Krafty Kitten

A chill is in the air as fall and winter begin to descend on Northern Indiana.  I should consider myself lucky that we had such pleasant weather lasting through September, but now I can see the leaves go from green to the yellow and red shades for fall.  The warm colors belie the coolness in the air though.  We had our first frost this week.

My tomatoes never did well, nor did anything else I planted this year.  I know part of it was the sheer distraction we experienced with the losses we suffered this summer, but I also blame the groundhog for eating my beans and the ground for sucking so hard.  There just isn’t enough good dirt to grow anything useful.  So, next year, Big Guy is building me a raised bed and we’re going to go through and add real dirt to the soul and hopefully do much better.

I finished my super secret project, which was a 9 square blanket for my sister-in-law for her birthday.  It turned out much better than I could have hoped for, considering the crunch I was under.  9 granny squares of 9 rounds, with each grouping 3 sets of triple stitches.  Clever enough for a birthday that occurred on September 9, 2009.

I’ve also been busy teaching.  I just finished a round of Composition 2 and am preparing to start a class for the basics.  This will be my first time teaching this particular class, so wish me luck!  I was telling Big Guy, I really do love teaching and it is rewarding to see people connect with the language.

We received our Angel Food Ministries box and already have made some tasty meals from it.  My personal favorite involved pork chops, pears and fresh sage from my garden.  It was truly delicious and the pears complemented the pork beautifully.  I also made chicken and beans in the crock-pot because we received two HUGE chicken breasts so I used one breast with beans and I think the other might be slated for some homemade chicken soup.  Yum!

I know I’ve been gone for a while but life and work have taken up most of my attention.  Our garden, despite late breaking efforts, has not fared so well this summer.  Big Guy and I both think that our difficulties this summer had something to do with it.  I am able to harvest some very delicious tomatoes which are FINALLY turning red.  The coolness of the weather this year affected their color and I still have more green tomatoes than red ones.

We’re coming to the end of the August class.  Starting next week, I have another class of students and the cycle starts all over again. I’ve decided to go in a different direction in some cases, especially since I have access to a nice computer and a projector.

However, in the meantime, I need to finish up my OMGSUPERSECRET project because I lost a week I thought I had to work on it.  And that is what I am doing today.  I am over 2/3rds done, I just need to get that final push done and finish it this week.  Once that’s done, I can breathe a little easier and actually have some free time.  Go me!

Right now, Little Guy and I are watching MSNBC’s coverage of the death of Senator Kennedy.  It truly is a sad day.  I can only hope the health care bill doesn’t fail because of this.  That would truly be horrible.  Something that man worked so hard for, he got so close to seeing the frution of his life’s work…  And then he dies.  It’s truly a tragic story, and perhaps another chapter of the Kennedy Curse.  I’ll post more thoughts on this later, particularly my reactions to the disgusting comments the Rabid Right have posted across the internet.

On the humerous side of this story.  Senator Kennedy was known as the “Lion of the Senate.”  Every time that moniker is placed on the screen, Little Guy exclaims: “Oh!  A Lion!”  He recognizes the word.  My sweet boy, so smart and turning in to such a good reader!

It’s been a busy week. I have to admit, I am glad it’s almost over.  For me, it really is.  I don’t have class tomorrow because they are moving to the new building and that means no teaching at all until Monday.  What a break!

Now, aside from grading, I really have time to focus on some other things…  Like writing in my blog and working on my OMGSOSUPERSOSECRETPROJECT and working on my novel. It’s been a rough summer, and it is probably only just beginning to hit us exactly how rough a summer it was.  I am going through, getting rid of clothes and gathering up toys, now that the house is mostly empty.  We’re still trying to adjust to life without the kids and it’s beginning to hit me exactly how much I put into the kids.

When Big Guy and I got together, I was determined to be the best step-mom ever.  I read books, made sure I didn’t overstep my bounds, and tried to follow the best, most rational advice available.  I offered support and guidance to my husband when he tired of the games his ex was playing and really devoted a lot of time and effort into both the battle and making sure the kids had the best chance at sanity that I could provide.

So, for six years, I threw myself whole-heartedly into being a step-parent, to the exclusion of many things that I really should have been doing for myself.  And this May, when that effort was revealed to be useless, I really felt betrayed and destroyed by it.  But, through June and July, other things occupied my thoughts and time.  And now, I’m left with myself, Big Guy and Little Guy.  And it’s leaving me feeling a bit jittery.

So, where do I go from here?  Well, I work on something else.  I focus on the things that are important, like Big Guy and Little Guy.  I work on my projects.  And I sit back and breathe, take stock of where I am and figure out what I am feeling (aside from the surface emotions).  This is a new chapter in my life, let’s see what it says…

I recently dumped the photos from my camera.  It had been a while and now my batteries are dead so it’s time to recharge them.  Luckily, I managed to get pictures of a great, relatively cheap meal that Big Guy and I partook in.

