A Gnome of My Own

Blogging seems hard these days. All I can think of is one line to say, and then I just say it on facebook, but I think I am about ready to get back to this. Stories are so much more meaningful than single sentences.

Well, the big deal since the last blog is that Elliot has started preschool! He is loving it, and learning so much. I think it's great for him to be around other children, and spend more time in a group setting where he has to learn about rules and listening to teachers. At the same time, since he's in a Montessori school, he has a lot of freedom and creativity with what he does, and I think that makes him a happier boy as well. Although he is only going to school three half days a week, I can tell that his overall behavior is better, and he just seems to be a happier child with so much learning going on, and the stimulation of a different environment.

I am also really excited to be getting involved with his school. One of the things I love about it is that parent participation is required. I have volunteered to head the decorating committee for their annual Fall Family Festival, which is their major fundraiser of the year. Hopefully I haven't gotten in over my head, but I'm really stoked to meet some parents and get creative together!

Here are some recent pictures of Elliot:

For some reason I recently thought it would be a good idea to take Elliot on a hike in a new recreation area that has opened near Santa Maria. Not such a good idea. It was very frustrating with him stopping every three seconds, complaining of getting tired, etc. Also, I realized later that you aren't supposed to go off the trail or climb trees at all.

So, here's Elliot breakin' the law.

Tree hugger!

A somewhat typical Saturday morning of post-pancake hyperactivity.

Elliot has been wanting to dress up lately. I think it started when I brought him to my friend Jessica's Acholi Bead party the other night, and he wanted to wear all the necklaces, but I wouldn't let him. The next day he started wearing Austin's shoes around the house, then put on his basketball shorts, then a sweatband. The next day he dressed himself, and had on a 70's style shirt of Elisha's that Brandi left here, black sweat pants, one of my headbands worn across the forehead, and two of my hair bands on his wrist for a bracelet. Hmm... so I decided to get him a costume, and found this super cute Garden-Gnome costume at Walmart of all places. But also I think it would be really easy to make. Especially if you already have the pants, plaid shirt and suspenders. All you really need is the beard and the gnome hat (with eyebrows attached.) Just felt and fabric. Anyway, he's the cutest gnome ever, and loves wearing his costume. Even asked to wear it to bed. Yesssss! Elliot continues to have the greatest imagination I've ever seen in a kid. The other day I came to pick him up from school, and he was pretending to be an owl up in a tree. Oh, and in case you ever see him pretending to be a bee, his bee name is Rightie. Acting lessons?

A $10.00 Glass of Milk

The chocolate milkman.

Doesn't like his picture taken, especially with mom.  

Ever since we got back from Maryland, where we ate out at restaurants almost exclusively for 2 weeks, Elliot has been asking every once in a while to go to restaurants.  It's kind of fun for me, because I like to go out every once in a while, too.  So it's a treat for both of us, but the real attraction for Elliot seems to be the Chocolate milk.  I always let him get it when we eat out, and he orders it himself, and looks forward to it.  The only problem is he almost never eats more than one or two bites of his food, because his tummy is full of chocolate milk.  Well, at least he's a relatively cheap date for now.  

Some other news... Elliot is officially signed up for preschool!  He's going to be attending a Montessori preschool here in Santa Maria.  After visiting a few different preschools, I felt overwhelmingly that it was the best one for him.  We are all very excited for the new learning and social opportunities that await him.  Also, it's going to be a big change for the whole family, since we are not at all used to being on a schedule.  Even though it's only three half days per week, it will definitely get us in a better habit of starting our day at a reasonably early hour.  I feel like we'll be entering a whole other world of potential challenges, and also learning and growing opportunities, so it will be interesting to see what happens!  I don't know yet what I will do with my four hours of free time three mornings a week, but I feel the need to fill them up with specialness, and greatness, and maybe a little selfishness, like going to the gym  or walking on the beach or something.

Well, I'm rambling now, so it's time to stop.  

I Married Myself

Lately Erik and I have been saying this to each other a lot:  "It's like I married myself!"  We keep thinking and saying the same thing at the same time.  Having a lot more similar opinions than we used to, etc.  But then he really started reading my mind, and now I am convinced that he has some sort of chip in my brain to control my thoughts, or know them before they come out of my mouth.  As we were both sitting at the kitchen table the other day, grumpy from basically being robbed by the Ford dealership for some really simple repairs, I started thinking that it would be really fun to draw an anchor tattoo on his arm with a ballpoint pen.  So I said, "Hey, want me to do something that would totally cheer you up?"  His response was, "By 'something that would totally cheer me up', do you really mean something that would be really fun for you, but would actually make me even more miserable?  

