Author: lilydarais

This morning I blitz cleaned the house, read to Mary, and practiced the piano before our friends, Fallon, Audrey and Eli, showed up for our morning play date. During the play date, Lydia announced she was going to water color and then retired to the bathroom, not to be seen again until after the “play date” was over. So much for that attempt at socialization.

But I had fun socializing, which, let’s be honest here, is the real purpose of any play date. In fact, I feel like I’ve had so many activities centered around my needs lately that my guilt is starting to make me into a more patient mom. I’m so happy about this! Knowing that my kids are giving me space to do what makes me happy helps me feel much, much more willing to be patient with them. It’s about time, because I was about to throw in the towel in the self-improvement department.

During the girls’ afternoon quiet time, I squeezed in the homework for my purchasing class. Speaking of which, I should probably hurry up and post pictures so I can go and do the readings too.

Also, Abe had a great day today. I have to stay vague for the next while, but let’s just say today was exciting, and I am happy for my husband.

After the play date, Mary walked around with the phone for a while. That’s a no-no, but she’s so cute with it that I had trouble taking it away from her.

Lydia has become incredibly affectionate in the past couple months. The other day Abe looked at me and asked, “Did you ever imagine that the train wreck that was our daughter six months ago could morph into this sweet child?” I just shook my head. She still has her melt downs, but she tells us she loves us all the time, and she comes up to us and gives us hugs all day long. It is the sweetest. Here she is hugging Mary in the bath.

And now time for homework…

Abe informed me it was Veteran’s Day (I never know these things), and that the weather was supposed to be gorgeous today (never know those things either). He then proceeded to suggest that I take the kids on a walk to the veteren’s section of the cemetery and tell them about what it means to be a veteran.

What a brilliant idea.

And so, after a morning of naps, meals, piano practice, and one unsuccessful attempt to extract massive amounts of earwax from Lydia’s ear, I finally (think a 3pm kind of finally) got the kids loaded in the jogger and ready to go. On the way to the cemetary, we passed many flags, and I did manage to talk to the kids about the flag before Lydia passed out.

Then we went to Tony Caputo’s for a pound and a half of Gorgonzola. Since apples and pears abound right now, I go through a LOT of cheese. Also, we had Gorgonzola gnocchi tonight–accompanied by a very fancy can of green beans. I found out yesterday that I love canned green beans!!

After dinner, I cleaned the kitchen and practiced for another hour while Abe bathed the girls. Then we had FHE, wherin I taught a lesson on Veteran’s Day, and Abe had us all write letters of appreciation to three veterans (two of them are his grandpas, and the other is the husband of our friend, Jill).

And now I need to do some homework for my purchasing class. I am so excited to have homework! (And also a little dismayed…it’s already late, and if I don’t get it done tonight, there’s almost zero chance of getting it done tomorrow. Abe will be gone at night and we have a play date in the morning.)

I came away from church with one resolution: I am going to read a conference talk a day between now and Dec 18. Our Relief Society teacher gave a lesson on putting God above worldliness today, and she suggested that exercise as a way to take an inner inventory and see how our priorities play out in our daily lives. A good challenge, I think.

After church we came home and ate lunch.

Then  we napped for over an hour. I was so deep asleep that I dreamed Mary could talk! I was having so much fun conversing with her that I was doubly sad when I woke up. But the good news is that I woke up to the phone ringing; our friends Fallon and Morgan invited us over for dessert after dinner. Of course, we never turn down dessert.

With a couple hours yet to kill, we took the kids on a walk to the park.

Then we returned home and ate a very sub standard dinner. I had never had spaghetti sauce from a can (not bottle) before, much less canned spaghetti sauce that was almost a year past its expiration date. It tasted like the can. Oh, well. It’s Sunday, and I didn’t want to cook, so I headed down to the basement and hunted down some cans to do the work for me. At least I didn’t have to chop up anything today–and, more importantly, clean-up was quite minimal.

Then we headed over to the Simmons’ house for dessert. We had so much fun that we stayed well past Lydia and Mary’s bedtime. We loved chatting with them; Morgan is a pilot, and they had some pretty funny stories about flying stand-by. On their honeymoon, they missed five flights trying to get to their cruise, and finally, they took a circuitous route and caught up with their cruise two days late.

Abe could not get over that story and has been talking about it ever since. “Can you imagine?!” he asked me. “If that had been us, you would have been SO mad and I would have been having panic attacks!” That’s probably true. But hey! It would be a honeymoon! We still haven’t gone on one…maybe when things slow down in ten years? I hope, I hope!

Today I dragged myself out of bed to run and shower before dashing out with Lydia to Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods. The minute we got back from our errands, I ran inside for my crock pot and a box for the food drive, loaded the car, and took off for church. Today was “Super Saturday,” which is the day women in the Relief Society get together to do service projects, learn new skills, and eat lunch.

