Potpourri

Random bits and pieces from the day...

Mark and I went for a walk. In the rain. Inside our cool rain gear. We LOVE rain gear. Came home wet on the outside and dry on the inside. Ahhhhhh...

Yellow leaves everywhere on the ground--a carpet of gold. The leaves are so pretty this year! We noticed that the sound of the rain is louder on the leaves than on the grass. That's if the leaves haven't started decomposing yet--if they're fresh leaves, then the rain sounds really cool on them.

Mark pointed out that the gold on the ground is last summer's sunshine. So true. Leaves and plants do such amazing things with sunlight! The studs and rafters and joists of my home--the bones of my house--are made out of sunshine. I live in a sunshine house.

Speaking of the rain, speaking of the house...we have a leak. Ugh. Same place as always, right alongside the skylight in the downstairs bathroom. Mark and I have agreed that the skylight has to go. And we can already tell that it's going to turn into one of those projects that is even more complicated than we think it's going to be ahead of time. Double ugh. We're hoping we can make it work until the weather is better...but we don't want the roofing timbers to rot in the meantime...ugh.

Remember a couple of days ago when I wrote about the simple little Thanksgiving meal Mark and I were going to have here at home, with just the two of us? Hahahaha. Yesterday at work, whenever someone asked me if we were hosting a big meal this year (they know we have a big family), I would say "We think it's just the two of us, but with our family, sometimes things change at the last minute." Ah, I know my family. This afternoon Arora started throwing up, so David and Holly will be staying here with the kids rather than going to Holly's parents' Thanksgiving gathering. We don't mind a bit, and it will seem more festive to have a celebration together...although I hope Arora is finished with her festive puking by the time we serve up Thanksgiving dinner. But do I know my family, or what?

I'm finished with my grading. Mark is getting close. (He teaches more classes than I do, so it always takes him longer.) Here's a funny comment I found on one of the finals I was grading. It's a writing class, and the question was something about reflecting on their writing over the term:

"Commas have always been the death of high school students."

Bwahahahahahahahaha...makes me laugh every time. Those poor dead high school students, stabbed by commas, bleeding on the classroom floor.

Trimester

When you search for "trimester" images on Google, you get hundreds of photos of pregnant bellies.

Ummm...that wasn't quite what I had in mind.

I teach at a high school on a trimester schedule. Instead of two 18-week semesters every year, there are three 12-week trimesters. The class periods are a little longer (70 minutes for trimester, 50 minutes for semester), so students have the same amount of instructional time for a given course in two trimesters that they would get in two semesters.

On a trimester schedule, students take 5 classes every day, and teachers teach 4 classes + a prep period. At a semester high school, students usually complete 6 credits per year. At a trimester high school, students complete 7 1/2 credits per year, which allows them to take more electives or make up classes if they fail something.

Gee, I'd like to be funny or clever, but I'm too tired. It's the end of the trimester. We gave finals yesterday and today. Tomorrow is our grading day. Hooray for the Thanksgiving holiday almost here! On Monday we'll go back to school...to new classes...new students...aggghhhh!!!

So at the big blue house on Laurel Lane, here's what the end of the trimester looks like.

And because things look like this tonight...this is all I'm going to write!

Ghost of Christmas Past

My lovely relative Anna posted some childhood photos today, which inspired me to give you...gems from Kathy's Childhood Christmases!

Christmas 1955, at my Jenkins grandparents' home in Sacramento.

The gal on the left is my mother (age 20), and on the far right is her sister-in-law, my Aunt Pat. My paternal grandmother, Grandma Jenkins, is in the middle.

What a cheery trio!

The baby on the left is me (age 18 months), and the toddler on the right is my cousin Marilyn, age 2.

Whew! That dizzy-making braided rug was all the rage in the early 50s.

Ride 'em, cowgirl! Here's me on Christmas morning in 1957, age 3 1/2.

Maybe it's a stretch, but don't you think I look just a little bit like my granddaughter, Olivia?

Check out those stylin' boots!

And the classy fit on the droopy-drawer jammies!

My mom is in the background, ignoring her darling daughter. Looks like she's ready to rip into another gift.

Check out the old-style carpet with the floral pattern. My family lived in an older home at the time...that carpet was pretty "old fashioned" for 1957. Wish I could have it in my house now!











