Mommy Brain

Three more books finished, 12 to go to make my 18-book challenge for the summer. I’m actually hoping I’ll finish more than my goal in order to stay on track and finish my reading list for the year. We’ll see.

I finished Captivating: Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul by John and Stasi Eldredge before we left. There were a couple of good nuggets in there, but there’s a huge doctrinal error that runs through the entire book, so I would not recommend it.

Two nights ago, I finished The Novelist by Angela Hunt. Definitely a good read, especially for anyone who aspires to write. I don’t know how she managed it, but she wrote two stories in one. There’s the main story about a woman novelist, and then there’s the story the novelist is writing. The two stories intertwine and along the way are some good lessons about God’s sovereignty and how our choices to sin affect not only ourselves but everyone around us. It took me a while to get drawn in, but once the story grabbed me, I didn’t want to put it down.

Today I finished The Know-It-All: One Man’s Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World by A. J. Jacobs. This was a very entertaining read. After years of writing for pop culture magazines like Entertainment Weekly and Esquire, Jacobs decided he was being “dumbed down”. In an effort to learn, well, everything, he embarks on a quest to read the entire Encyclopaedia Brittanica, 2002 edition.

“…33,000 pages, 65,000 articles, 9,500 contributors, 24,000 images. I’m looking at thirty-two volumes, each one weighing in at a solid four pounds, each packed with those giant, tissue-thin pages. The total: 44 million words.”

When I picked up this book, I thought it had the potential to either be completely fascinating or extremely dull. Jacobs’ sense of humor pervades, along with personal anecdotes about his attempts to get his wife pregnant and to come to an understanding in his relationship with his father. And along the way I learned some fascinating stuff – almost enough to make me want to read the EB myself. Almost.

“Absalom
Absalom, a biblical hero, has the oddest death so far in the encyclopedia. During a battle in the forest, Absalom got his flowing hair caught in the branches of an oak tree, which allowed his enemy, Joab, to catch him and slay him. This, I figure, is exactly why the army requires crew cuts.”

The Bible actually says his head got caught in the tree, but I still found this funny. I marked many passages and will share some more in a later post. Anyone who is fascinated by trivia would enjoy this book. There is some profanity, though it is not pervasive, so keep this in mind if you decide to pick it up.

Next up: Atonement by Ian McEwan and Fresh-Brewed Life by Nicole Johnson. I’m also close to being finished listening to both A New Song by Jan Karon and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J. K. Rowling on audiobook – the latter with Natalie and Noah.

How about you – what are you reading these days?

By day 5, we were very tired. The kids had done remarkably well, but they were starting to bicker and disagree with each other. I was trying not to get anxious about our drive home.

My wonderful sister treated the kids and I and took us to see Cars at the theater. At a big theater, with cup-holders in the seats! The kids couldn’t believe that there were five or six movies being shown at the same time. Our little theater here in Colville is ancient, and not as plush as this one was.

The movie was good, though a little long for a kids’ movie. Josiah ate his candy and a few handfulls of popcorn and then promptly put his head in my lap and slept until it was over. He was so tuckered out.

Back at Deb’s, we had steak off the grill and raspberry cream cheese coffecake to celebrate Father’s Day for Deb’s husband Derek. I brought the recipe home.

After some tearful hugs and goodbyes, we headed back to the hotel, where the kids watched Inspector Gadget and then we all crashed.

We drove home the next day, and made it home without a crisis. The kids slept from the moment we left Silverdale until we stopped for a potty break before heading up Snoqualmie Pass. We listened to Laurie Berkner’s CD Buzz Buzz, which turned out to be one of the biggest hits of the trip. (Thanks to whoever – or is it whomever- suggested it!) We listened to more Harry Potter, but I have to admit that the way Jim Dale pronounces Voldemort (with a silent “t”) and Gryffindor (GRIFF – in – der) bugs me. A lot.

Since we’ve been home, I’ve washed, folded, and put away six loads of laundry. We’ve had Kevin’s van into the shop twice, for a grand total of $360. (With the brakes and shocks work he had done before we left, and my windshield wiper arm replacement while we were gone, this brings our grand total to $940 in a little over two weeks. I don’t even want to think about it.) I’ve planned Noah’s birthday party for tomorrow and he spent his birthday money from Kevin’s mom on a new scooter. I finished The Novelist by Angela Hunt – 4 stars. I started crocheting a afghan for my youngest sister, Marni. (I finished Deb’s just in time to take it to her.) Tomorrow we have Noah’s party and then Monday starts a week of VBS, so Josiah and I will be having some quiet mornings together. I imagine the rest of our summer will seem a little tame after Our Grand Adventure. And please, God, no more car repairs!

