Grapes, heaters and irrigation

As you may be able to tell, I've been a bit of a mope of late, even though I have my dream life here and everything. There are some rather stressful things going on, but mostly it boils down to the true principle that wherever you go, there you are. You can take the Valerie out of the depressing place, but you can't take the depressed place out of the Valerie.

I got a blessing recently and it was short and simple. It said: 1) pray a lot--several times a day, every time you are frustrated, sad, tired, ready to scream, ready to binge, etc., and 2) get enough rest. I spent quite a bit of time today on my knees while Noah and Lucy took turns climbing up my backside (using my legs as stairs) and walking across my back to leap gleefully onto the bed.

Prayer and sleep. Good advice for anyone, yet so hard to do sometimes, when the brownies are between me and the bedroom where I mean to go and pray. I fall prey to clinging to the false god of chocolate and sugar. I can see Elijah mocking me in the day of judgment as he did the priests of Baal--"How long halt ye between two opinions? If the Lord be God, follow him: but if Chocolate, then follow him. . . call ye on the name of your chocolate god, and I will call on the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God." (And the god that answers with stomachache, let him be accursed.) (Ref: 1 King 18:21, with presumptuous changes)

Time outside does much to help my ailing mental health. Two days ago I spent hours pulling wild grapevines out of two large pine trees and redirecting them over our rameumptom, which apparently was a wooden thing designed to have a slide attached, but the slide never got attached, so now it is just a perilously wiggly contraption the baby likes to climb up (and fall off of). Now it is covered in wires and grape vines, hopefully she'll be deterred. Three of us (David, me and Elaine) named it that independently of one another, so it must truly be one. I'll take pics for Sunday.

Our chicks arrived on Tuesday and are peeping in Elaine's garage under a heat lamp. We went over today and harrassed them with petting and grabbing. Helping Noah, I had flashbacks of murdering a hamster when I was the same age (it died after I left, so I didn't know of my crime until years later). I told Elaine to watch the chicks after we left, and spent the whole visit pleading, "Not tight, Noah, not tight!" They were cute and dumb, like chicks are. Soon they'll be ugly and dumb, and then kind of homey and dumb. Then some of them will be dinner.

It's been raining so we haven't done a ton outside. The irrigation water was to have been turned on last week and it never really came in, just a trickle, and I've been purposefully wandering the property testing spigots and popping in Rainbirds to see where was getting what by way of water, then making some changes, then repeating the process. Turns out there was a leak up the street and they'd had it turned off again to fix it. When I went to turn it on today we now have the opposite problem with some outlets we can't totally shut off. With all the rain, it's been a wet day.

The Lord has given me my dream situation even though we can't buy right now, and that really is a sign that He hears my prayers and helps things come together for my good even when everything isn't ready to fall into place. That doesn't keep me from moping about how I want to own this house, which is completely ungrateful and dumb. But I was cured of that on Wednesday when the heater broke, and the landlords had to spend all day on the phone with various people (it happened after they switched out our electrical meter). Then they had to shell out $600 (It's a pretty fancy heater) to fix it, then they had to spend the next day scrambling to solve our irrigation problems.

All of a sudden I realized that in some situations, a renter is the customer, and the landlord becomes the servant (and the checkbook). If that kind of surprise expenditure is what homeownership is about, and I hear that it is, we have no business owning a home right now, and I'm content (today).

I've done a lot more research into voice teaching and the short explanation is there are a lot of gimmicky teachers out there (with recording keepsakes, SLS "certification" - total garbage), and I didn't want to compete on that territory. I decided I will run my voice studio as straight classical training, the way I think one ought to be run, and market it the best I can (explaining why one would prefer "old school"), but I need to have a take-it-or-leave-it attitude toward getting students, and over the years, maybe build up to a decent-sized studio.

I do believe that old cliche that if you are classically trained, you can sing anything, and that trying to start with pop, country, rock, and even musical theater is like sticking a branch in the ground and calling it a tree rather than having real vocal roots that grow into that branch. Even the lead singer from Iron Maiden was classically trained, among many, many non-classical others.

I am impressed with folks on American Idol the few times I've seen it, but I also see that some things are vocally very difficult for them that would be no problem if they had a little Bel Canto under their belts. And I really believe it is not so much about talent, it's about training and work. If everyone studied singing like everyone studied math, we'd have a world of fabulous singers, all talent aside. Also, now that I'm practicing much more myself (piano and singing), I am remembering how to sing and play am enjoying music much more than I did as an occassional, rusty performer.

I also don't know how much fun it would be to teach a bunch of teens that want to be the next American Idol. But, the one student I have now, who is a classically trained ballet dancer and wants to be a classical singer, and is serious about her study, has a lovely tone, and I'm willing to wait if I can get a studio full of those.

Which leads me back to having to try more immediate ways to help out financially. I'm continuing to push on doors, but this time, mainly ones that allow me to stay home if I can.

I left off posting daily because I wanted to write in my journal. Guess what, big surprise, I haven't. So, I'm going to try to post here more often. It's better than sulking with a pan of brownies.

Overdue update

I didn't die, but my computer did, which made any emailing/blogging hard, as the one usable computer is housed in David's office/Lucy's bedroom, which gives me between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. to use it, which is just about the time I am doing a thousand other things at once to feed people and get them in bed.

Yesterday, after a wonderfully long, hard day (more on that below), I told David I was tired. He said, "Well, tomorrow you only have two things to do: get up with everybody and do everything." What a sweet guy.