I know many of you appreciate fine family photos for your Christmas cards. Here's a photo my parents took of my brother and me in 1957. (Still age 3 1/2 - same year as the cowgirl photo above.)

This is a darling photo, but it's made me mad for years. Who looks taller? My angelic little 2-year-old brother, Maury, of course. He's really shorter than me, but I'm cuddling the bear on my lap (note the bear's silk skirt). I'm not sure why I have the bear and Maury has the girl doll.

Check out Maury's shoelace shoes! No, velcro had not been invented yet. Can you imagine how many hours my mother spent tying shoes?

Ahhh...here's a classic! My gentle maternal grandmother, Nana Holman, made matching Christmas pajamas for the cousins!  

The photo was taken Christmas 1958, when I was four years old, at my cousins' house in Alameda.

L to R: My cousins Mike (age 3), Karen (age 4), me (age 4), and my brother Maury (age 3).

No, Karen and I are not little devils. Those were kangaroo pajamas, thank you very much. They had a pouch in the front with a baby stuffed kangaroo inside. Mike and Maury had bunny rabbit jammies with a stuffed carrot attached. You can see the carrot on Mike's left chest. I don't remember how the carrots attached.

More about the bunny and kangaroo hats in a minute.

Actually, both of these pajama designs make me think of Max in Where the Wild Things Are.

Speaking of Christmas cards, here is a vintage 1959 DIY photo Christmas card. You bought these cards, and they had slots inside for sticking the photo into the card. This was the card my parents sent out the year I was five years old.







Here's the inside of the card. I think my parents chose this one because the cover illustration (kind of) matched the photo they were using. Get it?

My dad loved Jeeps. As in, old school Jeeps, not the SUV-Jeeps you see nowadays. No, we were hard core. We didn't bother with roofs, doors, seat belts, or even seats in the back.

Have adventure, will travel! Most of the time, the Jeeps kind of drove my mother a little crazy. But she's putting on a good smile for the Christmas card this year. She really is a good sport about a lot of things. Because she was (and is) nutso in love with my dad. He can aggravate her and charm her all in the same breath. And he wouldn't last more than about eight minutes without her. The greatest love story I know!

Here's another angle on the Jeep Christmas photo, where you can see our faces a little better. Don't you wish you could wear a hat like my mom and me? They had these scarf-tie things attached, to cover your ears and tie the hat on. Pretty neat. And pretty essential in an open Jeep.

And finally, these last three photos have the pajama-hat followup I promised you earlier. Remember the kangaroo pajamas? Well, this photo was taken in 1963--I am now nine years old--and I am still wearing the kangaroo pajama hat from 1958, when I was 4.

Mind you, I am wearing it perfectly nonchalantly, with my 9-year-old friends, as if sitting around and practicing the French horn in a kangaroo hat is a completely normal thing for a 9-year-old to do. I guess my head didn't grow much.

You'll want to note my mom and the family dog in the background of that first photo. She's bending over to do something, and the dog is taking advantage of her back being turned to check out what's on the table...

Don't you love the perky kangaroo ears? Don't you love these long braids? These were my two best friends in 4th grade. They were probably my only friends in 4th grade. I was kind of a loner. Kim Henzgen and Cindy Robertson. The 3 of us were practicing a trio to play at a school band concert.

And speaking of pajama hats, here's my brother...and the family dog again, hahaha! ...and he's still wearing his bunny hat, too. Man, we really loved those pajama hats. Take note, moms and grandmas, and make sure every child on your list has a pajama hat this year! Anyway, this is photo was taken in the same era, so he would have been about 8 years old.

And now, dear blog friends, it is getting late, so I leave you with this inspired image of my sweet little brother...who will always be my little brother, no matter how many birthdays he has! ...and wish you all sweet dreams, too.

Three Kisses

I am in a rut.

It's not a bad rut.

I've joined Weight Watchers, which is going well. I am losing weight in a gradual, healthy way--which feels great--and the plan is pretty easy to follow. But I'm not getting enough exercise, and with colder weather on the way, I know my exercise-motivation-quotient is headed down the drain.

I am piddling around with my thesis. Pretending to accomplish something, but not really making much headway. And no one is bothering me about that, at least for now. But I have a 16-20 page chunk due the week after Thanksgiving, and I know I have to get serious about this.

And Mark and I are happy and contented middle-aged people. We get along fine, and life just keeps going along.