I had to admit, yes, that's exactly what I meant.  He said he could tell by the look in my eye, but I think it was the chip in my brain.  Then came the scary part: " What do you think I was going to do?"  "Well, by the way you're looking at that pen, and back at my arm, my guess would be that you want to draw something on me."  And so it has continued for the next few days.  He can tell me what I'm thinking, and especially knows if I'm annoyed even when I think I'm doing a really good job hiding it.  He can say what I'm about to say before I say it, or at the same time, or mouth the words silently as I'm saying them.  Our eight year anniversary is coming up, and I'm beginning to wonder if he has a secret plan to celebrate by making me into a remote controlled Stepford Wife kind of robot via some form of mind control.  It's either that, or we are just getting to know each other really, really well.

So, if I start wearing ultra-tight clothes, listening to Mike Savage, and washing the cars on an almost-daily basis, someone should come rescue me.  But for now, it's the most amazing thing in the world being married to my best friend.  It's like I married myself.

Adventures in Merry-Land

Well, it wasn't all merry, but most of it was.    As some of you may have already heard, the day of flying and traveling over to Piney Point, Maryland was quite nightmarish beginning with a couple loud fits in the airport, and culminating with a five minute screaming freak-out as soon as we got on our plane (he got scared and wanted to get off).  But, all's well that ends well, and I think this trip ended well, and overall we had a lot of fun times.  I now understand Erik's complete misery every time he goes to school.  It's a very nice campus, but being stuck there not learning anything, nothing to do but watch TV, nothing within walking distance for about 10 miles other than a dive bar called The OCI, combined with the really yucky, greasy, overcooked food they serve at the school... it gets old fast.  Fortunately we had a car, so Elliot and I typically took off every morning, came back in the afternoon, went for a swim with Erik when he got done with school, and then we all went somewhere tolerable for dinner.  I learned my way around the area pretty quick, and it really helped that we had Mary and Bill's GPS to help us find all the cool things to do in the area.  The place was beautiful!  Surrounded by the Patuxent and Potomac Rivers, and the Chesapeake Bay, there was water everywhere.  And that water was absolutely teeming with life:  Sea Nettles, Cow-nosed Rays, Dogfish, and Comb Jellies, Diamond-backed Terrapin, and of course crabs and shellfish - all of which we saw in their natural habitat.  The landscape was completely green, and sprawling with lots of open space lots of very cute old brick houses, and colonial style mansions along side tumbledown old barns and abandoned old victorian houses with vines growing in the windows.  We didn't get as many pictures as I would have liked because of the small storage space of the old camera I was using, but here they are:

The above are pictures from the first free day we had together.  We went to the Calvert Lighthouse and Museum/Aquarium, which was great fun.  They had a sailboat that Elliot could climb around in, a little lighthouse for kids to play in, a touch tank with a Diamond-backed Terrapin turtle (I fell in love with it - the cutest turtle I've ever seen), rays, river otters, tons of model and real sailboats, etc.  Elliot got to build his own wooden boat, which he named "The Cattyboo", and of course we got to go up in the lighthouse.  Not to mention we make a pretty cute family of pirates and mermaid.

We also went to Washington D.C. and walked all around the Capital and National Mall area.  Elliot's behavior was ... let's just say, not ideal that day.  Hence, the expression on Erik's face in this picture that was taken on our final walk back to the car before leaving.  But it was neat to see everything, and we took Elliot to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which was cool because we got to see a 3D Ocean IMAX movie.  Ellliot absolutely loved that and kept standing up and trying to reach out and grab jellyfish and other sea life that looked like it was coming over to him.  It was quite entertaining for us all.  Oh yeah, and for some reason Elliot kept stopping and  hugging trees.  That's right, he's a tree-hugger.  So we had to get a picture of that.



