Archive - 2011

Wild Life

We had some excitement here last Saturday night.

A mama bear and her teenage cub got in to our trashcan, made a total mess and then broke down our gate.

A bear got into our trash.You totally didn’t expect that, did you? Yeah, me neither. We didn’t even find out until our neighbor rang our doorbell on Sunday morning. He heard the ruckus, looked out the window and saw the whole thing. We had forgotten to turn off the a/c and open the window, so we missed it. I’m glad we did. Our window is at the wrong angle to have seen the bears, so who knows what we would have done if we’d heard someone or something breaking down the gate.

Speaking of the gate – this was the same one that the deck people used while building our new deck. It may or may not have gotten whacked a couple of times by building material. It did get broken when a gust of wind caught it, back in June. My parents were visiting at the time, so my dad took it upon himself to fix the gate.

My dad is a great Fixer of Things. If you have a fix-it project, my dad is the one to call. He will do that job and do it right. Which is what he did with the gate. He took the time to hunt down the materials to repair the gate and repair it he did. We were grateful, because honestly, with 4 children at home we don’t always have time to address problems like that.

So, my dad fixed the gate and fixed it well. Alas, the bears broke it down.

Hi, dad!

Now the gate is propped up along the fence, because we’re classy like that.

And because bears will return to the scene of the crime, we had to move the trash cans in to the garage.

Did I mention it gets hot here in summer? Exactly. It’s a bit oderiferous in the garage now.

I’ve been online researching bear-proof trash can options. They are expensive. We could go with what looks like a regular trash can, but has some sort of child-lock lid thing. The only problem is that trash companies may not accept them because you can’t just dump them out, you’ve got to stop and undo the lid.

Another solution is a metal box thing that will hold the trashcans. Those are really expensive, but might be the only option.

So, who was it that had to move to the mountains?

Oh, right. That would be me.

Five on a Friday

*Pumpkin Girl finishes up the last of her dance workshops today. She danced 85 hours over 5 weeks and discovered muscles she never knew she had.

*We’re starting school again next week. 7th, 5th and 1st grades!

*Pipsqueak requires my presence during naps. I’m not sure how this will work for school.

*I got permission to use my own religion curriculum at home rather than having to send the children to faith formation classes at church. It irks me that I need “permission”.

*I started a new watercolor class – an imaginary trip to Italy!

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Have five things you want to share that don’t add up to a whole post? Go over to Falling Like Rain and leave a link in the comments!

M is for

Montgolfier Balloon

W-a-y back sometime around 1995, Philip and I visited the Air and Space Museum in San Diego. While we were there we saw a model – lifesize, maybe – of the Montgolfier balloon.

“Oh cool,” I said. “I like it!”

“I’ll buy it for you,” said Philip.

Did I mention that we were young and silly?

And you know what…a few years later we found a Montgolfier balloon for sale. Of course, Philip bought it for me.

It’s tin and was once filled with candy. It holds a special place in my heart because once upon a time, Philip promised to buy me the Montgolfier balloon. And he did.

All A-twitter

So…I’m on Twitter now. Look over there in my sidebar – you can click on the Follow button and be one of my minions, er, followers. You never know when I’ll say something pithy or funny or have a great stock tip*, so go ahead and follow me. You know you want to!

And if you’re reading this on your feed reader – THANK YOU for subscribing, I love you more than you know – here’s my Twitter name or handle or whatever, so you don’t have to click over to my blog first and find the button: @justlorri That’s 2 rs, no e.

Of course, if you’d like to click over to my blog, that’s fine, too.

*no actual stock tips will be given

Ladybug and Swan

This assignment was to add a decorative border around the subject of your choice.


The picture and video demonstration were provided for a different assignment. I didn’t use the swan picture, but I wanted to try the technique of painting something white and painting water, so I just did it in the empty corner of the ladybug page.

8 Months, 3 weeks

Today Pipsqueak is exactly the same age as Rebecca was the last time we saw her.

What strikes me first is that we didn’t have her for very long. And yet, she transformed our lives so completely. So much happiness in one little body.

The grief doesn’t go away. It doesn’t even get better. It does change though, becomes more manageable. It becomes something that you can live with, more or less. Some days more, some days less. It manifests itself in surprising ways. Even with the two babies that came after Rebecca, she is still missed so very much.

Eight months, 3 weeks. There was still so much left to do.

There still is.

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You can read more about my grief journey here: Grief and Love

I’m Underpaid

A part of Boo’s promotion requirements to first class scout included talking to a civil servant about the Constitution. There may have been more to it than that, but that’s the important part. He and a couple of other scouts chose to talk with one of the scout dads that was at camp for the week.

As they sat down, the dad started talking about “we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.” An honest enough mistake, right? In fact, you might even be reading this and wondering what was wrong.

Boo caught it right away. He said, “Actually, that’s the Declaration of Independence. The Constitution is the one that starts, ‘We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union…” and then proceeded to rattle off the whole preamble.

The dad said, “You’re right! I got the wrong document!” and they moved on with the discussion.

I think we should all stand up and applaud Boo’s history teacher, don’t you think?

Oh, wait…

Bits of Summer

*Pumpkin Girl has been going to dance workshops for the last 3 weeks. First it was ballet focused, with 3 hours of dance every day plus stretch and conditioning classes. Some new muscle on her ached every day, including her arches! They also had classes on good nutrition, how to make a ballet bun and short talks by the guest instructors on their professional careers.

*Getting a lunch and snack together and driving to and from the dance studio every day sure takes a lot of getting used to. You know how people always tell homeschoolers, “I don’t know how you do it!” ? I don’t know how they do it!

*Boo went to scout camp last week. He left as a 2nd class scout and returned as a first class scout. He earned his wood working, leather working and swimming merit badges. It was tough having both him and Pumpkin Girl gone.

*Bip and I watched a lot of movies together during the week.

*Pipsqueak is very into eating solid food. He’s enjoyed everything I’ve offered him, but he loves blueberries in particular. He cries when I just get up to get him some more.

*I’m loving me some air conditioning in the afternoons! Not as much as I loved it when I set it around 70 and ran it from May to October. But that was back when we weren’t paying for electricity. But still, it’s nice to be able to say, “OK, it’s too hot. Everyone close the windows and turn your a/c on!”

*The weather is actually quite nice. It gets hot, clouds over, rains,clears and cools. Every day.

*I’m a little more than halfway through my second watercolor class. More pictures to come.

*My children are begging me to let them buy ice cream from the ice cream man. It’s just so expensive! I’ll probably let them this week since it’s going to be so hot. But just the one time since we can buy the same ice cream at the store for much cheaper.

*I actually don’t like summer. The only thing to love about summer (for me) is knowing that as soon as it’s over, Fall will be here.

So how about you? What’s your favorite thing about summer?

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