Pumpkins and Apples

Yesterday was Turtle's class field trip to the pumpkin/apple farm. Frog and I went and, since he actually had a day off, J did, too.

We had a lot of fun. The kids got to see how the apples are washed and sorted in the warehouse, then they got to go out in the orchard to pick their own apples. They got apple bread and apple juice for a snack. Then they got to go pick their pumpkins. This part was kind of cheesy...the pumpkins were just all laying on the ground (not on the vine...they were just dumped there) and they got to choose one to take home. The kids liked it and I guess that is all that matters, right?


They had an awesome hay pyramid that the kids could climb on. Frog loved it...

All the other pictures show the boys' faces too clearly, so you will have to be content with this pretty picture I took of old farm equipment...

Afterwards, they ate lunch and got to play in the field. Then it started raining, so we packed up to leave. It was a good time for everyone!

The Halloween Witch

The Halloween Witch

Each year they parade her about ... the traditional Halloween witch.

Misshapen green face, stringy scraps of hair, and a toothless mouth beneath her disfigured nose. Gnarled, knobby fingers twisted into a claw, protracting from a bent and twisted torso that lurches about on wobbly legs.

Most think this abject image to be the creation of a prejudiced mind, or merely a Halloween caricature.

I disagree. I believe this to be how witches were really seen.

Consider that most witches: were women, were abducted in the night, and smuggled into dungeons or prisons under the secrecy of darkness, to be presented by the light of day as a confessed witch.

Few, if any, saw a frightened, normal looking woman being dragged into a secret room filled with instruments of torture. To be questioned until she confessed to anything that was suggested to her, and to give names or whatever would stop the questions.

Crowds saw the aberration denounced to the world as a self-proclaimed witch. As the witch was paraded through the town, en route to be burned, hanged, drowned, stoned, or disposed of in various other forms of Christian love ... all created to free and save her soul from her depraved body. The jeering crowds viewed the results of hours of torture. The face, bruised and broken by countless blows, bore a hue of sickly green. The once warm and loving smile gone. Replaced by a grimace of broken teeth and torn gums that leers beneath a battered, disfigured nose.

The disheveled hair conceals bleeding gaps of torn scalp from whence cruel hands had torn away the lovely tresses. Broken, twisted hands clutched the wagon for support. Fractured fingers locked like groping claws to steady her broken body. All semblance of humanity gone. This was truly a demon, a bride of Satan, a witch.

I revere this Halloween crone and hold her sacred above all. I honor her courage and listen to her warnings of the dark side of humanity.

Each year I shed tears of respect.

~ author unknown

Setting myself up for failure?

Maybe. Probably.

November 1st marks the start of 2008's NaNoWriMo. What is NaNoWriMo, you ask?

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

It is when thousands of aspiring artists sit down together with the task of completing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. The goal is to actually finish...quantity over quality.

Since that is my main problem (finishing what I start), I thought this would be a good way to jumpstart my novel. I have two ideas: one for a stand-alone book and one for a possible series. I think I am going to do the first book in the series. I had good intentions for planning this week. I wanted to get my character sheets done and a notebook compiled of all the little ideas I've come up with for this book. Alas, it is Wednesday and I haven't started yet. I promise to try and work on it today!

Will I actually finish? It's a distinct possibility. I've always worked best under pressure. You know, finishing papers and projects the night before they are due? My obstacles are numerous:

1. I've never actually written a novel before. Or anything of this length, for that matter. Several thousand word essays are the most I've done on one topic.

2. Thanksgiving, leading up to Xmas. Whoever had the bright idea of having this take place in the middle of the holiday season, should be taken out in the street and shot. Seriously. I will probably have guests over, cooking, shopping, wrapping, etc. At least I don't have to worry about decorating the house.

3. J will be gone for almost two weeks right in the middle of it. J had classes all summer, so he didn't get to go home to Key West with the boys and I. So, it's been a while (last Xmas) since he's seen his family. He is leaving November 8 and will be back November 19. There is still a slight possiblity of him taking Frog with him, which will make it very easy for me. But most likely, I will be here with both boys by myself.

There are plenty of other reasons, but I am still going to try.