Above are some pictures of a lighthouse that Elliot and I visited on our own.  It's the Piney Point lighthouse, just around the corner from Erik's school.  We were the only ones there, so we got our own private tour.  It was very beautiful and old, and peaceful.  There used to be a resort right next to it where presidents used to go for some "down time", kind of like they go to Camp David now.  So, there was some interesting history behind the place.  And here's Elliot looking all touristy in his sunglasses and S.I.U. hat, which he calls his "crusty crab hat", since it somewhat resembles Sponge Bob's hat.

Here is the beginning of the pictures of our visit to Historic Saint Mary's City, which was Maryland's first capital, and is now a living history village.  This means people dress in colonial costumes, and have the village set up in the way it was way back then.  It was very interesting, and Elliot liked it lots more that I expected.  We both had a great day (Erik was in school), and came back with some fabulous souveniers, the best of which was a clay pipe we got for Erik.  It was made by the last clay pipe maker in the U.S.  I am told that after he dies, there will be no more clay pipes made at all!  Anyway, he loves it.  The above is Elliot walking with me through the cemetery at Trinity Church, the oldest church in Maryland.  Some of the graves were from the 1600s! 
Here he is peeking out of an old barn.  The outside is recreated, but the inside is really, really old.  I wish I remember more details about it, but it was supposed to be a really famous barn or something...
You can see the old wood on the right hand side in this picture.  And that's the wagon I pulled Elliot around in for most of the day.
He pulled it some of the time.  As you can see, it was very beautiful there.  The field to the right was full of wild carrots (the ones you can kind of see have white flowers on the top).  And, there were wild berries and roses on the left hand side.
Here's Elliot learning how to water the garden the old-fashioned way.  He scooped the water out of the bucket with a gourd and then let the water go through the holes in the bottom of the gourd, just like a watering can.  He pretty much watered the whole herb garden.  It was a really hot day, so playing in water, and having his shirt off felt good.
Luckily this girl was really patient and liked kids, 'cause Elliot seemed to want to stay in this one house forever.  Here she is showing him how the musket was even bigger than him!  They also had a bunch of games, including dominos made of bone, and dice made of iron and wood.
Here's Elliot in one of the bunks of the Maryland Dove, a recreated sailing ship.  He closed the curtains and decided he was going to take a nap there.
Here's a view of the Maryland Dove.  There were jellyfish in the water that we could see off the pier.

This is the print house where the printer would have lived.  This girl is spreading ink over the lead letters with leather blotters and getting ready to make a print on this old fashioned printing press.
Here we are at the Godiah Spray Tobacco Plantation.  The boy in front is getting ready to fire a musket for us.  It look him a really long time to get it ready.  The most interesting thing about this place was the tobacco field.  To us it would just look like a field of weeds.  They used the Native American method of farming, so to them a "new field" was basically a forest.  They would gird the trees by cutting a ring of bark from the bottom, and wait for the trees to die to let more light in.  They never plowed their fields, but just planted the tobacco in individual raised mounds right among whatever native plants were there, and then picked off the horned tobacco worms by hand.  So eco-friendly.
And here was Elliot's favorite part of the plantation - holding some baby chickens that were wandering around the garden.  

So there's our vacation!  It was so fun to go exploring and spend some time with Erik.  I hope that wasn't too long and boring to read about.  We are really glad to be home and back in lovely California.  And.... I got a new camera!  Horray!  So there will be lots more blogging again, and hopefully lots of lovely pictures!  See you next time!

A World of His Own

First of all, why is it so hard for me to just pack up my camera and mail it in?  It's one of those things that's really simple, but you just really never feel like doing it.  So I have been putting it off for like, a month, and I still have no camera.  Bah!  I've missed so many photo opportunities that now I just feel like rushing out and buying a new one.  Oh well.

So, life has been pretty nice around here lately.  Erik continues to be the funnest person I have ever known, and I am so glad that I get to share life with him.  Elliot is growing up, becoming really conversational, and still has a really great imagination.  He is still pretending to be different kinds of animals quite a lot, but now they have names.  And he's also naming his toy animals.  It all started when he got a little stretchy plastic lizard as a prize after his first trip to the dentist.  He decided to name it Lupine, like the purple flowers he learned of during the spring when they were lining the sides of the freeway.  Then last week at church a friend came over to Elliot and said, "Hi, Elliot", a seemingly appropriate greeting.  But she was sternly corrected by Elliot, who told her his name was Lupine, and that he was a cat.  He was crawling on all fours just as cats do, and got his hand stepped on my an unassuming adult trying to come in the doorway.  He screamed really loud, and yelled through the tears, "Someone stepped on the cat's hand!"  

