Kitchen Helper

Keith almost always makes dinner. It's not easy after a long day at work, but he's a superb cook who makes us healthy and delectable meals. And he's great about getting the kids involved. B helps prepare filling for pollo asado burritos for tonight's dinner. Deeeeeelicious!

Where's the Power?

The hot and muggy weather continues. An afternoon thunderstorm threatened rain, but it didn't deliver anything but an hour of dry lightning and about a dozen drops on my windshield. Then two hours later, after the skies cleared and the thunderboomers went their way, the power went out. And stayed out for over 3 1/2 hours. Keith cooked dinner on the Coleman stove, and we ate by candlelight. We also placed candles around the house for navigational purposes, and these candles gave me juuuuuust enough light to write in my journal. As I finished the journal entry, on came the lights at nearly 9:30 PM.

HOT! HOT! HOT!

I thought that the 112 degrees I posted early in the summer was hot, but we beat it today. 114 degrees in the shade on my front porch, and the humidity nearly matched.

Ugh, misery in Southern California. For sure.

Library Summer Reading Prize

Our library has offered Summer Reading prizes for the kids for several years. But this year our library offered a Summer Reading Drawing for grown ups. I read my five books, wrote two reviews, and put three tickets into the bucket. I was just about the last one present to choose a prize, but I got the one I wanted: a chair pad and massager that I can use in my car or on my desk chair.

I love my library!

My Book Stack....

Reading up on the Scrolls before seeing them in October at the San Diego Natural History Museum ... need to finish Shakespeare of London (a good read but I got sidetracked by HP this summer)... just got Brother Lawrence back after a friend from church borrowed it (would like to thumb back through) ... Loved The Shape of Sand (great summer read!) ... haven't started Gilead yet (need to get it back to Judith soon, though) ... need to finish Eugene Peterson (again sidetracked by HP -- I'm just starting the good part on Lectio Divina -- I love that a Protestant translator/preacher-dude is writing about the stuff close to my heart!).

Sunset after a Rainy Day

We encountered a few raindrops on the way to church as well as a few lightning flashes and thunder booms. Once we were inside, the rain fell in earnest, a true downpour.

All the clouds provided for a lovely sunset once I got home from a long day "down the hill."

Saturday: Garden High Tea

On Saturday afternoon I attended a bridal tea in honor of one of the women at our church, Lisa. Maggie is our tea-diva, putting on incredibly complicated high teas. Lisa felt blessed and well-loved by all the effort, and we all very much enjoyed the lovely Garden Tea.

Prayer Labyrinth

The prayer labyrinth at La Providencia in Alpine.



Sheri at the top of the hill...

Sheri picked me up this evening and we wended our way down the hill to La Providencia, a small area waaaaaay out in the back country that is maintained by two Catholic Sisters and owned by the local parish. We first prayed through the stone labyrinth then climbed the path up the hill which was lined with stones and the fourteen Stations of the Cross. The sunset was long and bright tonight due to a fire south of the border in Mexico; the sun shone reddish orange before it sank over the western hills.

La Providencia burned in the devastating Cedar Fire of 2003; of the Stations, only two posts with their copper toolings of each Station survived: numbers 4 and 7 which are both of Jesus falling. Eleven copper Stations were found on the grounds after the fire and were restored on posts, bearing marks of the blaze. Only one copper Station was completely destroyed and was retooled by a local artist. The Stations have become a symbol to those who lost everything in the fire; I noticed a burned piece of wood at the base of the cross at the top of the hill, an offering and a symbol of the 3000 homes lost nearly four years ago. Healing is still in process....

Tomorrow I'll write more about the experience of prayer in the labyrinth on my Meditative Meanderings blog.

Back in the Routine

B has always loved penmanship. He started writing out his entire first name (no nicknames for this boys!) at barely three years of age. He's now writing in cursive with incredible joy and his handwriting is gorgeous, not the usual case for a seven-year-old. However, he's not quite reading yet beyond three-letter words. So really he's just copying what he sees (Bible verses from his penmanship workbook) without any understanding. Oh well -- some day his reading will catch up with his penmanship and he'll be able to read what he's copying so conscientiously....

Wednesday: Zoo Craziness....

