Lista, lista, para la vista!

OK, so here is the scoop... we are going to be leaving soon. John came back from Jordan, hung out with us for a week, and then drove 725 miles south of the border to get to our boat and put on some awesome and much needed things on it. A new toilet? Kind of important (although could we have used a bucket for 5 mos. yes??). New compass? Very important. New fish finder/depth sounder? Could have done without but it will make life easier for us, thus kind of important. New flip down flat screen tv with dvd player? Awesome, totally unneeded and yet, well it will make rainy days more tolerable.

So what have I done? Besides waking up in the middle of the night with butterflies in my stomach, wanting to know when we are actually leaving (instead of this hypothetical "we are leaving when we are leaving" junk that we keep saying), not much except, in my head, lists , lists and more lists.

What I want to do for schooling on the boat. What I want for reading for myself on the boat. Is there any other kitchen items that I want for the boat? What I want to see the kids to see on this trip. How to keep the kids in some good shape while we are gone. How to get us from here to there with some fun, good food, and writing in my journal to be able to support the family later on with a book about how much fun we are having... OK is that just wishful thinking on my part?

I am so looking forward to being in the moment on the boat. But I could start right now, instead of living 3 wks from now and just concentrate on today. OK? That would mean washing the clothes, and getting over to Barnes & noble....

new pic of L

We were at the Alvarado Creek during clean up week. Leo is holding up something that you can't see in the picture, but it shows how his face is maturing. Love my family

new pix of T

T with a lego creation

Skyping makes me not a luddite anymore

Well, we skyped John (who left for Jordan on Sept. 28th and will be back sometime in early Dec.) and it is nice to be able to see his face while he is gone. Unfortunately, now my mind was reeling from wanting to go on the boat. I think I am scared of being on the boat, but I know I am excited about going a different way this next time.

The kids are doing so well in swim right now that it does give me pause to leave when we are planning to. Leo is getting muscles in his biceps and his chest is looking square-er. T is dropping a lot of time and should be on her way at this next meet to getting great PBs on short course. I will be officiating.

It is rainy and we have had thunder storms. I would do anything to be all cozy on the boat, reading a book and drinking some hot tea with the whole family around me. Looks like that will happen sometime in 2011. Love my family

being veggie?

Some quick thoughts on what is happening... we took a challenge to be veggie or mostly veggie for 21 days. I made veggie chilli yesterday but put a bit of leftover ground turkey in it. Breakfast was steelcut oatmeal with blueberries, bananas and walnuts, lunch was green apples with peanut butter. Tonight, green beans blanched with lemon juice and olive oil, raw white corn and roasted potatoes with a bit of seasoning on them. Cantaloupe for dessert. Leo was please, he loves roasted potatoes. Teresa was pleased, since she is no longer allergic to melon, it would seem. I was please that they were pleased. I ran into a nice lady at henry's who encouraged us to go raw if possible, and that eating more whole foods would help us tremendously. She said she had lost 20 lbs. on the raw diet and was really just trying to get her allergies under control.

Day 3 tomorrow! I am happy to do the change in diet. Maybe split pea soup for dinner?

ruminations on dogs

So we are going to be accepting a challenge to become vegetarians for 21 days on Sept. 6th. Since I knew we were going to be doing this (and yes, John knows. He actually suggested we go vegetarian for a week, so I know he is good for that amount of time) and Von's was having a sale on rib-eye, I decided to buy some at a good price. What does this have to do with our akita, Kit kat, you ask? I broiled them, and after John finished his (and yes, he chewed it down to the bone, so I guess he must have enjoyed it quite a bit) he gave the cooked bone to Kit kat, who promptly devoured as much of it as she could in as little time as possible. That was Thurs. On Fri. when she went out on her 1st walk of the day, she apparently had some digestive upset (this was told to me by Leo). On her early afternoon walk, she again had some problems. We left to go run some errands while John took an afternoon nap. He awoke to the dog, ahem, as he so aptly put it, "she exploded all over the carpet", which thankfully was a bit of an exaggeration. We ended up throwing out a small rug that was not salvageable, and used up some woolite carpet cleaner on the bit that got on the regular rug.

When we got home, she promptly went into barfing mode, whereupon we rushed her outside. She puked and then squatted some more. Ugh. Poor thing! A few hours later, she had the dry heaves from both ends.

What have I learned from this? No cooked bones and be extra careful with what we feed her. On the boat this would have been a disaster. Here on land, plenty of room to throw her outside. I take that back. On the boat, we would have thrown her on deck and cleaned it off with a bucket of salt water, but still... I am glad that we found out that she is not to be given bones here than on there!

I think about the boat about 10 times a day. What will we do when at anchor? How will school go? Can I fit some stuff on the Nook? What should we take as far as art supplies? What kind of vegetarian meals will I be making there on the boat in Central America? Who will we meet? How long will we be gone?

