Swinging Girl

The sun shines through my windows only a few months a year at this house. I blame the darkness mostly on the surrounding evergreens and somewhat on the frequent rain fall. We hope to have a new house someday that is full sun, no trees. No big trees at least.
My favorite part of these tall old trees though? It's the girl kitty-corner to us who swings and swings for hours. She has a single swing that sends her swooshing back and forth, parallel to our property. When she really gets going her feet hit some branches, sending the squirrels our way. The swinging girl is super reliable.  If it isn't pouring, she is swinging. From this window by our back deck I can only see her legs as she rushes past the branches. I think she's about Morgan's age. She's tall. I think she gets on the thing as soon as school gets out and doesn't get off until dinner. She makes my heart smile.

Sickness Strikes Again!

I am sitting in my car outside of the hair cut place with the little kids while Nathan takes Zoe to get her hair done, because it's been lots of months since she's had a hair cut and she looks like a cave girl. Well, that and tomorrow is picture day. Since she only has eleven classmates we don't want to be immortalized in photos as the ones who never cut our kids' hair. I'm sure there is a good chance they will remember us as that anyways. SO, I'm sitting in the car here, outside of the Lowes development block, and thinking about the future. There have been a few instances of us thinking we had a new fancy plan and then things didn't pan out. We are sitting in the middle of a whole lot of unknowns wondering which direction we should take. Mind you, I am thinking about all of this while Simon asks me repeatedly if he can get out of the car and get a bubble tea. So nothing too deep tonight! Today work posted openings for lab technicians. I am thinking about applying, but I love my job, and I love the contract company I work for, and I love that I get to be home with the kids two extra days a week. The pay isn't as good as what I get now, but if you factor in full time my checks would still be slightly higher, and we could use that. Of course, I would have to figure out extra childcare and all those types of details. So is it worth it? I wish I could know with certainty.
We are at a huge crossroads at our church right now too, which is exciting and scary all at the same time. Our current beloved pastor (Hi Baron!) is leaving for new adventures as a Navy Chaplain soon so we have been looking for a new senior pastor. I don't think this has been an easy process for anyone, but I think God is doing some good work in people's hearts right now.
In less confusing issues, I got barfed on by Isla on Saturday. She has been filling diapers every thirty minutes or so since. On Monday, after dropping Zoe off at school Simon puked in the car just down the street from our house. As I was trying to clean that all up the Jehovah's Witnesses came by again wanting to discuss some pressing issues in the Bible. I think the smell scared them off a bit though, because I was able to persuade them that now was not the best time. Nathan stayed home with me today to help with the overwhelming sickness, and we ended up doing a bit of driving around so the kids would fall asleep for more than ten minutes. We looked all over the county for a new home while they napped. There are some pretty fantastic rental houses in Sudden Valley, but in Bellingham, if you want fantastic you have to pay at least 1700 a month. Since we are trying to save so that we can buy, that doesn't seem like a viable option. When we got home and opened the door to the house we were overwhelmed by the smell of gross diapers and sickness, so my new priority is to scrub the house and get the garbage to the curb.

Well, we are off on our next adventure now, Zoe's hair is all cut, Simon has a bubble tea and we are ready for picture day!

Turns out a gluten free diet does not improve your golf game.

Hi blog!
I kind of forgot to write in you for a while. I don't think forgetting is the right term. I had lots of internal dialog about things to say on here, but I just never made it to the keyboard. Whoops.
The gluten/dairy free diet kind of continues. Kind of in that when I am really wanting some cheese, I have some.
I can make three delightfully tasty gluten and dairy free things now.
1. Banana bread
2. Corn bread
3. Brownies
I've got dessert covered here!

