Halloween

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 The original reason why I stopped posting before was because I became too busy with Halloween preparation and then when I was done, I wanted to show off my "dolls"  That is what it felt like this year--like I was getting to play dress up with my dolls.  Unfortunately for E, I was so consumed with getting the other costumes right that I had very little to give to her consideration.  She found this dress in the dress up bin and loved twirling around and being a princess.  After the stress and insomnia of the other costumes, it worked for me.  At strongstart however she was the shabbiest and least elaborate of any of the other kids.

 Nat was Glinda the good witch; a recycled costume of Mic's.  The only challenge with her's was the crown and the wand and making sure she felt as important and got as much attention as her older sister.  On Thursday night before Halloween we all sat down at the table and made her crown and wand.  To someone artistic like most of you, you may think the crown was simple--not so to my obsessive complicating way of doing things.  Thank goodness I have a husband who is the yin to my yang...or the yang to my yin...(I can't remember which one is the masculine)   I coloured streaks in her hair with felt pens.  In the end she was quite happy with the results.  I think she looks happy and pretty darn cute.

 Mic on the other hand...took all my energy and focus to look like she did.  First of all she didn't really know what she wanted to be.  She wanted to be Annabeth from the Percy Jackson series but we didn't have anything and I thought probably nobody would know who she was anyways.  Probably most of you don't know who that is.  (I recommend it--its a good quick series to read)   Then she wanted to be Ginny Weasley, but again didn't really have anything she could use and a shortness of funds for buying things.  So I started asking her what her friends were being and one friend was going to be an Indian princess; that's when I got the idea of being a Japanese girl.  I even had a beautiful kimono.  I just didn't have an obi (the sash.)  So then I did some research about how long they are supposed to be and went to the store and found something that I thought would work.  The only problem was that because obi s are so long and narrow I had to sew it together and my sewing machine is broken.  I didn't mind leaving the edges rough, but i knew it would fray and I longed to be able to just go over to mom's house and sit down at her already set up machines to sew and surge.  So after lying sleepless in my bed I thought of Sis. Schortinghuis.  She of course was very gracious and even did all the sewing for me.  Wearing a kimono the correct way is a complicated process--especially the proper tying of the obi.  Luckily I found a good "how to" video on youtube.  The only problem was that the knot it teaches is the one you do for a summer yukata.  In the end that is the one I ended up doing anyways.  The other one was kind of boring and more complicated.  When I tried it out on Mic of course I had waaayy to much obi.  Here is my finished product.

We used spray on black dye for her hair and Sarah gave me the idea of doing 2 loopty loop buns.  For some reasons, these pictures, make her hair look grey, but it actually looked really black.

Japanese girls usually wear some dangly accessories when they are all dressed up in their fancy kimonos so we attached some beads.









Looking back, I can't believe how obsessive I became with this whole costume.  Maybe because it was japanese and I wanted it to be authentic.  I didn't want to do the whole white face geisha make-up so I looked up how to do hara-juku girl make-up.  It really accented her eyes I thought.  And made her look far too grown up.

Note the collar standing delicately away from her neck...

The full view.  Isn't the kimono beautiful?














With my Japanese umbrella that Sis. Ota gave me.  She wasn't allowed to open it at school except for the parade.  I like this picture because I think she really does look like a doll--not quite human.

All 3 of them before they went off to school.  I had to wake Mic up before 6:30 am to have her and Nat ready before school.  Phew...hopefully I won't be so crazy next year....

sarah butt munched us.

