Cookies on the Counter. (Though there might have been a better title?)

At about 5:00 a.m. yesterday morning I heard little feet paddle quickly down the hall, past our bedroom door, and into the kitchen. A cupboard opened. Pots and pans jangled. And finally, four-year-old Starling was at my bedside--pan in hand--whimpering, "Mom, I think I'm going to throw up." 

(Dear little soul: running in the dark to find her own little throw-up pan. 😬)

She did end up throwing up once--and then fevering the rest of the day. I would have liked to have kept her snuggled safely on the couch without interruption for the whole of it, but we had to venture out a bit. (One of those ventures was to get a prescription for Mette--whose toe has been swollen, painful and infected for over a week now with no signs of improvement. And you know my slight extra-anxiousness over infections--what with my great-grandfather dying from what began as just an infected thumb, and my own horrendous post-surgery foot infection several years back and all. [I wrote a bit about those here.])

But back to the venturing out. It was bitter cold. And I don't use that "bitter cold" phrase lightly. It was probably about 25 (F), but the wind was thrashing about with such icy determination that it felt ... well, as I said: bitter, icy. Much much colder than the tolerable-sounding "25 degrees" would suggest.

And it was surprising that I had to take poor Starling out in it as, in general, it truly has been unusual for us to be venturing out this winter. Partly because of the cold, and the wet, and the thick fogs lingering till 2 and 3 in the afternoons, and the early dark. Partly because we have yet to get our kids in any instrument or other lessons up here (so there are very few places they need to be). But also because ... we have to go into town now! It's 15 minutes to get ... anywhere. Which isn't so very far really, but it used to be that running a kid to school or picking up a prescription was a matter of five or ten minutes altogether. And now it seems hard to get anywhere (and back) without planning on an hour. So we've done a lot of sticking close to home.

(Some wintry biking with the neighbors while Mike fixes our downed mailbox.)

And along with that sticking close to home, I've been doing a lot of baking. Probably not the best thing for the old waistline, but one needs some sort of treat most days (doesn't one?) and with a trip to the store feeling like such a commitment (and our finances--what with our house taking roughly one billion years to sell [more on that later]--not being particularly conducive to lots of trips to the store anyway), baking has been a regular activity. Mostly cookies. (Though cupcakes and fudge haven't been unheard of. And I did talk Daisy into making me her eclairs [declares as the kids like to call them] last weekend when she was up being wined and dined by Utah State [minus the wined part of course 😁] in an effort to win her over to their graduate program. [Whether they succeeded in winning her over or not remains to be seen.])

Part of me has felt some bits of stir craziness. I'm ready to be out exploring parks and watching the kids jump on the trampoline again. (Even my runs have been sporadic. I don't mind running in the cold, but Starling isn't so fond of being in the stroller if it's below 40 ... which it always seems to be.) But also, I'm really grateful for this ability to just be here in my own little home. 

Every once-in-a-very-rare while I think back on 23-year-old me with her little acceptance to graduate school in one hand ... and her first ever pregnancy test in the other hand. When I look back at that girl, I see that she was at the start of one of those largely diverging paths in a "choose your own ending book"--though she didn't fully know it herself at the time. And the path she didn't take? It would have been a good one. Fulfilling. And, honestly, she would have been quite good at it, I think. I can see that girl in her alternate life as a biology professor. But the path she did take? The one that, 24 years later, has her pulling a third batch of cookies from the oven for her school kids to come home to (while her little tenth child sleeps snuggled in a fuzzy red blanket on the couch)? I'm glad she took that path. Thanks, 23-year-old me, for gifting me that.

One Thing Very Clever, Two Things Moderately Clever, or Three Things Very Dull Indeed

I'll leave it up to you to decide how to categorize these bits of information. ... :)

Movie Night:

Penny as Alma Hix in The Music Man. Why must they come out at the start of each performance up here and say, "Please don't take any photos of our performance.'? Why? Whyyyy? She did such a great job! I finally couldn't resist and snuck my camera out for these three quick photos. Next year I'll have her ask if I can come for the dress rehearsal or something maybe?

Disco Party:

The "fuzzy carpet room":

Snuggling:

Bunk room:

This little goofball. Just found her on my bed like this one day. 

Wearing my reading glasses in a comforter that she dragged from her room ... after me telling her not to drag it from her room.

Looks like my photos are out of order. Here we all are after The Music Man.

Pen with a few friends from the cast. 

Popcorn:

Penny asking a boy to Spring Fling. (She was dropping it off on her way to the play so we've got this half Penny/half Alma Hix version of herself. :))

Valentine boxes (some of the kids just made envelopes in class). Dais helped Summer make the shape then Summs painted it. Anders made his own:

Oh she's gotten to be the baby for so long. 