When we woke up in the hotel room on Day Four, the kids were hungry. Starving, to be exact. We got out of there as fast as we could and traipsed downstairs to the complimentary continental breakfast. When we checked in, I was assured that it was a very nice breakfast that included waffles, fruit, muffins, and cereal. A little low on the protein scale, I figured, but it would get us by.

When we got downstairs to the breakfast nook, the first thing I noticed was the table. Yes, table, singular. One table. Two chairs. Already occupied. Where are we supposed to sit and eat?

Then I looked at the counter where “breakfast” was laid out. “Breakfast” consisted of a few stale bagels and some packets of instant oatmeal. Oh, and coffee that looked as thick as mud.

So the kids and I piled into the van and headed to Shari’s where they all scarfed down smiley-face pancakes and bacon and I dumped an entire cup of decaf plus cream and sugar in my lap. The nice waitress brought me a wet rag so that I could wipe off my sticky legs (I was wearing shorts) and after we were done eating we headed back to the hotel so Mommy could change.

After spending the morning at Deb’s house, we headed for the beach. I grew up on Puget Sound, so until I took my honeymoon to the Oregon Coast, I thought Puget Sound beaches were beaches. They’re not quite the same, but it was the closest my inland-born kids had ever come to the ocean. The smell of the Sound – kelp, saltwater – brought back such memories.

The kids spent the afternoon collecting clam and mussel shells in their buckets and catching tiny crabs. We’re not taking those home with us, kids! Okay? Hello? Anyone listening? Jonathan fell on some barnacles and scraped up his leg and Natalie sat down in the water unintentionally, but it was a good afternoon.

Day three was much lower-key, which we all needed. It started with Josiah and I driving about 15 minutes to Bremerton to have the wiper arm fixed on the van. A repair that they said would take 30 minutes took 2 1/2 hours. At 1 hour and 45 minutes the service rep came and told me the repair was finished and they were taking the van out for a courtesy wash. Okay, I’ve waited this long, how long can a wash take?

35 minutes later I went to the service desk and asked if we could please skip the wash and just bring my van around. What kind of a courtesy is it if it makes you wait that much longer? Not to mention that a repair of ONE wiper arm cost $133. Ouch.

After having lunch at Deb’s, we headed to the Naval Undersea Museum in Keyport, Washington. These were outside:

Inside, we walked through the many exhibits on the ocean environment and submarine technology. Did you know the Japanese had a manned torpedo during World War II? It had a driver whose job it was to drive it into an enemy ship or sub and blow it to smithareens, along with himself. Crazy.

There were some creepy looking diving suits like this one:

The kids got to play in the simulated control room of the nuclear fast attack submarine Greenling.

After dinner, the kids and I moved out of Deb and Derek’s house into our hotel. The timing was perfect, as the kids all needed a break from each other and my back needed a break from sleeping on Deb’s couch.

I had made the reservations six weeks in advance, and yet when we checked in I was informed that the kind of room I’d requested (two queens) had not come available and that they’d “upgraded” me to a room with a king-size bed and a roll-away at no extra charge. The lady assured me that the roll-away was just a little bit smaller than a full-size bed and so two of the boys should be able to fit on it, no problem.

I then asked for directions to the elevator, since she’d put us on the third floor. No elevator. “Your kids are young, they’ll be fine,” was her response. I’m not worried about the kids, lady. I’m the one who will be lugging all of our baggage up two flights of stairs!

The roll-away was barely a twin, of course, but a borrowed sleeping bag sufficed and Jonathan was perfectly content to sleep on the floor. We watched a borrowed movie on the VCR and then crashed. Natalie, Josiah, and I all shared the king and I learned that Josiah likes to turn around upside-down and back to right-side up in his sleep. He’s one wiggly sleeper! But it was still better than the couch.

*Our Grand Adventure

The second day of our trip was one of the busiest, fullest, and funnest (is that a word?) days the kids and I have ever had. We caught the ferry in Kingston in the morning and headed over to Edmonds. After a couple metro bus rides and walking for a few blocks, we reached the Seattle Center.

(Of course, it didn’t look quite like that cause we reached it at lunchtime.)

We grabbed some lunch in the Center House…

…and then headed for the Pacific Science Center.

