Thoughts and Words Ill-Sorted

Sydney’s at a conference this weekend in Lexington–for sustainable agriculturalists.  He’s been enjoying the talks, but he’s also highly amused at the contrast between academic and agricultural conferences.  As he headed out this morning he reminded me that he’d be home late because of the conference banquet, and when I looked askance at his jeans, he shrugged: it’s a banquet, but it’s for farmers.  This from a man who frequently left our house in Oxford in a tux!

Sydney and I both have spring fever, which is making it hard to satisfy all of the things we want to do.  He has several conferences this spring, and is teaching three classes–all new preps.  But even our mailman has figured out that there’s a gardener in the house, since nearly every day he’s delivering glossy seed catalogs or boxes of seeds to our house.  Sydney’s planning some projects for the front of our house, which will make our neighbors happy (all of them have the Kentucky-golf-course look down and must think  our wilder look a bit odd), monkey bars for the kids’ playground, and lots of fruits and veggies in the backyard. I believe raspberry bushes and rhubarb were on his list, so I’m happy.

I think I was all set to ignore everything but basic upkeep in the house until summer, but Sydney’s projects have rubbed off on me.  He re-framed the patio doors (which had a wide gap to let cold air in!), so I needed to paint the frame so that they matched our woodwork.  But once I had a bucket of nice crisp white paint in my hands, I wanted to freshen up the off-white paint that covers almost half of our kitchen.  So, one weekend at a time, I’m tackling that.  I don’t see a huge difference (except for covered-up dings) in the day, but, wow, at night, it’s great not to have everything look yellow in the overhead lights.  Although I have now painted a few rooms, I’ll admit that I’m not particularly good at this job.  Drips and brush strokes notwithstanding, I’m usually just happy if the wall looks cleaner and less dingy than before.  If I keep at it, our house may eventually leave the seventies and nineties (the last two re-dos, clearly) behind!  With Mom’s help I also outfitted my cedar chest with a bench cushion and fun pillows, so we now have a new reading nook in the house.  But I really need to focus on work.  I have a new, fairly demanding course on my hands in addition to my usual classes, and I’m trying to get my book out to publishers.  I’m also giving a chapel address to the entire student body in two weeks, on a topic that is part of a new project of mine that I haven’t really started.  So, it’s about time I do!

Katherine and Nathaniel have been great recently.  They’ve shaken off the crabbiness that comes with the usual colds and sleep deprivation of winter (though we’ve been really lucky so far this year), and they played really nicely together this afternoon while I painted in the kitchen.  Sometimes it really helps to just tell them to buzz off; they get much more creative and cooperative with each other.  I ran circles around the playground at the park this morning, and from what I could gather they were playing a game that involved giving each other wedding gifts.  This afternoon, Katherine made Nathaniel a bed on the floor and they rehearsed some scenes fromThe Little House on the Prairie.  This went pretty well as long as she showered him with attention.  He was less keen on the bossing-around bits, so she wisely toned those down.

And yes, it’s spring, for all intents and purposes.  Kentucky may have flirted with zero degrees last week and gotten a foot of snow, but it was almost 60 degrees today, and all but the most stubborn piles of snow are gone.  Such lovely weather coming up, it’s too bad we’re all going to spend so much of it in our classrooms.  I’m guessing we’ll be ducking out of our offices early for afternoon hikes soon.

Erin

January’s been an interesting month.  On January 3rd, Sydney harvested this from his garden:

And yet this past week Katherine didn’t have a single full day of school, thanks to low temperatures (Kentucky standards here: 6 degrees at night) and roughly 10 inches of snow.  It’s looking like things will warm up and our snow will be gone by the end of the week, but, still, it’s quite a shift.

Sydney has been gathering his seed orders for this year, and I can tell he’s no longer quite got his head in the academic world.  In an effort to help the kids see what a yard is for (the first one they’ve ever had, so they’re still new at this), we seized on the chance to bring home a used playground from up the street.  I was sent to scout it out and talk with the previous owners, and I apparently failed to mention to Sydney that this playground was not the garden-variety kit kind that comes from Lowe’s.  Instead, this was made from scratch, and it weighs roughly 9000 pounds (just kidding, but it certainly felt like it).  So the Penner men (all three were here over Christmas) hauled it down the street, and Sydney’s spent a few weeks reinforcing and putting in new pieces.  Now we’ll be quite annoyed if the kids still tell us they don’t know what to do while we weed or mow or plant.

