Chaos Moves!

Chaos is moving at our house. Not far. Just from the dining room to the kitchen





Tonight, Bruce's friend Tom came over because there are two things N. and I cannot help move.

The first is the china cabinet.
It's back in it's place, and they leveled it perfectly! See the yello level inside the main area?










The other thing that is too heavy for me and N. is the entertainment center. It is now in two pieces in a rather incovenient place.
But it was even hard for two guys to move. So it didn't go far. And they didn't put the top on the bottom. This saves them work in a month or so, when the floor is in and they move it back.








Tonight, Bruce also took a frame that was on the wall. The previous owner had left it and we finally took it off. It was behind the entertainment center before.

Sometimes we're a little slow!
I got the wall under the windows painted. One more part to go--the wall where the entertainment center was!





Yesterday, Bruce, N. and I moved the rest of the living room furniture. I painted the wall behind the couch then, too,

N. and Bruce a posing. They had to wait for me to actually move the couch! :)







Tonight, while we ate in haste, the coolest thing happened.
One of the does from last spring came back.
And she brought her fawn and her yearling male.


Here's the young man, himself.
He had just munched on the sunflowers by the scrub oak.

Amazing! They were only about twenty feet away from the kitchen window!









Here are the two together.
Handsome couple, aren't they?

Evidently, they really like our weeds and sunflowers out back.

A storm had just passed, and the foilage was wet and green and juicy.

N. says that the deer often come out between storms in the evening like this.

This time he was right. A new storm is brewing as I write.

Cold air is blowing in and the thunder is rumbling.

Chaos is moving in our house. And that's progress.

But we still have time to enjoy this little bit of G-d's country and the wildlife!

Paradise surrounds our chaos.

She's Twenty-Two and in Las Vegas!

Today she is twenty-two.

It is a little hard to believe that twenty-two years ago today I was pacing the short distance from the bedroom ro the living room of our student apartment, trying to breath through the contractions.

I ache in different places now, and my baby girl has gone to Las Vegas with friends to celebrate her birthday.

It's funny what you remember, isn't it?

I remember that when she was newborn, she was looking around our bedroom, appraising it, as if it were somehow familiar. She didn't cry. At least not right away. Instead, she had this intent, serious look on her face. In the late afternoon sunset I could see the green-gray behind the milky infant blue in her eyes. I said to her father, "She has my mother's eye color there, just behind the blue."

I remember pacing the floor with her that fall, as she screamed her way through colic every evening between 6 and 8:30 PM. I played the Walkman with the earphones in, hoping to remain calm--as if any new mother could--through the fussing. At the time, it seemed like forever until she grew out of it, but looking back--well, what is six weeks compared to twenty-two years?

I remember when she started pre-school. On the very first Shabbat at home, she began singing: "What do you like about Shabbat!" And then she used her left arm to turn her whole arm toward her dad, and sang: "Mah-dy," (her made up word for her dad), "what do you like about Shabbat?" She was every inch the teacher leading the class.

And what about the second-night Hillel Seder when she was three. She stood up on the chair in roomful of 40 college students and adults and fearlessly sang the four questions. In tune. She was wearing a pink sailor dress, I remember, that it was almost as long as she was.

I remember reading The Hobbit aloud to her when she was three or four, and then she took the book away from me and began reading it back. And the insatiable love of books began right then and there, when we went "On Beyond Zebra!" She was going to open her own bookstore and call it Gold Medal Books. In it she would sell Newberry Award books and American Library Awards books, too.

I remember that at her little brother's birth, she was the only person who could rub my feet and make me feel better. She was thrilled about him. And not so thrilled, too. She used the phrase, "But that was before my little brother came along and ruined my life!" Alot. But when there was a fire alarm in theater, she was the first one out, pushing past other people, little brother in tow.