I haven’t been to the science center since I was a kid, but I remember it being my favorite field trip in grade school. There was so much to see and do. Of course, I wanted to read all of the information plastered over every exhibit, but the kids just wanted to get their hands on everything. Once I let go of my “but you should be reading all this stuff!” expectations, we had a great time.

We started at the dinosaur exhibit, where the huge, moving, growling animatronic dinosaurs kept Josiah (my 4-year-old) plastered to my side, his hand safely in mine.

Next we headed to the Insect Village, where there were rows of glass tanks full of fun creatures like this:

Past the insect exhibit was my favorite part of the science center, the Tropical Butterfly House:

It was amazing. Thousands of butterflies fluttering all around you, the scent of tropical orchids in the moist, heavy air. It was like being in another world.

We had our shadows captured on the shadow wall. We stood in front of a green screen and watched ourselves on video doing the weather, complete with weather map. We got our hands into the tide pool and touched all kinds of creatures. We stood inside a giant guitar and felt the vibrations caused by plucking the strings. We saw naked mole rats (“Just like on Kim Possible, Mom!”) So many other things. I’ll post pictures of the kids doing some of these things as soon as my sister e-mails them to me. Unfortunately, she got hit with a stomach thing the day after we left and she hasn’t had time to do it yet.

After we had exhausted ourselves, we headed back outside and sat down to watch the fountain for a while.

The kids had fun seeing how close they could get without actually getting wet. I would’ve let them get soaked, but there were still two buses and a ferry to ride to get home.

Back in the Center House, we had ice cream (for the kids), coffee (for Deb), and Seattle’s Best Fudge (for me). Our trip home was an adventure, since the bus our metro itinerary told us to take to the ferry terminal turned out to be a train. But we made it.

Back in Kingston, we walked to the yacht club where we had parked in Debra’s in-laws spaces to avoid paying for parking in the ferry lot. We were starving and ready to head back to Deb’s for pizza. But I had left the lights of my van on all day and it wouldn’t start. Of course. Couldn’t have a day without a crisis, could we?

Fortunately, Debra’s brother-in-law lives five minutes from the yacht club and he drove over in his mud-caked jeep to jump start my van. Back at Deb’s, we pigged out on pizza and nursed our feet, which were aching from all that walking. It was a good day.

Add your blog to the new homeschool wiki: Know Homeschool. Scott at Somerschool has directions on how to add your blog.

Hat tip: Spunky

*Our Grand Adventure

When we last left our daring travellers, they were stranded on the side of I-90 in no-man’s-land, wipers broken in a pounding rain, no help in sight…

The next half hour consisted of me getting very wet while trying to remove the passenger side wiper blade so that I could put it on the driver’s side and at least be able to see to drive. I couldn’t do it, even with help over the cell phone – which kept cutting out – from Kevin. I finally got back in the van and told Kevin I was calling Allstate Roadside Assistance no matter how much it cost and how long it took. (Keep in mind that while all of this was going on, Natalie was alternating between crying, “We never should’ve come on this trip” and “I have to go to the bathroom!”)

I hung up with Kevin and started to dial Allstate when I saw lights in my rear-view mirror. A wonderful, lovely, heroic, and kind state patrolman had stopped to see if we needed help. Um, yeah. He looked at my wipers and discovered that the passenger side arm was stripped where it fits over the bolt to the body of the van. He removed it to avoid anymore mid-swipe collisions. He then took the blade from that arm and put it on the driver’s side arm so I could see to drive. He told me that there was a Napa Auto Parts store in Ritzville and to drive carefully.

When I got back in the van, Noah asked, “Was he an angel?” To which I replied, “Yes, honey, I think he was.” I pulled back out onto the freeway and… it promptly quit raining.

We drove to Ritzville where the men behind the parts counter at Napa stared at me like a fish that had sprouted legs and walked up on land. A woman in an auto parts store? Who’d a thunk it? One of them finally got over his stupefaction long enough to tell me that I would need an entire wiper arm replacement, which would need to be done by a Ford dealer. Of course, there were no Ford dealers in Ritzville, so we continued on to Moses Lake.

Where we found the Ford dealership but were told that they would have to order the part and it would take 24 hours. Since the rain had ceased and we had one working wiper blade, I decided to press on. I stopped at the Ford dealer in Ellensburg where a wonderful man named Adam (bless you, Adam) called the Ford dealer in Bremerton (10 minutes north of where my sister lives) and determined that: yes, they had the part in stock, and yes, they could fit me in on Friday.

