Independent Child

Yesterday was Hitter's 16th birthday.  We celebrated by taking pizza to her volleyball practice for the team and having ice cream cake after dinner.  She hates parties, didn't want to go anywhere, and her only activity request was to sleep. 

I don't believe that wishing while pregnant for what your child will be like actually forms any part of their personality or appearance, but damned if Hitter isn't exactly what I hoped she's be. 

The last time Hitter did something make-up-y

She's sarcastic and honest, has a style all her own and doesn't give a damn if it doesn't follow trends or match what her friends are wearing.  She couldn't care less about brand names or if what she likes is popular.  She has a boy's hair cut and wears her shirts sloppily enough that she gets referred to by strangers as a boy. She can jump straight up 36 inches from a flat footed start (the athletic director calls her a freak of nature, which makes her laugh). She can do 50 Marine Corps style push ups without pause.  She's got a 4.0 GPA, tied for valedictorian, which she doesn't want, because she'll have to give a speech, but she doesn't want to mess up her GPA for college entrance.  She only wears make-up at Halloween.  She wore black leather work boots with her prom dress.

All the flats were too girly

 



 

Hitter has a best friend (Bunny) who calls me mom.  She is the only person on this earth who Hitter lets hug her with abandon.  They use each other as pillows, sit in the same chair, stay up all night watching Walking Dead, hit each other, insult each other, and damn the person who tries to come between them.  Hitter had a crush on a boy last summer... we've camped with his family for years and years, and for the first time she didn't hide in her tent reading all week.  She hung out with Scout.  She FLIRTED.  Bunny started texting with Scout since Hitter was talking about him non-stop.  For a couple of months it was the three of them, constantly on the phone, on face book, etc.  Then Hitter stopped.  'They like each other' she told me, 'and I'd rather be friends with both of them than only have one.'

 

Hitter is an Leftside Outside Hitter (hence the name) for her high school volleyball team.  This will be her second year on varsity.  She catches an amazing amount of air... she's 5'4", and can get her elbow above the top of a regulation height net.  She's got a line drive serve that Aces about half the time.  Her coach is working with her to combine the two into a jump serve.  She still has another year of high school ball after this, I have no doubt she'll get it down.

 

Getting some air

 

Volleyball is her sport, there might as well be no other.  She picked her college (a high ranked small private college) in part because they have a dedicated volleyball team, but aren't a big enough school to make the paper in any meaningful way.

 

Am I bragging?  Damned straight.  I could go on forever about this girl of mine.  She's played an instrument for 7 years.  She is part of the only club at her tiny high school that discusses issues of discrimination, and I got phone calls after she made an impromptu speech on love, and how it can't be stopped just because some people say it's wrong.  She has a massive attitude.  She hates attention directed at her and will flat ignore teachers if she doesn't feel like responding. She detests being touched without initiating (and she never initiates).  She'd rather read than do anything else.  She likes rock and alternative, hates country and pop.

 

She leaves for college in just two tiny, short, will go by like nothing years, and she is so independent and self sufficient I'm afraid she will never call me and I will lose one of the most amazing people I know.

 

Happy Birthday my beautiful independent child.  You are everything I could have ever wanted.  I love you.







Life As We Know It

So one of Knight and my stated goals is to be self sufficient.  He'd like to spend less money on groceries.  I'd like to live in 1850 and live off the land.  Ok not -literally-, I like the internet too much for that.  But I do have a fondness for crafts of the era... when sewing, canning and spinning wasn't met with 'You do what now?' but was considered part of what every young woman knew as a matter of course.

Unfortunately,  the world being what it is, and the economy being what IT is, I work a 40-50 hour a week job.  Because we chose to live outside city limits (better school, less taxes, more space, less rules about what we can do on our own land) I have 10ish hours of commute a week. Add in sleep and family/school/sports/etc time.... Well, not a lot of time to focus on my hobbies.

(Except for sports photography.  It says something about how much I do that when other parents ask if I'm showing up at X game for a sport none of my own kids play.  Probably says more that the answer tends towards yes.)

This whole area is now in ground garden.  And overgrown weeds.

ANYWAY.  This is my first year of having an in-ground garden (as opposed to an in-pots garden) since I was a teen living with my parents.  I didn't do much of the hard labor then... also we used an area that had been used as a garden for a few years before we moved to that house, so the soil was pretty much ready to go.  Soil here, not so much.  Actually, three years ago it was a mass of blackberry brambles (the weed of the PNW), at least once it was used as a burn area in the past 20 years, and probably in relation to being a burn pile, attempts to sprout broken bottles and bits of metal on a fairly regular basis.  Also I suspect a previous owner thought a rock garden was a good plan.  Add to that two people who only have a vague idea of what goes into a garden before the seeds.

Last year's garden, all in pots.

Yeah.

Knight rented a rototiller while I was at work and.... kind of failed miserably at actually tilling the soil.  He didn't really have a clear idea what was supposed to happen.  And the dirt did get turned over... just not very much.  So Monster and I ended up going back over about a 15 x 15 foot area with a pickax and shovels.  Hellllloooooo blisters.  But we cleared it enough to plant.  I did a mix of seed starting and starts bought at the big Farmer's Market in town.