The next day he pretended to be a fish at the pool, of course, and then later riding in the car, pretended to be a bird.  Out of curiosity, I asked him what the bird's name was.  After a long pause, he answered, "The bird's name is just.... it's just Cattyboo."  Then he had to be called Cattyboo for most of the night and the next following days.  I thought it was cute, especially the graceful flying he does with his wings, though Erik wasn't so thrilled when Elliot told us that Cattyboo is a girl bird.  Hmm....

The next animal, Erik did approve of:  A turtle named Marshall.  Now that's manly.  That's a new one as of today, but I can't wait to see what his creative little mind comes up with next. :)

The Show Must Go On!

Since I don't have a camera, and I have found something really entertaining to share, I thought I would do the sharing here at my blog, my home sweet home that I miss so much.  I'm not sure people will find this as cool as I do, but here it is.

There was a nationwide study discussed on This American Life, a really interesting radio show, about sound.  What kinds of music do people like most, and what do they like least?  Including tempo, music style, vocal variety, instrumentation, subject of the song, length, etc.  They had everything ranked by participants, then formed all the most liked things into a song, and all the least liked things into another song.

Needless to say, the most liked song was rather typical.  A love song with typical instruments like guitar, piano, drums, bass, etc, and a low voiced female singer, and of a normal length.  The least liked song is super long, and has a variety of "horrible", yet interesting sounds.  For instance; an opera singer rapping, accordian, bagpipes, harp, pipe organ, singing about cowboys and holidays, advertising, animal noises, politics, and so much more that most people hate.  I'm posting a link to it at the bottom, and strongly suggest that if you have some time to kill, just put it on while  you do other stuff on your computer.  I have to admit, I totally love the weirdness of it.  Partially because it's so unwanted I feel the need to adopt it, and partially because there are parts of it that really are fabulous and, if extracted, would fit great into "beautiful" music.  Most of all, it's really funny and entertaining for me to listen to.  At least once.  

Please want it.... The Most Unwanted Song

Broke

So, I think my camera is broken.  It wont turn on, and I did drop it the last time I was uploading pictures.  Now it has a crack on the back screen, but it was supposed to be "Eva-proof"!  Erik got it for me last Christmas because it's waterproof and shockproof.  It's supposed to be able to be dropped from 6 feet onto concrete and be fine, but it looks as if a fall of 18 inches or so onto a chair was too much for it.  I bet I can get a new one under warranty.  Until then, maybe you will be blessed with some deep thoughts... we'll see.

As for life, it's going well.  It's been super hot, and Elliot has been in one of his test-the-boundaries phases, and we both have colds, so that's an adventure in itself.  Other than that, it's been a lovely time of hanging around the house, gardening, and trips to the beach.  We went to Pismo today, and it was super fun watching Elliot run around and play in the little waves.  There were a lot of people there, escaping the heat.  There were also tons of ladybugs there.  Flying, crawling, dead on the ground.  It was kind of freaky.  After playing in the sand for a while, we walked out on the pier, and ended up seeing a bunch of dolphins swimming by.  They were so close to the end of the pier, we could totally see their faces!  And, they had a little white baby dolphin with them.  So special!  Then we turned around and saw a huge brown pelican right in front of us, hanging out with a bunch of fishermen on the pier!  I tried to get Elliot to stand by him so I could take a picture, but he was too scared.  Probably wise of him.  The fishermen said he hung out there all the time, and they even had a name for him, and knew how to get him to do "tricks".  Pretty cool day!  Hopefully there will be many more like it this summer.  I bought myself a backpack chair in anticipation of making it a beach-filled summer.  And I know Erik wants to surf a ton on his new board, so hopefully we will get to go together several times a week.  I love the beach.  It's such a peaceful place, no matter what you do there.  Whether you walk, splash, or even just sit in the car and watch the waves, there's nothing like it.  And every time I go, I ask myself, "Why don't I do this like, every day?"  Obviously I can't go every day, but I'm gonna go more.  That's a promise!  Anybody want to come along?

Just to Summarize....