In other news I've been bamboozled by my Dad to play golf with him every Thursday in a golf league. I have now been golfing a grand total of two times. In my life. All of the people on this league are much, much, much better than I am. When my Dad asked me if I wanted to golf with him this season, my gut reaction was to say no, but the "spend quality time with my dad" reasoning won out in the end. He's very patient with me and has been teaching me lots of good things, but the part I really enjoy is the walking with him. My dad is really close to retiring from the refining world and in June he will be ordained as an Anglican reverend, so our walks on the golf course are filled with some pretty great conversation. I love my Dad, and for him I will willingly look like a fool on the golf course. The hour before our tee time every Thursday though, is filled with lots of self doubt and panic.

Earlier this week I spent a few days with my friend Amanda. We went to a place called Skamania Lodge in Stevenson where she was attending a conference called The 2010 Cultural Congress. Pretty interesting and full of captivating and enthusiastic people. While she attended sessions I did some knitting and hiking and extreme relaxing. She got to skip out on some of the peer groups and during those times we hiked together and saw lots of turtles. The resort is home to a pretty fabulous golf course, but I didn't bring my clubs, mostly because I was afraid of some one watching how terrible I was with no help or advice from my Dad. We had fun walking the trails around the course though, filled with little lakes and trees and all kinds of great wildlife. Funny though, after just three days away, I missed our own little wildlife a whole lot. Who knew?

Now that I am home it's back to spring cleaning, gluten free eating and perfecting my oh so imperfect golf swing. And suddenly, winter is over and spring is here in full force!

More Gluten Free Adventures

I have two days of gluten free/dairy free baking left, and I seem to have hit a renewed sense of confidence. There are big wind storms coming our way today and already the house is getting slammed by gusts and the windows are whistling. It's the perfect kind of day to stay inside and bake. Today I made gluten/dairy free banana bread, since we had two very sad looking bananas, that may or may not have been forgotten in a diaper bag for undetermined quantities of time. I wasn't even sure if turning them into bread would save them.
Oh, but it did.
The recipe I followed was calling for white rice flour, but I ran out last week, so I substituted sweet white rice flour, unsure of what would happen.
IT WAS SO GOOD.

The bread didn't rise like it should have, and stayed at about three inches tall, but man was it delicious. Simon demanded three slices while it was still warm from the oven. I am kind of doubting that I'll be able to save any for when Nathan and Morgan get home.
I love it when the things I bake turn out edible!

Isla's Shirt!

Look at what I made!

 Pretty cute huh? Too bad it's already a hair too small...

I think she likes it anyways.

This last weekend I didn't have to work at the refinery so instead we went to two little boy birthday parties. The first one was superhero/princess themed, so we got all gussied up and had a good time. Simon went as Buzz Lightyear, Morgan and Zoe threw on some dress up clothes and Isla went as well, Isla in a tutu.

This girl has grown lots lately hasn't she? 

I promise next time to actually take pictures of my other children too. 

If they let me!

Total System Failure: The Inherited Dragon vs. Zoe

Unfortunately for Zoe, she was born into a family that’s ultimate success depends entirely upon routine and habit. Also unfortunate for Zoe is that she is composed 90 percent of me and only ten percent Nathan. This means that she is easily prone to the disasters of distraction, procrastination and lack of good prioritization skills.  Knowing myself somewhat, I have come to realize the pitfalls of these things and have really only just begun to demand myself to live beyond them. My most successful days at work are the days that involve immediate list making and planning. I am constantly battling my own desire to procrastinate and be distracted by “something else,” because there is always “something else” to think about or do. The last year or so I have watched Zoe start to engage in the mindset of just doing the things she would rather be doing and ignoring the things she is required to do. I’m sure this behavior comes directly from me and is therefore entirely my fault. Nathan’s only downfall in these areas is simply remembering. If he remembers what needs to get done, it happens. The child’s mistakes are always borne of parental failure, aren’t they? And I’m afraid I am just about to get my head above water in this one myself, and have no idea how to help her learn to do the same.

