Laser Man is no longer all alone

Laser Man hasn't been seen around these parts recently. But at the ripe old age of 3 years and 9 months, Caroline finally has an imaginary friend. This from the girl whose doll is named Dolly and whose My Little Pony is named Pony (her stuffed cat is also called Pony, but that's another story). She has spent the day pushing an empty stroller that supposedly contains Josie the dog. Did I mention that Josie thinks I'm a monster?

what we did this week (dictated by Jonah)

This week, it rained every night. I know because every morning, our yard was wet. There's not much to talk about, so this is all I'm typing. (Until I made him come back and say more.) This week, I saw my friend Jack. Jack and I are good friends because we both like Star Wars. I like to go to his house because I am nervous about directing my own Lego game. My favorite thing to do at his house is play. Next week, I hope we go get ice cream.

what else we've been up to

Once again, things settle more into being right now that we have a functioning dining table. But before we were eating dinner and doing school around the table, it was an idea. It was an inspiration piece at IKEA and some hand-drawn plans. Josh is a very thorough planner (maybe that's why his trip to buy the materials was significantly shorter than my trip to buy stain).

After the plan, it was a bunch of uncut lumber.

Then there was working, working, sanding, drilling, and behold! A table! And a bench!

After the table and bench, it was my turn to get to work. I had a bit of a crisis mid-stain (thank you, Facebook and Instagram friends for helping me solve the dilemma), but I love the color now. It looks even better inside with people sitting around the table. Now we just need a few more chairs and all will be right with the world (again).

In summary, this table is the thing that mattered most to me when we moved in. (As in, Josh had all sorts of other valuable projects he wanted to work on and I kept pestering him about the table. This has been a theme our whole marriage; a dinner table is a prized piece of furniture to me.) I love it!

first day of school

6:00 am: "Oh no. Can it please be summer again?"
8:00 am: We sit down (minus Josh, who left an hour ago) to first-day fry bread, per Jonah's request. Happy children.
8:10 am: Wet bed discovered. Laundry commenced.
8:30 am: I let Jonah choose the order, so it goes like this today: handwriting ("I wonder what this is!"), history ("I love history more than anything but science!"), math ("I don't like math, but that doesn't mean I'm not good at it. I'm really good at it."), grammar, phonics, writing, reading.
10:00 am: We are really dragging by this point, but I suggest a mid-morning snack. Yay! Happy faces all around again.
10:05 am: Josh reports that his first class went well, though the students seemed pretty lethargic.
10:30 am: Caroline is now tired of school (she's not required to sit with us, but she really wanted to for the first 2 hours). At this point, she's reverted to destroying things and picking fights.
10:35 am: Miriam is now awake. Some sacrifices must be made to keep up with school (in this case, kitchen cleanliness).
10:37 am: In addition to the above, Josh calls about a new pair of jeans. Not one to wait on buying something for Mr. I-Never-Want-New-Clothes, I buy jeans online while administering a spelling test. Is that why there were only 9 words instead of 10? Maybe.
12:00 pm: Lunch. Jonah eats half. Caroline eats one bite. Somehow, I eat none.
12:30 pm: Some order restored in the kitchen. "Jonah," I asked, "how did you like the first day of school?" His reply? "It was awesome! I love school!" Well okay. I can take that.
2:00 pm: Caroline is asleep. Miriam is awake. I am trying to figure out what to eat for lunch. Or should I just start dinner? Or is there any Blue Bell ice cream for sale around here yet?

It had some highs and some moments of exhaustion, but we made it through the first day of school! Returning subjects: reading, history, phonics, grammar, Spanish, math, science, art. New subjects: writing, spelling, handwriting. New goals: daily snack and all teeth brushed before we begin.

Happy school, everyone! May the year be good to any in your household that have school this fall.

my Sims bubbles

You know how when you play Sims the characters have little bubbles/meters that gauge their happiness with various aspects of life? There's the hygiene meter, the comfort meter, the knowledge meter, etc. We often refer to these bubbles when trying to articulate what we are happy (or not so happy) about. For example, when the house gets too messy and I start to feel claustrophobic, I know that's my environment bubble.

So today we went to get NC licenses and vehicle registration. While at the DMV (and after a long wait), we did our best to remain upbeat while the staff were nothing but grumpy and unhelpful. Then, when we registered to vote, we were told we had to pick a party or we would not be able to vote in the primary elections.

This is nothing new. That's the way the law is in Arizona. The thing is, though, I had looked online last night and was pretty sure I could vote in one primary even if I registered as an independent. Not wanting to lock ourselves out of the primaries, though, we went with the information given us and registered in a party. When I stepped outside, I decide to fact check that information. No, we were correct. Unaffiliated voters in NC can still vote in one primary of their choosing.

I was so annoyed. Voting (voting in the primary elections especially) is important to me, and I felt misled and pushed around. I was so antsy and frustrated about it until we found the county election commission and changed the registration and let them know that the DMV was giving out incorrect information. Then, I felt relaxed and at ease.

The morals of this whole story are a) I don't like to be pigeonholed when it comes to my political interests and beliefs, and b) I think I have a "social and moral justice" bubble that had dropped too low.

but some days are great days

Sometimes a boy (7) tucks himself in behind his dad (31) to listen to stories while they mow the lawn.