Wish me luck! Less than three days to go!

Thank you, Angela...

Okay, I feel like crazy cat-lady Angela from The Office, but I have to admit it. I love LoLCats. For some reason, I get the uncontollable giggles when I go through the pictures. Drives J nuts.

http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Whenever I have a rough day, they always cheer me up. Sick, I know.

The Best Holiday of the Year!

I love Halloween. It is, by far, my most favorite day of the year. I longed for the day when I would have children to dress-up with. What I didn't count on was the lack of scary costumes. Halloween costumes are supposed to be scary. On the night when the veil between the living and the dead is at it's thinnest, you're supposed to wear scary costumes to frighten away the evil spirits. So, what have my kids dressed-up as over the years? We've had a football player, Diego (from Go, Diego, Go), a pirate, a firefighter, spiderman, a scarecrow, superman, a frog, and a dalmation. The only scary costume was when Turtle went as a vampire when he was two. I tried to make him a zombie football player last year, but he wasn't having it.

I was so excited this year because Frog wanted to be Frankenstein's monster and Turtle wants to be a "zombie Army guy with a knife sticking out of him" (his words.) Yay! I found a cool Frankenstein's monster pattern to make and got all the stuff together for the zombie costume. Then Frog discovered his brother's old spiderman costume and hasn't quit wearing it in over a week. So, now he wants to be spiderman. Sigh. At least I still have a zombie costume to look forward to.

But the boys' Tia saved the day by sending a box of Halloween goodies which included two skeleton shirts and a skull mask. Happy, happy! Joy, joy!

Today we had the Halloween carnival, hay ride, and haunted house on base today. So, I was able to scare the boys up to my heart's content...

The carnival was really cute. Lots of games with prizes and cookies. Afterwards we took the hay ride up to the camping grounds for the haunted house.

The haunted house was a no-go...

Last year Turtle went through it twice, but this year he didn't make it past the first room. Suprisingly, Frog made it to the second room, but then he was done, too. Oh well, maybe next year!

Oh, Trader Joe's, how do I love thee?

Let me count the ways...

1. condiments, dressings, marinades - Thai Green Curry is delicious. As is all the Indian curry sauces, the chili-garlic sauce, the Gyoza dipping sauce, and many more. Low-sodium soy sauce, raw apple cider vinegar, etc.

2. peanut butter filled pretzels - need I say more? Yes, I do. Chocolate-covered peanut butter filled pretzels.

3. frozen foods - too many to list. Veggies, Asian goodies, desserts.

4. desserts need a number of their own - apple blossoms, cheesecake, cookie dough, mochi, carrot cake, chocolate

5. triple ginger cookies - OMG! Leave them out to get stale and chewy, you won't be disappointed!

6. wine - Where else can you go to get good wine for $2? They also have high-end wines, but for every day wine with dinner? Can't go wrong with two-buck Chuck!

7. Peppermint JoeJoes - It's like an Oreo cookie with peppermint creme and little bits of candy canes. You can only get them around xmas time, so you have to stock up for the rest of the year. Last year our surplus stock ran out in February.

I could go on and on. It really sucks here in California, but Trader Joe's makes up for some of it. What am I going to do when we move back to the south-east?

The food is good, local, mostly all-natural, and cheap! My kind of place!!

More genealogy stuff!

The other thing that helped start my interest in family history is that I've always loved learning about Native Americans. According to family legend, my great-grandmother is full-blooded. Full-blooded what, I'm not sure. She definitely looked like it, as did my grandfather. These aren't the best pics (they are pictures of pictures), but here he is circa 1954...

That's my mom with him. And here he is circa 1981...

That's my grandmother and I with him.

I was able to trace the Riggs (grandfather's last name) line back to the Yeopim Indians of Pasquotank County. But it was on his paternal side. I haven't been able to find anything about Lela (my great-grandmother.)

While I'm doing pics, here is one of Lela's house...

And on to my father's side....

This is my dad, aunt, grandmother, and grandfather. One line on my dad's side is the only one I've been able to trace out of the country. John Maness (my 8x-great-grandfather) was born in 1655 in Scotland. It seems like every other line in my family has been in North Carolina since the early 1700s. Hopefully one day I'll trace another one out of the country.