The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful until we turned off I-90 heading southwest to Auburn. It had started raining, and I had turned my wiper on the lowest speed I could get by with. The one working wiper blade slipped off the arm and started flopping sideways. I swear I am not making any of this up! Thank God, I was able to snap it back into place and we reached my sister’s house. By 6:00 p.m. A drive that should’ve taken us 7 and a half to 8 hours had taken 10 and a half. But we had made it and had our day trip to the Pacific Science Center to look forward to the next day.

We headed west on I-90 and entered that stretch of eastern Washington that looks like no-man’s land. Spokane was far behind and the small town of Ritzville was about 25 miles ahead. We were listening to Jim Dale read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and my tension from our epic search for the freeway was gone.

As we were laughing over Harry’s experience with flue powder travel, I noticed the passenger side wiper blade wasn’t quite in sync with the driver’s side one. Quicker than I could say, “Diagon Alley”, the wiper arm stopped in the middle of the windshield and the driver’s side blade collided with it, getting tangled and stopping all wiper motion. Did I mention that it was raining? Hard? And that when you’re driving down the interstate at 70 mph with rain on the road and semi trucks splashing more water behind them your windshield becomes a solid sheet of water that is impossible to see through, making it unadvisable to drive any farther?

I pulled over to the shoulder, put on my hazards and got out of the van. The trucks blazing past at death-defying speeds created hurricane-force winds that nearly blew me off my feet. I untangled the wipers and tested them. Seemed to be working fine. Okay.

Five minutes later the same thing happened. Only this time, when the wipers got tangled, the driver’s side wiper snapped right off the arm. It was broken and useless. I pulled off again and stared at it, unbelieving.

What will happen to the stranded lady with the four hysterical kids? Tune in tomorrow for Day 1 of OGA, part 3…

Thanks for all the wonderful comments I received while I was gone! I’ll have to go through my archives and post some oldies again sometime if it’ll get me this kind of response.

I usually try to respond to all comments, but this time I’m going to have to excuse myself. If I do, I’ll never get caught up on everything else I need to do today, like get groceries, wash a gazillion loads of laundry, clean the bathroom, and plan for Noah’s birthday party on Sunday.

I’m planning to post part two of our grand adventure later on today, but no guarantees. I’m exhausted!

We’re back! I’m exhausted and have 500-some entries to read at Bloglines. I didn’t have access to a computer with enough time to blog while I was gone, but I did journal about our days, so the next few posts will be about our trip. It’s good to be home and I can’t wait to sleep in my own bed tonight! I missed Kevin and I hated it that he couldn’t be with us. I’m off to catch up on what’s happening with all of you. Without further ado:

Day 1, Part 1

AFter a night’s sleep that included being awakend by Jonathan at 2:30 a.m. (“Is it time to go yet, Mommy?”) and by all three boys at 5:30 a.m. (“We brought our pillows up, Mommy. We’re ready to go!”), we dressed, ate and piled into the van by 7:30 and headed south. We gassed up in north Spokane (only $2.95/gallon!) and headed toward the I-90 west entrance ramp. Which was closed, due to construction. Okay, no problem – we’ll get on at the downtown entrance that we skipped to avoid nasty traffic on Division. Darn, closed, too.

I stopped and asked for directions at an organic market, where the sales lady was nice enough to inform me that, “Yes, the ramp is open” and “No, the closed signs don’t really mean it’s closed.” Uh huh.

So I headed back toward the freeway, looking for the “detour” signs she insisted were there if I just looked in the right place. And there were “detour” signs – for I-90 east. Which would’ve been fine if my sister lived in Idaho or Montana. But since she lives in Silverdale, which is west of Seattle, we were sunk.

I continued on the road the nice granola lady had insisted would get me where I wanted to go, and looked for a place to stop and ask directions. Again. Before I saw anything, we were going over a long bridge and heading into a business district. By this time I was completely frazzled and Natalie (my eldest and most anxiety-prone) is wailing, “We’re lost! We’re never going to get there!” To which I replied in a loving and understanding tone, “Will you please shut your mouth?! I need to think!”

I pulled into a parking lot and headed into the building, which turned out to be the Department of Social and Health Services. Good thing I’m a perfect mother who hadn’t just yelled at her frightened daughter.

The nice lady at DSHS gave me great directions and we finally managed to get on the freeway heading west. It only took an extra hour of driving time.

But, hey, we were on our way. We’d survived our little hiccup. What else could go wrong? Cue scary music here…

More tomorrow!