And now, gratuitous pictures of the kids:

Cute, right?  But lately this is all we’ve been seeing of Katherine:

Erin

“You were going to pay $20 for that?”

“Yeeeees?”

“That’s ridiculous.  Give me the dimensions and I’ll make that.”

Can’t buy even a simple shelf or ledge around here without having him up in arms.

Erin

Nathaniel saw my cookbook was out and started deciphering the recipe upside-down, from his side of the counter.  With a bit of help, he came up with:

“Position a rack in the lower third of the oven.”

After defining “position” and “third,” I think it would be better to start him out with a picture book or two before we get deeper into casseroles and soups.

Erin

“Mom, I’m really excited about going tonight.  You said the ballet is half an hour?”

“An hour-and-a-half.”

“How many seconds is that?”

“5400.”

“. . .”

That ought to blow his mind.  Hopefully he’ll still be stunned into silence through the full production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.  I’m not sure his mouth is closed for that long even when he’s sleeping. So I’m expecting smothered addresses to the cast throughout the play.  Ah, well.

Katherine, meanwhile, was oblivious to all of us yesterday when she sat on the couch, reading a new book from school.  We even called her name and still got nothing.  But when she roused herself, she was so wiggly I had to get her outside to play.  She swept the entire garage clean and helped me rake a big part of the front yard.  And she still had energy left at the end.  I’m worried that my attempts to tire the kids out just end up tiring me out.

Erin

Our living room hasn’t been a place where we do much lounging.  For the last three years or so, the large open area in this house and our previous rental were needed for Lego construction and snaking train tracks.  But now that the kids are a bit older (both less in need of that play area and less likely to destroy furniture), we thought we’d reclaim that space and get a couch.  Thanks to Craigslist and to David and Lisa (who lent us their van), we now have one!  Looking forward to some great reading and sleeping and cuddling as we get deeper into winter.

Erin

For almost a year we’ve had two parents, two kids, and two cats.  But in October, our grey cat, Woodsmoke, suddenly had trouble breathing and we learned he was up against heart disease or some other major inherited ailment.  So we had to put him down.  After that, his buddy, Domino, became more interested in spending time on our laps and curling up with us at night.

Although we were glad for the attention, we thought he would be happier with a buddy, so yesterday we brought home a nearly-grown tabby named Dexter.  He’s pretty ordinary in color, but his fur is very soft and he is a great mix of playfulness and cuddle.  He seems to like perching himself in places that will get him a pet or rub-down as people pass by.  He also breezed past Domino’s wariness and insisted that they start playing.  Immediately.  I think Domino (only 1 1/2 years old himself) is feeling a bit tired after trying to keep up with such an active playmate.  Only a few hours after meeting, they both curled up on our bed last night, ready to settle in–before more play today.

It may look like Katherine has the cat in a stranglehold, but she’s actually learning the age-old art of cuddling a cat who is very insistent on being petted, while keeping her eyes on her book.  The second Little House on the Prairie novel has her captivated, and we’re now having to tease her out of her reading to get her to do other things.  Yes, Mom, Sydney and I know that this is payback for the pains we caused in our childhood.

Erin

Erin

Sydney used the word “baleful” and something about his sentence prompted me to look it up.  Turns out that I have the old definition (“wretched, miserable”) in mind, not the current one (“pernicious, menacing”).  Wait, the dictionary deems me obsolete???

Erin

Erin: “Oops, I signed up to bring goodie bags to Nathaniel’s school.  What should I put in them?  Good-for-you stuff?”

Sydney: “C-R-A-P is cheaper.”

Here Katherine inserts herself: “What’s C-A-R-P?”

Prompt reply from Erin: “Carp.  It’s a kind of fish.”

Nathaniel perks up.  “Are you putting that in the goodie bags?”

This one will have me cackling for a week.

Erin