Today has been the perfect example of total familial system failure. I got a call at about 12:20pm at my desk from Zoe’s teacher. Zoe didn’t have a lunch in her backpack. Now, since I’m on a Turnaround schedule at work, lunch packing duty has been handed off to Nathan (whose lunches are way more awesome than mine, I’ve been told) but the reality is that if I don’t remind Nathan to pack Zoe’s lunch it gets forgotten. As the turnaround progresses the need for daily lunch packing reminders increases. Today, I reminded twice, placed the lunch box on the counter near Nathan but forgot the crucial third reminder as I headed out the door. So I drove my lunch over to her school and Zoe got to savor the delicious taco leftovers that I had been looking forward to since about 7pm last night. That was failure part one. Part two was what the teacher told me about when I got there this afternoon. Apparently Zoe had been really wanting to do more internet based research on Manatees (her current research project) today, so much so that in order to get some extra time on the computer she wasn’t very truthful about getting her other work done first. Her teacher caught on to this, but wasn’t very impressed with her sneakiness. Just a few days ago I witnessed this sneakiness in Zoe’s room where I discovered little secret hidden piles of candy wrappers, dirty laundry and other forbidden things. We’ve also been having daily struggles with getting her homework done and done well. She would just rather do other things. I’ve talked to her very rationally about the importance of doing what we need to first, so that we can be proud of ourselves and say that we did that and did it well, and then got to do what we thought would be fun as a sort of reward for our hard work. I’ve tried some basic reward systems for being honest and getting school work/chores done. We’ve had dozens of what I felt were great conversations about the rewards of working hard and doing good work and having plans to do what needs to get done followed by what would be fun to do. These conversations lead to several really good days at school and home, but never last. She always reverts to doing what she wants to do. I am not sure about how to continue to handle this. How do I teach her to enjoy working hard and not be distracted? How do I show her that following through with your priorities and obligations can be even more rewarding than the things we think would be more fun to do in the first place?

            She’s such a smart girl. She places in nearly middle school reading and spelling and is starting to get the hang of more advanced math. She loves, loves, loves science which makes me all sorts of proud (she loves it when I try to explain Industrial Hygiene to her, especially the history of how sampling was done a long time ago in comparison to how we do it now). She really enjoys researching things and just last weekend spent the better part of an hour looking up what sounds a Manatee makes and laughed hysterically over one particular video clip of manatees singing and dancing for a videographer. She’s seven and already I see so much of her personality in what she chooses to research and love, but I’m also terrified that this struggle she is facing now, her inability to focus and get things done, is going to be a dragon she will battle for the rest of her life. It has been for me, and I don’t want her to have to face it too. Any and all dragon slaying advice would be greatly appreciated.

My Near Death Bike Experience

I've been working another turnaround out at the refinery, which is fantastic for the money, but horrible for the "outside life." Going from working part time (three eight hour days a week) to seven twelves has been kind of iffy, and if it wasn't for our beyond awesome nanny, I'm sure things would have been super unpleasant.
My part in the turnaround this time is to just fill in where Dale (my boss) needs me too. Sometimes it's turnaround related, like taking Chromium VI samples while contractors weld inside a vessel, and sometimes its things in other units that aren't involved in the turnaround, like an odor complaint from a flare line. The funnest thing is that I've logged many more hours on my bicycle out there.
I had to follow Dale on his bike the other day. Dale is fantastically fit. He's a runner, soccer player and avid fitness enthusiast. I, on the other hand, am far from fit in any sense. I've been working on it, and the gluten/dairy free stuff has been a huge motivator and help, but still, I'm fat and slow.
Dale hoped on his bike and took off while I was still trying to attach all my IH equipment to my bike with a bungy cord. He never once looked back and slowed down, so I had to hunker down and slam it into a low gear and pedal as hard as I could. I caught up to him and stayed pretty close the rest of the ride, but by the time we got to our destination, did our work and then got back to our lab, I was pretty sure that I was going to die. There is something very humbling about trying to carry on a conversation while pretending not to be entirely out of breath, hardly able to stand on your two wobbly legs.
Turnarounds are a great time to get into shape, there are lots of extra stair climbing and ladder climbing and general running around to get things done on a timeline. On a downside there is also a lot of extra on site food too. This time we've got Kelly's O'delli catering lunches as well as Chihuahua's selling tacos and burritos right by the main gate. Fortunately, the tacos are on corn tortillas and are cheese free, so good! Everything else though is pretty much forbidden.
Nathan has lost a lot of weight on the gluten and dairy free diet. I have to try to not be really mad at him. I'm sure I'll catch up with the weight loss soon enough, but I wish I could lose it as easily as he does.
Only another week or so left of the turnaround things will be back to normal (well, as normal as they ever were).

