Logan's Latest:

.: 13:40 :.

"tell me which one you does want 'Nel'pe?" There's a trick to it though. She's frequently already chosen which of the items she wants, or she thinks you should have. So you have to choose correctly, or you don't get it.

Logan has been more talkative and sociable lately (hard to imagine at times, considering how much she has to say!) She went up to each person in the book store, where we often hang out and asked "What's your name?" And one by one they grinned and answered her. When asked her name she tells them "Oden" or sometimes "Oden Genvivive" Oden is even less common as a girl's name then Logan is. But she's not quite ready to try for the "L" sound at the beginning of a word yet. The book store has even let her help behind the counter, although I don't know what she does there. I take advantage of three sets of eyes on her to sit by myself and work on my knitting, or look at books.

Here are a couple of pictures from John's ditch digging of a week or two ago. The ditch is mostly finished, but the rest of the work is on hold because the electrical inspector didn't like the way the grounding rods were placed, so John gets to pound them in to the ground. In his free time.


Breaking through the packed clay



Help offered



Getting by


The ditch is two feet deep, and electrical wires, in conduit will be buried in it connecting our new meter to the house. I don't know if we've encountered the old wires yet, but they were buried using wire that was meant to go through the air. Oops. So while we hadn't had problems yet, we would have in the future.

We've survived thanksgiving far from our birth families without incident. We had a quiet day unpacking boxes, and a quiet dinner. And I finished one sock I was working on, leaving me with forty seven or so other projects, and a second sock to start. The more I work on knit holiday gifts, the more gifts occur to me to make. Some people may end up with IOUs at the rate I'm knitting, but perhaps I'll get some more time over the next couple weeks.

Andrea's following me

.: 18:25 :.

Well, maybe not. But she's reading my responses as soon as I type them.

Andrea, I trust you noticed that I added some knitting blogs to my side bar.

Oh, and Logan would like to invite Aidan to play before you folks go out of town. Tomorrow maybe?

PS

.: 08:52 :.

I found a knitting themed Cafe Press shop this morning, I really like the tote bag, and the Bah Humbug stuff. You can see the whole collection
Knit Xmas It's fun to browse if nothing else.

All I want for christams is...

.: 11:28 :.

Okay, if you skim over the fact that we're Pagan and we don't celebrate christmas, we do send stuff to our families, and they send things to us, which we open on 12/25 so we can say "Thank you" and relive some of the fun from our childhoods. So John's mom asked about things we wanted for christams. When John asked her what she wanted she said "nothing". Well, that simplify's shopping for one person then. Any other friends or family members care to let us know their holiday gift wishes? We would love to hear them!

What do we want?

John wants green coffee beans that he can roast. He's supposed to be giving me a list that I'll provide if anyone is interested. Sweet Maria's is mostly an internet business, but I think you can telephone them. Click on the link to get their phone number. Well, okay, I just tried that. Click on the link, and wander around for a while and eventually you can find their phone number. They'd really rather deal with email then telephone. But if you want to call them, they say "But we will call you back if you leave a message on our toll free line: 1-888-876-5917." They also have order by mail or fax info available on this page. If you want to just choose random coffees, cop out and buy a gift certificate (which John would still use I'm sure) or order something off his list without checking speciffics you can get the how to info from there.

Me, well the Threadbear guys have a list of yarn and books that I'd like that they sell. And they'll even talk people through what colors etc. They have great taste and judgement. They have their phone number and email address about half way down the page, just above the "get email updates" box. They could probably choose yarns for me that aren't on my wish list too, actually.