While I was quilting and learning quick-bread tips, Abe was spending quality time with his dad and the girls. Because today was a gorgeous day, they spent hours walking around outside, and when I came home, Abe was just about to take the girls on another walk to one of our neighbor’s play sets. I vacillated between joining them and practicing the piano, but then I thought that if I actually do the May competition, I need to get cracking. So I stayed behind and looked at the pretty day through the window.

Because I am dying to go upstairs and read my scriptures and more of The Paris Wife, here are the pictures from today:

It feels like so much happened in one short day! First I ran on the treadmill and hurried to take a shower before Abe left for work. Then I squeezed in an hour and a half of piano practice, after which we had a wonderful play date with our friends, the Skardas. I was so absorbed in my conversation with Carrie that I completely forgot to take a picture of the kids. That and Lydia declared she was hungry, and her tone implied ominous things to come if we didn’t comply with her wishes and feed her lunch right then and there. So I was a bit distracted trying to cook up lunch, feed the kids, and talk with Carrie…and now all that’s left is this sad little paragraph to document a lovely morning.

After Carrie left, I practiced some more and put the girls down for quiet time and naps. Mary is sleeping for shorter and shorter amounts of time, so I had to work really fast to get through my online class assignments, and I wasn’t even finished before Mary woke up screaming. After the girls woke up, I fed them half a dozen times, made dinner, and then dashed to my first on-campus class when Abe got home.

My class is about purchasing, and even though the math is simple, numbers make me nervous and sweaty, and I sometimes feel like I am having a legitimate allergic reaction in their presence. So that was kind of scary and hard, but the class is small (6 people) and everyone seems friendly. I was the only person who did not know I was supposed to get and wear my chef whites to class, but thankfully no one commented. When I realized I’d neglected this, I felt so discouraged; I’ve always been really spacey about details like that, and if I don’t make a friend in class asap to help me navigate logistics, I am toast.

Then I came home and knocked out the next two weeks of work for my online class. Tomorrow I have to be at church all day because I am on the Relief Society committee, and they’re putting on their bi-annual “Super Saturday” of workshops and quilting for humanitarian aid. I realized half an hour ago that I promised to bring a crock pot of soup, and I am definitely not prepared to do that. So I’ll post these pictures quickly and get to bed so that I can throw some soup together before 10am tomorrow.

The following three pictures are of the girls while I practiced piano. Obviously, I stopped practicing to take these pictures. They were just so cute!

I was up most of last night with excitement. I couldn’t believe that I am living so many dreams simultaneously!  I was tossing and turning until it was almost time to get up…and then I spent the rest of the day paying my dues. Currently, I have a throbbing headache (going on hour twelve) and almost skipped blogging because I just want to go to bed.

But Grandma, I am blogging for you! Mom told me that you read this on your iPad every day, and I want you to have new material tomorrow, so here’s how the day went:

I practiced piano for hours while the kids tore up the living room. I finally figured out a barricade for the stairs, so now the kids play next to me while I practice. Half the time they clamber to get on my lap and “play” the piano themselves, so it’s a little inefficient in terms of practice–but super efficient in transmitting a desire to play the piano. (That transmission is one of my chief goals in life, after all.)

Around 2pm I finally decided to change out of my pj’s (into yoga pants–a very big upgrade!)…and climb back into bed. Mary was taking her very short second nap, so I squeezed in some more of The Paris Wife. It’s a novel about Ernest Hemingway’s first wife, and it’s been a very fun read. The author uses dialogue to terrific effect; I feel like I’m coming to a new understanding of just how fresh the 1920’s were for those who lived then. The closest comparison I can think of is the 1960’s…it was a time full of innovation, art, creativity, rule-breaking, and slang. But the slang seems to encapsulate it all in a wonderfully revealing way.

I also listened to a TON of piano recordings throughout the day, and read a little bit about Chopin’s opinion on wrist movement: For Chopin, the wrist was a vehicle to communicate respiration at the piano. I’m certainly not going to compete with a nocturne, but I did replay the nocturne op.9 no.1 a ton of times with that direction in mind. It was so fun!

And then, of course, we had to have a go at some of the library books we checked out yesterday. I played with the girls and read to them, and then toted them downstairs for a snack. While they were eating, I busied myself making dinner, and my dull knife slipped and sliced open my middle finger on my left hand! I was so thankful the cut wasn’t worse, and for the rest of the evening I just practiced with my right hand.