Pretty High Trade in Value

This weekend I decided to trade in my old model of Husband and get a new upgraded version. The early version was working fine, but needed some help. These upgrades were needed mainly in the hair department, as there were some issues of compatibility between the Old Version with the Mother - In - Law.  Upgrades were also made in the shoe and outerwear departments . Also, we were beginning to get a little concerned with how much longer the Old Version would be able to keep up the illusion of  "professional appearance" at work.
Behold, Husband - The Old Model:

Forward view

Side View

And now, new improved Husband:

Am I a lucky gal, or what?

He wanted to make sure that you got to see the shoes.

My beautiful, happy, totally silly family.

I sure do love them a whole heap!

Happy Friday!

Tractor Riding in the Sun, Move it Isla

Nana's House is Simon's Favorite Place IN THE WORLD. 

Happy Boy!

Happy Friday!

Lent 2010: Day Ten List of Ten

It has been ten or so days of gluten and dairy free living and this is what I have learned so far:

1. When baking gluten and dairy free, you have to forget everything you thought you knew about how to bake.

2. When in doubt bake brownies, chocolate can save anything!

3. A quick scrambled egg in the morning can give you the brain and will power to plan for lunch and dinner. 

4. There are no suitable replacements for cheese, forget even trying.

5. There are some really great websites full of useful information and recipes, like Gluten Free Goddess from whom I've learned some really great things, like how to make an amazing and spicy African Sweet Potato Soup and equally important, that there is a new Massive Attack album out. I love this woman already.  

6. There are literally dozens of dairy substitutes out there, but I haven't found one I like to bake with yet. 

7. Isla misses cheese and she tells me so with big loud "YAs" every time I open the fridge and get near the old faithful cheese drawer. 

8. There is dairy in caramel. So those caramel soy lattes I thought I was being good about having, not so much.

9. When cooking dairy and gluten free things, follow the recipes exactly. EXACTLY. Trust me on that one.

10. Seeing your kids be able to eat things without getting rashes or buggery or throwing up = worth it. 

Vanilla Soy Latte, the new norm.

I Will Bake You Some Gluten-Free Bread If You Will Fix My Dishwasher.

Nathan broke our dishwasher. As in, when it drains, water flows freely from the bottom all over the kitchen floor. 

At first I didn't really care. He promised to fix it. But then the parts for the car came in the mail and he spent two days cleaning out the garage and then another day fixing the car door and then a day of yard work and then it's been over a week with no dishwasher. The car door has been broken for about eight months, and that sort of tells you the reality of how busy Nathan is and how sometimes priorities get rearranged. I tried really hard to make sure that I got the dishes done as soon as we were done eating or cooking, but then Nathan did some fancy cooking (because I ran out of gluten free dinner ideas and he's better at that) and Zoe needed cupcakes made for school and we needed some sandwich bread so I did a whole lot of baking. Now, it's 4:21PM on Wednesday and tomorrow I have to go to work for the next 24 or so days and I have something shameful to show you.

This is my kitchen sink. RIGHT NOW. There are also more dishes to the left and more to the right. I can see them clearly from where I am sitting right this minute, and they are taunting me, telling me that I am a slob.  But really the sloppiness isn't all mine. If the dishwasher was fixed I wouldn't have to spend so much time washing dishes by hand and I wouldn't be so grumpy at the end of the day and would have energy for doing other household chores like folding laundry. It's a slippery slope type thing. Yesterday was the last day I attempted to keep up with the dishes. Today, instead of filling the sink with sudsy bubbles, I took the kids to play group. After play group, I shoved all the dishes aside and made gluten/dairy free hamburger buns for Nathan. And then I made some gluten/dairy free bread so that Isla can have something to eat other than chicken nuggets.  All of that together makes for a lot of dirty dishes. Let's see if I can distract you with gluten free baked goods.