Like I say, I'm in a rut.

So yesterday I set some goals for this week.

Exercise: Ride the exercise bike for 20 minutes a day. Lift weights for 10 minutes a day.
This is do-able. I'm not committing to do it for a month, or the rest of the year, or the rest of my life.
Just one week. I started yesterday, and it felt so good to get my heart rate going and use my muscles. Of course, I'm giving myself a day off today since it's Sunday, but tomorrow I'm back on it again! (I was tempted to excuse myself from the exercising tomorrow since I have yoga class tomorrow night, but I don't want to let myself think I can make up an excuse for every day. So every day--except Sunday--it is.

Thesis: Write one page a day.
Again, this is do-able. It's not a chapter a day. It's not forever. I wrote a page yesterday. And I'll be writing another one today.

Relationship: Kiss Mark three (or more) times a day.
Haha! Does that sound silly? I set this goal because I realized that we had drifted into a pattern of just giving each other a good-night kiss on many days. It seems a little strange to think about because we are together ALL the time. We both teach at the same high school, we are assigned to the same teacher office, and some terms we even share the same classroom! (I teach in Mark's room during his prep period.) So you'd think we'd be plenty close enough. And we are, on an intellectual/thinking level. But you know, life just goes along, and before you realize it, you haven't checked in to make sure you're giving your sweetheart the attention he deserves. Did I meet the goal yesterday? Am I on track for today? Hahaha--are there bears in the woods?

So I made a little chart for myself and hung it up on my bedroom wall. I didn't mention it to Mark. But then a couple of hours later he found me in the kitchen and said, "You have a goal for kissing me?" And I said, "Sure, why not? We're in a rut. I think we need to kiss more often."

And he looked at me like I was nuts.

And then he kissed me.

Thanksgiving Menu

Plans have changed again for the kids who live nearby, and it looks like everyone will be in other places doing other things on Thanksgiving. Am I sad and blue about having a peaceful Thanksgiving celebration with just my sweetie and me?

Not on your life! I was excited to look through the recipes on the Weight Watchers website and find some delicious recipes for us to enjoy on Thursday. Here's the menu plan:

Apricot Glazed Turkey and Sweet Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus
Apple-Raisin Sourdough Stuffing
Pumpkin Cookies
Baklava
Apple Pie Bread Pudding

Mmmmm...

400!!!

398...399...400!!!

Today is my 400th blog post!

Wow...that is so cool...let me just say that again...

Today is my 400th blog post!!!

In honor of this amazing milestone, I thought I'd offer a little mouse-click down memory lane. Here to make you oh-so-happy are a baker's dozen of my favorite posts since January 2009. They are in chronological order, from most recent to oldest...because (duh) that's how blogs work.

Thank you, Blogger, for a world where ordinary people can speak about the mundane and the miraculous. (And can I say it again, just for fun? 400 posts!!)

Labor Day Weekend on the PCT

Sept 3, 2011

What’s in a face?

August 3, 2011

The surprising truth about my beloved Grandma Polly

July 15, 2011

Lovely Spring photos

May 4, 2011

Happy places in my house

March 30, 2011

Thoughts on blogging

Nov 30, 2010

Climbing Mount St. Helens

August 25, 2010

Nina, My Friend

May 23, 2010

Fabric Balls

March 28, 2010

Sunday Morning Walk

Feb 21, 2010

Thin Shoulder Blades Beneath a White Shirt

Nov 22, 2009

It’s a Privilege...

July 16, 2009

Extension Cords and Sump Pumps

January 2, 2009

I don't know if any readers will care to click back through some of these older posts, but I sure had a lot of fun looking back through the archives! Happy Friday, dear blog friends.

Ewww...

...I am losing both of my big toenails.

Again. Sigh.

This time it's from a hike back in June, when Mark and I hiked Eagle Creek with our friends Liberty and Jason.

Mark and Jason hiked to Punchbowl Falls and back. They relaxed and read back at the car while Liberty and I hustled all the way to Tunnel Falls and back.

Whew! Twelve miles roundtrip at a fast clip. I loved every minute of it.

I felt my toenails catch inside my boots when Liberty and I were hiking downhill.

Sure enough, last week my big toenails were both halfway off.

It doesn't hurt, although it sure isn't pretty.

And you know what? I'd do that hike again in a heartbeat, toenails or no.

