Extended family...

This is the legendary Jardeleza brood.

my grandmother, Lolita Jardeleza (or Oa to us grandchildren) and her 11 children. My mother is second from the back in the teal shirt.

Here they are again. My mother is the second one in from the left in the front row. 

And here is the greater portion of the family. There are still a few missing (maybe 10-15 people) but we are 74 strong here. This photo includes the original 11 plus most spouses, children/grandchildren, and children's children/great-grandchildren.

Family...

There's been a lot of deaths recently. My father's dear friend, Roger died a few weeks ago. The pictures below were taken during a bonfire in the hollow in his honor. A few days after this, my uncle Jim died. That same day his family's dog was put down as well as our dog Preacher... 

Anyone who knows me knows i'm uber emotional. I don't handle death gracefully and i become suddenly very scared that the people i love the most are going to be next. I feel extreme remorse for having taken them for granted in any way... of course that only lasts about a month and suddenly i'm back living life day-to-day... because truthfully, i don't think we're capable of actually cherishing every moment or living life as though any of us could go at any moment.

In Buddhism, enlightenment can only be reached if we let go of our attachments. This is probably the most daunting idea to me. I am not particularly materialistic (as any of you have witnessed in my tiny house, and heard me ranting about the constant "Crap Control"). But my attachments to people seem hardwired in me. I do not know how to let go of these people, to accept that they will too leave me some day or i them (though in someways me leaving first seems so much more easy)...  However, despite my immediate revulsion in the idea of detaching myself from these beautiful, amazing, inspiring, sometimes infuriating people; I can see that in order to avoid suffering (especially when they die) one would have to detach... 

all that said, i'm fairly certain i will never reach enlightenment in this life... however, i believe i've already obtained enrichment... these people enrich my life beyond measure...  

Playing Catch up: Winter 2013-14

This has been one crazy winter. It's been utterly frigid and snow storms one on top of another. I do like the snow and aside from occasionally going a little stir crazy being cooped up, i love the solitude and isolation of winter. I just wish that the rest of the world would hibernate too and i didn't have to get up at dawn to pack the kids off to school or go to work. If i could wile away the winter snuggled up in our big bed with my little family reading and watching movies, i think i would.

Early December found us trying to take a decent holiday card photo. I don't know why i still do this, it's always so hard to get ONE decent photo of all of us. Since only a couple of the kids' turned out well, our card had pics of only of them... Though a friend (CJ Winger!) pointed out that this was kind of cheating and if they have to suffer through having pictures of themselves in their card, so do we... maybe next year...

And then Christmas was upon us... Nothing major to report on christmas, except OH, my mother fainted at my Aunt's house Christmas night and woke up disoriented and nauseous. My brother, father, and I spent Christmas night at the ER listening to my mother make various nurses and attendant uncomfortable... 

my mother knit these for the kids, aren't they incredible?

And then came the snow and the frigid temps (which was fun at first)

 In January, Asa turned 5 years old. We were all partied out after the holidays and convinced him to have a family dinner at his place of choice. He chose Chuck E. Cheese's. I was there once as a child and didn't remember much about it. I looked it up online and discovered they have gluten free pizza and thought, what the hey. It was kind of a disaster. It was chaotic and loud and pretty much awful for all the adults. For the kids, it was just intense. The food is truly awful (i don't know why i expected otherwise) and Asa had a melt down when he discovered all the tickets he earned could only get him a tiny plastic frog at the prize counter. After a somewhat tearful exit and some pouting on the drive home, we decided in the future, we're going to go to Oma's house for Asa's birthday every year instead and that Chuck E. Cheese's is a bust. We went home and sang him happy birthday over a cookie.

And then came more snow and my new niece, Josephine Jones Tomaskovic. Drove up to Pittsburgh to be present for her birth. After a very long and arduous labor where my sister totally rocked it, little Josie decided that it was too much trouble to help her mom out and just turn her head a little... so was born cesarean section. Did you know that cesarean babies sneeze a lot? it's so freaking hilarious!

And then more snow and frigid temps came through...

And then came the ice storm which resulted in the 21 trees falling down across our driveway and week without electricity or water...

We celebrated valentine's day like other holidays, with food...

Oh and then... MORE SNOW!!!

And that more or less catches us up. The snow is starting to melt, though there are giant unyielding piles of it all about my house. Today, Asa is sick (again) with a nasty cold. We've seen our fair share of colds this winter but (knock on wood) no flu like last year. I have high hopes that the spring will start her mercurial awakening soon and banish the continuing cold temperatures. I'm ready to wake up and get out, to plant things and watch the forest turn varying shades of green around us. The chickens must feel the same way as they're laying multiple eggs a day now (i see a lot of quiche in our future). 

So anxious for the spring. I'm hoping to finally start a hive or two of bees this year. Sadly, despite my continuing love affair with the idea of raising goats, we will not be getting any kids this year though we continue to bat around the idea of a dog (a smallish one, not a monster like Thor and Preacher). My planning and day dreaming are alight, we're fueled with eggs galore and meat from this winter's butcherings... come on spring, give us light and veggies, and warm winds!