it's been a crazy few weeks (isn't it always a crazy few weeks? add them together and it's life, eh?) jubal is in the office with me, examining some rubber stamps i have of the alphabet, and otherwise tormenting my workspace. he's very much into everything these days. exploring, taking apart, opening and closing, etc. also trying to type and climbing onto things (like desks). i'll do my best to write this, despite his crazy antics.

hazel had her birthday, she is now officially 8, with her own swiss army style pocket knife to prove it. she went ice skating for her birthday--rodney took her, vesta, ronan, and another friend to the skating rink...can you imagine?! jubal and i stayed home and did the party dishes. dad's friend chuck came to celebrate with us--he was visiting dad. it was wonderful to see him, he's always been one of my favorite people. he said to me, " i like your house! your dad said it was a hippie house, but i like it." he went on to praise the party and the soup (hazel requested my *famous* "yellow chicken soup"--ground turmeric makes it yellow), which he ate approximately a million bowls of, voraciously and with obvious pleasure. that felt good. it was slightly annoying that dad called my house a "hippie house". i'm not entirely sure what that means...something like not martha stewarty cuz we make an effort to live within our means, so we don't have big fancy matching furniture sets that we bought on credit and we put a garden in the front yard and we hang the kids' art on the walls? i wasn't even born when the hippies thrived, so obviously i can't be one...i dunno, anyways the hippie thing annoys me. i'm not a hippie! living sustainably just MAKES SENSE, it doesn't make you some new age weirdo. is dad a hippie because he used to save up our recycling for months at a time and then pack the station wagon full of it on our trips to portland? or did it just make sense to recycle instead of throw it away? i digress. (dad--i'm not a hippie!)...hazel is 8 and great. she loved the ice skating and a good time was had by all.

i've been doing lots and lots and lots of crafting, including sewing--and i can't go into the details, as christmas gifts MAY BE INVOLVED. shhh. but it's been: fun, challenging, frustrating, awesome, pretty, more fun, happy, cussy, and generally badass. i'm getting pretty decent with that sewing machine these days. the hard part is getting the time--especially lately with jubal's recent step up in the getting-into-everything phase. it's almost impossible to sew or knit if he is in the house (knitting i can do if he's asleep). so i have to rely on rodney to take him out for bike rides or walks or something. rodney is not great at that, but i'm guessing he'll vastly improve in the next few weeks. heh.

onto the blue mountain update...we lost our appeal to ODE and the school board basically plans to shut us down over winter break. we do have some options and maybe even a trick up our collective sleeve, so this doesn't mean it's the end of us...there is an assembly meeting on monday to figure out what we want to do. i pretty firmly believe that we'll figure something out. i'll let you know.

final note...my cat juna died in the night. it was not unexpected, she's deteriorated a lot over the past year. it's a blessing, as she was getting more feeble and weak, and we were all feeling bad for her and trying to make her comfortable, but mostly powerless to help, other than making a bed for her in the office bathroom and frequently changing her bedding, as she lost bladder control over the last couple of weeks (another place where those famed "pee mats" we used for every child's birth and subsequent non-potty-trained life came in super handy). we'll bury her this afternoon when the girls get home from school. i intended to tell them when they got home, so as not to ruin their day, but vesta found her in the office bathroom this morning. she was sad, but okay since it was obviously coming and she was so old. i asked her not to say anything to hazel until they got home. i can never predict how hazel will react to pet deaths...sometimes she's just like "oh" and on to the next thing, other times it is a huge tragically sad scene with tons of crying and swollen nostrils and the need for lots of cuddling and rocking and comforting. i'm expecting it to be one of those days, so i wanted her to at least have a good day at school first. juna was an awesome cat, she was completely loyal to me no matter what happened--she stuck by me with the introduction of new pets...the horrible and wonderful kitten saga, and even through wyatt wyane's arrival. she loved to cuddle and could literally sit on your lap for hours at a time (during those sessions she would often drool a bit, which i loved about her). she's getting a spot in the front flower bed by my rose, so she can rest on my lap forever. best. cat. ever.

gratitudes:

my sewing machine!
creativity
fun
chicken soup
the waxing and waning of life in the cycle of all that is