Here are the pictures I took during the day:

Today was the very first day in my life where I forgot to eat a meal. I’ve heard people (like my husband) talk about having forgotten to eat, but I personally have never experienced such a phenomenon…until today! I woke up excited to go to cooking school, and by the time I’d read scriptures, run and showered, it was time to go. I just barely had enough time to hunt down my wallet and run out the door. On the way to school, I realized what a momentous day this was; not only is it the first day of my new program, but it’s also the very first day I’ve forgotten to eat breakfast. Wow.

During orientation, I felt nervous, excited, and anxious to get learning. But since it was just orientation, I mainly got a good talking-to from a variety of directors on the importance of going to class and paying my bills.

I did, however, like the director of the culinary program. She happened to go to Kendell College, which (at the time she attended) was located in Evanston, Illinois–my hometown! I felt a kinship over that.

While I was listening to the financial aid director explain the difference between grants and loans, Abe was home teaching preschool to Lydia’s little co-op. He had a lot of fun, and the house was in surprisingly good shape (considering what had just happened) when I returned.

When I got back, I grabbed a piece of challah and then loaded the girls into the car for Mary’s doctor appointment. Today was her year appointment, so she had to get seven shots. Poor little thing. She charmed everyone by being adorable and easy going…until they jammed her little legs full of needles. After that, she was so sad and tired that she napped at home for the next four hours (she’d skipped her morning nap on account of preschool).

During two of those hours, Lydia played imaginary games with her animals in her room while I practiced the piano. I don’t know if I’ve lost my mind to think I can raise two kids, go to cooking school, and enter a piano competition, but the practicing is soooooo fun. Besides, I am certainly NOT entering the competition to win or even medal; please note previous winners have full-blown international performing careers on the side of their primary occupations. No, I am entering this with the mindset of someone running a marathon; I assume most people consider it a victory simply to finish the race, and I feel the same. If I get my pieces up to a point where I can compete with them, that will be my victory.

With that–and a promise I’d made earlier to Lydia–in mind, after dinner, I drove the girls to the main library. There I checked out a ton of CD’s with various artists playing the pieces I intend to compete with, and then we went down to the children’s section for more books.

By the time we got back home, Lydia was so sound asleep that I just put her straight to bed. Mary was so tired that I skipped her bath too and just read to her until her bedtime. She loves books with textures on the pages, and she can turn pages and feel the different textures for indefinite amounts of time. She snuggled, read, and snuggled some more. What a love.

And then I folded laundry and cleaned the house for the next hour. All that drudgery was eased by the joy of listening to the CD’s I got from the library.

And now I’m going to get a start on The Paris Wife. I didn’t take a single picture today, so I’m done with blogging much earlier than normal. Wow, I have so much time left before bed…maybe I should skip the pictures more often!

This morning, after scriptures and a run on the treadmill (thank-you, daylight savings!!), I knocked out Mary’s birthday thank-you notes. Lydia helped. The evidence of her help can currently be seen across the whole floor, which is covered in stationary and envelopes. I haven’t had time to pick them up, because right after we did the notes, I took Lydia on my lap and we watched a ton of piano performances on youtube. I called up the the PianoForte Foundation and got details on their May 2014 amateur piano competition, and I think I’m going to enter.  Lydia and I watched many videos in an attempt to try to figure out times of various piece combinations for different rounds.

Obviously, I’ve gone off the deep end in the self-actualization department. Cooking school, piano competitions…this, I think, is what happens when you finally start getting somewhat consistent sleep at night after almost three straight years of deprivation. All of the sudden, the world is my oyster! I can do whatever I want, because I have ENERGY! And my babies can entertain themselves, so I have TIME!! Wow. I feel like I’m in front of a smorgasbord of possibilities, and I want to do it ALL. Because, you know, eventually I will have more babies, and then it will be back to square one (counting the shower as my major accomplishment of the day…um, ugh.).

Anyway, after watching the videos–and eventually, Lydia got bored and slid off my lap to play with her magnetic doll while I stayed riveted in front of youtube–I decided to get a head start on dinner. Once again, Lydia was happy to help, and we made some delicious challah together. (Of course, there were tantrums along the way, and I spent the rest of the day feeling like The World’s Worst Mom for yelling at her.)

Lydia helped braid that!

Then it was lunch time. After lunch, the girls played upstairs together while I practiced. There was a talk in General Conference a while back where one speaker shared the story of how his infant son died because he aspirated a piece of chalk while the parents were in a different room. This talk plays in my head continually while I practice, and so every couple minutes I call up to make sure everyone is still alive and breathing. I would love for the girls to play in the same room as the piano, but there’s no door between the piano and the stairs, and so when they’re in the room with me, I am constantly running to the stairs to make sure Mary doesn’t take a tumble. It’s pretty annoying. So this is the best I can do, for now.

I let Lydia skip her nap today because I could tell she wasn’t tired, and so instead she entertained herself while I practiced some more.