Carol and I, with all our kids gathered around us and George snapping the photo, enjoyed an evening of chatting while we and our kids explored the San Diego Zoo at night. My kids always want to come to Night Time Zoo each summer, and I just never seem to take them!

George was kind enough to push my wheelchair up hills and around buses and elephants as Carol and I and the kids all talked away and George cracked jokes about everything. They are such a FUN family to be around! Carol's and George's boys got on well with my four hooligans, and jokes were flying back and forth among the kids before long, some of them even of the kids' own invention. :)

So here we are, our "silly shot," after a lovely evening spent with even lovelier friends.

Tuesday: A Play in the Park

Carol and I both snapped multiple photos of the California Tower of the Museum on Man (yes, my great-great grandfather helped with the design back in 1915) from the patio in front of the Old Globe Theatre in Balboa Park. I came with our Logos group, a reading group we recently started at church. Kitty and Guy had brought a bunch of friends from our church: the Reynolds, the Keeseys, and the Huffs, so both my Sunday School teacher and my Bible study leader were able to meet Carol and George. I had picked up Lalita and Judy on the way, and we met up with Carol and her Mr. Knightley very soon. The play, Measure for Measure, was superb; the company was glorious, and we had such a lovely time.

Monday: First Day of Home School

On our first day of homeschool, we're always labeling new folders to hold papers for the year. This year, all four kids are studying Latin in one way or other. Here J decorates his new Latin folder (bought for 1 cent each at Staples -- SCORE!) with a sword. T drew a whole bunch of swords on his blue Latin folder.

Thus the first day starts... 179 to go.

Seeing the Light....

It was nine o'clock at night, and I realized that I hadn't given my camera a single thought today. With church today and home school starting tomorrow, with scheduling assignments and running last minute copies, the camera never entered my frazzled brain.

So here's the chandelier over our school table. Enjoy. :)

Before and After II

Having my desk in the kitchen has its good points and bad. The worst of the bad points is that a thin layer of grease develops on everything, and dust clings to it. Several times a year I need to clear everything away and scrub it all down, even to the tops of ink bottles. Well, it's been about a year, and this desk was in sad, sad shape.



Much better! It only took about two hours to get it all scrubbed down and organized. While I worked, I also downloaded all of my mom's Elvis, Platters, and 50's CDs onto my iPod. Time well spent, both in cleanliness and musicality....

Friday: Before and After I

Here's our school area when I was in the midst of unpacking curriculum boxes, throwing out old papers and workbooks, emptying out drawers and binders, and opening new school supplies....



Here's the same area, cleaned out, dusted, organized, and ready for school on Monday! Our school area is much more ready for the beginning of the new school year than we are; none of us are really enthused about returning to the book l'arnin'....

Thursday: Last Beach Day of the Summer

Crystal Pier on Pacific Beach, San Diego



T starting on a sand castle....

We picked up my pal, Diana, (I was super nice and didn't snap a photo of her napping) and headed for the beach near my parents' place. The day was practically perfect, with the air temp around 80 and the water temp around 75 (as warm as the ocean gets off the coast of San Diego). The beach was more crowded than usual; with many schools starting on Monday as we are, I guess many families decided on a last beach bash before returning to the classrooms and books....

Wednesday: Raindrops -- So Many Raindrops!

Aaah, the joy of a summer thundershower, with raindrops bouncing on our front steps....

Window View

This is the view out of the window over my kitchen sink; the sill is filled with some of my favorite tea things....

Ol' Fashioned Dinner

Tonight I made my great-grandmother's Tamale Pie for dinner, topped with Keith's mom's cornbread. It's one of Keith's least favorite meals, so I usually make it while he's out of town. With very little money available for groceries this week, when I found that I had almost all the ingredients already on hand, we decided to make it, even if Keith had to scrounge something up for himself.

The kids and I love it -- it's one of our favorites and fairly easy to make.

Dear Friend...

As I visited with people in the crushing crowd between services today, I suddenly found myself face-to-face with an old friend. Arlene, her husband, and their child (now two children) moved to Pennsylvania about five years ago, and until today, we had only seen them once since then. Arlene is a doctor, an M.D., who came out west for a short-term job in the San Francisco area, then popped down south here for a few years. Her husband is a scientist who is now teaching at a small liberal arts college back east while Arlene works very part time so she can be home with their kids, ages 4 and 6, as much as possible. We had really hit it off when Tim and Arlene lived here, so seeing her face peeping through the crowd this morning was such a blessing!