But for now I am enjoying researching my Scottish heritage. It turns out we are descended from Clan Gunn in northern Scotland.

Don't shake the family tree too hard...

You never know how many nuts will fall out!





I love geneaology and family history. It used to be one of my favorite hobbies. I say "used to" because I haven't done much with it the last few years. I started in 1999 and made a ton of progress over the years. Unfortunately, in 2005, Hurricane Wilma hit the Florida Keys. Our house was flooded and our computer destroyed. Yes, the computer with all my research, pictures, etc. on it. Luckily, I had paper copies of everything, but it was all thrown in a tub in no particular order.


Since then I purchased a new laptop just for my genealogy stuff and have tried several times to input all the info into it. Everything is all jumbled together (and I'm not the best at labeling/notes), so it has been very discouraging and frustrating. I am basically starting over.


Recently I have been going through some of it and I think it's time to start again. I just have to take it slow, not get obsessed with it, and be methodical. Yeah, that sounds like me...not!


Here's the man who started it all...






This is Isaac Taylor, my great-great-grandfather. He was the longest-lived Civil War veteran in Onslow County, North Carolina. I was fascinated by the Civil War when I was younger (Who's kidding themselves? I still am!) and my grandmother told me all about him. Of course, she also told me we were descended from President Zachary Taylor, so (according to my mom and aunt) we have to take it with a grain of salt. For the record, most of what she told me has been true and we could still be related to a president-it hasn't been disproved yet! After learning about Isaac, I started searching for other relatives in the Civil War and it just spiraled out from there.

Here's the road my grandmother (and mother for half her childhood) lived on...

Charlie was Isaac's son and my great-grandfather.

I have to pick Turtle up from school (teacher conferences this week), but I will post more on this later.

Go Nunicorn!!

Lately I've been introducing Frog to some of my favorite shows and movies from when I was little.

So far we've watched:

Fraggle Rock
He-man
Labyrinth
The Last Unicorn

Here is his He-Man get-up:



Right now his favorite is The Last Unicorn. He watched it three times yesterday and he's watching it right now. He really likes it when all the unicorns come out of the ocean and the castle falls down. He yells "Go Nunicorn!"

Maybe this weekend I will show him the movie Legend, so he can see a real unicorn. I also have The Dark Crystal, The Princess Bride, Goonies, The Neverending Story, The Lost Boys, and E.T. I think I have Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I'm trying to think of some more, but I've drawn a blank. I guess I better go browse Netflix.

Quasi-crunchy. The Diet Coke of Crunchy.

Just one calorie, not crunchy enough!

Some days (most days) I wish I was a free-spirited hippie traveling around the country in van. Wearing long skirts, going barefoot, living in a forest, growing my own food, not dealing with society.

On the other hand, I like my a/c, microwave, grocery store, etc.

Walking the crunchy line also applies to my parenting. I believe in natural parenting. Do I practise it completely? No.

My kids eat mainly healthy, organic food. Usually vegetarian during the day (or when J's not here.) But they also eat McDonalds and candy, ice cream, cookies, and more crap. So do I.

I don't really watch TV. House or Office lately, that's about it. The boys love TV and watch it every day. Turtle is starting to really get into video games. But they also play outside every day and we try to read together most nights.

The boys have wonderful wooden blocks, handmade wooden trucks, dress-up clothes. But they also have plastic, noisy, licensed character toys.

With our next baby, I plan to cloth diaper. I couldn't do it with the boys because they came to work with me, it just wasn't feasible, J didn't want to, I was lazy. This time I will be home all day, so I'll be changing the most diapers.

Turtle was carried around in a front carrier and Frog lived in slings. I think I'm trying a wrap and a mei tei with this next little one.

Of course, we co-sleep.

I'm all for child-led learning/life experiences. If my kids want to watch a zombie movie, fine. I'm there with them to explain it's not real. Turtle goes to bed around 9:30pm. Frog goes to bed around midnight (or whenever we do.) As long as they are getting up in the morning and not dragging around all day, I'm fine with it.

I definitely wish we could be more natural, but right now I'm happy with our balance.