Logan? She's three. She wants everything she sees! And then some. She loves having things her Grandma's have made for her. She loves cats, and horses at the moment, along with as many other animals as she can think of. (She's taking after her Great Grandma Genevieve, who she was named for! Grandpa Alfred would be pleased.) Logan also likes as many colors as she can think of, all of them bright. She has decided she does not like to wear jeans because they may hurt her belly, so I am getting her tights or elastic waist pants, which seh's happy in. She loves dresses with tights or pants under them 9 out of 12 months. She likes all toys and dolls, although we'd prefer to keep plastic, battery opperated and disposable or easily breakable out of the house. She's growing like a weed, her size 8 sneekers from the spring are getting tight so we went on a sneeker hunting expidition last week. She's closer to size 10 (toddler now), and she's wearing size 4 and up clothes. The two pairs of jeans she is willing to wear are size 6 I think, well rolled at the legs. We ended up with no sneekers, the shoes she wanted were Target's sparkiling red dress shoes, or some black velvet barbie brand clogs. (Until Logan asks for "Barbie" anything it is not coming in to this house, and may not even if she asks for it. I believe Barbie exploits and devalues women.)

And as a family unit: we really could use a different wood stove. The one that came with the house is beautiful, but impractical. It doesn't damp down all the way. It's like have a heater with no real thermostat control. We put wood in, it burns bright and hot, then it's done. And we're flying through our wood supply as if it was paper. I don 't like the inefficiency, and I don't like that we can't build a nice fire and leave it along to keep the house cozy. It's either keep feeding wood to the dragon, or it goes instantly to sleep. So we'd like a Vermont Casting's Dutchwest wood stove, size XL. I don't know if this is the cheapest or the best place to order them by any means. I think we might be able to buy one in person in a store in Eugene, but I haven't gone in to check yet. I only drive past it occasionally, and I forget where it is the rest of the time. :-) As far as I can tell this is the stove that I grew up with. Vermont Castings has some other beautiful enameled stoves, but this is the practical, down to earth, efficient wood heater. And it's cheaper than their pretty fancy ones. Only $1500.00. Yeah, that's the problem. That price on top of repairs to the Volvo so it can be sold and I can buy a replacement that breaks down less expensively (one with 8 valves instead of 16 I hope). On top of the repairs to the Toyota van which is about 15 years old and needed a new clutch (done now), water pump repairs (done now) and power steering hose (being done once a $300.00 part arrives from Toyota, if it's the right part...). The van has been our work horse, and for now it's Logan's and my transportation again, and I'm trying not to think about Toyota's reputation for resembling a tin can if it's in an accident. I felt very safe in the Volvo, and was very comfortable driving it. With luck I'll have another ancient Volvo again fairly soon. Then we'll see if there's any money left to pay the mortgage, the electrician (that's a whole nother story), or buy a new wood stove. Unless someone wants to send us one for christmas. :-)

Dogs and Chocolate

.: 08:35 :.

Sunny dog got in to the chocolate milk mix yesterday. So I looked up chocolate poisoning in dogs. It looks like he's big enough that what he ate will give him some discomfort, but won't be toxic. Or deathly toxic. Or something. But while looking I found some info that was amusing. It was a chart telling what amount of chocolate was likely to be toxic to a dog. I'll reproduce the whole thing below, and you can goggle for more information if you want to. But the gem I gleaned from this is:

125 pounds of white chocolate may be toxic to a 10 pound dog.

Ahem. My first thought is "yeah. Due to explosion after the ten pound dog eats that much chocolate." 12 times it's body weight. Consumed, basically in a day or so, to be toxic. No mention of death by overeating though. :-)

Here's the other info, in case anyone wants to know:
• White chocolate: 200 ounces per pound of body weight. It takes 250 pounds of white chocolate to cause signs of poisoning in a 20-pound dog, 125 pounds for a 10-pound dog.
• Milk chocolate: 1 ounce per pound of body weight. Approximately one pound of milk chocolate is poisonous to a 20-pound dog; one-half pound for a 10-pound dog. The average chocolate bar contains 2 to 3 ounces of milk chocolate. It would take 2-3 candy bars to poison a 10 pound dog. Semi-sweet chocolate has a similar toxic level.
• Sweet cocoa: 0.3 ounces per pound of body weight. One-third of a pound of sweet cocoa is toxic to a 20-pound dog; 1/6 pound for a 10-pound dog.
• Baking chocolate: 0.1 ounce per pound body weight. Two one-ounce squares of bakers' chocolate is toxic to a 20-pound dog; one ounce for a 10-pound dog.

As I sit

.: 09:42 :.

