Rainy Saturday

Just another little update. Of various random things.  With random pictures!

Smiley in dress-up glasses.  They make him look years older!

It is pouring down rain.  Heavenly bathtubs upended.  I sit here typing in my little tiny house, with the rain thundering on the roof above us--with no insulation, no attic space, just the full force of nature on the other side of those boards and ancient layers of tar shingles, we hear every drop, and during a full downpour it can be so loud you have to raise your voice to be heard.  In fact, that ancient roof is one of the things the house inspectors laughed at when we bought the house--whoever put on the "new" roof so many years ago just slapped new roofing on top of the old, and it buckles in places, and has moss growing inbetween the layers, and when we moved in the home inspectors said it would need to be replaced right away.  Well, around here if it ain't broke, we don't fix it. (Ok, and sometimes even when it is broke.)  That ugly, non-conforming roof is holding tight, and when the rain is coming down in sheets outside my windows, and pounding above my head, doing its best to hammer its way into our little shelter, I marvel at how snug and good our little house is.  I think I feel most blessed when the weight of a winter rain storm is upon us and yet here we sit, secure, dry, warm.  This little unconventional house is taking better care of us than we take care of it.  Those who don't like its humble nature have forgotten to be thankful for safe shelter--but the rain drumming on my ceiling reminds me of the blessing of a good roof.

Another blessing during the rain--good dry, warm feet!  My late birthday present from my Dear Husband and my dear Becky was a day shopping up in a nice retail area in San Jose on Tuesday. It was a wet day, and I wore my new boots all day, and was so cozy!

That day Becky brought her two girls to leave with ours, and then she and I headed "over the hill" while DH worked from home and oversaw a little bit of homeschool and a whole lot of dress-up.  We ate yummy, healthy food for lunch, and then did our best to spend money, but were thwarted almost every step of the way.  Seriously--last year when we did this I found some wonderful neo-Victorian pieces in the stories; this year there was NOTHING.  Both Becky and I did find a couple of tops at H&M, of all places, but I can't even show them to you because it appears their online offerings are not the same as in the stores.  But they were two basic striped tops, one thin striped black & cream long sleeved, one thick striped black & blue 3/4 sleeve.  I have been looking for a striped top to layer under things since last year, so that was a fun find.  And H&M is very cheap, so that was good too. But hours of shopping produced no other clothes!  I think eBay will continue to be my personal shopping "mall" of choice.

I did find one thing during our shopping, however, that immediately made me look cuter than when I walked into the store, which is one of my criteria for new clothes:

This adorable scarf!  It goes with everything, and esp. looked so cute with my new boots, and so I decided it would be my one splurge of the day.  : )  I wore it out of the store, and got compliments on the scarf all the rest of the day!

The other thing we tried to shop for were boots.  Yes, I have my rainy day boots, but am still hankering for a black pair of shoes/boots to wear to church--otherwise I am afraid I have clothes that I just won't end up wearing this winter. As you know, I have been looking online, but it is hard to see cute things but not want to pay for shipping and handling and return costs just to try them out--esp. because the boots I tried showed me that I now officially have old, cranky feet, and they are just NOT happy unless they are comfortable.  Oh, and did I mention that my toes are irregularly long?  Zappos is so great, but they don't have everything.  So, Becky and I stopped in Macy's and looked at a mile of footwear--and it seems the ladies in San Jose all like fairly conservative boots, and riding boots are the latest thing, since that's pretty much what the selection was.  I did find the section of Born and Clarks and found some styles I had blogged about on Minnie Zephie, so it was fun to try those after admiring them online, but I guess Black Friday shopping had pretty much decimated the sizes available, so I only tried on three pairs of shoes total.

So, to make up for our shopping sorrows, we went to the Cheesecake factory to gorge ourselves on. . . salad.  No, we did not actually have any cheesecake, because Becky is getting over illness too, and I was feeling it coming back on, but she bought a piece for DH as a thank-you, and I bought tirimasu to indulge in the next day (remember, this was supposed to be my belated b-day celebration, and what's a b-day without cake? ; ), and was so glad I did because I woke up the next day sick again, and it was Sunny's birthday and I did not feel like making a cake and could stick candles in the tirimasu and she was thrilled that I had bought her such a fancy, special dessert and it was generous enough to cut into four small pieces and all the kids licked their plates clean and were happy. 

Have I mentioned I love how my kids are so easy to please?

We will have Sunny's official 12th birthday dinner with Becky's girls this Sunday night, when people should be all healthy again.

Homeschool charter field trip this past week to NASA!  DH took off of work to take Sunny and Merry, and it sounded like an amazing experience. Here Sunny is trying to throw a ball to a partner while they are rotating--so you have to throw the ball to where the person will be, not where they are.  So cool for the kids to experience such principles and then hear how they use such concepts in space!

Yes, the crud I had earlier came back, and has settled in my throat (swollen glands painful to the touch, chronic pain deep in my throat), and I am starting to think it is a virus that will need antibiotics to go away.  But I am waiting it out till next week.

The first round of the illness I had earlier hung over my all Thanksgiving weekend, but we still had a nice time with DH's family.  MIL was a little feisty at the beginning, but I think me being sick actually helped soothe things, because it seemed like she was trying to be purposefully more gentle and forgiving.  I even begged off the two big family bike rides, staying at their house to rest and drink tea, something which normally would not be ok, and she did not give me a hard time.  And I thought we communicated well too.  Like when I had a night where I got almost no sleep (Oma treated the kids with a late screening of the movie "Brave" before bed, and they all had a hard time going to sleep, and then Happy came in at 1 am and said her tummy was hurting but she thought it was because she was hungry, and since the girl has a sensitive stomache and sometimes throws up if she has not eaten well, we got up and went down for a midnight banana and milk snack, but at 3 Sunny came in to tell me Happy was throwing up in bed, so after I got all that taken care of I was laying back in bed and trying to figure out why I could not sleep and realized I was getting that old familiar crampy feeling--sure enough, had to get up and get ready for bleeding, and think it was about 4:30 when I finally went to sleep. And of course the kids still woke up at 7:30. . . ) and I just told MIL in the morning to please be gentle and patient with me, because I would likely be slow-moving, clumsy, thick-headed, and poor company because of it.  That might seem like no big deal, but those are all things that can make anyone annoyed, but esp. someone who is more sensitive to seeing negativity and personal affront everywhere, so for me to be able just to be vulnerable and say "I will likely be annoying you all day, and I apologize in advance for it, so please know I am doing my best" and for her to receive that and be gracious to me all weekend--that was really big, relationally.

Earlier this month the girls were in a small production of Peter Pan.  Here they are after the first performance with Opa.  Sunny was Liza the Darling maid, Happy was a Lost Child, and Merry was an Islander.

Ok, time to get the kids moving.  They have been playing happily (and boisterously) in the bedroom for a long time--but Sunny and Merry have pre-black-belt testing today.  They should both receive their black belts in Ho Kuk Mu Sul (Korean martial arts) sometime this year, but there are several testings they will go through to prepare for that big test. 

Hope your Saturdays are good, wherever you are and however you spend them!  Happy birthday too to my Dear Dad--we love you!