Mrs Hannigan's Home for Girls

And that word is VASECTOMY.

And the pointless after-words: (because I don’t “do” short stories very well) is that on November 19th he went in and once January rolls around we can be quite sure and positive that every last one of them will be gone and we can MOVE ON from this phase in life (as much as we love it, of course)

Trying to explain to the kids was funny, though. They like to wrestle with him and jump on him. Madelyn (6) was worried to pieces when she heard he had surgery, she thought for sure there was something wrong. I mean, people don’t just GET surgery for no reason, right?

And Grace (4) was concerned that we “didn’t want any more kids.” She thought we were saying that we “don’t want kids anymore” and she was crying, she said “But we still want you” and it was the most adorable, pathetic thing, she just about broke my heart.

I spent some time reassuring her and explaining it a little more, I am sure that she understands better now. It’s just a reminder to take the time to communicate with kids (to their understanding) and to stay “connected” to be sure that they’re feeling secure and safe.

So anyway- that’s the biggest thing I am thankful for. Here are a few others:

1- I’m grateful for the luxury to work from home, control my own income and set my own hours, I wish I could share that with more moms.

2- I’m grateful that even though our families are all so far away, we’re able to keep in touch over Facebook and the kids can have relationships with our families, too even though we rarely see them in real life.

3- I’m grateful for my kids who are so fun to be around. Nothing is more fun than watching them grow up and embrace this amazing world that we live in. I love their righteous indignation at the world’s injustices. I love their questioning nature, grilling me for details so they can come to their own conclusions. I love to see their passions develop, to watch them learn about the world simply by doing what they enjoy. I love how quickly they notice the beauty in everything around them.

I see a rock, they see a million colorful spots all coming together into one mass that looks gray from just a few inches away. I see a ladybug and they see a small life, crawling along for a reason. They wonder where he’s going and why. They wonder what he’s feeling- is he scared of them? I wonder if I should step on it.

4- I’m grateful for blogging because of the wonderful friends I’ve made online and the women who inspire me, encourage me and make me a better mom

5- I’m grateful for my real-life friends, nothing can quite compare to girlfriends, can it? I hope that you are all enjoying this day with your families, and looking forward to dinner at the Indian restaurant in December, the roller-skating party, the Mom’s Xmas party, and exchanging cheer this holiday season.

6- I am grateful to live in a world where everything we want is within reach. Knowledge is free, a diverse field of perspectives and views enable us to see our own more clearly, and humans are ready to share their experiences, interest and knowledge with one-another, for the good of all.

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A word about our Thanksgiving “Dinner.”

The way that cooking has developed in our home over the past few months, we’re taking a very nontraditional approach to Thanksgiving this year.

I slow-roasted the turkey overnight (yep, it was completely frozen when I stuck it in the oven at 5 p.m. and I just took it out at 5 a.m. When the kids get up we’ll have banana pancakes and as they’re ready they’ll pop into the kitchen to make their side-dish with me. I haven’t done Thanksgiving in such a small kitchen before, so we plan to just cook and eat all day, without a specific meal time, probably. It’s not like we all fit at the table anyway.

We generally go see a movie on Thanksgiving but we’ve decided to save up money to attend the Unschooler’s Adventure cruise to Jamaica, Haiti and Cozumel in April.

It’s a very lofty goal, but our travel come-documentary that we’ve been working on for the past 6 years is coming into fruition as we speak. We have assembled an awesome team of producers who are passionate about the product and have worked their butts off making it something better than even we imagined. (and we’re quite imaginative)

I wish I could announce more about that, give me a week or so and you’ll hear all about it. Let’s just say that we have quite an adventure planned over the next year.

About that Cruise- Jamaican beaches, The warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico, Ancient Mayan Ruins, can I even express how much my heart swells to think that my family could be present in the same space as something so fascinating and ancient.

So now seems like a great time to remind Nikon about that camera they keep meaning to send me. It’s a D90, OK.

And also to share a great blog I found from a family who lives in their RV. It’s called Where the Fuhkaui. I love their blog’s tagline:

“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely. Broad, wholesome, charitable views can not be acquired by vegetating in one’s little corner of Earth.” – Mark Twain

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Shhhhh… I once promised my oldest daughter that I’d never publish a picture of her on my blog without her permission. I just couldn’t resist this one, though. It looks like we’re parked at Albertson’s here, and she’s snapping photos of her dream car. Something about the silly shoes (sorry, dear, the artfully decorated shoes) and the yellow mustang just looked awesome to me. (She has great taste)

Luckily, she’s also informed us that ANYTHING with an engine and wheels will suffice. And she can wait until February, she says. What a lucky mamma I am.
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And now for the camera review portion of this post, whereby I qualify that I have not yet received the Nikon D90 that Nikon may or may not yet have decided to send me (emphasis on “yet”). This photo was, in fact taken with my old camera, I just stumbled upon it in my files today. If it was taken with the Nikon you’d surely see the aura of her desire for freedom and independence being cast upon the mustang.