And the birthdays. At two, she got a tricycle, and by four, a two-wheeler. At three she came skipping home singing "Balloons for the Birthday Girl!" Barbie came somewhere in there, and her favorite Miko, who got lost one day years later. She mourned for months and searched for nearly a year. There was the year of the pinata in the courtyard, and the year of the party at the local park. There was the year she had a little brother. At twelve, we had to return a cd because it had the parental warning on it. That was also the year of teeny-bopper pop--Janet Jackson and the boy bands. At thirteen, her Bat Mitzvah overshadowed her birthday, and we had a sleepover on October 9th--a thirteen-and-a-month birthday party.

Fifteen was a really hard birthday because her cat was killed by the neighbors dog the day before it. We postponed the party until the 10th, when we brought home a new kitten. But it wasn't the same. Those teen years are hard, when the magic of special days wears off and Mom and Dad have lost their shiny virtue and have become merely human. Or worse. Sixteen and another sleepover and anger that it wasn't what we had talked about for her "Sweet Sixteen." Hard years. Little money and less time.

But at seventeen, she not only got her drivers license, but her stepfather invested in a car for her. Gertrude. It was a "grandma car." But she was happy to have it so that she could stay at her high school after we moved.

Eighteen. Was it cheesecake or ice-cream cake? But there was a shopping trip for special jewelry. Her birthstone in a necklace and earrings.

Nineteen, and we got her a rice-cooker for her dorm kitchen comfort.

Twenty. Back home, lunch and a shopping trip. And she broke up with her high-school boyfriend. Finally.

Twenty-one. That was a very good year. A birthday celebration at home with her new boyfriend--and for sure, cheesecake, her favorite. What a difference a year makes! And a trip with friends to Disney World in Orlando the weekend after Yom Kippur.

And today--twenty-two. Her first birthday away from home. She's in Las Vegas. Staying at a fancy hotel. She could be--G-d forbid--playing the slots. Certainly, she is eating well. I hope. Did I tell her not to drink too much? Well, I should have! I hope she doesn't elope today!

We'll have to schedule a time to make a party with the family and give her a gift. She might be too busy to have Rosh Hashanah dinner with us. Am I complaining? Maybe a little. But she should have fun. She's young, she's pretty, she's--twenty-two. Soon enough she will be celebrating her own babies' births! She'll be the mom. It's coming. I can see the look in her eye when a baby passes by with its mother. And I see how she looks at her boyfriend. Sigh. Well. He's a good man. But shouldn't she be older? Like maybe 40?

Today I did a bit of this and a bit of that. Nobody said to me, "Remember what it was like twenty-two years ago today?" I cleaned the new floor. I painted two more walls in the living room. One to go. I practiced giving the WAIS to Bruce. The results aren't valid and I couldn't tell him what they were--Dr. Yeo said absolutely not. It took a long time. It sort of took my mind off the fact that my baby girl is not even home on her birthday. For the first time since she came sliding into the world in our bedroom, all eight pounds, eight ounces of her. Looking around the room contemplatively. Like she knew the world and approved.

And she's taller than I am.

Sigh.

Some mothers can hardly wait for the empty nest. I thought I was one of them. But here I am. My nest is, at most, less than half-empty and I am feeling it.

I guess I should think about the grandchildren to come. Then I'll have more birthdays to celebrate. At her house. I wonder what kind of cake they'll want? Cheesecake. Gotta be.

It was just one of those days. Cloudy. Cool. Drizzly. Fall is coming. It was sunny and hot the day she was born. A Monday. "Monday's child is fair of face..."

And she's twenty-two. And in Las Vegas. And the world keeps turning. Day follows night. The stars move in their courses. Time marches on, no matter how much we want it to stand still.

When One Project Leads to Another

Yesterday was Bruce's 9/80 Friday off. In the morning the house was filled with the sound of the hammer as Bruce put the baseboards back in the dining room.

Here are Zoey and Lily helping me model the new floor in the dining room.

They kept getting into the pictures--I'd have a half a tail in one, and a wiggling back half in another! I finally decided that they really wanted to be in the picture, so I put them in the sit-stay and made like I was taking their picture instead of pictures of the floor.

The wood looks lighter in the picture than it does on the floor itself. Eventually, the actual color will darken further as the wood is exposed to light for a period of time.



When we put the wood in the hall and dining room, I touched up the pain where the baseboards had been because the floor is slightly lower now than the carpet was.

