Two-finger pull ups...

ok, technically it's four fingers, two on each hand... and you can't tell from this picture anyhow...

I took a co-worker of mine climbing (gym climbing but albeit, climbing) for the first time a few weeks ago (and is not pictured here due to her paranoid nature of people finding her on the internet and somehow using it against her???). She was desperately in need of a new hobby... and despite my altruistic nature, my motives were purely selfish... i could use someone to go climbing with regularly... even if i do suck at it these days and my heart belongs to trapeze...

Rough week...

The last seven days have felt like seven months. Esther got a fever last Saturday morning and it pretty much lasted until this past Saturday morning. No other symptoms just fever and whining. God awful, ear-piercing, headache inducing whining. Esther, like a lot of children, has a penchant for getting extremely high fevers. And ever since last winter's seizure episode I'm always on egg shells and medicating her every four hours. We alternate ibuprofen with acetaminophen four hours apart. Used alone, they wear off too quickly and her fever returns gang busters... so this way it stays down and various organs can take the hit rather than just her liver... :(

And Monday morning, Jacob died. which i already mentioned. Everyone is a mess over it. He was such a good person. a really, really, really good person. It's amazing to me how naive i can be after 30 years. For some reason i still sit around thinking that the world is inherently good, despite the fact that if asked outright i would deny that the term "good" is an actual state of existence but more of a philosophical and even religious human invention used to justify actions of any nature or consequence. But here i am, freaking out and angry. feeling like the world cheated, like jacob dying somehow broke the rules, and if there are no rules than everything is now at risk... everything started to feel very thin and brittle. And i am not ready for everything to be this fragile. just...feeling sorry for myself... which is so utterly lame... and narcissistic. 

Ben and i have hardly seen each other. He spent last weekend in Pittsburgh visiting my sister, brother-in-law, and their new puppy, Charlie. And all week we've been ships passing... at all hours... running back and forth between my aunt's house, my parent's house, company, work, taking care of sick Esther and crazy Asa... And with the fever dreams wreaking complete havoc on our already sleep-sick home, we have spent almost every night, all night apart, one of us with one or both of the kids...

i miss my husband. i miss the safe little bubble of delusion i was living in where everyone i love was safe and indestructible.... i miss having a happy, funny, excited esther. and i'm tired. soooo tired. i want to curl up in ben's armpit and sleep for 32 days, 5 hours, and 6 minutes...

i'm sorry i've been so out of touch with everyone. and will probably remain so since the holiday crunch time is upon us and i have a to-do list longer than i am tall (shut up, it IS a feat actually...). I do love you though... and please, please, please don't die any time soon. don't think i could deal.

Jacob...

My cousin/ little brother/ friend, Jacob Hansbrough died on monday morning from heart-related complications. 

I loved him immensely. He was a very GOOD person. I miss him.

thanksgiving weekend at oma's

7th anniversary date

nov 28th was our 7th wedding anniversary. it was fun. we ate cheese. went to a movie. snogged. I sure do love that man!!

Purely pictures... you'll have to think up your own captions...

what we've been spending our days doing this november...

tea parties, laying around, telling the chickens stories, making meat pies (and singing sweeney todd songs), watching the tree guys take down our trees (pictures of that to follow sometime...), trying to get over the insanity that is daylight savings (still struggling), dancing, rock climbing, trapeezing...

OH MY FREAKIN' 6od

The end of the poopy diaper rein is in sight! 
He pooped in the potty for the first time today. With the welcome assistance and distraction of a top grade tool catalog Asa sat on the john and proceeded to open the joyous possibility that i will not wake up to an enormous load in someone else's trousers.  The simple elation of this first moment of realization that i will not have to handle massive amounts of noxious dookie every single day of my life is beyond nirvana.

Good job Asa!!!

Falling in Love...

Dear Trapeze,
       I think i, like all the other girls and some boys even, am falling in love with you. You are the perfect combination of punishing and rewarding. I spend almost every waking moment thinking about you on some level. For days after an encounter with you my body resounds with all that we did together. I also spend a lot of time on youtube looking for ideas of what we can do on our next date together...

Until next time, my love.
-your addicted, bruised, and tattered lover.

This performance is fantastic!

Ladies of Pittsburgh

I ditched the kids, hopped in my mother's truck and we drove north. to pittsburgh. Now, while i can't say that Pittsburgh is one of my more favorite places on earth (sorry brother-in-law and all members of White Wives and related bands), i can say that i'm slowly becoming more fond of it.

My sister bought a house this year. And has recently acquired a puppy. So, it was time for another trip to the great city of Pitts...  also, it was dance weekend.

We left the hollow at 3am. Drove (actually my mom did all of the driving, THANKS MAMA!) 4.5 hours. And arrived at my sister's new house.  It's a cute little house in a cute little neighborhood on the south end of pittsburgh in an area called Carrik.  Her dog is a cute little dog.

this pic was taken as we left

After meeting the dog, eating breakfast, and meeting Roger's new girl (Hi, Hannah!!) -- whom, i in fact adore! she's fantastic. Very sweet and very pretty and loads of fun -- we  (hannah too) went to Casey's place of employment, The Bee Hive where Casey made us tasty treats and we tried her amazing vegan donuts. Then off to The Edgewood Club for the Pittsburgh Fall Dance Weekend. We danced all day. The contra band was fantastic. I was so sore i could hardly walk.Then we went to Hannah's place of employment, Kassab's and bought baba ganoush and hummus which we then ate at Casey's house while she made us delicious soup w/ dumplings. Mom and I left sunday at noon and talked about everything under the sun on the drive home. Perfect girl weekend.

double shot of deliciousness!

It was a fantastic trip, if entirely too short.

I miss my sister. She's so much fun to be around. I dream of the day massive earth quakes move pittsburgh closer to baltimore.

side note:
Monday night, Andy (said brother in-law) and band (aforementioned White Wives) played a show at the Sidebar Tavern in Bmore. I didn't go but sent ben along (since it was his turn to run away). Rumor has it, it was a good show. The band crashed at our place Monday night and i spent most of Tuesday feeding them. I sure do like to feed people -- vegans notwithstanding... *ahem* roger ;)

and then it rained... a lot...

Thinking of making stuff...

need a name to put on the stuff i want to make (mostly felted stuffs) just in case i decide to sell it... or package it at any rate. Any ideas?

Next kiddie activity to do with Esther

 Instructions and more pictures found here:
http://kiddley.com/category/arts-crafts/page/4/

Veteran's day

Veteran's day, as i've just learned is not in fact to honor our faithful community servants, the animal doctors... apparently those are Veterinarians... go figure.

Ben's father left this morning for a three month stint in Vietnam. I believe he's going to make peace with the country (though ben thinks he's going to find his first family). He did two stints there back in is special forces days. And only when he's very drunk and too tired to fend off my unwavering pestering, nagging, coercing, and general cuteness does he say anything about that time in his life. I'd like to say over the internet airwaves, for whatever it's worth, i think Rex is an extremely brave man for facing the past so dead on. I'm so very proud of him.

Crazy

Not sure if it's the weather, the time of year, the decreased sunlight, being trapped in constant mom-dom, pms, some combo, or maybe I've always been like this but I'm bottoming out... Again. don't be surprised if I don't post much. Sorry.

Sent from my iPhone

Happy Halloween...