My rows....are not very row like.  More clustery.  And they definitely are at an angle.  But they are In. The. Ground.  And we've gotten food off them!  So far I've gotten 5 heads of lettuce (right before we headed to California, where our produce isn't allowed to go), 2 yellow squash, a zucchini, a bunch of shelling peas, 4 tomatoes (Black Prince, heirloom), 5-6 grape tomatoes, a bunch of chilies, random bits of broccoli... I think that's it.  I have more lettuce coming up, acorn and summer squash growing, more peas, more chilies, so many tomatoes I may run out of jars to can them in, and cucumbers showing signs of actually doing something.

Salsa from last year's garden

Lessons learned this year:

1. start seeds earlier.  This is a tough one for me, as it doesn't actually get spring like here until end of June, and indoor cats who think starts are either for eating or peeing.  But I found some hints that I'm going to try next year, namely clear totes apparently make excellent mini greenhouses.

2. borrow a rototiller and make sure we know how to use it.  This is part necessity and part Hitter's coach's wife was horrified we rented a rototiller when they have an herb farm.  I got scolded and told to borrow theirs.  Also she'll come down and help me if I ply her with good coffee.

Plan for the rest of the year is to continue with what we have, then spread compost, lay down a cover crop, rototill all that in before hard frost/snow, whichever we get this year, then compost again and let it all stew until next spring.  I'd like to expand to at least 20x20, although 30x30 is doable if we have actual tilled ground I can work without killing my hands.  I want non GMO corn (if I can still find it, if not, no corn), beans, peas, lettuce, tomatoes, cabbage, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumbers, carrots, radishes, peppers, chilies, onions, pepperchinis, and whatever else catches my eye between now and planting time.  All organic and heirloom.  http://www.rareseeds.com/ is a great website for seeds.

Ok, in between typing I have canned a double batch of strawberry rhubarb jam, strawberry syrup and rhubarb syrup.  Now off to do dishes and mop the floor because sticky.

One More Kid

19 years ago this morning I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

But Erin!  You say.  He is too old to be Monster!  Where did this kid come from?

I didn't marry Knight until I was 20.  I had a steady boyfriend in high school.  I knew we weren't going to stay together past graduation, but Knight left the end of my sophomore year, and I had a hard time making friends, my circle was primarily the geeks of the late 80s/ early 90s who were far more concerned with their latest D&D campaign than your average girl.  Once you've been dating a significant period of time you have sex right?  That's just how things are.  (And why now I tell the brats that this is not the case kind of constantly)  I ended up pregnant my senior year.  The ins and outs of that are a story for another day (or three), not tonight.

Joshua was possibly the most beautiful baby ever.  I had nurses dropping by the room saying '-previous shift- said we had to come see the most adorable baby ever'.  I heard that a lot the next 2 1/2 years.  He had issues nursing, and his urethra was off center, and he ended up jaundiced requiring a heck of a lot of doctor visits and blood draws the first 2 weeks of his life.  He cried- oh how he cried- until I broke down and gave him a pacifier.  He woke up at 5 am consistently, which to my 18 year old self was a special kind of hell.  He was happy and loving as only a small child can be.  Musical.  My step dad plays piano by ear and Joshua would sit next to him on the piano bench trying to stretch his little fingers wide enough to play cords.

Six months old

 



He loved our dog, who treated him like he was her puppy.  He liked cheerios and chocolate pudding and broccoli, and hated green beans. 

At 9 months he was diagnosed with stage 5 kidney tumors.

I'm not going into his diagnosis and the ins and outs of his treatment right now.  It's, frankly, a long story and birthdays are about life, not death.

I only got Joshua for 2 and not quite one half years. 

 first birthday

 

 

Second birthday

 

 

It is hard to believe my little love would be 19 today.  What would he be doing?  Would he be off to college?  What would he have majored in?  Which kids would have been his friends, flopping over the couch eating all the snacks in the cupboard while playing video games like Monster's friends?  Would he be part of the band a couple local boys started?  Would his hair have come back red, or would he be a match for the other three (who have the exact same shade of medium brown)?  Hitter is such a typical first born personality, how different would she be if she had an older brother?

 

Questions with no answers.

 

Happy birthday Joshua, where ever you are.  I miss you.

Only me

So.... I'm Erin.  37, married, kids.... blah blah blah.

Oh right, if you're hear, that's what you want to know about.

I've been married to Knight for 17 years yesterday.  Been friends since I was 16.  I'm the poster child for why parents want to worry if their daughter comes home from high school and announces she's met THE ONE.  Note: she may have. 

We have three brats, Monster is 14, loves video games, has insomnia, runs long distance, rides his bike 20 miles without thinking anything of it. Baby is 13, my social butterfly!  Runs long distance, plays basketball, has a learning disability, and two best friends she is inseparable from.  Hitter is 15---16 in a month.  Plays volleyball like her life depended on it, has a 4.0 GPA, already selected her college, is completely antisocial except for her best friend.

So that's the fam.... I have too many hobbies to list.  I sew, crochet, can, garden, play World of Warcraft (Alliance!), wildcraft, and work at a job where I am very underappreciated (but what else is new?) by management.  Goals include living on a sustainable organic farm and having a sewing business on the side.

Why am I starting a blog?  Facebook is not really a good medium for larger concepts.  I'm wordy and don't want to bore everyone over there with stuff they've heard before.  Also, my entire family (almost) is over there.  Here I'm at least vaguely anonymous and can rant without 6 people I haven't seen since high school arguing with me.  Here I'll get total strangers!  Awesome.

So....that's me.  Hi. If you've managed to make it this far, well, actually I'd be shocked.  See you tomorrow?