But I had no paint for the living room lower walls. The previous owners did not leave any for that antique green. That meant that we had to buy some paint that would match.

And I began thinking about that. I really did not like the actual color. It had too much yellow in it, and clashed with my hunter green leather living room furniture. And since we would have to buy paint anyway...well.

The other day I stopped at Lowe's and got some samples. The original idea was to paint it the same color as the kitchen lower walls. So I got that sample, and got some similar colors as well. Well the "Green Peppercorn" of the kitchen did go alright with the new floors. But the "Irish Paddock"--a lighter green with a little less blue really popped out when held against the floor. So Thursday, we came home with a gallon of it. And I started with the walls that needed baseboards put back on yesterday...

You can really see the difference here...The "Irish Paddock" is lighter and brighter.


Here, I have finished the wall between the entry and the back hallway.
The blue line at the top is actually painter's tape, put edge on at the bottom of the white wainscott border between the lower and upper wall.

I really like this color. It is lighter and brighter than the previous color, and I used a satin finish--it shines a little and is much easier to clean!

But now...well. I am thinking that the upper wall done in a rich neutral color doesn't work so well with it. I am thinking that maybe something a little lighter and creamier might work better there...this is how one project can lead to another one. I may paint the upper walls next. And that would mean painting the halls, too.


While I was painting, Bruce was putting padding on the bottom of the pellet stove platform. Then Bruce, N. and I put the stove back on the platform.

Then we put the dining room table up. It had little rubber pads on the bottom of each leg. But we had to put felt rounds on the chairs.

Bruce is holding the can of pre-cut, glue-on felt rounds that came with the Bella Wood Floor Care package.

Bruce and I took a hiatus for some paperwork chores (more on that later) and then N. and I went to the library and the skateboard park. N. bought a new board and new bearings with some of the money he has earned helping with the flooring. He's still using the old trucks and wheels, though. When the living room is finished he'll have those as well. When we got back, Bruce had the chairs done and the hall floor prepped for putting in the baseboards there. And it was time to call it a day and prepare for Shabbat.




After our baths, we set the dining room up for Shabbat dinner.

Yes! The first Shabbat in our dining room since the end of June. Whooo-hooo!

On Monday, a neighbor will come to help move the china cabinet in. Today we will move some living room furniture into the dining room--the living room is next!

But it was a Shehecheyanu moment.
This is a blessing that is said when you experience something for the first time, or haven't experienced it in a long time. It is also used on Holy Days.

In English it is rendered:

Blessed are You, Adonai our G-d, ruler of all space and time,

for giving us life, for sustaining us, and for enabling us to reach this special time.

We have done the hall. That was hard because of it's length. The dining room went faster. And now all we have left is the living room, and we will be done with the "public spaces" of the house. After that, we will take a break before tackling N.'s bedroom, and the two offices.


This morning we woke up to a lovely fog over Mountain Valley.

I got a picture just before the sun rose.

It was gone before we walked up to the high meadow to see our lot. That's right--we not finished the dining room and ate Shabbat dinner there, enjoying the new floor. We also signed the contract on our first choice lot in the high meadow.

What a good way to spend the last Shabbat of the year.

On Wednesday at sunset, the Jewish year of 5768 begins! May it be as sweet for you as this one has been for us!

Mom's Education on Tuesdays and Thursdays

On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I am not an unschooler. Rather I am a graduate student with formal classes and labs, running from North Campus to Main and back again, listening to lectures, symposia and working in lab.

Today was my full day at the "U." This morning, I was running late because I had to drop Bruce off at Sandia as his car is in the shop.


So I arrived at the Basic Medical Sciences Building just a few minutes before Neuro A&P lecture. The first half-hour was a presentation of a paper. The paper itself was poorly written and the diagrams were not adequately explained. The student presenting it had looked up other papers by the authors and did a great job of enlightening us on what the diagrams actually met. The discussion and conclusion of the paper, about the interactions of Bipolar "Off" cells and Bipolar "On" cells with each other and horizontal and finally ganglion cells in the retina were very interesting. Then Dr. Partridge gave a lecture about neural pathways from the retina to the lateral geniculate nucleaus and to V1 in the occipital cortex. On the way, we learned about how the cells work that provide us with edge recognition, color vision, and depth perception, as well as non-imaging systems like the autonomic systems that control the dialation of the pupils in response to amount of light. This stuff probably sounds a little dry, but it is actually quite fascinating. It is amazing how all of this works.