Then she helped me prep some squash for roasting. After that, I finally took the time to read some books to her; she hasn’t left the house for two days and was begging to go to the library today…sorry, but since it snowed, the closest I wanted to get to accommodating her wish was reading her the books we checked out on Saturday.

Then we traipsed downstairs where I fed her dinner, and then I tried to feed Mary dinner.

Mary refused to eat anything I put in front of her, so finally I just let both kids scream for forty minutes while I finished cleaning the kitchen and prepping the rest of dinner. Abe’s arrival home made all of us feel better, and after we ate dinner (again), I practiced the piano again until bedtime. Then it was clean the kitchen time (which meant I ate the equivalent of dinner #3 while picking up).

Tomorrow Abe is going to teach preschool because…I have my orientation to culinary school!!!! I can’t wait!!!!!

I decided to clean the house today, which is where the title of this post derives most of its meaning.

When the kids finally went down for naps and quiet time, I finished the skirt for Aria’s baby, Enna. That is where the title derives the rest of its meaning.

Let’s see, what else happened. Oh, I made paella (with seitan chorizo–my favorite kind!).

During dinner, Abe told me he had a surprise for me and that he couldn’t wait any longer to show me. He was going to wait until my first day of school (Wednesday!!), but I was lucky and he gave it to me tonight…

Let’s see. What else. Well, I did read a little to the girls, and Lydia “helped” me dust upstairs and disinfect the bathrooms. She even helped me vacuum a bit, too. I also too some cute pictures of the girls.

And I practiced the piano, too. Mary is so cute. She spent a lot of time on my lap trying to play, and she gets really excited about moving the piano lid up and down. When she’s not on my lap, she loves to make a beeline for the stairs. I get my exercise in jumping up from the piano (I always wait until the very last second) and racing to the stairs to make sure she doesn’t fall down them. Today I almost waited too long on one trip and reached Mary just as she started falling down. I tried to play it safe from there on out.

And now, for real, I hope finally to go finish my novel. I start school on Wednesday, and I feel like I might not get another chance to finish!!

Today was fast Sunday (the one Sunday per month when Mormons forgo two meals and donate the money saved to the poor), and during Sunday School, our teacher talked about the importance of sharing our stories with each other. The lesson was supposed to be a theory-meets-practice seminar on family history, but she turned it into more of a “let’s-build-Zion-by-sharing-our-stories” type of lesson.

On fast Sundays, anyone who wants to can bear their testimony in Sacrament meeting. It is a little daunting to get up in front of 400 people (definitely the biggest ward I’ve ever been in) without a pre-written talk, but today I felt inspired by the Sunday School lesson, so I went up and shared a little of my conversion story. I have never borne my testimony in this ward, and it felt really nice to share my feelings about God with a group of people I have come to love so much.

After that, I came home and zeroed in on my family history. I think I found my great-great grandfather, my great-great-great grandfather, and my great-great-great grandmother today! The connection was so plausible I almost plugged it into my family tree, but I am missing my great-grandfather’s birth certificate, which would clarify it all up. I searched 168 Philippine records, but nothing came up. By that point, I was talking out loud to myself and I was tired. So I called it quits and retired to my bed for…hours.

When the girls finally finished their naps/quiet time, I dragged myself out of bed to make that pot of broccoli soup we all so desperately need. Then it was time to break the fast and feed the kids. I was a little snappy during dinner because I hate/loathe/detest/despise/can NOT stand meal time. Mary cries and fusses because she gets pickier and pickier each day, and Lydia wants to sit next to me or on my lap, which is sweet by stressful. I love her hugs and “I love you’s,” but I don’t like fearing she will knock over her soup into my lap at any second. However. her ability to eat anything (today she happily ate the dry rind of last week’s Gorgonzola and pronounced it “good”) gives me some comfort in the wake of Mary’s inability to eat anything that doesn’t contain sugar.

Abe noticed my distress and sweetly offered to give me a massage after dinner, and both Lydia and Mary came over to “help.” It was very sweet, and made better by the fact that after the massage was done, Abe watched the girls for the rest of the evening so I could play piano. With all that luxurious time, I went crazy and played through a ton of old pieces that I haven’t touched in more than a decade. I hope God understands that even if it wasn’t specifically Sabbath oriented, at least I feel like a happier, more loving person when I’m playing.

When that was done, I cleaned the kitchen and went upstairs for Family Home Evening. (Tomorrow night we are going to be in Snowbird with Abe’s mom and step dad, so we had FHE today instead.) Abe taught a lesson on fasting, and then we played parachute because fasting is supposed to help us “rejoice” more deeply. Playing parachute helps Mary and Lydia rejoice; clearly, it was an appropriate follow-up to the lesson.