These are the hamburger buns I made. Simon helped. Well, Simon put on his apron and put spoonfuls of rice flour in neat piles all over the counter. But he calls these buns his, and so it is. Personally, I am thinking they look more like biscuits than buns and I'm a  little worried about how they will taste. I got the recipe from the book, Easy Gluten-Free Baking, by Elizabeth Barbone. So far I have had limited success with gluten free baking. The cupcakes I made turned out more like muffins. They tasted pretty good, but were heavy and gummy. I think the error was mine though, rather than the recipe. Before I even had all the wet ingredients added to the dry I turned the mixer on, then I beat the batter too long and after that things got extra gooey and rubbery. I was tempted to try them again in my baking frenzy today, but they take about five oranges, and we are fresh out. 

The bread Simon and I made just came out of the oven and looks a little dark, but just like a normal loaf. 

I guess I have run out of things to do to distract myself.

Are you still thinking about those dirty dishes?

Yeah, me too. I guess I better get to them, because we are only going to make more as soon as we start cooking dinner. 

Lent 2010: The Day Where We Let the Kids Sleep In and Miss Church.

I love weekends.
Working part time kind of skewed my perspective on weekends for a bit, but the reality is simply that when Nathan is home from work, all is right with the Warner World. We sure do enjoy these two days a week together.
So far this weekend we've been really productive. We spent the morning yesterday with my parents hearing all about their adventure at the Olympics. They saw a hockey match Friday night and on Saturday went to speed skating. After breakfast we took a chainsaw to the front yard and did all kinds of yard work. Simon and I pulled dead weeds and ferns from the back yard and Morgan and Zoe made a huge pile of branches from a tree that fell down during a big windstorm a few weeks ago. Nathan also cleaned out the garage as we have some parts coming for the car to get fixed up soon. Speaking of fixed up, the cat got spayed on Friday and it's been eerily quiet in the house since. The poor kitty has not left hiding (under Simon's or Morgan's beds) since she got home.
I finished the hat for Mary, but it came out small with no stretch so now it's a hat for Isla. I guess that is why it is important to check gauge before starting projects like that. Oops.

We are on day five of our Lenten gluten/dairy free diet. I'm having a lot of fun with recipes, but man, there have been a lot of moments where I just want to have some toast with butter, or CHEESE. Simon had a grilled cheese sandwich last night and it was all I could do to not steal it from him and take a huge gooey bite. I read a blog post somewhere about a mom who had to put her little boy on a gluten free diet, and after a few days he was craving anything gluten so bad he began to chew on the table. There have been a few intense moments where tables have had some appeal.
Today I am going to bake some Frosted Orange Creme Cupcakes. This will be a trial run for the cupcakes Zoe wants to take to school next week for her half birthday. Don't those look delicious?

Also today is promised trips to the toy store and book store. I promised Simon and Isla I would get them Spike, the chomping dinosaur. He was the gift for the birthday boy last weekend, but our kids fell in love with it too.
So now it's off to the shower and then some waffles (we found a mix at the co-op), bacon and coconut lattes. I hope your day is lovely and full of fun family adventures too!

Lent 2010: Day Two, or The Day of Attempted Accomplishments

Today we tried to get the cat spayed, but were told to come back tomorrow.
We tried to get groceries, but the checker was super rude when I handed him our WIC checks.
We tried to wash dishes, but were disappointed when the dishwasher was still broken.
We tried to make lunch, but wanted something quick and easy, and we haven't found gluten and dairy free to be quick or easy yet.
We tried to take naps, but "I DON'T WANT TO" may have won that round.
We tried to do laundry, but the down comforter took all day to dry in the drier.
So, instead, we finished off the last bottle of bubbles in the back yard. We watched Pippy Long Stockings with Daddy when he got home from work and we (ahem, I) had a soy caramel latte.
These days, when I get some down time, one of my favorite things to do is knit.