money matters

I guess I'm getting into a bit of a routine here. In light of our increased income slicing our child tax credit in half and eliminating medical subsidy, we have come to the desperate need to find a new source of income. So the girls and I have started a paper route. They get a small cut of it and I use the rest to cover half their piano lessons which Brent demanded they give up. But I just couldn't do it, so here we find ourselves. I wasn't sure how we would like it, but as luck would have it we ended up with a pretty sweet route. We do the neighbourhood behind our complex (where we go trick or treating) and the girls working together can get it done in less than 45 minutes. Our first day of papers just happened to be flyer day; the papers were so fat that we had to use 2 strollers to take them. There was no way they could carry that many papers (82) So then I was on the hunt for a wagon. Sure enough the recycling place came through for me again just when I needed it. The girls now love playing outside with the wagon. They have all the kids in the complex clamboring for rides. It reminds of the days when Layne and Karen lived here and their boys had a wagon. (Their rides were so popular that they tried making a little money off their rides) I remember Brenna and Alysha coming for a visit and all the cousins riding on the wagon.
Sigh. Now I've gone and reminded myself how alone I am here. I miss those days when my kids could just go out into the complex and play with their cousins. I had to go to the relief society conference all on my own. I felt so lonely. One of my first conferences here all of us girls that lived here were asked to sing--there were 6 of us and now there is just one. Sometimes I feel a little abandoned and cheated too. I would never have come here to live if our family didn't live here. You enticed me to live here, I set down roots and then you all moved away!
But I digress. Everything with the paper route has just fallen into place. I feel so blessed. We've also talked about Brent doing some gis work on the side--sub contract out for some work and work experience. It has been 3 years since he finished and since he hasn't used gis, he needs to brush up. The challenge is the software costs over 2 thousand. Then Brent went and did some pro bono work as an alumni for viu up in Courtenay. 2 of his instructors were there (1 gis instructor) and they want to use what he did for gis stuff. It ties gis in with what he does at work, so that could be really helpful. This also put him in touch with the software which he can use free for a year! He has already received some requests for work--he just has to demonstrate his skills. We have just really felt the Lord's hand guiding us in what to do about money problems and have been so blessed.

Summer update Part II

Now that I have some encouraging comments, and the house is quiet, I feel inclined to continue. I know it is rather pathetic, but I really do need validation when it comes to blogging. If no one bothers to comment, I simply lose all steam.
Anyways, like I said, it was pretty cool the whole time we were at Shawnigan until Friday morning--the day we were leaving. So Friday morning came around and Brent and I lay in bed discussing what to do with the rest of our vacation time. We can be 2 of the most INdecisive people! Brent had mentioned before when we decided to go to shawnigan, that since we could only go until Friday, that then we could go to the place that I had found. I was leaning more to going home and cleaning up and doing back-to-school prep. So we kept talking ourselves around in circles...'we might not be able to get a camping site on the labour day weekend and the place was up in the alberni area and we were down in the cowichan valley...it would be another tank of gas in the van and the truck (brent knows this argument almost always wins with me) but we made arrangements to be away from church for another sunday and if we go back now, our vacation is over...we could go visit Kim in Victoria, but she has a cat...and will be doing some hockey stuff (we have become so anti-hockey) and then we won't be just our family anymore...but it would be nice for the kids to see their cousins and there is an old navy in vic we could still be on vacation and do a little back-to-school prep. We kept talking ourselves in circles "what do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?"
So we called the girls in and asked them their opinion. We got one vote for vic and one for going shopping. So we decided to go to vic. Brent took the girls out for one last trip in the canoe while I packed up. They came back and said they wanted to show me their special spot, so e and I went out too. It was really nice and warm and peaceful on the lake. brent said "this makes me feel like camping still" and so we decided to go camping.
Since we had such a slow start to our day we rushed around to pack up and get to the new place before it was too late. [just a little side note: we found 2 dead mice that morning] We got to port alberni by 5pm. Now we had to find the place. Nahmint lake. It was described as "A beautiful site on the shores of Nahmint Lake under large old growth Hemlock. Activities include boating, fishing and a great beach." We followed the directions which took us out along sproat lake and couldn't find the road we were supposed to turn off on. So I asked a local. She had even never heard of nahmint lake. As we were figuring out what to do, a man walked up and said he heard we were looking for directions. He knew where it was because he had been a logger. He said it was about 30 km into the bush. So we took his directions and started down a logging road. No biggy--the road out to Mabel lake was gravel too. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that e had started crying to get out about the time we arrived in alberni. So we started down this gravel road which turned out to be way rougher than the mabel lake gravel road. To our surprise there was a suv driving along right behind us and eventually it passed us when we took a wrong turn. You see, there wasn't just one gravel road--it met up with others and very few of them were marked. the road was so rough that we couldn't go very fast--30km/h was about the fastest. Other then the one little wrong turn which we realized right away, we were on the right track. Eventually after over an hour of driving on this terrible road with e demanding me to hold her foot (a comfort technique) and me singing the "i love you" barney song and ring around the rosie repeatedly, we came to a place where we weren't sure which way to go so Brent sent me down a little road to check it out while he drove up a hill to see if he could see the lake. the road I took became so narrow that bushes were rubbing on both sides and then of course, what should I see, but another minivan coming towards me. In a slightly wider spot we managed to pass them, but I asked where the road went to first. Their answer was "I wouldn't try it in that van" they said the road just got worse and they had a heck of a time turning around. So I turned around as soon as I found a spot (I think I managed a 5 point turn) Brent said he could see the lake but that he had passed 2 piles of bear poop and one was fresh and he couldn't take us out there unprepared for bears. (that is where the schofield part of the family kicked in) we got out of the cars to discuss our options and were immediately dive bombed by massive mosquitoes. I was more convinced by the mosquitoes than the bear poo. I wanted to try my plan b camp site but brent wasn't having any of it, so in the end we ended up at qualicum bay resort at 9:30 at night setting up our tent by the light of the truck lights until the truck battery died and then we couldn't find the van keys to jump the truck....Once we got there and set up and fed, we had a nice little weekend there. The luxuries of qualicum bay--showers, running water, fires...We started our summer off at qualicum bay and so I guess it was only fitting that we finish it there.

