Dreams And Bones:
John & Penelope on line
Thursday July 31, 2003
At 2 am our phone rang. I still often wake up on the first ring, even with the phone in another room and not having been called for a birth since Logan was born. So I flailed around and nudged John to get up and listen to the answering machine to see if it was an emergency of some sort. Logan was sleeping propped up on me to help decrease her coughing – she's been at home with a nighttime cough all week now. John went and listened, and it was a male voice saying who he was, and then that he was looking for John Nanci the Chemist.
It turned out that John was getting called in to work. His lab does the testing whenever a car accident involves a transformer. There is something that can leak out of the transformers that is dangerous, so they want it tested ASAP. This is the second time this summer that John's had to go in to work unexpectedly.
It was very strange to not be the one getting up and leaving in the middle of the night. I'm used to the drill where the phone rings and I have to leave, even if I haven't had to deal with it for a while. I'm not used to getting to go back to sleep. Logan never even woke up, except to nurse.
Once it was day light Logan and I got up and took hay out to the animals and checked in with John. He managed to get home again between 10 and 11, although he's on the phone to work now, at 13:30 telling someone else how to run a sample, when he should be napping along with Logan.
We're still in the middle of a heat wave here. New record high temperatures are being set every day or so. And because of Logan's cough, she and I are staying home, not playing with her friends or doing any of the out and about things we normally do. The pediatrician suspects the cough may be something very contagious that's going around right now, so she suggested keeping Logan isolated until we know. The house is oven like during the day, but stays cooler than the outside is. It's only gone up to about 90 indoors the last couple of days, while it's been over 100 outside.
Logan, aside from coughing, is disgustingly healthy. She's in to everything, working out new ways to get in to things, and finding new things to do. Monday she went from putting her shoes on out on the deck to being completely out of sight. I looked. I called. I checked the places she goes to play. Then I called the neighbors. They said "Are you missing something?". Ha. Found her. She'd gone over, walked in to their house, and announced she had brought their dog home for them. Then she asked to feed their koi fish in the pond outside before agreeing to walk back with one of them.
Saturday, John suggested I look out the window, when he'd been keeping track of Logan. There she was. Sitting on top of the car all on her own. She'd started at the bumper and climbed. And was fully delighted with herself. She's also climbed several other things both indoors and out. We're keeping a close eye on her. At least as much as possible. I've heard people talk about how nice it is when children can entertain themselves. Logan's idea of self entertainment is to climb in to things – often a bathroom sink so she can reach the medicine cabinet to see what's interesting there.
No news on our move yet. We haven't had a lot of interest in our house, but we're still hoping. And packing. Just in case there wasn't enough to occupy our free time already. Think good house selling thoughts for us please, we'd like to be moved during September!
Hi Wilma! What John does is float them in a pan of water. Ones at the bottom are generally good. The ones that float some are still okay. The ones that seem to be trying to float on top of the water are bad. I'm not sure if there are any exceptions to the rule though. John is home today - he got called in to work in the middle of the night, so I'll see if he has anything to add once he's in the house again.
Saturday July 19, 2003
Because Twenty-Leven sounds silly. Alan and John started talking about taking a trip to Scotland when we spent the night at their house back in May. I suggested also inviting Andrea, Bob and Aidan, even though they don't know A, P and R yet. Now I've suggested to Dawn and Rachel that they should consider coming too. Peg, Andrea and I all have two year old children currently although some of them could have more before 2010 (Don't even ask me, I'm still outnumbered by the one I have!). That would mean a gang of three 10 year olds. Rachel, currently 11, would be 17 or 18 (if I'm doing my rough math close to right), and might be a reasonable supervisor of this gang, freeing the seven parents to sit around drinking tea, scotch, ale, or something. I like that plan so well I'd consider raising money to pay for Rae's fare to get there.
So I think to keep from forgetting that there's a plan happening, I'll put a link up to a Scotland in 2010 page. Once I figure out how to make one. I should get time for that soon. Really. Someone John knows from the Coffee List offered to help with things like other pages and links, I just have to find time to find out what I'm doing.
So are any of the rest of you folks reading? Alan? Peg? Andrea? Bob? Well, probably not Bob, I don't know if he's noticed that this page exists. And their computer is dead again. I promise I'll stop inviting people who don't know each other. Maybe we should all get together in 2005 to hang out first. :-) Logan's awake, John's oooo-ooohing for me, I'd better go.
