Puppies

Ok, enough bad stuff… I can’t just leave you with my last post up. I have to post something good. We decided to get a labradoodle puppy. The litter was born on Jan 20th. We still have to meet him to be sure (going to meet him in February – and they’ll be ready to come home at the end of March) but we’re strongly leaning towards this guy:

It’s going to be a hard decision though – ALL of those puppies from that litter are just ADORABLE.

Doing the impossible: Teaching Art Appreciation to a 5-year old and a 10-year old

I
know it sounds impossible – but I actually pulled this off. You know how half the time, well ok for me it feels like most of the time, I feel like I strike out more often than I hit a home run. I hear myself saying more often than I care to admit “Well, that didn’t go as well as planned.” But this time? This time I hit it out of the park.

It began when my mother told me about an exhibit going on in San Francisco: Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cézanne, and beyond at the de Young Museum. I rushed right over to my computer and bought tickets for Sam, the kids, my parents, and me before I even thought twice about it. Then of course it dawned on me that spending the afternoon in a crowded museum, looking at old pictures on the wall probably wasn’t going to be the most fun the kids ever had. So I came up with a plan. I would make it into a game.

As luck would have it, my parents had plans to go to this exhibit two weeks before. So I asked her, as she went through, to make notes of a few of the paintings in each room, so we could later develop a “scavenger hunt” – age appropriate for a 5 year old and another for a 10 year old. (Ok, yeah, my mom did a good part of the hard work here – I still think this was a huge success).

The day of our tickets to see the exhibit, we came armed with two clipboards and two pencils. For Zach, the questions were basic enough: Find a painting with a golden vase. Find a painting of a cow. etc. It was challenging enough and he really enjoyed it. The only difficulty we had was really thanks to the crowd.

(On a side note: I’m a bit frustrated and annoyed with the museum. They’re very clear that they don’t want people bringing sketchpads, because to have people standing there sketching the pictures would “slow the flow of traffic throughout the exhibit” – and yet, they push the purchase of these audio tours that has everyone walking around the rooms like drones at a snails pace (or rather standing there FOREVER listening to the audio tour) rather than actually moving on through. I really would have preferred a time when NO ONE was using an audio tour – I think it would have gotten people moving more so I could have actually gotten within a few feet of a painting, instead of standing on my tip toes trying to get a peek from behind twenty people.)

Anyway, thankfully the kids were small, and my goal had shifted from wanting to see the paintings to wanting my kids to enjoy the experience. So I stood way in the back and sent Zach down underneath to sneak up to the front (all grownups who could easily see over him) so he could get a close look at the painting.

Can I tell you how proud I was to see him go up to the painting – point at it excitedly and tell me he found the painting of =whatever we were looking for=. People looked amazed that this little kid was actually excited to be there. Excited to be looking at the paintings. (Between you and me, so was I! LOL!)

Scattered within the scavenger hunt were a few “Which is your favorite painting in the room? Why is this your favorite?” or “How does this painting make you feel?”

Rachel’s was a little harder “Find a painting that shows 6 smoke stacks? Who painted it?” “Who painted a picture of a circus in this room” “Name 3 paintings by Henri Seurat (in this room)”

Rachel, who thought the whole scavenger hunt thing was beneath her before we started, really got into it once we were there. I came to find out that she had very specific and sometimes surprising opinions about the paintings.

Now here’s the best part. Aside from the fact that we got through the entire exhibit without a single meltdown – I considered it enough of a win. But then something happened tonight that just totally sealed the deal. My mother had bought a coloring book that had paintings from the museum in it for you to color. Zachary was playing with it after dinner – found one of the paintings and said “I remember this one! This one was on my checklist!… This one too! This is the one of the man fishing!”

It’s out of the park! 😀

First Night

Tonight we finally get to spend the night in the new house. We are buried in boxes. I know we’ll get through it eventually, but it’s hard to get anything done. Just walking down the hallway, I’ll pass a box and feel compelled to open it and start putting stuff away – even though I was on task to do something completely different.

It is pretty cool to finally be HOME. The challenge with this house will be storage – the house itself is quite a bit smaller than our last and there’s just less storage space overall. It’s going to take some creativity to solve the problem. Especially since we’re minus an office ROOM. My new office is now basically a hallway. So no office closet or anything like that. To compensate, I put a book shelf in the hallway with me, and bought some pretty baskets that fit on the shelves to put stuff in. So when you walk down the hallway, instead of seeing a bunch of office supplies hanging out everywhere, you just see the pretty baskets on the shelves.