After class, it was time for the dash to main campus. And today it was really a dash, because I had to stop by my advisor's office to pick up a signed form for the travel grant proposal I am working on getting for the NAGC Annual Conference I am presenting at in Minneapolis. From there, I stopped by the Office of Graduate Studies to turn it in and then across the construction to the Psychology Building for Psychological Evaluations: Intelligence and Neuropsychological Assessment.





Today, Dr. Yeo finished discussing the subtests of the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scales (WAIS-III). That took most of the class period. However, with five minutes to go, he posed a question about whether or not we agreed with Weschler's definition of intelligence as it is presented in the test. Whoa! He should know never to pose such a question with 5 minutes to go. Thirteen minutes later, and three minutes before I was supposed to be back on North Campus for Neurosciences Seminar, he finally dismissed. Not that I noticed until the end--the question was intriguing and the discussion more so.



Then it was time for a truly mad dash back to Basic Medical Sciences. Good thing I know a few short cuts! I arrived sweating and panting after the speaker had been introduced and she had launched into her talk. I picked up in medias res. The talk was a good one on some recent work with Neuronal Stem Cells and their effect on epithelial cells in the brain. It appears that the stem cells make several factors that promote the regeneration and survival of epithelial cells after ischemic and other low-oxygen accidents in the brain. I enjoyed it and the questions from senior researchers after. This is truly fascinating stuff!





When the seminar was over, my tummy rudely reminded me that I had burned a lot of glucose that morning and needed to replenish my energy supplies. So it was back to main campus, to get something to eat and then read the dissection manual about today's brain dissection. I still cannot read the manual and eat at the same time, so I enjoyed some of Ursula K. LeGuin's short stories in Changing Planes while I ate my California Rolls at the Student Union. After two-and-a-half trips from North Campus to Main and back, I felt a stong need for a latte. I can drink that and study the dissection manual--which has good photographs of the dissections. Too soon, though, it was time to make the trek back to North Campus. No more dashes today, thank goodness!





At Basic Medical Sciences--BSMB for short--I found my fellow classmates in the lounge outside the old dissection lab on the third floor. We were joking about the coming work, donning our lab coats and gloves, and for those of us who have a hard time with phenol--masks.
Then the elevator bell sounded and out came Dr. Cunningham pushing a cart.





"I've got your brains!" she announced.


"I wondered where mine went..." quipped one of us.


"Dr. Cunningham, can I have a complete brain transplant? I've had difficulties with my basal ganglia all day!"





Today it was indeed a dissection to expose the deep structures of the brain. We removed the top of the right frontal lobe and worked down to the Cingulus--a bundle of nerve fibers that associate many parts of the cortex. We could see the Cingulate gyrus that is superior to it, as well as the Cingulate sulchus in the left frontal cortex. Then we dissected down to the corpus collosum, and then removed the gray matter to see the Extreme Capsule, and medial to that, the Claustrum, and then the External capsule, and medial to that the ...well you get the idea.





When we exposed the right lateral ventricle, my partner and I saw that ours was rather small. So our specimen was from someone who was younger than most, since the brain shrinks as a person ages, enlarging the ventricles. That's kind of sad. I felt like saying "thanks" to the person who donated his/her brain so we could learn. That was a quiet thanks. Some people don't like to think a lot about where these brains came from until the whole dissection is over.





Finally, we were done. I always leave with the smell of phenol in my nostrils. I really like to go right home and take a shower, but today I had to pick up Bruce at the Home Depot just outside the KAFB gate. Then it was two errands before home, a shower and something to eat.

What a long day!

But I get to sleep a little later tomorrow. Then it's work with N., down-load some papers, and get ready for Shabbat!

