The New Connallys

Our Lovely Birth Story

2011-05-11T19:25:00.000-07:00

This is the story of the birth of our daughter on April 27th. A more medically complete account exists in a note on Facebook, but I wanted to post this story here with some photos. Enjoy!

My water broke at about 2:20 am, after some really mild contractions for maybe half an hour or so. I called our midwife Louisa, and went back to bed, but didn't sleep much as contractions continued sporadically and built up toward the morning. While having a little breakfast, Kevin called his parents, and we got in touch with both of his brothers; Connie and Rory planned to be there and arrived early afternoon. My brother Matt left for school and other brother Michael was on his way home. My dad, unfortunately, was out on his only trip for the three weeks surrounding the due date and was stuck in Orange County. He made it home a few hours after the birth wrapped up. My mom was right there with us all along and busied herself with a final clean up, getting me anything I needed, cutting up fruit for snacking on, being generally an amazing grandmother. Lastly, aunt Tara and my 5 year old cousin Iris came over for a few hours in the morning, with flowers and snacks and hugs of encouragement.

We had a bunch of family surrounding us, which I had really wanted, but all the activity kind of slowed down my early labor. It was a good trade-off, though, I thought, to have the family support present even if it added a couple hours to the labor. Louisa and her assistant Christina arrived a little ahead of noon and started tracking my vitals, contractions, and everything. I had a heplock put in for IV antibiotics. I used a birth ball and really found that helpful for back labor, as well as counter pressure. We eventually put a towel in the floor of the shower so I could be on my knees leaning into the ball with hot water on my lower back.

When we moved toward pushing, I spent some time on the bed, still leaning over the ball, and Louisa, birth assistant Christina, Kevin, and my mom were standing all around massaging me from four corners- awesome. Then, apparently, I pushed for about an hour on the toilet. I was surprised when Louisa said it had been that long; of course it felt like it was dragging on FOREVER, but I was so far in labor land I don't really remember anything. That's not exactly true. I remember flashes of images, and feeling everything in my abdomen trying to shift downward with each contraction. Pushing became really effective and I moved into the main room, where I actually delivered the baby on my hands and knees on the floor.

The two grandmothers ended up exclaiming a gender announcement ("It's a...." "Girl!!!") as I rocked back and scooped her up- Kevin was super supportive and wonderful all the way through but became pretty deer-in-headlights at this moment. Time kind of stopped and my sense of the world expanded back out of my body. Eventually he did announce her name: Edythe Irene Connally.

So that's the birth. Kevin cut the cord and the whole birth process was just shy of nineteen hours, start to finish. When stuff kind of settled down and Edie and I were a bit wiped up, Kevin read a blessing written by st. Patrick and his dad prayed a thanksgiving/blessing, which was really meaningful for us. Both grandmothers, one grandfather, and two uncles were present, as well as Louisa, Christina, and Julie, the RN midwife from class. A splash of wine was passed around to toast. The baby's measurements were taken and we were both checked over for vitals.

Then came the only drama part: I tried getting in the shower. The heat was the last straw I guess, on top of reasonably solid blood loss and anemia, and I passed out a bit. I had a really weird dream that was like a commercial that I couldn't understand what to buy. So we did some oxygen via mask, a catheter, and two IV bags with another dose of pitocin to wrap everything up. I was shaking pretty hard with adrenalin but emotionally felt stable. I'd rather have the complication after the birth than during... so poor Louisa slept on the weird little chair in our room for a few hours until I was completely stabilized.

I was so happy with the decisions we made, and feel super blessed that no complications arose to change the plan. Our family is settling into the baby routine pretty well, and while nights are kind of long, I actually feel fairly high energy during the day. A lovely birth, a supportive community of family and les sages femmes, and a gorgeous, happy baby!

Ninth Month

2011-04-06T17:38:00.000-07:00

Two days from now, the baby will be full-term and officially invited to come any time it wants. First babies tend towards later, rather than early, and we certainly don't have a history of early on my side of the family, so I Could go into labor next week... but I won't. That is my psychologically stable self-talk.