We had taken our friend shopping since her car quit working.  While we were at Kroger’s, we looked at some of the stuff that was “priced for quick sale”.  They had to get rid of it or else it was going to go bad.  This included 2 salmon filets and 2 portabello caps. We also had 3 bell peppers in the fridge, which we sliced with some onion and then grilled the entire set.  We used olive oil and went very light on the seasonings.

It was amazingly fresh and delicious.

I also spent most of today cleaning.  I managed to get our family room in reletively OK shape.  I vacuumed, picked up, and threw out all the excess papers that we seem to hang on to, “just in case”.  We’ve got company tomorrow, arriving for a D&D game.  And there was no way I was going to have company in our house when it looked like a tornado had decimated the place.

We’re going to start buckling down now that things are slowing down, and hopefully, we’ll be able to come to some sort of peace in the house as well.  We’ll pack up some of the kids’ clothes and toys and take them to Goodwill.  It’s important that we start reclaiming our lives and moving forward.

“You’ve got to get yourself together
You’ve got stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it
Don’t say that later will be better
Now you’re stuck in a moment
And you can’t get out of it” - U2
Last month, I decided, was a wash.  Between Big Guy’s toes and my aunt passing away and the class I was teaching, the month got away from me and nothing got done.  It was all I could do to keep up with Little Guy and the class I was teaching.  Hence, my absence from my blog.

However, I am trying to get back in to the swing of things.  I have a class this month, teaching Comp II.  I am working on a super secret project for September.  And still planning on the aHarvest Market with my mom.  Sadly, though, my Garden is not thriving.  It’s growing, slowly… But I am really going to need to either add to or replace some of the dirt I have.

When we got back from Ohio in Mid July, we notice that we had a serious fly problem.  They had gotten in the house and were extremely annoying.  So, we made sure all screens were closed and began to come up with ways to get rid of the flies.

Unlike my mom, we have no chickens to get rid of flies, so we needed to come up with something less alive.  I finally settled on a homemade fly trap.  I took an empty beer bottle, water, sugar, a part of a banana peel, and dish soap and combine them.  The idea is that the water, sugar, and banana peel interest the flies and they will fly into the beer bottle to get some food to eat where it becomes a “Fly Motel” of sorts.  The narrow neck of the beer bottle ensures that it’s a one way trip and the dish soap prevents the flies from being able to land on the water and they drown instead.

Getting back into the swing of things, being creative, it’s still difficult…  But, as with most things, life rolls on whether or not you want it to, whether or not you feel ready.  Do you take part or do you sit at the side?

“And if the night runs over
And if the day won’t last
And if your way should falter
Along this stony pass
It’s just a moment
This time will pass” - U2, Stuck in a Moment

This weekend we’re heading out of town, heading to a graduation party for my cousin.  Last night, however, we had even more fun than a grad party.  We bathed our three cats to get rid of fleas.

I hate fleas.   When I first got baby girl Caitlin, she was COVERED in fleas.  It took several treatments before we finally got rid of them.  For some reason, white cats just draw fleas to them.  The flea baths went about as well as could be expected.  Caitlin yowled like she was being murdered and was terrified.  Jedi “mowed” in his Marvin the Robot voice and was also terrified.  Tiger….  Tiger was seething angry.  He looked at me as the bath began with this evil glare in his eye that dared me to bring my face close to him because he would gladly remove several layers of skin and muscle, and bone if he could manage it…

We ended up wrapping him in a towel and dipping him to make sure he was totally wet before we scrubbed him.  Pouring the water over him just seemed like it was asking for trouble.

After we scrubbed them all and released them to go lick their metaphorical wounds, we waited till they dried off more and then dosed them with a monthly application of flea medicine.  Hopefully, this will relieve them of their flea issues.  When we get home, we’re going to vacuum and spray the carpet as well.

Because of where we live, we may never be fully rid of fleas.  The park is built on seriously sandy soil.  But, we will do our best to mitigate the damage the fleas cause to our pets.

Class has started and is jam packed.  30 students in one writing class is a lot and is going to require some fancy dancing to make sure I get them all taught properly.  NOT looking forward to grading.  But I do enjoy the teaching.

Speaking of teaching, Little Guy and I are working hard on reading.  My sister-in-law loaned us her copy of the LeapFrog DVD “Letter Factory” which Little Guy LOVES.  It teaches phonics, the sounds each letter makes and Little Guy has taken to pointing out letters when he sees them now and making their sound.  Today, we even began practicing writing.