But lastly, what kind of dog food will I be able to find in the markets? (sighing and shaking my head ruefully)

random thoughts

So I cannot believe that I have been ignoring this blog. John has been on me to make sure that I am writing, but would prefer that I do it for money. Yup, like there is all those jobs out there just waiting for me to fill columns worth of funny in their magazines/newspapers. Um, to put this politely, no. There is not.

However, I do agree with him that writing is a much better use of my time that watching re-runs of last seasons "Jersey Shore" or the reunion show of "Housewives of New Jersey", with all that antics that brings to mind.

We are back at the school year. We tried to take school to the beach and let the dog roam, but honestly, she just figures out that she (meaning the dog) can go as far as she likes and not be supervised at all. I get too nervous letting her out of my sight, and thus school was a wash yesterday. I would like to think that maybe, next time we take school to the beach, we will remember that the dog doesn't mind being on her leash all that much, once she has run about for a bit. I also realized that too much chicken jerky loses its hold over my dog. ack.

So to re-cap - we were going to go on the boat in Oct. but now John is heading over to Jordan for a couple of 5 wks. courses as a teacher of live transmission work (electricity) and he should be done in late Dec./early Jan. where we will either go and meet up with him and do the touristy things that people do over there in Amman (Jerash, the red sea, the dead sea, Jerusalem and Petra) OR we will just wait for him here and take off on the boat sometime after that.

Leo and Teresa are both back on the swim team for College area swim team (CAST) and he is now at level 2 and she is now at level 3. He is in 6th, and she is in 5th (as far as telling the general public). Math is going all right, reading is going all right. We want more science in our lives and more history and social studies. At least that is what I got from the conversation that the kids had with me yesterday on school. I am thinking that both of them are doing well in wanting Leo to sing and Teresa to do more ballet.

And of course, I need to start a new outline on my book and actually do some writing on it. Yup, right after I go to yoga. uh-huh.

Thoughts on food

So, I guess first of all, I need to say, wow, has it been this long since I've blogged? About a month ago, I decided to actually read the book that I got out of the library on the benefits of vinegar in the diet (yes, I know. There are bound to be lots of books on whatever in the diet being good for you and a miracle and will help you lose weight, give you better orgasms and more than likely scratch your ass for you) and I decided to implement it. Wow. Couldn't ask for a better "perk-my-ears-up-in-the-morning" than hot water with 2 TBS of vinegar and 2 tsp of honey in the morning.

There is a part of me that cringes from the taste of this drink. AS in my stomach wants to move to another body cringe. Something happens that occasionally happens when I drink red wine, when I drink this vinegar glop. Sort of a feeling in my lower stomach and soon enough I feel much better.

I have been doing this for a month now. I think (not sure, really not sure) that I might have been able to drop a couple of lbs. (of which I probably need to drop 15 of this couple of lbs. friends) but over all, maybe it is just breaking my addiction to the taste of coffee/decaf. That can't be a bad thing, right? It is making me drink more water, again, a good thing. When I eat something bad for me (like the 2 jr. scoops of Baskin/Robbins that I tried to lovingly/slowly/mindfully eat the other day) at least it is not ending up in big zits on my face. Again, I guess it is good for alkalizing your blood. Anyways, trying to eat better is making me want to cook more...

which brings me to the true subject of this particular post - making my own pizza. Can I, daughter of the worst cook in the world, learn to make a pizza crust and make my own pizza. Oh yeah. First I need to buy a pizza stone. ack. Adventures in cooking, right?

Little league, ballet, swim team, oh my!

So I was thinking today that it was great that A) Leo was starting swim practice, again, this afternoon after being off for little league baseball season, and B) that the kids were out of the house from 4 - 7 M-W-F because their sections do not overlap. Its been quiet this past 3 hrs. Cool.

They are both still losing teeth and the gig was up, what with Teresa figuring out who the tooth fairy was. So I just handed her a dollar the other day. But it was waaaay more fun when the tooth fairy was eagerly anticipated. Leo dropped a tooth at the swim meet (he was not competing) last Sunday, and Teresa told me that she has another loose tooth on the bottom.

T is continuing ballet over the summer at the next level 2A, and will dance through September. Leo finishes singing this week and I'm not sure if we can afford a week of theater camp but I am looking into it. they both are participating in a camp in July for developing their sailing skills, which that cost an arm and a leg. But at least some of the activity is slowing down for summer.

What's cool about this summer is that Gwyn and Julie move back in July and my dad's house is selling and he should be in San Diego sometime at the end of July. Yay.

Now if I could just finish up the school year with the kids. I am doing separate drills with Leo and probably need to order the next level of MathUSee. aaaahhhhhh! No really. Aaaaaaayyyy!

politics and crap like that

I haven't posted in a loooong time but here I am again. The political climate in the U.S. is very divisive at this time. Many people are just jumping to conclusions, calling everyone who does not agree with them names, and worse, no one is even trying to be cooperative with each other as this seems to be a sign of weakness. Wow. I am hoping leaving the country in Oct. lets me leave all this argumentative media behind and look for the stillness that is outside our country and culture.

The boat will be my haven of peace. Until the 1st storm, that is.... lol