Sunday July 13, 2003
I'm slowly adding photos that Cheryl took on her way here from Florida. So check farther down the page and see what there is. And I heard from Cheryl and Tim that they were within shouting distance of her house in FL, so they should be safely home and exhausted now.
Oops, I'm trying to add pictures. Right now all I'm getting are the spaces where pictures should be, althoguh the names appear to match what I typed, and the photos are uploaded. But it's time to eat, so I'll come back and play with it later. Take your chances and see if they're there. :-)
Of course! John and I and Miss Logan picked Cherries on Wednesday and again on saturday. One of John's coworkers has a tree with wonderful fruit on it that he and his family can't use all of. Now we have many gallon bags of pitted cherries. And we did have a cherry crisp, but I think we ate it. And I have a pot of cherries that I hope will grow. And Logan turned her hands and face purple from eating cherries, but also got to climb high on a ladder with me or John ("Me so high!") and pick, or be lifted above John's head to pick some in to her own little bucket.
John has also been doing things with chocolate that smell good. And I want to figure out how to combine cherries with Chocolate Denver Pudding, but I haven't gone much farther than the idea so far. We had lots of things to do this weekend, but today we just stayed home. I've worked on two of my three current knitting projects. John has done a bunch of kitchen things. Logan has done all her usual things, and we heard from Robyn that he's settling in slowly in veneta. Shadow/Mao, his cat is still here, but the cat is a much less noticeable housemate than Robyn. And we'll install Dawn and Rachel in that room for a few days next week, I hope they won't mind the cat, he thinks it's his room. As does Logan actually. Logan and I repotted several plants, and Logan has quite a few "pies" of rocks and dirt cooking out on the deck. It's going to take a long time for those rocks to soften up to where I can chew them.
Our house was supposed to be shown yesterday or today, but no one has come. Just as well today since we were here being slobs all day long. Summer just isn't the best time for this house.
Wilma asked if there was anything new here. Of course there is! I try to get something new up at least once a week, and sometimes it's more often than that. Oh, and for Wilma, from what I can figure out you can gently hand wash the felted slippers, but don't put them in your washing machine unless you need to shrink them some more.
Our washing machine is not working this weekend, although tomorrow a repair person will come and investigate it. John checked and discovered that a fuse was blown, and replaced it. That immediately caused a loud POP and a flash of light. So John stopped fixing the washer and called the repair people.
Oh, and we're washing wool, slowly. I priced sending it off for washing and carding, and John says he'd rather save the money and do it our selves. The cold water wash method is working well, although I'm curious how it will do with our drum carder, which we'll get in September. All we do is dump the fleece in to a tub of cold soapy water, and leave it for 4 to 8 to 12 or more hours. Then drain the water, refill to rinse, and rinse again. Then spread it out to dry. We're only doing about one fleece a day, but it's progress, and the fleece is cleaner than what I was managing with the washing machine method.
That's news for the moment I guess. Do you feel updated? Pictures? I know, I know. I haven't forgotten, I just haven't done anything about them. Even our quiet days are a little bit busy!
Thursday July 10, 2003
This is for Krista, who is the mum of two very preschoolers. Their family was on the train with us going up to seattle, and our two year olds got to play a bit, and John and I both held the half year old, and Krista and I got to compare knitting along the way. It made the trip a lot more enjoyable. Then going home, there they were again in the train station - so Logan had someone to play with before we got on the train. We didn't get to play on the train, Luke had to nap, and Logan refused to, but Krista and I did get to talk knitting some more. I kept telling her about some of the amazing things I've seen knit by mums of small children. So here are some links --
Knitting Mum's:
Allison, the blue blogGeane's Knitpix blog and then
knitpix on their own, which is where I've seen some breathtaking sweaters on those little boys!
Mama Kate although I think her kids are a little past preschool age now, actually.
Nearly Naked KnittingI don't know how these women manage to knit with more than one small child in their houses. My one has me outnumbered most of the time. (we figured that out while Cheryl was here, toddlers come in gaggles, even if you only see one of them.) There are probably more of them too. Someone clever could put together a web ring, but I don't think that will be me. I'm hard pressed enough just to write notes here sometimes.
A photo essay.
Cheryl and Tim sleep in
There will be a couple more, I can't get the resizing program to cooperate at the moment, and I'd rather go back to knitting. I also have a few pictures still on the camera. Once I remember where the camera is I'll be able to do something about that.
Wilma told John to email pictures to Phil. Phil are you reading? What pictures?