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I would have settled for the 600 or 700 but since this is a phony practice review, I thought I’d “think big” It’s easier to fixate upon a precise model number, rather than randomly wishing for a camera.

Anyway, this camera arrived just in time. (my old one, a Sony, died in August 2009)

I was able to capture priceless moments with my children (no cavities, making apple crisp, raking leaves, new haircut, dance class and picking apples)

The picture quality was crisp, I could zoom into the tiniest feather on a faraway bird (I’m thinking it’s true, this might be the kind of camera my Dad has and he can do it, so in my phony experience here, I’m going to do it, too.)

We totally haven’t raked leaves, but if I got a new camera, we just might. Yes, we will save all the leaves until the camera arrives.

Yes, I can say without a doubt that I love this camera (that we don’t have yet) much more than the old one (that doesn’t work anymore) and as soon as it arrives, I’ll take a thousand badass photos (like I used to when my old one worked) and post some of them on this site and others on all my other sites and I’ll create an entire page on each of my 24 web domains thanking Nikon (or Jesus or Willie Nelson, or whoever) for sending me this badass camera. My cumulative web reach is almost 800,000 a month and growing. Soon it will be a million. And my pictures will be so good that everyone will want one. I promise.

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Which would imply that we were flying but we’re actually DRIVING to Texas with the kids.

Six kids and 2000 miles (one way)

I’m such a last-minute person, but I’m really proud of myself. I have a friend staying here to feed the dog, water the plants, etc. Usually I call people on the way to the airport.

So far we plan to leave at around 9pm. We opted to drive at night to increase the likeliness that children would sleep in the car, thereby decreasing the potential fighting that can occur when eight people occupy a mere 50ish square feet of space.

Since my husband is a night owl, he gets the first driving shift, and I suspect he can make it until 5 or 6 am. Then, it’s my turn. I’m glad to be able to see the scenery in the daylight hours and hopefully everyone will sleep until noon because that’s 15 hours, then we can get a hotel room and let the kids swim & play while we rest and then get in the car to do it all again at 9pm that night.

The halfway point is Green River, Wyoming, I think. Anyone in Green River wanna go out to dinner?

We plan to arrive the day before the convention so we can rest up and chill out in the hotel’s swimming pool.

On the way home, we’re going to go the long way, and visit family in California. It only adds 400 extra miles to our trip and when will we ever be a mere 400 miles from CA?

I’ve strategically stashed several hand held video games that I’ve found lying around the house in the past few months, so that when they get bored, I will have a solution. They haven’t even noticed them missing. Actually I’ve got a few technological rescues planned- laptops,video games, cd players and things like that.

Clothes- always a dilemma. I mean, a family of 8×10 days=80 pairs of underpants, y’know. Actually, I googled a laundromat near the hotel.

And tomorrow I’m going to the pawn shop to buy a camera. Back when some crackhead stole my laptop, I visited every pawn shop in town several times a week looking for it and I always saw these great cameras, selling for about the same as their eBay counterparts. If you have a pawnshop in town you should totally try it.

(Side note- I was looking for the link to my laptop-being-stolen blog post, and when I googled “crackhead stole my laptop” I discovered that it happens a lot, there are a lot of people having laptops stolen by crackheads. Just for an experiment, I also googled “pothead stole my laptop” and got nothing, in case you wondered- unless you count the “pothead stole my girlfriend” post which doesn’t relate to the laptop thing, but it’s what I got.)

Anyway, my head is spinning about this trip, so many things to remember. I can’t even name them all. I’ve been writing a million extra articles to pay for this trip, and it’s so exciting to see it actually happening. A year ago, this was a fantasy that I couldn’t imagine realizing. Today, it’s just 20 loads of laundry away.

Anyway- one of the articles I wrote this week is actually taking off in a big way, getting a TON of traffic, and I find that hilarious because it’s so ridiculous. Not ridiculous in a stupid way, I just find it funny that anyone is looking for this information. Anyway- here it is- Math Skills with Facebook’s Farmville Video Game and because of the word count restrictions, I actually had to cut the article down a lot. I planned to analyze all the plants, trees & animals. Whatever- enjoy:)

Hey- speaking of FarmVille, I harvested a 22 inch zucchini from my backyard veggie garden today. Not that that has much to do with FarmVille.

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