Profiled

Hi, I'm Kathy
I'm a wife, mother, and grandmother. I'm a teacher at my local high school. I love waking up every morning. I'm a Mormon.


Want to know more? Check out my profile at mormon.org.

I posted it a couple of months ago, and it just came live a week or so ago. I'm excited! It's fun to read the profiles of so many different, interesting people. It's easy to click from one profile to another.

I've noticed a bit more traffic here on the blog lately. I wonder if people are linking to me from mormon.org?

Is my profile too long and wordy? What do you think? Let me know!

Self Portrait

This week's homework for my PSU class: 

Look in the mirror and write a self-portrait. Try to include some nuance or essence of self.

I never did wear braces. My brother’s teeth were worse—his two front teeth met at a 45-degree angle smack in the middle of his grin—and my parents could only afford one contract with the orthodontist. I never minded much, especially after I watched my own children suffer through gouged lips, tender gums, and aching jaws. I am a little self-conscious about my teeth sometimes, but if you ask me, I will always deny it.

My father used to call me an ankle-biter. He said I wasn’t tall enough to reach much higher, but I was spunky enough to bite. I’m not that short. For years I said I was 5’2” to go with the song, “Five foot two, eyes of blue, hoochy koochy koochy koo, has anybody seen my gal?” But I’m really almost 5’3”, and since the extra inch tips the BMI calculator slightly in my favor, I claim it nowadays. As I balance on the teeter-totter middle point of middle age, I need every inch. My mother, after all, is beginning to grow shorter. It could happen to me someday, too.

I don’t like my knees. As a kid growing up, they were always too bony. I wanted dainty, petite knees, but mine stuck out, all knobby and unladylike. In 2005, I injured my right knee when I fell off a stepstool on the front porch, when Mark and I were remodeling the house and I was demolishing the front door frame that afternoon. Stupid stepstool. Most of the time that knee doesn’t hurt, but I can’t do poses at yoga class that make my knees flex a lot, like that one where I have to squat on my heels and put my elbows inside my thighs. I always end up quitting halfway down.

Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and pretend I’ve had a facelift. I put my fingertips along my jaw line and pull the skin up toward my ears. That jowly saggy spots at the corners of my chin disappear and my face regains the oval shape I took for granted as a teenager.

I would never really get a facelift, for so many reasons: vanity, expense, pain, self-consciousness, and the good that could be done with the money instead. I don’t plan to ever dye my hair either, but for different reasons. I think I’m the only teacher at my high school that lets her gray hair show, and sometimes I wonder what other people think of me. But I know myself. I wouldn’t keep up with the touchups, and I think that gray roots look waaaay worse than hair that is naturally gray. So I call the gray hair “my wisdom,” and I pretend to be proud of it. My hairdresser flatters that me I’m going gray attractively, “unlike so many other women,” but I’m never quite sure whether to believe her. But then, what reason would she have to lie? She could make more money if she convinced me to cover the gray. At age seven the hair was white-blonde, at age seventeen it was honey-brown, and at age fifty-seven I pretend that the lighter patch over my left forehead is a blonde streak. I know it’s really gray but this is one of those helpful deceptions.

The eyes haven’t changed. Hazel, green-gray, friendly, steady. At least that’s what I say. They are the same eyes that look out of the photo of me, taken 40 years ago at age 17, the eyes that look back at me every morning from my dresser.

Photo on the dresser: me, age 17

Self-portrait taken while backpacking: me, age 54.

Fungus Among Us

On our hike last Friday, I was fascinated by all the mushrooms and other fungus forms we saw in the woods. I stopped to snap photos of a few of them. So many different colors and shapes!

 This one had to be a good 6" in diameter.

 Classic mushroom shape - I love the lacy effect.

 Growing out of the end of a log - so delicate and white.

 A whole family of brown mushrooms.

 This one looked like it wanted to be a golf ball. Just that size and shape.

 Another classic toadstool - smooth and shiny brown.

 These were tiny and delicate - growing out of a log.

 More log-growers - even smaller than before.

 And these were the tiniest log-growers of all! Still in the classic mushroom shape.

 We included Mark's book in this photo to give a sense of scale.

Did some critter take a couple of chomps out of this bad boy? 

 This one looked like white broccoli.

 This one had tipped over, but the colors were beautiful.

Was that a part of decomposition for this guy?