I made Zoe this hat, it was supposed to be a slouchy type hat, but came out more of a beanie. My yarn choice was way off, so I experimented with some stitches and came up with this kind of fun texture. This is the one completed thing today. But that is a bit of a lie, since I finished it a while ago, but just finally attached the ribbon.

  And then I decided I wanted to try knitting in some kind of fun pattern, you know, other than stripes, and when Mary came over for the Superbowl she found some yarn colors she really liked, so I started this hat for her. I worked on it some today, but it's still not done.

Whenever I try to knit when the Isla is not sleeping, I have to deal with things like this:

It's good to know she takes advantage of every opportunity. This is no doubt Isla's favorite thing to do. It wouldn't bother me either if she made the mess while reading books or playing, but she does this just for the pleasure of taking things off of the bookshelf. She can't walk through the room without making a quick stop to de-book the shelves. She does this with all the shelves in the house, books, dvds, cds, and folded laundry in baskets.

So nothing really gets done in my house lately, 

but I think I'm finally OK with that.

Summer in Winter

Those of us in Whatcom County can all attest to what a strange winter it's been this year. As much as I kind of long for a good freeze and some snow on the ground to play in, it has been pretty amazing to be able to send the kids out in the sun for most of January and February. It's not even the end of February and we've already burned though one of those large multi packs of bubbles.
Simon's quote for the month? "I went on the potty! Can I go outside and blow bubbles?"
It hasn't felt like winter since we took the Christmas tree down.
It's going to be a long wait though for the spray parks to open and the real summer activities to begin. The sun may be out and it may be 56 degrees, but somehow we are supposed to remember that it is still winter.
I am really tempted to take the Styrofoam covers off the outside faucets, but then it will freeze again for sure. Also, we have a turnaround at the refinery in March. I have yet to work a turnaround that didn't have sub-freezing temperatures to suffer long days/nights through.
I won't give up on winter yet, but in the meantime, I'm going to go mow the lawn.

Also...

Two things before I pick up all the dvds and books off the floor (Isla's doing), wash the dishes and call it a night:
1. Ever wonder what Lent is all about? Baron wrote a good response to this here.

2. I couldn't resist sharing this freshly taken photo of Isla with you, sharing our love of coffee in her own way.

Lent 2010: More God, Less Gluten?

Things have been crazy as usual in the Warner house. In the last three months we have: left babyhood in the dust and moved on to all things toddler and big kid, we got into a better work routine thanks to the amazing Nicole, we went childless to San Francisco, we taught the boy how to go on the potty 99% of the time, and all of this to the background music of a kitten in heat for five straight weeks. Seriously. In true Warner fashion there have been a few hiccups in these recent events.
Miss Isla, in her newly one-year-old-ness, has found out that she is not so able to handle dairy. We've never had to deal with a food allergy before, and so far we aren't impressed. We like our cheese. I began to look up some dairy free recipes online, and started to wonder about also taking out some wheat and such from our diets. Maybe a day after I started on that thought process, we went to a birthday party for a charming three year old and had some fantastic gluten and dairy free ice cream as well as inspiring conversations revolving around this gluten and dairy free diet.  On the drive home from the party we hatched a plan. We'd give this gluten and dairy free diet a shot, and we'd start with Lent!
Today marked day one of Lent, a season of sacrifice and reflection, and today we made it 24 hours gluten and dairy free. At least Nathan and I did, I'm not so sure about the other three. Isla has been dairy free for a few weeks now, but gluten is kind of hard to erase out of kid diets.
For dinner Nathan made steak with wild rice and I baked us some gluten/dairy free brownies with dark chocolate nuggets added in for extra joy. Is it OK to try to put extra joy in the season of Lent? Maybe I broke some rules there. Tomorrow we are taking the kitty to the spay clinic, and I am thinking that will bring some joy too, because really, the noise coming out of that tiny cat is just ridiculous.