A Rambling Catch-up

Where to start? It's been a busy spring and keeping up with blogging was the big thing that fell by the wayside.

*evening classes at the local community college, College of the Siskiyous. I signed up for several:

Knitting, Mon 5-7PM, Jan-Apr (every week)
Landscape: Blooming Plants, Tue 6-9PM, Feb 24-Mar 10 (3 classes)
Residential Irrigation, Wed 6-8:30 Feb 25-Apr 15 (6 classes)
Landscape: Year-Round Perennial Garden, Tue 6-9PM, Mar 31-Apr 21 (4 classes)

Plus a Bird Identification class that I decided to drop, it was a one-time Friday night lecture and Saturday field trip (Apr 24-25). But the same instructor is teaching a Plant and Forest Communities lecture/field trip this weekend that I'm also registered for. I had to decide between the two and figured the birds could wait. Maybe I'll take it in the fall.

I learned quite a bit from the irrigation and landscape classes. The DIYer in me was drawn to the irrigation class after paying a local landscape company a good chunk of money last summer to get our sprinkler system fixed and still had problems with it. I learned everything about irrigation and then some! Plus the instructor has his own business and I had him come over for a consultation and he helped me work up my own workplan of what we need to do in the yard/garden areas. I love applied knowledge!

But I also learned to limit my future evening extra curricular activities. We were all ready for Mommy Being Gone in the Evenings to be over.

*Delving into GIS Consulting. I'm still deciding between Siskiyou Geographic or Jefferson Geographic as my business title. A local non-profit environmental resource company, Northern California Resource Center, needed a GIS person so I went in and talked with the director, who Matt knows through work, and they decided to get me set up with some software and soon a dedicated laptop to do some GIS work. It's been exciting and intimidating at the same time exploring the possibilities of working from a home office on a project by project basis. Also, the potential of being a GIS instructor at College of the Siskiyous for a natural resources curriculum the Resource Center is developing. I have a lot of catch-up work to get my head back in the GIS world so that will continue to cut into my social blogging time. : )

*poking around on Facebook and Twitter. I'm still pretty hit or miss on Facebook, but it seems easier in some ways than blogging, less writing, more networks, but more scattered feedback it seems. And Twitter I've just started playing around with but it seems even more "glimpsy" than Facebook, but I like it's simple headline style. Kind of like the Facebook "what are you doing" lines but even more streamlined. still exploring.

*reading a bunch of fun quick reads. unassigned reading. Shannon Hale. Alexander McCall Smith. Barbara Kingsolver. Attempting Tess of the d'Urbervilles on audiobook.

*knitting. while listening to books. and attending the monthly knitting circle, Siskiyou Knits. and contemplating learning to crochet sometime. this project on purl bee so inspired me!

*tending to 30 pepper plants, 6 tomatoes, 12 broccoli, 4 lettuce, 5 cauliflower and a few other hetbs that reside in my front room window or the back deck table. Our last frost date is almost here and I really need to get the garden boxes built!! I also signed up for a bed with a friend at our new Community Garden. I figured this would be a fun way to do some social gardening as well, something to get out of the house in the summer.

*budgeting and spending our tax return. re-building up our savings. buying Matt's boat. plane tickets for our PA/MD trip in early August. bunkbeds for the kids/guestbed. miscellaneous house projects and fun purchases.

*watching Matt's dieting success. He's down 37 pounds with a few more to go to reach his "drift boat goal" when he gets to buy/pick up his 2-person pram that will greatly expand his fishing opportunities. He's planning on continuing to shed another 20-30 lbs when all is said and done. I'm proud of him for sticking to it so well, despite all the crazy business trips that have cropped up unexpectedly. We've both taken to drinking more herbal infusions and less hot cocoa and eating more salad with our dinners. The meal replacements we've bought are pretty good and have been the driving force behind it all of course. A shout out to our friend Lindsey who clued us into Take Shape for Life and the Medifast products. What was so inspring about it was her success and seeing normal people that she knew and have success with it.

*hosting family. My sister Heather came down for a long Easter weekend and Matt's mom and uncle were here this past week. The kids were in heaven being spoiled by Grammum and their doting Uncle Dougie. And Doug also went to town with the paint and made some headway in eliminating the ugly brown trim and gables on the front and side of the house. We had fun feeding the ducks, visiting a science museum and mostly just hanging out and eating good food together. including fresh steelhead that Matt and Doug managed to pull out of the Klamath... :)

*playing with my fabulous kids and being more focused on them. Evalyn is doing well in preschool. Academically/Kindergarten readiness she is right up there but surprising to me was that her teachers say she's shy and reluctant to speak up in class. We went to the kindergarten orientation recently and it almost made me tear up. She's growing up so fast and continues to say the funniest things.

Henry's speech therapy is progressing steadily. it's hard to judge for sure and even though I still feel like he needs more than ONE 30-min session a week, his therapist says he's doing great. sigh. He really is saying more things and is such a sweet hearted boy. BUGS are his fetttish of late. And laundry. And tormenting his sisters when he's bored.

Linnea. Well, she is certainly coming into her personality more each day. Such a loving little helper and always bringing things to us that we need: blankies and lovies to her bro and sis when they're sad, shoes and remote controls and spare change to Mommy and Daddy. She's surprisingly good with a crayon or pencil and my walls are evidence of this. Sadly she's still dealing with some very uncomfortable exzema ever since that bought of hives she had. And all 4 of her eye teeth/canines are coming in together. She is losing her chubby baby face and breaking my heart at how fast she is growing more into a toddler and less and less a baby. sigh. 19 months and counting. (It HAS been nice being pregnancy free for more than 12 months post-partum let me tell you!! I'm down to my pre-Evalyn weight, though not shape quite yet...)

As much as I've missed keeping up with all my blogging friends and family, I've also NOT missed the time it takes. It's been a long hiatus and I'm sad about the little things that I haven't recorded as they happened: hiking trips, cute photos, milestones, ideas and inspirations. BUT I've really enjoyed not being tied down to the computer or that guilt/pressure to blog amazing posts a few times a week. Not that I've been that regular anyway! (Only in my mind.... all those mental blog posts that never made it to the keyboard or "publish" button.) I'm still trying to find that balance and maybe I never will. Maybe I'm one of those people that is too detail oriented to do something quickly and well and time efficiently and feel good about the result. That and just basic time management and priorities.

I feel like I've been a better mom not being on the computer as much. I've rarely been on more than an hour total during the day, with longer periods here and there in the evening or during naps. Again, I'm sure there's a way to balance it all out. For now I'm reluctant to give up the extra time I feel like I've gained back. This is starting to sound like a "blogging is evil" ending so I'd better stop! Besides, I have a book waiting for me...

Enough lengthy catchup discoursing for now. Each of these bullets themselves could/should be a post with photos to document the events. Oh, and I will probably change our blog URL/title in the near future to eliminate our last name and create a pretext of more privacy to these ramblings. And now to publish this and follow it with some pictures of the kids. That's the only reason most of you check in here anyway, right??