So, here's a little blog to catch you up on all our recent activity.  I think I am ready to start blogging.  I'm just waiting for some deep thoughts to come my way.  Who knows how long that could take, so I better just dive in.  
Here's Elliot at his first day of soccer.  He loves it once he gets playing, but he tends to space out and end up running around by himself in little circles out in the field.  It's pretty entertaining, though.
Yes, the ducks are laying up a storm!  The eggs are wonderful, and this is the first of many quiches made with them.  I ended up bringing it to Ann's house and getting everyone to love it before they knew it was duck eggs!  ;)
I thought this picture was too sweet to leave out.  It's Elliot "ferlaxing" in Grampa Timo's hammock.
Here's Erin relaxing with Roscoe the snuggle dog on one of his last days with us.  It was harder than I thought to leave him.  I guess I was a little more attached than I realized, what with having him since he was so little.  But our house is a much more peaceful place now, and I think he is probably having a wonderful life with three wild little boys.
I tagged along with Erin and Mike and went to see Bonnie "Prince" Billy in Los Osos one night.  It was a great show, and really fun to be in "the scene" for the first time in a long time.  I felt really old compared to everyone else there, but it was a wonderful night, and music was super cool.
Here's some duck eggs.  They are not dyed, these are the colors they are naturally.  Off white, light green, and occasionally brown.  Aren't they pretty?
I decided to include a duck picture for easter.  Here they are poking around a big pile of sage trimmings.  They are always so curious!  I think the sage made them a little wild because after this, Miss Bennet (the fawn and white one here) kept trying to jump up on  my lap!
Easter!  Elliot was delighted with what the bunny brought.
The bunny came to grandma and grandpa's house, too!  There were eggs everywhere hidden and filled by cousin Grace, who played with Elliot all day long!  It was so fun to watch them together!  We also got to see Erik's Aunt Arteenia, and cousins Leanne and Debbie for the first time since Elliot was born.  It was great to visit, and Elliot was showered with attention and love all day long.
And, birthday!  The very next day was Elliot's 4th, and we had all our family, plus the Moores (they're pretty much family) over to celebrate.  It was a great, and wild time.  In this picture Elliot's biting the alligator daddy sent him in the mail from Hawaii, where he has his days off from the ship.
Here's the birthday boy at the end of the night.  He was pretty darned tired.  There was one point while opening gifts that he pretty much started zoning out and doing a blank stare, and not responding when anyone talked to him.  I think all the candy and excitement took it's toll, and today he's feeling sick.  But what a happy happy birthday!

Not Quite All There

So, I haven't blogged in a long time (for me).  I just don't feel motivated or inspired to do much of anything besides play my guitar and hang around in my pj's.  I had a great time visiting Jennifer in Wyoming, which I will post pictures of at some point.  My ducks started laying eggs, which is really really exciting.  And they are delicious.  Roscoe got neutered.  Hopefully it will make him a bit more submissive, but that remains to be seen.  I finally unpacked my suitcase today, which I am kind of proud of since usually it takes me about a month to get around to it.

Things are going well here all around.  I just hope I can start feeling inspired to create some things with Ann for our next event, coming up on April 4th at the Apple Farm restaurant.  We haven't really made anything since Christmas, and I'm totally not in the mode.  Hopefully the creative annointing will fall, and we will be full of beautiful and genius ideas, 'cause right now I've got nothin'.   

Okay.  That's all.  More on the great Wyoming adventure later.  :)

There and Back Again

Isn't it weird how everything goes in cycles?  I was thinking recently about how when I first started learning to play the guitar (a beginning guitar class at SLOHS with Brooke Evans) I was so excited about it.  The two of us would stay up late into the night playing worship songs, and would even walk around downtown with our guitars strapped to us, and occasionally commandeer Woodstock's for a late night jam session.  The guy who worked there got so used to us coming, he started moving the table out of the way before we got there.  I think our playing was probably pretty horrible at the time, but we kind of didn't care.  We just wanted to make music wherever we went.  Well, I haven't felt that way for a long time... until now.  Jennifer Barnett and I were just talking on the phone about how when you're not inspired musically, there's really nothing you can do about it except wait - for a new season, we decided, and that's what I feel like this is.  I am starting to feel the old feeling of anticipation again for music.  Writing little songs in my head, and wishing I had a microphone to try them out properly.  And whenever I hear great music, and especially worshipful music, this deep longing to be in the middle of it and be a part of it, and what it means.