Right now it is well and truly Guinness time!

Carnival of Homeschooling: Delicious and Nutritious!

Are you hungry for learning?

From breakfast on, Judy Aron from Consent of the Governed is serving up some interesting reading for the 88th Carnival of Homeschooling. Mmmm! That bowl of soup looks so good I'm gonna have some lunch while I read!

And here's just a little teaser!

How's that for a great looking dessert? I need a knife...

Meanwhile, Back in the Dining Room...

The castles in the air about the land and green building have been sharing time and space with the real job of the weekend: Finishing the floor in the dining room.

On Friday, Bruce took a vacation day and laid the floor for the 3rd fourth of the dining room floor. That's the part that is taped in the picture. It was glued down on Saturday evening.
Bruce and N. were late-night warriors--doing the gluing between 8 and 11 PM.
Yesterday, Bruce laid out the pieces for the last fourth of the dining room. He is working very carefully, using his spread sheets (don''t laugh, he's an engineer!) and cutting the correct pieces. In this way, he figures that he is closer to 1% waste, rather than the 5% that Bella Wood suggests planning for. In the picture above, the last fourth is mostly laid out. Bruce is not in the picture because he was cutting the remaining pieces to fit.


The guys were planning to do another late-night gluing last night, but after dinner and clean-up, they were just too tired! It seemed sensible to do it this morning.

They spread the glue for 4-6 rows at a time, then place the boards, and then tape them so that they do not move until the glue dries. Here they are, taping down the first set they glued this morning.

I was cleaning the bathrooms, running laundry and doing the other countless little chores necessary to starting the week tomorrow. But I did stop to take a few pictures.





Here are the guys, wresting the last board into place. It required a bit of force because it needed a notch cut into it to fit around the back doorframe.
The piece was slightly bowed, but the guys were pretty sure that, due to the notch, and their expert taping job, they could get it to lay right. And they did! They were feeling fairly triumphant about that, since they are determined to be the Bella Wood Waste Prevention record holders.






Here is N. sitting in the corner, having gotten the last piece in place. I guess some of the last row required a crowbar to get aligned just right! I heard the guys groaning as they used the crowbar to tighten the rows back against each other. Who knew that getting the pieces to fit tightly was so physical.

And they're done!

Tomorrow the tape can come off. Then we can put the baseboards back on. They will hide the quarter inch "give" space at the edges of the floor. T-molding will be placed where the floor meets the tile at the boundary of the kitchen, and at the hallway to the pantries, laundry room, and garage.

Then the pellet stove can be put back in place, and connected to the stovepipe. And none too soon. We can feel the fall in the air in the mornings and evenings.

After that, the china cabinet and dining room table can be brought back in--and viola!--I will have my dining room back--new and improved! It has been a long process. We started sometime around July 4th and finished around Labor Day. It took us the whole second half of the summer! Of course we had time off for California, but otherwise, the work has gone on every weekend.

But we are not done! Later this week, we will clear the living room. Bruce wants to lay wood down in there starting next weekend.

No rest for the chaos-weary!

Visions of Land Dancing in our Heads

We've known it was going to happen.

The high meadow in our development is going to be developed. The developer is actually reasonably concerned about the land and development, and so he has designated about half of the acrage within the development to be open space. And that's why we bought our house here.

The area is beautiful and the development convenants are such that it will remain that way. We believe that we are very lucky to own a bit of what Bruce calls "G-d's country."

And now the development of the high meadow has been approved by the county and is on the way. Our dead-end road will become the access point to that part of the development. As the survey team has been laying out the lot demarcations, Bruce and I have been going up there to scope things out. He has been thinking of buying some land up there that will have a good horizon for astronomy. Here is Bruce standing on the "astronomy lot" with Zoey and Lily. I took the picture from the boundary with the lot to the north, looking into Bruce's preferred lot.

I wanted to buy the lot next door to our present house, which is hilly and tree-covered, to protect our privacy here. Then, if we can get another lot up in the meadow, so be it. And Bruce has fallen in love with a lot at the top of the meadow that has some pinyon-juniper, but is mostly meadow land, where he would be able to control the light shining downhill, and have a great horizon. That lot is his first preference. Although he wavers a little between it and the one directly north, because it has the best horizon, he knows he would not control the light. Or the horizon itself. Someone could build a two-story 60 feet uphill, and then block that "best" horizon.