 More of the white broccoli fungi.

 Aren't these cute? Little acorn hats.

 More of the delicate little white ones on a log.

 White mushrooms, white leaves...it was all so pretty.

 Another still-life...conk on the log + a maple leaf.

Almost back to the car, we saw this one. It's very black and upside down.

It's bigger than my boot.

It wants to take over Portland.

The moral of the story, dear readers...be careful!
There are fungus among us!

(Sorry, I couldn't resist saying that again. I've been wanting to say that ever since the hike on Friday. But truly...isn't it amazing that we so so many different kinds of musher-folk in just 4 miles of trail? I was impressed, and I hope that you are, too.

Lost and Found

This morning's church program included a list of Lost and Found items housed in the church library, with a warning that they will be disposed of if not claimed by the new year!


At first the list contained the usual suspects:
*Big brown purse with colored pencils and plastic bracelets
*Pencil box with colored pencils, markers, and labeled "Hannah"
*Plastic bag of colored pencils, pencil box with crayons
*Children's books (titles included on the list), hand lotion, barrettes, a Clifford coloring book

Nothing too unusual about the list so far.

But then some fairly random things turned up:
Sewing machine regular foot attachment
     (Sure, I often bring a sewing machine foot with me to church...)
Tire pressure gauge
     (Huh? Checking hubby's blood pressure after dealing with the fussy kid?)
Potty Training Success DVD
     (OK, I get it that people in the potty-training-success-DVD bracket are likely to forget things at church. But why bring this particular DVD to church in the first place??)


After I had read those items, I began to read some other items on the list with a jaundiced eye. By then, even some items that didn't seem so unusual at first glance began to make me wonder:
Girl's shoe - size 13M
     (Wouldn't someone have noticed the missing shoe by now? And figured "Oh, yeah, we must have left that at church." How can you get your daughter ready for church for weeks at a time with only one church shoe?)
Lip gloss
     (Give me a break, library ladies. Lip gloss? Ewww. Just throw it away already. No one's coming after that one.)
Stuffed animals (No surprise yet - but look what species they are): Pig and Reindeer
     (Really? No teddy bears? Pig and reindeer seem fairly random to me.)


Gotta love the Lost and Found. But remember, you can only claim these items until December 31!

So step right up and claim your Pokemon cards, sippy cup, baby socks, hair brush, hand lotion, barrettes, scissors, black gloves, Clifford coloring book, and National Geographic Kids magazine. I know you've been wondering where they'd gotten to!

Autumn Hike on the Clackamas River

Mark and I hike for three hours along the Clackamas River yesterday. We left Oregon City in the fog, and reveled in autumn sunshine along our river trail. It started raining when we got back to town.

Oh, it was glorious! Here are a few photos to share the joy...

 The fall foliage was amazing.

 My fun guy found some fungi. 

(More about that in an upcoming post...)

 Our trail wound its way up and down. 

Sometimes near the river, like this...

 ...sometimes back in the wooded areas, over a carpet of gold, like this.

 One of several fun little bridges we crossed.

 Still life: vine maple leaf on moss.

 Back to the river again.

 We turned around and headed back just past this big bend in the river.

We think we had hiked about 4 miles by this point, but it was hard to be sure.

We saw an eagle just before I snapped this photo!

He flew away upriver before I could get the camera out...

 We ate lunch here, in the sunshine.

 Beautiful greens and golds...such a peaceful place to enjoy our lunch.

 What fellow left this track in the sand by the river?

A great blue heron, I think. 

He must be tall--his foot is almost as big as mine!

I couldn't get enough of the carpet of gold...

What a sweet, sweet afternoon with my sweetheart!

(Hiking in November = wear a hat, dress in layers, and keep warm!)

We hiked Clackamas River Trail #723. It's designated as a Riverside National Recreation Trail. You can see a map here. 

It's 4.6 miles in length, between Riverside Campground and Rainbow Campground. We started at Riverside and hiked downstream for most of the trail, then turned back.

In addition to the trailheads at both ends of the trail, we discovered another entry point about halfway along the trail. It's not marked on the map, but there is a sign for "Riverside Trail" along the road, with plenty of pull-out space for parking.

This is a great, low-elevation trail (ie, you can hike it when other trails are covered in snow) in the Portland area. We definitely plan to hike it again!

PS - Yes, I sang my hiking songs.