I got a new guitar this week.  A way better one than I deserve.  But I am so excited about it and grateful to have it that I am really feeling motivated to learn to play it better.  And that's saying a lot since most of my musical "fun" is in the singing, not the guitar playing.  So, here I am back where I started, and it sure does feel good.

Speaking of traveling, I'm going to Wyoming this week to visit Jennifer!  Yay!  We are going to have some crazy adventures.  And I'm willing to bet we will have some musical adventures, too!

Here are some random pictures from the past couple weeks.  Enjoy!

It's not funny.  He's a guy.  A cowboy guy with a guy mustache.
Okay, so it's funny after all.  You can laugh now.
Erin got a variety pack of mustaches from somewhere, and we had lots of fun with them.
Here's my new guitar, Brown Rosie.  Oh, the music you will make!  It's a Heritage H535 (similar to a Gibson ES335 only better-ish), and is #18 of 25 special edition matched pairs, so she has an H150 brother (which is like a Gibson Les Paul).  It sounds really great, even at my ability level, so it will be exciting to see what happens with this great guitar.
Oh yeah, and here's a really dark video of Elliot having way too much fun with a toilet paper ball he made himself.  Why do I buy toys, again?

P.S.  This is my 100th blog posting!  Yay!

Peas and Yogurt

Elliot is more fun than a barrel of monkeys, and so are his mom and auntie.  We made up this silly song tonight trying to get him to eat his peas, and we sang it a bunch of times, and then decided to record it just for fun.  I kind of can't believe I am even posting this, but we think it's really funny, and figured we might as well share it.  So, if you want to listen to our goofiness, click on the RSS feed icon in the sidebar and you can download it or play it.  Please laugh. What's the point of life if you can't laugh at yourself.  "If you like Bobby McFarren and Billy Joel, you'll love this hot new single, Peas and Yogurt." - Rolling Stone  (ha, ha)

Elliot has pretty good taste in music, I think.  He has certain favorites, which I made into a playlist for him on my ipod.  And he has his own names for him.  I think the one that's gotten the most overall play is Tom Petty's "American Girl", which he has named "Turtleneck Girl".  The others include:  The Cranberries', "Dreams" (The Choo-choo Train Song), R.E.M.'s "Night Swimming" (The Water Bus Song), and Joanna Newsom's "Peach Plumb Pear" (The Girl Song - and as a side note, he thinks she is a little tiny elephant that sings).

On the way to the 99 cent store tonight, we listened to Elliot's current favorite song, Devotchka's "How it Ends", which he calls The Running Song.  When we got there, we sat in the car listening to Nickel Creek's "Out of the Woods" - the song now known to Elliot as The Rainbow Song, and while we were listening to it, Elliot looked out the window of the car and said, "Hey, look at that tree saying hi to me!"  There was a tree in the parking lot in front of us, and one of the branches was swaying in the wind as if it was waving.  Elliot started laughing, and waved back at the tree.  Then he said, "He's being funny! (about the tree) He has a lot of fingers on his hand, and his other arm is so long!"  It was so cute.  I think he really thought the tree was waving at him.  Paired with the beautiful song and a windy clear night, it just seemed like one of those moments you will look back on, and remember as a time when you were perfectly happy.

And while we are on the subject of silliness, I might mention a few more of Elliot's favorite sayings of late.  For goodness sake!  Good grief!  You've got to be kidding me!  Obviously.... Actually.... Absolutely.... Manicott!   Spaghett!  Gol-ly!  And if you want to know how good his imagination is, he threw a fit the other day because his Lightning McQueen rain boots wouldn't stop looking at him.  Seriously.

All Aboard!

This morning Elliot played with his train stencils (from Auntie Erin) and some brand new markers from his Nana and Papa.  I think it was the most "into" coloring he has ever been in his life.  Normally he has a pretty short attention span for it, and ends up asking me to make things for him.  But the combination of the stencils and new markers was really exciting!  And he felt like he could actually make what he wanted to, which is always trains.  So, he took his time and made this awesome train!  I was so glad that he was into it, because I was starting to think it was past time that he got used to holding a pen the right way and getting better control over it, but he has never had the patience.... until now!  Yay!  It was his idea to tape two pieces of paper together to make a long, big train.  He was so proud of what he made, and he helped me hang it up in his room.  Quite a special event, and hopefully the first of many trains to come!

The Rain

The rain is raining all around.

It falls on field and tree.