Finally! A New Post: End of summer update

Another year has passed and I find myself feeling the desire to blog. Maybe it is a time of year thing that causes me to be introspective and then want to publish my thoughts; maybe it is because I need to connect more with sisters since I'm all alone now; maybe it is that a lot of interesting things have happened to me lately...(not that interesting); maybe it is because brent went to bed and i'm not done talking; or maybe it is a bit of a everything. Anyways, for whatever reason i'm here.

I'm sad summer is over and my kids have gone back to school. I miss them. We had such a good summer with lots of family bonding. That's what summer is to me--time to spend with my family. Sarah is gone. I am the lonely Clarke. Today when we got to church e said "go see adriel?" and then after church she asked "go see auntie sarah?" Eliza was at church today and she asked if I missed Sarah and I got a little lump in my throat! First no sister movie night last night and then an obvious absence at church. (Yeah and Sarah, I don't think brent resented that he couldn't spend time with me--just the inconvenience of me leaving or of him having to go upstairs to watch tv. i was so bored last night!)

Brent took the week off before back to school to go camping. Inspired by our success last year with forestry camps i investigated the forestry camps on the island and found one that sounded really nice up in the alberni area. it is kind of scary to go camping at a unknown campsite so i asked brent to go check it out when he was in alberni for work. (sometimes it boggles my mind when i think about how much more than me he travels around on the island) he doesn't go up to alberni that often, but as luck would have it, just a couple days before we were going to leave he was up there. He mentioned to a coworker that was up there with him that we were going camping and his friend said "why don't you just go camping in my cabin?" He has a cabin on Shawnigan lake and he let us use it--the only catch was his son was using it for the labour day weekend and so we would have to cut our trip short.

So we took him up on his offer. The lake was beautiful and warm and his cabin was right on the lake. You might think that since we were in a cabin we weren't really camping, but it was mostly like camping. The cabin had no electricity and no running water. It did, however, have a flush toilet; we just had to bring water up from the lake. The only downside was that his cabin was totally in the shade the whole day. I'm sure in 30 degree weather one would appreciate the shade, but the temperature dropped down to below 20 for most of the time we were there. Brent and the girls spent a lot of time out on a canoe fishing. Nat caught a small trout that she couldn't keep and other than that they had very little luck. Then on the last day a boat came over and was fishing right off of our bank so Brent tried it from shore that night and caught a little bass on his first cast. I was a little unprepared for them to actually catch a fish and made him let it go. Nat was really upset with me for this--even brent was a little bummed. oops.