The lot is about a half-mile and bit from our present house, and a tad bit higher. Here is the roof of the present house from the building envelope of that lot. It looks closer because I used the zoom lens.

Anyway, yesterday, we sat down and signed a lot reservation prefered purchaser agreement with the realtor for the development, who happens to be our neighbor across the street. By next week we will know if we get that lot up on the meadow, or the one north (our second choice). Or the one next door (third choice).

And when all was said and done, and our neighbor Bill went across the street, I began to look around at the house I love, and I had second thoughts. And third thoughts. And then Bruce innocently broached an alternative idea.

Conversation in our kitchen last night:

Bruce: You know, we probably don't have to buy the lot next door. We probably would not put a house on it anyway.

Me: But I wanted it to provide a buffer between us and the new development. I like that lot--I feel close to it, I've been walking it every day!

Bruce: But I don't think anyone is going to rush to buy it anyway.

Me (knowing he is reasonable, but resisting a change in plans): Are we really going to build a house up on 1---? I mean, I'm not sure I want to be stuck up on the hill with no trees! And you are going to be difficulty to build with! You're such a perfectionist. the subs will hate you!"

This picture is of the lot next door. I love the trees. But the hill is topped by a lot of country rock. It would cost to build there.

The conversation did not go anywhere good. I think I was feeling overwhelmed by the idea of moving again, even though it would not be soon. I think I have an aversion to change, like N. does. A little bit of the 'broader autistic phenotype'--it's genetic, after all. I just could not handle the idea that the meadow is going to have houses, that "my" lot was was not going to be mine, and that I might have to move out of a house that I love, even though I would have a lot to say about the design of the new one. And the very thought of moving! I was also tired, hungry and a little overwhelmed by it all. I wanted to jump up and down and demand both lots. Alas, being much older than a two year old, that was not a good move. Instead, I left the guys to their gluing of flooring and read a book for a while, calming myself in the process.

The funny thing is, when we went up to meadow today, having signed the lot reservation, I began to appreciate "Bruce's" lot. It has views of the Sandias to the west, South Mountain to the north, and there are more trees on it than I remembered.

The picture is taken from the building envelope toward South Mountain. And that is just one of the views! Look 45 degrees to the left and it's the Sandia fault block, a blue jewel!

The lot is large and has an interesting shape--a trapezoid with a very narrow boundary along the cul-de-sac (not there yet) and a long boundary to the southeast, along what will be open space. The building envelope is large. Did I mention that there are trees? The boundary with the next lot to the southwest is through a thick stand of trees, so we would have privacy there, too. In the picture below, Bruce is walking towards that boundary. It's really not so bad. In fact, it is really very good. In fact, it is exactly what Bruce wants. When we first moved in out here, on the very first walk in the meadow, we walked on what would become that lot. And Bruce said to me: "The place to set up a scope is right here!" He was standing right in the middle of the building envelope.

I still get tired even thinking of building a house and moving in. But this is my beloved's dream. He is talking excitedly about passive solar design, trom walls and maybe even composting toilets. The garage would go on the highest elevation, whith the observatory above. And I would have a huge say in the floorplan of the new house. I could have one much like our home now, with those little changes that I have mentioned: A mud-room with separate entrance. An outside door in the garage. A larger master bedroom closet.

I have never agreed with Eric Segal that "love means never having to say you're sorry." I think love means that you have to say you're sorry often. Like I did this morning.

I think that love actually means that you can not say no to the deepest dreams of your beloved. Especially if you can get a mudroom out of the deal. Oh, and I checked out composting toilets on the web. They save water. They pay for themselves over the years. And they do not smell up the house. I can live with that.

Now I hope we continue to have first dibs on the lot! A week has to pass and then we'll see. A mudroom! Cool.

And look at this afternoon view of the Sandia Mountains!

I can definitely live with that!