it away on all of those little necessities that are always there waiting to be done but that nobody will remember tomorrow, let alone in 50 years. First you make your yearly goals, and then ever month, and every week you’re supposed to make goals to accomplish toward the biggies. So this week I determined that under my first and main goal “declutter house” I just wanted to do two things: clean out an old shoebox left-over from Grandma’s residence here which she used to contain various odds and ends – some of which are useful to me, some of which might be useful to others, and some of which need to be thrown out; and clean off the windowsill in the utility room of the same sorts of things.\par
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Per the books instructions, I should’ve done those on Monday – because those are the important, long term difference things (not the shoebox necessarily, but the decluttering). I knew that. I planned on that. But today (Friday) I finally got around to it.\par
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Now, is this a success? Or a failure? Or just mediocre? After all, I did get it done! But I was about 5 days late. I don’t know. Hopefully, I’ll do better next week. It sure felt good though to get those two little things done and to know that I was actually doing something to work toward my long-term goal of being clutter-free!\par
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Anybody need any old outlet adaptors? I’ve got lots!

I was asked to teach a Women’s Self-Defense Class last Thurdsay at our Women of Hope camp to the assemblage of girls at the camp. Boy was it a lot of fun! I did about a half an hour of lecture (be safe, be cautious, trust your intuation, think ahead, that kind of thing), and another half an hour (or so) of practicing martial-arts type techniques for practical physical self-defense. I really enjoyed myself, and judging from the amount of laughing and carrying on, I think the students did, too. However, in the past couple of days I keep thinking of things that I should’ve mentioned, or should’ve done… is teaching always like that?\par
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Anyway, should I ever do it again, I think I would include:\par

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• Almost all fights go to the ground immediately – something to avoid

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• Ground techniques – especially that one shouldn’t waste energy by struggling with somebody on top of you – wait for your moment.

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• Arm grabs from the front (these are some of the easiest to evade and I forgot to mention them!)

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• Hair-grabbing defenses.

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Plus more that I’ve already forgotten.

“Mommy” was feeling a little antsy this morning and decided to take the boys on an outing. So we bustled into the car and drove down the hill to a local coffee place. I had a 50% off coupon for a coffee drink so I bought a 16 ounce mocha breve with whipped cream (heart attack in a cup) for a mere $1.79. Due to the location of the parking lot and the windows I was even able to do this without having to get the kids out of the car, which was a huge bonus!\par
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Coffee in hand, I jumped back in the car with the still happy boys and trundled half a mile down the road to the McDonalds. Yes! They had a playstructure! So, I got out the stroller, the diaper bag, the boys milk cups, my camera case (an insulated lunch bag), my purse, and the boys and strolled into the Golden Arches. We bought a healthy lunch of one bacon cheeseburger, one McChicken, and two small fries, got an additional cup of water, and set up on a table in the outdoor play area. Judah floated back and forth between the table and fries and the fascinating play structure, and Ezra sat contentedly in the stroller observing everything and eating a considerable number of fries (without ketchup) himself. Total price: $5.79 (including coffee). Value of sitting quietly in the shade near a river and thinking almost without interruption on a pleasant August morning: priceless. Hurray for Mickey D’s!\par
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I should note that the subject of my cogitations was Christmas. It’s less than 5 months away, friends.\par
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I bought a bottle of wine at our local grocery store today, and for the first time that I remember, I wasn’t carded! (Keep in mind, I’m not sure I’ve bought a bottle of wine in the last year)\par
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Either the clerk was feeling lazy, I now look over 28 or 29 (that’s the criteria for carding, isn’t it?) or\’c3\’82\’c2\~people just assume that a mother dragging..er, escorting two little ones must be over 21. Or perhaps the clerk thought letting a young mother of two buy alcohol was an act of mercy?