The first morning there I was walking past the cabin and saw a flash of something black by the wall. I stopped and looked and all of a sudden a black head popped out from under some planks of wood a lot closer to me. I screamed and it disappeared (of course) I had no idea what it was. The head seemed too big to me to be a rat and the face too round. Of course after that happened I couldn't help but look over tentatively every time I was near and I caught sight of it again and saw that it had a white under belly. Brent was ready to pack up right then. I had to convince him that I didn't think it was a rat--but I saw it so fast, how could I be sure? It reminded me of our Japan days when we'd spot a cockroach and how we couldn't stand to go in the kitchen for awhile and would usually end up going out to eat. Luckily there were no more sightings. Since we've come home and I've had a chance to research, I think it was a mink. There was even crayfish remains on the dock collaborate my belief.
The evenings were spent reading Harry Potter by candle light. We finished the fourth book while we were there and one night we watched the movie on a laptop. Since there was a fire ban we tried roasting marshmallows over the candles. We also invested in our own skip-bo and the girls really caught on. Other then constantly fighting over who got to sit on the canoe seat when they went out without me, the girls got along really well. On the last night the girls and I sang campfire songs. Mic had mentioned how much she liked that at the reunion so I decided to do it with our meagre group. Of course Brent the non-singer wouldn't participate. Nat said while we were singing that that was the best night of all.
I've just realized how late it is. I have to get to bed. I won't make any promises but I do want to tell you about the more Clarke-like portion of our trip, so I will try to get back on and finish.

a new school year...

the first week of school is done and tomorrow my girls find out who their teachers will be. i have dreaded school starting again since school ended. i love summer holidays! i love the warm weather--even if i'm too hot and have bfs. the solution for cooling yourself down is much better than the solution to warming yourself up. and i think it is easier to do too. but i digress. it was just so nice having the girls home everyday and sleeping in until 9:00 and reading little house together during breakfast and lunch and not having to go anywhere and being able to go on my run even if e was still sleeping and being able to shower without her crying. i loved it. and now it is over and maybe next summer mic won't want spend so much time with me. i hope i haven't squandered my time with her.

i have hopes that this year will be a lot less hectic. after a lot of thought and discussion with the girls we have decided to not continue with ballet this year. nat was happy to try something else--quite excited about the possibilities and asked me regularly what she was going to do. she told me a few things she wanted to do and said she'd like to do any of them equally so whatever is cheapest. mic said any of the options were good and wouldn't make a decision. in order for her to continue in dance she would have had to go to parksville 3 days a week and since she wasn't so passionate about it we gave it up. in some ways it was a real hard decision to make. she has worked so hard and was doing so well...i agonized over it. but once the decision was made it felt good. so now the girls are taking piano lessons--from sharon. she gave me a deal because she loved my sisters so much. in fact she said lots of nice things about them. she said she has never had such talented devoted students and that she expects to never get their equal again. the nice thing about piano lessons is i don't have t leave the house. so far they have only had one lesson, but they are quite keen--especially nat. the down side of piano is the recitals. don't get me wrong--i enjoyed hearing the twins play, it was everyone else i didn't care to sit through.

this and that...blah blah blah

i am finally done the end of the school year frantic pace thing and have a desire to write about some of the things that have happened...now that i sit down i have nothing. let's just say there were ballet practices and birthday parties and ballet recitals and achievement nights and ballet exams a gazillion doctor appointments and then ballet. the good news is...it is over for awhile and mic got highly commended for her exam (that's a really good score.) the bad news is...never mind. i don't feel like getting into that right now.

so...brent has gout. he has become an old man. and i think i have rheumatoid arthritis so i have aged right along side him. to me, he is too young to have gout. he shouldn't have anything with such a yucky sounding name. doesn't one of the less favorable characters in one of jane austen's stories have gout? and i feel that i am too young to start having to live a life of chronic pain. it is actually rather depressing to me.

on a happier note,my baby just seems to get cuter every day. as she grows i keep thinking that now she is in best stage. i guess that i just love every stage. she is becoming quite the little parrot now. she says akeeya for her sisters and geen for food and drink. she can say light and night night and baby and woof. she even sings the gilmore girls song whenever she sees me put the disc in. she loves balls and often carries her favourite one in her mouth as she crawls. yesterday we went to the church for adriel's party and she sat happily for quite awhile hugging a basketball. she is usually so happy and sweet and i feel such a close bond to her.

anyhoo, here are some photos that chronicle our life over the last couple of months:

we just can't seem to resist the bath pictures


and now she has teeth


in one of her many easter dresses. can you guess which child star she reminds me of in this pic?