Behind me I can hear Logan singing. This is a fairly new thing as a regular event. She's often sung along to songs she knows, but now she's singing bits and pieces of them all on her own. On tune, but often with some words left out.

Logan's Version:
"Ellie Bellie"
"Ellie Bellie, sit momma's knee..."
"Ellie Bellie."


The original
Ellie Bellie
Ellie Bellie Bee
Sitting on your momma's knee
Waiting for your wee penny
To buy some coulter's candy.


It's one we learned in minimusicians, that I really like. Just a simple lullaby type tune. But it's really fun to hear it sung here without any prompting.


We are now all moved. I suspect we'll be spending the next six months unpacking and finding things. Parts of the house look like home. Other parts are still in a jumble. Today part of the plan is to shift boxes out in the laundry room and the shop around in order to find things like our CD's, more of Logan's winter clothes, a second set of sheets for the bed. Just little every day items.

Our house can breathe!

.: 19:06 :.

We had a quiet weekend. What an event! On Saturday John, Logan and I made pumpkin pie from pumpkins that had been damaged by frost the day before at the garden at Lorain Little School. I brought home the frost softened pumpkins and a whole sack of Anaheim peppers, that had been bitten by the frost. John froze the peppers for future use in molé sauces.

Then, as the pie went in to the oven, I headed out to spend a few hours in Eugene by my self, while John and Logan got things done at home. That was strange. I'm not sure I've gone to Eugene by my self since Logan was born. When I got home again it had just gotten dark, and Mimi had arrived to visit for the evening. She read books to Logan for ages, which was great for all of us. Well, I hope it was great for Mimi. She didn't complain at least. We had a good dinner, and fresh Pumpkin Pie for desert. I think the pie recipe I've been using has too few eggs. I'll have to look at the egg to milk and pumpkin ratio in some other cook books. And Logan had a couple bites of the pie with no noticeable ill effects. She seems to be doing okay with small amounts of well cooked goat's milk. She still reacts badly to cow's milk, but her being able to drink goat's milk is something.

I settled Logan down to sleep around 9, and discovered I was falling asleep myself. So much for a nice late night visiting. John and Mimi stayed up and talked about coffee, chocolate, and scotch.

Today, Sunday, we had a leisurely morning at home, and then went out to the truck stop for brunch. Mimi and Logan chose Logan's clothes for the day, and she was very cute.


'Ogden kissing own self


With luck Mimi got some pictures that showed the whole outfit. Logan is now asking to see pictures with her and Mimi in them. Oops. I didn't think to take any of those.

After brunch Mimi hit the road to visit her family, and we came home to let Logan and John nap, while I sat up and knitted, nudged the fire, knitted, and reassemble the TV and video set up. We can now watch Videos or DVD's in our free time. If we ever have any that's not used up by napping. And I got a bit of knitting done too, which was nice. Once everyone was awake again, we unpacked boxes! That was very exciting. John has carried a whole stack of empty boxes out to the shop, and a couple of "store 'till later" boxes out to somewhere. We have some books on our book shelves. We have more cooking equipment out and accessible. Some of it I haven't seen in years in fact. We have clothes hanging up in our closet, and more to put away up in the dressers.* And there is floor space. I really like that. I hope we keep finding more of it.

*The way the house is set up, or perhaps the way we've chosen to set ourselves up in it, is a little interesting. There are two rooms upstairs, one unfinished but with a door, which Logan has claimed as hers, and on that is basically the rest of the upstairs. (And there's a little half bath too.) So we sleep in the main part of the upstairs. There's not a good place for three dressers there though. Dresser's are in Logan's room, all lined up together. There are no closets upstairs at all. So our clothes, and our coats all end up downstairs in the library. This adds to the general confusion of getting dressed and "where did I leave my ..." but it seems to be working.

Oh, and I almost forgot. Logan and John carved two pumpkins on Friday night while I was working on getting the others ready to cook. So I'll leave you with some Logan and pumpkin pictures.

Scooping out the seeds.


Are they all out yet?


Stuck to my hands.


This is the one Logan designed, John carved according to her directions. More or less.