It rains on the umbrellas here

And on the ships at sea.

-Robert Louis Stevenson

This morning has been fun.  It's raining for real outside, not the half-baked kind we usually get.  We had to get up early this morning to take Chewie to the vet.  He is getting some masses removed, poor guy.  But Elliot looked cute in his raincoat, with his pajamas still on underneath, and his Lightning McQueen rain boots.  Then we came home and made a fire, and put on "The Muppet Movie", which is my fave of the muppet films.  It's the one about how they all meet up and go to Hollywood to follow their dreams.  I like the songs, and find them inspiring, sadly enough.  Plus I love Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, and how they play at an old church.  

Elliot was laying down by the fire getting cozy with is blanket over him, and was really cute. but of course started moving all around when I tried to take pictures.  Then I took a little video of us doing some super-high singing, which we have been doing lately.  We both think it's really funny. Sometimes we talk in super high voices, too.  I think this runs in the family, because my sister and I think it's really funny, too.

So, yesterday we went to San Luis, and bought some fruit trees!  I'm so excited because it's something I've been wanting to do ever since we bought the house.  We got a Fuji Apple tree, and another tree that has four different things:  Blenhiem Apricot, Elberta Peach, July Babcock Peach, and Fantasia Nectarine.  It's not magic, it just has different branches grafted on.  Anyway, the funny thing is that Elliot has been looking forward to getting the apple tree, except he somehow decided that it's an "apple pie tree", which will grow apples, and apple pies.  I don't know where he comes up with this stuff!  Since it is such a cozy-in-the-house day, I am contemplating making some apple pie just to fulfill his dream.  Does he even like apple pie?  We'll see...  maybe apple dumplings?

On a Sunday Night

Tonight, I drank a glass of wine, photocopied ONE THOUSAND worship songs from church (the ones I don't know how to play, but want to), and made a playlist.  So many of the songs made me cry.  People have told me that I like really sad songs.  But in my opinion, I like beautiful songs.  Sometimes I say to myself, "If a song doesn't move something inside you, what's the point?"  That's basically what I think.  There should be an emotional, or thoughtful response to hearing a good piece of music.  Even if it doesn't have words.  Otherwise, it's just noise.  I loved making a playlist.  It was so fun.  I will be adding to it when I discover new things.  I hope all you in blogland enjoy it.  If you think of some music that you think I would like, comment about it.  I am always looking for new favorites, and sometimes it's difficult to be "in-the-know" about new music that comes out.  Tell me all your thoughts.  Music is so powerful.

Dreamy

We took a day away yesterday, packed a picnic, and went to Nojoqui Falls.  It was beautiful, and so peaceful.  We were the only ones there, so we sang songs as we walked out to the falls to let the mountain lions know we were coming.  When we got there, the falls were barely running, but still it was a beautiful sight to look straight up at.  All the little water droplets trickling over the ferns and moss were sparkling like diamonds in the sun.  


I thought the above photo might be inspiring for a future fabric print.  I love the colors, and the shapes of the roots.
Erin took this cute shot of Elliot and I walking down the tree-arched path.
This was the most exciting part of the day!  We saw a fox!  The picture isn't great because it was taken with a zoom, and then cropped way in on iphoto, but still you can see how cute he is.  We watched him climb straight up the trunk of this 20-something foot tree.  When we got home, we looked  it up online and compared pictures, and found out that he was a Gray Fox, endangered in the U.S., and the only canine that can climb trees other than some kind of Asian Dog.  We felt to lucky to get to see him!

Oh, the glory... we stopped at the cutest little organic farm/store.  They had the most perfect looking veggies lined up on display, and an old oak wine barrel with a slot in the top for you to put your money in.  The honor system.  Sprayers would come on automatically every few minutes to keep the veggies fresh, and there was another table full of winter squash of all kinds, and a sign saying you could call the farmer if you wanted to buy some eggs.
At the end of the veggie table, they had this watering can sitting strategically positioned to catch the water drips, which ran down against this ledge (from the sprayers), and off the corner.... drip, drip, drip into the can.  So so cute.  It made me wish I had some property to spread out on.  Everything seems so much cleaner and fresher when there is wide open space.  I decided if I ever did have some property, I would have a small walled garden.  One section for vegetables, one for flowers, and plant some random fruit trees around.  Let the dogs run loose, let the land be wild.  It would be........ so nice.