 

we went to shack island--you had to walk over a bed of oysters to get there.



and now she's crawling


see? she is such a sweetie!





we went camping with the strattons


she gets to try some yogurt because she is on antibiotics for impetigo


she's not sure if she likes it










poor nat was sick and spent most of the time looking like this


elizabeth's first birthday







enjoying her first freedom with food--birthday cake!


frisbee golfing



this is what happens if you try to use "red eye" on a baby

I'm Bored

yes, i'm bored. so that should be a tip off to you about the tenor of this post. it isn't going to be that interesting. i sometimes get bored on sundays now that we don't have family get-togethers anymore. today is probably exacerbated because i didn't go to church. i went to the doctors with nat and the bamboni and from there to the pharmacy--that was the extent of my contact with the outside world. interestingly enough we had no wait at the clinic and even got to see our regular doctor. when does that ever happen i ask you? nat has an ear infection. she has had it since thursday which is past the 3 day limit for viral infections. before that she had a fever and so she missed a whole week of school. luckily elizabeth is fine. other than her moluscum contagiosum which is supposed to go away on its own. the problem is, i have to be careful not to spread when i apply sunscreen. i have the flu which is one reason why it was i that stayed home with the sickly nat. i'm sure the flu is affecting my lethargy too. if only i had a good book to sink into...i already read twilight again (ok for the 3rd time) and the next book is just too blah for me to want to get into it right now. i'll read it when i'm nursing or maybe i'll only read the parts that edward is in. and i read north and south online and then watched it again on youtube already (what can i say? i have an obssessive personality) we didn't have sister movie night because i was sick and we didn't have it last week because sarah was sick. i crave a good story to lose myself in right now. is that so much to ask? since i can't just sleep away my discomfort?

on other topics, here are some tidbits about elizabeth. she is just growing in her top two teeth and has developed a new smile where you can only see her new teeth. she says hi and waves now too. she crawls around scavenging for any crumbs she might be able to pick up off the floor. it is kind of like having a puppy. when she finds something you can tell because then she makes a happy humming sound as she crawls with it in her mouth. the funny thing is she will do that for a long time with just something little like a grain of rice in her mouth and never swallow it.

ok. now that i've spread boredness around a little, i'm going to put you all out of my misery and stop rambling.

i am tired

it is 12:40 am as i sit here to type this with elizabeth on my lap. we are having some sleep issues. today things took a rare turn and she went down to bed when the other girls did and i had a baby free evening...right up until i was falling asleep. so i got her up, nursed her, she fell asleep, i put her down, she woke up. after repeating this scenario twice, she was awake so here we are.
it is now 2am. i got her to sleep but she woke up 20 minutes later. i tried to bring her into my bed and continue on with my sleep but no such luck. i find it pretty much impossible to sleep when she keeps unlatching and relatching. at that point i felt like pushing her off the bed, so here i sit again. like i said, we have sleep issues.
as for the rest of my life, i have nothing to say. it is not blogworthy. (not that this is)

i'm done being a ghost

so, yeah...i feel like i'm the ghost sister in the family and now i'm done--at least my part of being a ghost. being a ghost is basically being there but hardly being noticed or thought of or there really. i'm sure you may not see it that way but i do and i have for some time and i know that i am partially to blame for this. the reasons i think that i am a ghost are these:
1)i have not participated much in the blog world but when i have i've just sort of "ghosted" in, reading a few of your blogs here and there and not often commenting.
2)i have read your blogs after i have done things with you and it is hardly ever mentioned and if it is, it is mentioned sort of in passing.
3)when major life changing events happen in my life it hardly seems to be noticed by others
4)major things have happened in your lives and for many of them i never knew until way later.

it has saddened me to see this happening in my life so i have thought long and hard about why things are this way for me and i think it is partially because of my personality, partially because of my where i am in life and how it is different from so many of you, and partially because i withdrew from the blogging community.
so...i am going to try to get back into the blog thing and to do anything else i can do to not be the family ghost because i care about you and what is happening in your lives and i want you to care about what happens in mine.

so here is what has happened recently in my life:

 

we went to bowen park for "the tradition"

 

 

elizabeth consumes my life

 

so that's all for now. i will try to do better and be more involved.

It is almost 6am and Elizabeth is not letting me sleep. We've been up since about 3:30. She did let me doze off and on for a little bit, but I've given up on the whole "sleep" thing for now. So I thought it was high time for me to post. A couple months ago Sarah and I were on a walk at Neck Point with the young women. This is what it looked like:






1alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5274080082321158306" /> Wildlife aside, it was absolutely beautuful.

And that is why I live in Nanaimo.