Ben is loving his life, he is so free and running around all the time, it has helped his behavior. He is happier, and I see him a lot less, and I don't know if that is a coincidence or not.

Sophie is great, looked so grown-up in her brand-new "Easter" dress (ie., week-after-Easter-is-cheaper dress). I'll have to get a picture for you. Her hair and legs are just growing longer and longer. Ma-in-law tested her and we have officially determined to have her stay in the Utah age range and do 1st grade over again next year. We applied to have her in Ma-in-law's class, and so far are approved to get her in that school, but waiting to hear if she'll go in the class. The school is way on the other side of town and probably not a long-term place for us, so if she's not in grandma's class, I don't know that it would make sense.

Noah is also just thrilled with his new life. He and Lucy are just out there with the rest of them, playing with the neighbors in back (we share a backyard fence, and they run around together all day) or the neighbors on the other side of the pasture, where Ben plays quite a bit, and their 3 YO Colton comes over often to play with Noah. He says he asked his mom, but I'm guessing it doesn't really matter since they are just outside in the pasture right between our houses. It really is a dream, I actually can just say, "I'll call you in for dinner." I was going to sign everyone up for various sports and music lessons, but I'm waiting. I'm enjoying my empty schedule and not spending that money.

Lucy's main word is "Shu!" Shu!" Which is her demand after being dressed each morning, because she wants to go outside and knows she needs shoes to do it. I assume she'll start talking more eventually.

I start a new job tomorrow as an instructor at a local charter school: Legacy Preparatory Academy. I'll be working PT in the mornings, mainly with the elementary kids doing 1-on-1 testing for end-of-year. Then it looks hopeful that I'd have a job teaching Jr. High English there in the fall FT. It pays about half of what I'd ask for if I went back into dumb corporate life, which is lame, but we think it will be more family friendly hours-wise. If I have to work, it seems like a better long-term solution.

It was a great confidence booster to be offered the immediate position in my interview! The interview had between 2-3 interviewers and was 90 minutes and rather rigorous ("Please summarize for us the last book you read," and "How would you incorporate the Logic phase of the Classical Trivium when teaching Call of the Wild or Lord of the Flies to Jr. High students," Thank heaven I'm well-versed in the trivium--thanks, homeschooling!). I stood up after having the short-term offer and said, "Well, I've had worse interviews," to which one of the interviewers, the only man, responded exasperatedly, "So have we!" Maybe I shouldn't be flattered, good teachers are maybe just hard to come by.

The school has a reputation of being a little bit snooty. However, the school is based on the classical education home schooling philosophy I've always held as my standard of education for my kids (outlined in The Well-Trained Mind). So, that's exciting. I'll be working on my credential as I go, with a provisional license from the state until I'm done.

Yesterday was the best day. It was finally warm enough to work outside, and we did, all day. I worked mainly on the front yard, although we did end up planting lettuce, peas and spinach in the west garden just as the sun went down. When we finished, I stood up and walked around the yard and pasture in the almost-dark, just amazed at how it's such a glorious dream come true, and realizing that I couldn't remember a day where I was sad to see the sun set on it, because I so loved what I was doing. Beats out Prozac any day (although today proves it only has short-term efficacy.)

On a sad note, I learned today that the owners of our home are in the process of buying the house and land just north of us, which means they will have access to their land-locked space in the middle of the block, so they'll now be free to build house to house and develop all these lots to death once our lease is up in 2 years. I've been holding out the unrealistic idea that I'd be in a position to buy this place at that time, so I'll be crying myself to sleep over that tonight. I secretly hoped we'd never have to move again, and can't bear the thought of making the kids leave here.

Well, back to brighter things, I have some pictures for you. This is a gigantic, old grape vine that is crawling up one of our gigantic, old pines. I'm going to try to get it down and retrain it to something more accessible than a 50-ft tree.



Just last week or so, it snowed, and my kids (unlike all the other kids here, who are DONE with snow) enjoyed it thoroughly. Here's Noah and Sophie.


This was our yard before, covered with about 2 year's worth of maple leaves:

We started the long process of putting them in pilesDavid trimmed the hedge (thanks for the hedger, Mosses!)
Lucy and Sophie bagged leaves (well, about a half a bag between them)
From the front yard alone, there were 10 huge leaf bags. We put them in the "forest" on the right of our driveway.
Here is our glorious new front yard!
Leaf free path!
Still has this random, ivy-covered monster on the left. I'm waiting for some buds on it to bloom and try to impress me before I hack it down and replace it with something else.
We decided to use most of the existing henhouse structure, so the pictures won't be as dramatic. Here is before (covered in even more grapevines!).
And here is after, roof-free.
Inside view
That night, I started all my tomatoes, 72 plants. Although I should have done this weeks ago . . .
Here is the project for next Saturday, and you can't even see really how huge this pile of old random wood and logs is. We have to clear the area around the henhouse, as this back, third space is better for chickens, we decided. What is in that old drum? I don't want to know. My guess is the henhouse has to be at least 50 years old, but I can't be sure. We are basically going to nail another exterior to the outside of it.

So, life is bittersweet. But what is new?

And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet—
Doctrine and Covenants 29:39

Well, tomorrow my Prozac will be trimming the skirts of the huge pine trees in back, we're going to take the branches off about 4' up to clean them up a bit.