And sometimes a dog (4) has to run along and make sure her boy is doing okay.

Meanwhile a woman (30) sits on the front steps and repots her vine that is doing so well it needs more space. 

All the while two little girls (1 and 3) sleep soundly in their happy room. Not every day is a great day, but this one was.

to the boy who loves tomatoes

Josh is being spoiled rotten by our landlord/neighbor. Everything here save the onions came from the garden of our landlord.

The variety of tomatoes has impressed the kids to no end. Josh is in heaven because he has always loved golden tomatoes. 

We are feeling pretty blessed. Plus the peppers are actually spicy!

The best ice cream ever!!

We tried out a local ice cream parlor tonight. Everyone liked it, but possibly Caroline most of all.

Then again, Miriam was pretty happy sitting on the table sneaking bites from everyone too.

This particular parlor is known for it's grape ice cream, which we thought was pretty tasty. The banana tasted like banana runts, Jonah declared the cookies and cream "the best cookies and cream I've ever had," and Josh really liked the butter pecan. I tried about 5 different flavors and have the next 5 lined up that I'd like to try (black walnut, cherry vanilla, cookie dough, mint chocolate chip, strawberry), but mostly I just want to try the milkshakes. They looked amazing!

black and white

While driving home from Charlotte tonight, we were telling stories about our cat Galileo. 

Caroline: Can I see pictures and videos when we get home?

Me: Well I don't have any on my phone. That was many phones ago. 

Josh: There are videos of him somewhere. On a cd probably. 

Jonah: Are they grey?

Me: No, Galileo was black and white. 

Jonah: Well I'm expecting the videos to be grey. 

Josh: Do you mean the video would be in black and white?!

Well we did both notice some extra wrinkles around our eyes today. 

and all is right again, v. 2

When I said "all is right again," what I meant was, "more right than before." It couldn't have ALL been right, because I didn't have this yet:

Now I do. Now all must be right in the world (at least until we get a dining table).

my fancy rug

So this room here is going to be our dining/school room. If you are clever, you may have already noticed that it is carpeted. Newish carpet + small children + spaghetti sauce = not what I want to deal with. So we trekked to IKEA to look for a rug.

Whenever we go to IKEA together, we start quoting this 30 Rock episode. This particular trip started out so well, though! We dropped the older two off at the little play area and browsed (albeit quickly, because we are experienced at this sort of thing and know the enthusiasm will wear off somewhere around the home office section). It wasn't until we got downstairs that I started to feel grumpy. The crowds! The tight spaces! The cart that only wants to go at a diagonal!

So we wandered the rug section for at least 30 minutes. The only thing we could really agree on was double what we wanted to spend (Other than the one we LOVED that was very nice and triple what we wanted to spend. I did not want spaghetti sauce on that pretty thing, though, so it wasn't even worth selling the farm for anyway.), but even that wasn't very inspiring. Josh used a Sims analogy, which made me love him even more, and we kept looking.

We finally settled on a kind of cool black and white rug. I still think it would have looked nice in this room, but it wasn't one either of us jumped for joy over. And then we saw it: the green striped rug we'd been admiring ($350) in the as-is section for $99. Yes, please!

It was pretty stained, but we've worked hard to get most of those out. It was covered in what looked like dog hair, but that vacuumed out pretty easily. There are still a few stains, but that's okay. They are small and will soon be joined by spaghetti sauce, I'm sure. Plus, if this rug lasts through this rental (I hope it will. It's good quality [I think. I've never purchased a rug before] and cleaned up pretty easily), we think it will look really nice in whatever house we move to next, not just nice-for-right-now-but-I-wouldn't-pick-it-out-otherwise.

In short, I am very proud of my rug. Also, we survived IKEA happily married (barely).

a report on Ingles

So I went to the grocery store yesterday. Grocery shopping is a big deal to me. I like to cook and which store I frequent seems to make a significant difference to my overall satisfaction with an area. Let me just start this by saying that the stores in Arizona are the best. I love Fry's. In a pinch, any of the other stores will do. Within a decent driving distance I could get to Trader Joe's, Costco, any number of international markets and specialty stores. Obviously, not many places we move will live up to that standard.

Anyway. Yesterday I braved the grocery store for the first time. It wasn't so bad! I went to the store closest to us (It was an Ingles. I've never even heard of this particular chain. I just keep thinking of Pringles.) and it was large and clean. Here are some pros and cons.

Pros:
*A large selection of specialty cheeses. Not that I buy specialty cheeses a ton, but it says something about what else the store carries I think.
*The foods in the deli were fresh and looked tasty. Again, I very rarely buy potato salad etc from the deli, but at least they looked good.
*A decent selection of specialty baking goods. No good yeast (none at Costco either; boo!), but fancy flours and brans etc.
*Look at this olive/snack bar!

*Friendly staff and fellow customers. This is a big deal to me.

Cons:
*The store had the largest selections of pork rinds and chewing tobacco I had ever seen.
*Not surprisingly, just about everything was more expensive than out west (dairy and meat products especially).
*While there was a small aisle of Mexican ingredients, there was no enchilada sauce. None! Canned tamales? Yes. Any form of enchilada sauce? No.