A stop at Smith and Edwards after a day of working on stuff in the garage at the Pleasant View house. (Jesse was off to the side. And Summer ... is actually in this photo--hidden behind Anders.) 

Just how a kid should look at 7:00 am.

We got a big rooster to ... hopefully bring order to our flock. (Do you know how mean hens can sometimes be to each other?)

Summer made a little will the other night. It left everyone wondering who would take Skittles the hamster.

Mette decided it to follow Summer's example:

Hans wrote this great book recently. You see the cover and think, "Meh. Random letters and scribbles. Not too promising." 

But then ...

And ...

And my favorite part: "TO-NOT-BE contenyoud".

Speaking of Hans. Here he is at his little patriotic program today. The little girl in front of him recently moved here from Russia. I think she spoke almost no English initially. But said her part with such a cute little Russian accent. Brave girl. But, back to Hans. It's so cute to see the kids come in and then to see their faces light up when they spot a parent in the crowd. It made me so glad I was there for Hansie just because of how much his expression changed once he saw me and Starling.

Though Starling didn't maintain appropriate interest in the program for long. ...

THE END.

A Great Deal Going On

The other day a friend asked for an update on what was going on around here. 

"Oh, nothing much," I said with a shrug. (Fully thinking that was so.) 

Then I thought of something I could tell: "Abe did just go to Ouray, CO this weekend with Aaron's daughter Josie and two of his friends. It's like this big ice-climbers' mecca, I guess. They even keep sprinklers on the rocks to keep up the ice. Abe went last year and wanted to go again, but they are poor college students and didn't want to pay for a hotel, so they just made it this crazy, grand adventure where they woke up at like two in the morning, drove five and a half hours, climbed all day, then drove back home. It was the first time for everyone he brought, and they all seemed to love it, so that was fun for him. ..."

And then, since my tongue was now a bit loosened: "Oh, and did I tell you Daisy is applying for graduate schools? Isn't that crazy: that we are old enough to have kids going to graduate school? It will be a statistics program, and she's applying at Utah State--which would be nice since she'd be up by us; and then also at BYU--which would be great too since she knows the professors and the area so well now. ..."

And then the floodgates were fully open: "Oh, and Penny went to the prom this weekend. The boy that asked her is just a friend, but when we first moved, she didn't even know if she'd end up going to any dances up here since she was new and didn't know anybody, so it was fun she got asked. They went sledding for the day date and then he picked her up for pictures and they went to Olive Garden, and then, sadly, before dinner even started, he started feeling super off and before long had such an awful migraine that they had to take him home after dinner! I'm sure he felt awful, and he'd spent so much on dinner and flowers and the tickets and everything. I told Penny we could come pick her up or do anything she wanted, but the group she was in had her come with them for a movie and then, by the time the dance started, two other girls who Penny knows showed up to go to the dance stag, so Penny didn't feel out of place with all the couples in the group, and she still ended up having a pretty fun time. Plus, I told her that now she'd always have a great story to tell about going to prom just like I do! [The time my prom date didn't show up--for those of you who don't know!]"

Notice the Hansie below:

Trying to pass the time while waiting to be picked up with some feverish piano (keyboard I guess) playing. She has one little melody she will play slowly and then ... over and over faster and faster and louder and louder. 

Her nice arm wound from the day date. Sledding with your coat off and sleeves rolled up, it turns out, isn't a great idea.

A very typical Penny face below:

We worried a bit that her dress was too simple, so Penny drove it down to my mom who sewed a string of rhinestones on.

Every girl loves a dress with pockets these days. In fact, there seems to be nothing that makes my girls happier than being able to say, about a dress, "And it has pockets!"

We pulled out the guitar while still waiting. ...

And when I finished all that rambling to my friend, I realized, a bit sheepishly, that my nonchalant "nothing much" wasn't quite correct. Or ... even remotely correct.

So I paused without mentioning Jesse's 30-hour project for a class at school, or the startling news that Goldie just finished a third of her mission and is probably finally getting transferred from her first area next week, nor any of the business with selling the Pleasant View house, or getting the engineering reports going on the farm, or the host of things happening in the lives of the many siblings and nieces and nephews Mike and I have, or the host of small things happening every day here with the half of my children who are still elementary-aged (or younger). (For example, Starling asking me the other day: "Mom? Do babies dream in mom's tummies?" I wonder!)

Anyway, "What's going on around here?"

Well. A great deal. :)

The End.