(Photo taken by Kim, my Bible study leader)

Firefighters

As I stopped by the post office to pick up our mail this afternoon, I saw all the local fire vehicles lines up in the corner of the parking lot. I also glimpsed a bit of flame, and I crossed the porch and peeked over the railing into the area the fire department uses to train our volunteer fire fighters. Since our town has only one paid fire fighter, Scotty, he has to train the rest of the squad which consists entirely of volunteers, women as well as men. I'm glad for their bravery and willingness to defend our town which is always in danger during fire season.

Doggie Fun....

Dashwood seems to belong to E more than to the rest of us. Sure, T feeds him. All six of us play with him and take him out to do "his thing." Dash cuddles up with me each evening after dinner on the sofa and cuddles up with anyone who's on the sofa or armchair during the day.

But E is the apple of his little doggie eye. She trained him. She usually walks him. And he sleeps with her every night, curling up into a ball under her bedcovers after Keith takes him out for the last time. He also wakes her up each morning, usually with a doggie stretch and a doggie smooch. We all love him, but in his little doggie heart, he belongs to her.

Treehouse Adventure

Tonight the three boys are trying a new adventure: sleeping in the treehouse overnight. B looks so excited up on the balcony of the treehouse in his pj's, ready to crawl into his sleeping bag.

I'll wager twenty bucks that they'll be back in the house by ten o'clock, scared by a hooting owl or a swarm of bats or some small nocturnal animal trotting across the roof. But we'll see, won't we?

Rock Fan...

One great thing about driving a piece of crud car ('91 Corolla) is that I feel free to embellish it with bumper stickers. Along with my university decals from Point Loma and USD and a sticker advertising Alpine Anglican, I specially ordered a U2 decal a few years ago -- I kinda like the reflection of the camera too.

Day at the Park

The weather here has been unusually mild; the average July/August temperature hangs around 105, but the past two weeks has seen highs in the low-to-mid-80s. So later this afternoon I took J and T over to the park for an hour of outdoor play.



J skateboarded around the basketball court while T practiced freethrows and rebounds.



After tiring himself out on the court, T discovered some frogs that were taking refuge in a gopher hole. Being the budding zoologist, he had to examine them thoroughly (and play with them a bit) before returning them to their natural habitat.

Supper, Anyone?

Keith made Denver-style omelettes tonight for dinner. The omelettes were so huge that we had to get out our old plates. Ham, cheddar, peppers, onions, celery, and mushrooms ... yum!

Summer Flowers

July and August are the hollyhocks' glory days. They line up against my fence, their blooms proud and showy. They simply reseed themselves over the winter each year and keep up the slow, year after year.



My climbing roses are going through a second bloom cycle -- the window is next to my desk so the roses greet me through the panes every time I look up.

When You Give a Rat a Bath....

... you're going to need more light in order to focus your camera.

The flash provided far too much light, and the inside lighting too little, but this was the only series I took all day. Besides, what's more fun than seeing E's precious Ronald still adorably damp after his first bath?????

Check, Mate

Recently the boys talked me into purchasing a magnetic chess set to keep in my car's glove box. As we live at least half an hour from the city, the boys tend to find these car rides a bit tedious. B here shows off the magnetic qualities of our $2.99 investment before he starts to play in the chiropractor's waiting room.

Puppy Love

We enjoyed a swim day at Sheri's pool here in our town. Sheri and family are puppy-sitting their neighbor's new puppy, Dakota, a ten-week-old collie-German Shepherd mix. I think E is in love.....

Results of Watercolor Class

All four kids produced watercolors yesterday in our final art class of the summer. Julanna did a wonderful job teaching all eighteen students with only me to help her. First the kids learned how to do a wash in two colors, then they had to choose one color to create their scene.

This is T's work -- he's 12 years old and is really into art. And pirate ships. :)

For a photo of the teacher and of E working on her art plus her final project, check my main blog, Meditative Meanderings.