good night, folks

There's a scene in the delicious mockumentary, "A Mighty Wind," where the Folksmen have ended their song but are cued to stand up there and kill time because a member of the next act is missing. Harry Shearer's character starts giving a history lesson in a very low, scholarly voice. But when the next act is suddenly ready to perform and the Folksmen are signaled to get off the stage, Shearer stops mid-sentence and says brightly, "Good night, folks!" It's a very funny moment.

And that's how I feel right now. I have a dozen blogs building up in my head, and if I don't get 'em out there, I just may burst. But alas, I instead must say brightly, "Good night, folks!" and promise to come again to the internet another day or week or month. I received a text from Verizon yesterday that we've used up 50% of our monthly data allowance in our first week of service. Turns out you can watch like 8 or 9 hours of Netflix on a 5GB plan. Weird, because I had a long conversation with the Verizon salesman about how watching Netflix might affect our data, and he reassured me that we would be fine, just fine.

So by now, because the first device they sent us was defective and the second didn't work with our laptop, and their suggested fixes for my laptop didn't work, and setting up J's phone as a mobile hotspot for my laptop didn't work, and blah-dippity-do, I am now past the 2 week trial period and will probably have to claw my way out of this contract. Because, yes, the 2 week trial period starts the day you receive the first device, even if it's defective. But I've generally been happy with our Verizon phone service (other than their prices), and their customer service is pretty good, so maybe they'll play nice.

See ya around the block. Thanks for tuning in this last couple days anyway!

love is strange

At the grocery store a few weeks ago, Ziah was standing in the back of the cart while Zoralee rode up front. That's how we roll (literally), because our store doesn't have double seat carts. Zora was in charge of feeding Ziah bits of snack to keep them both busy. All at once he grabbed at her, probably because she wasn't moving bits toward his mouth fast enough. This annoyed her, and she hollared out at him. There was a grand pause in time as realization crossed his face. I mean, I witnessed the moment he realized he could purposely do this to elicit a response. And on he went, grabbing and annoying Zoralee.

*  *   *

Zoralee interrupted me as I was saying bed time prayers last week and said with honest incredulity, "Why are you thanking God for Ziah?!"

BUT! 

One of my all time best mothering moments also came this month. We were out for a walk, and I peeked into the jogger to see this. I didn't want to open the screen and risk them moving.

It's perfect that Zoralee has recently been choosing to play on our computer the song, "Love is Strange," as performed by Everything But The Girl, and she has been asking what it means that love is strange. Ahhh, little pickle.

back on the world wide web

Hi!

It has been a solid month of zero blogging and zero catching up on others' blogs (other than visiting Rachel's once via Jason's iPhone). I seriously feel out, out, out of the loop! Is everybody still alive? Does anybody live in a new country or have a new child I don't know about? Sheesh. But yeeeeeah, we've had a series of set backs getting internet hooked up at this new place. And viewing the web from Jason's iPhone, I dunno, I just can't get into it. Plus, the phone itself isn't very accessible on account of his schedule. The times he's home just aren't great for me to be hunkered over a tiny screen, taking 20 minutes to leave a three sentence comment.

But I'll be checking in on you, friends. And I'll be posting too, I think/hope.

The kids are fine. We're getting more chickens. The dog we were dog-sitting, Shasta, was found on a Canadian farm, and she has now been purchased by some Canadian cousins of that family. If you want the whole story, come by for tea. It really is a doozy. Our house is "coming along" (or this is what we hear from people who go weeks between seeing it - it feels like half an eternity to us). Evidently I sprouted a whole head of gray hairs overnight last night, like tripling what I already had. So, that's fun. I cooked up a Jicama for the first time tonight. Jicamas are members of the potato family, and we're fans of the yam, so it worked out just fine. Made french fries out of it, along with a yam. Coated them in coconut oil, rosemary, and garlic salt. But first fried the spices in the oil on the stove top, to really soften the rosemary and bring out the flavors.


I hear a male child upstairs a-fussin.' He went to bed at like 4:30 p.m. and is just now waking up. Ai-yai-yai. Could be a weird night. More gray hairs for me, no doubt. Livin' la vida loca.