As I wrote out the alphabet for him, Little Guy named each letter and made its sound.  I was so proud of him!  And then he wanted me to help him write ‘A’.  So we wrote the letter A over and over and over again. He held the pen and I guided his hand.  At the end I just had my hand over his while he wrote the letter and he did really well.  But, when I took my hand off of his, then it turned into a big circle.

I think a big reason that he is so interested in reading is due to the fact that we have bookshelves and books in nearly every room.  The front bedroom and his room have bookshelves, the family room has bookshelves, and my bedroom has a bookshelf.  There’s books all over the place and so he sees books all the time.  Chris and I are big readers and writers, so he gets to see that in progress as well.

I am so glad that he does see that because it shows through his interest in reading and writing.

We’re quite inundated with flowers here on the Urban homestead.  My bean plants and tomatoes are flowering, as are my herbs.  I have pale pink blooms on the oregano, my purple sage flowers are fading out, but the lemon balm has a bunch of tiny white blooms and even the basil was attempting to blossom.  I had to pinch the blooms off the basil to keep it alive and I clipped some of the oregano blooms because they were just so very pretty.  They are currently sitting in a vase on my kitchen window sill.

We went and saw my in-laws today to help with a potential computer issue.  Big Guy and I are a pretty good team when it comes to dealing with computer problems.  He knows how to handle hardware difficulties, I know how to work around software issues.  We ate dinner there and chatted while we got the computer adjusted and then came home.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the scent of the oregano blooms.  They don’t smell like oregano, but instead have a very light, floral fragrance.  The bees like them too, considering they are bouncing from plant to plant drinking them in.  Another plant that’s drawn surprising visitors are my petunias.  They’ve brought some little hummingbirds to our yard who flit from blossom to blossom and then zip off.

Some of the wildflower seeds we planted earlier have also sprouted and started to bloom and seem to contain petunia and marigold seeds.  It was rather amusing when we discovered that because we planted marigolds and petunias in the same spot last year and were shocked when we found more marigolds and petunias there this year!

It’s been a pleasant and productive weekend and promises to continue to be a productive and peaceful week.  It started out on Friday evening, when I was able to march in the college graduation ceremony as a professor, complete with proper academic robes and an academic hood indicating my graduation from Saint Mary’s College.  It was a great experience, for me and for my mom, who keeps telling me that her tuition money is finally paying off.

I got to march in with the professors, even though people kept thinking I was a student.  Flattering but no.  Seriously though, for the most part, I am younger than my students.  Teaching gives me a chance to pass on my love for language to my students hopefully.

This past month I was complemented in both the classes I taught when one from the composition class said my class has caused him to pay more attention to emails and one of my World Lit students felt like his eyes had been opened to one important part of literature.  He also told one of the other professors that he really enjoyed my class.  Go me!  It helps when the students are actually responding to you and that was really the best part about this past month. It seems in smaller classes, the apathy is less spread throughout the students and they are more easily infected with excitement.

I also finished all my pink granny squares (or ‘grandma squares’ as Little Guy says) and have one left for my blue squares.  These are going to be sold at the Harvest Market on July 18th.  After blue, I am probably going to crochet some white ones and go on from there.  .  I’m starting to zip through them reletively quickly too.  And, since this week I don’t have to teach, I can focus mainly on churning out some of these projects.  I’ll finish up the granny squares and hopefully get started on some of the sewing projects.

I realize that my life as an at-home mom/freelance writer/crafty urban homesteader/English teacher is probably not what my mom expected when she sent me to college, but I can also say I would not be able to be all those things without my college experience.  Plus, I am really happy that I’m not a secretary any more.

The heat and humidity of summer seems omnipresent now.  I have the AC set in the house at night to prevent my waking up panting and sweating.  I can handle it during the day, while I’m awake.  When I sleep, though, I need the cool air.  And, because we have air conditioning, we’re hosting the neighbors overnight because we have AC and  Neighbor Girl is worried about her young ones overheating.

I finished my second and third pink granny squares and am working on the fourth and final pink square.  I’ve tried to make them all different, or contain the same pattern but slightly different.  For example, I have the first ping and fuzzy granny square and then another wone crocheted in the same pattern, but with different types of yarn.  So, once this last pink one is done I will work on blue, black, and white.  It’s not like I don’t have enough yarn.

Tomorrow is the final day of classes for the month and then I have a week off.  The first full week of July, it’s back in the saddle though.  I have another Comp class to plan for.  No rest for the weary indeed.  Especially since the week I start class is the last week of Big Guy’s employment.  I would really like a chance to NOT have to worry for once.  On the bright side, once his employment ends, it will give us a chance to look at where we’re landing.  And we have a lot fewer people to worry about.  It goes to show that everything DOES happen for a reason.