Our kitchen has a lot of available space, but to make the most use of it, we’ll have to get some roll out shelves. Wherever I can put a piece of furniture that can hold things, that’s what we’re doing. And of course, we’re continuing to junk as much stuff as possible.

But even with all the boxes everywhere… I’m still so glad we’re done.

One month later

Holy cow. A whole month went by in a blink of an eye. Here’s my update on life.

Thanksgiving
We went to Sam’s mom’s house. It was a nice reminder why I don’t want to live where it gets cold. (It was really really cold!) Otherwise it was good. Rachel spent a ton of quality time with her aunt. Sam’s mom got a good look into the insanity that is 5-year-old Zach. I had wanted to take a trip into the Boston, but it wasn’t in the cards. Instead we visited the Yankee Candle factory in Deerfield. Haven’t been there in years.

House
We closed on the house – but the sellers are renting it from us until next week. With Christmas around the corner, we’re not sure when we’ll be able to get our stuff in there though. So it will either be early next week or the week after. The kids sharing a room is really getting old for everyone involved – I’m anxious to give them their own rooms. We bought a new washer and dryer for the house, and I’m looking forward to using it. (We had old ones in the last house, so getting new ones really is exciting. Yes, I need to get out more.)

Dog
We finally came to the conclusion that there was a very specific list of things we wanted in our next dog. Size, look, fur length, weight, personality, etc. etc. so we’ve decided to get a labradoodle. We’ve put a deposit down on an upcoming litter – the same breeder my brother bought their dog from. It won’t be until mid march until the puppies are ready to go home. … and then the fun begins. It was just a little over a year ago ironically, that I posted about how I’m all too aware of all the training involved with a puppy. But, how can you resist a face like this:

(That’s not our puppy – but we’re hoping there’ll be a chocolate puppy in the litter like this one.) We even already have a name picked out.

Sam’s Job
There’s more news on this too, but I can’t talk about it yet.

Weight
With everything that has happened in the last few months, I have totally let my weight get out of hand. I know it’s bad, but I refuse to look at the scale. But I don’t get real control of my own life until we get moved into our own house. So I’m just going to deal with it then. Whatever I’ve gained… I lost it once before. I’ll lose it again. :/ Besides. I’m going to have a dog in a few months that’s going to need a lot of walks/runs. Need to get in shape!

Dog hunt

With the housing issue pretty much settled for now, we have begun our next hunt: the search for a dog. We can’t get one until we get into the house (which is at least a month to two months away) but we’re doing our preliminary research. Obviously key issues are the kids. As well, we want to make sure we get a dog that isn’t too wild. Our home will be on the small side, but I’d like to get a dog that I can take for a run once in a while, so a medium sized dog would probably be best. Some breeds (and cross breeds) we’ve been looking at are:

Golden Doodle

Cockapoo

Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier

We’ve also considered seeing what the local humane shelters have available – although from what I can tell, the breeds they tend to have the most of are not ones that we’re interested in. (Particularly boxers, pit bulls, and chihuahuas) Sometimes in the mix they might get one that seems interesting, so it will be a waiting game of sorts if we decide to go that route.

We’ve taken a few online quizzes to see what breed would best suit our family and ironically, those also seem to miss the mark. (One actually suggested a St. Bernard. LOL!! Are you kidding? In a small house with no yard?! I don’t think so) One idea we had was to go to a dog park and see a bunch of different dogs in action. Not that the behavior of one is always a representative of the entire breed, but at least it gives you an idea for a range of behavior.

A Beautiful Mess

The last month has been a whirlwind. We’re in California now, but I’m not sure for how long. We made the decision to come here based on some things that have now apparently changed since we arrived. It’s a total mess. I hate to say it, but this was a horrible horrible mistake. It feels like a long series of events happened that were never meant to be. I’m praying that there will come a time very soon that we can get back on track, my kids can get back on track – and we can all live our lives with minimal damage from all of this – both financially and emotionally. I keep trying to find the bright side and at the moment it’s not real clear. Aside from my getting to spend some quality time with my parents for the next 6 months or so – that’s about the only good that I think will have come from this.

We may still yet be headed to Portland, OR. I’m not sure. Our lives are completely up in the air, but I’m done destroying my kids academic year. We won’t make any more changes in their lives until the end of the school year. Then I’ll work on righting the wrongs. Until then we have to live with the mess we made.