The exact mechanism of what starts labor is not fully understood by Science. Science is notoriously good at offering a few impressive explanations on a surface level, and becoming enmeshed in unmeasurable and existential unknowns as the questions tighten in relevancy. That aside, it is generally accepted that the baby initiates the labor process by communicating with the placenta, it's advocate and ally throughout pregnancy. It's pretty phenomenal how it all fits together, really: a specific protein is produced by the infant lungs when they hit the developmental maturity to make the amniotic fluid to air transition. Anyway that's how it worked with mice at the University of Texas in 2004. Mice gestate for 19 days, compared to my projected 280 days. I anticipate that the complexity of mouse birth to human birth reflects that ratio, but I like the idea that the baby will let me know when it's good and ready. Like most westerners, I am somewhat reassured by a rationale, a Knowledge that diffuses the otherwise arbitrary, uncertain mysteries of Life.

Beyond contemplating such mysteries, the pregnancy is going quite well. My catchphrase has become, "I don't love pregnancy, but expecting has been wonderful." We are delighted to be so close to meeting the baby, and I have a huge sense of relief at the promise that no pregnancy can go on forever. As for the baby, we still get tremendous activity. I think the little one is awake quite a bit more these days, and certainly is much stronger. Over the last few weeks, I notice he/she seems pretty curious, stroking or jabbing at anything that comes into contact with my huge abdomen. First "bad mom moment:" calling my kid butt head when it nailed me against the dining table. Probably hurt its own knee as badly as it hurt me. Yes, I admire the efficiency of pregnancy and relative cleanliness of this form of parenthood, but I feel like changing diapers and nursing are actually a pretty fair trade-off for being able to evict the little camper off my bladder and esophagus when it's important. Parents of outside children just laugh here, "How little do they know... ha ha!" But seriously.

I've been motivated to read and research all these pregnancy related questions, and I feel about as prepared as they come for labor and birth. For me, a deep comprehension of the whole process is so important, and I am pretty relaxed about the outcome because the variables aren't unexplored. I have a lot of trust in everyone involved- Jesus, my family, my husband, my midwife, my baby, and myself. I say this because people keep asking if I'm getting nervous, especially since we are planning an unmedicated, natural home birth. Honestly for my personal psychology it would be more disruptive to plan a hospital birth with epidural, because hospitals have nervous energy to me and experimenting with drugs has never been a good experience. No one can tell for sure what my body would do in those conditions. No, I'm not nervous to give birth, and I'm not nervous to give birth at home. I've spent an academic year studying pregnancy and birth, with lots of hands on lab work, and I'm more prepared for this final than any other test in my life. It will be hard, but most people pass one way or the other...

Our next post will probably have baby pictures of our own real baby!

A new blog.

2011-03-16T21:48:00.000-07:00

I would like to let everyone know that I have been working on and have lately published another blog on this same site entitled "The Industrial Devolution." The address is "theindustrialdevolution/blogspot.com." I hope you all read it and find it beneficial, pass it on to your friends and relations, and come back for more.

Kevin's going to be a daddy!

2010-11-29T15:18:00.000-08:00

pregnancy, part 1.

I felt a little funny within the first week, but since it was our first try I attempted to keep myself from reading too much into it. Every weird digestive moment, every clicking hip, every mild headache felt like they could be a sign, but I told myself, "Be realistic. Even if I'm pregnant already, which I probably am not, there is no way that I could tell. I'm at least a week out from even hypothetically maybe getting a positive test." It was a really long week.

Then came the day, neurotically counted out and perfectly timed for maximum pregnancy hormone x minimum waiting anxiety. I took the test while Kevin was still sleeping, and watched the first line develop. Apparently it was in upside down, because the pregnant line showed up right away but the control line dallied. I'd tried a few times before to take tests where no lines ever showed up at all, and I got irritated at the stupid inefficient quality control system that let so many faulty products get through... then the control line faintly rose to the surface. For a moment I froze, calculating and trying to decide whether I was going to be cool about it.

Who cares about cool! I jumped back onto the bed and woke up my sleepy husband. "You're going to be a daddy," I told him with a big kiss. He hugged me. We hugged. It was freaking totally exciting.

After daydreaming lazily for a bit about becoming parents, we trooped upstairs and shared the news with my parents. Dad immediately began to refer to my mother as "Grandma," whenever possible. Dad also tells me "Take care of my baby!" and pokes at my abdomen. A few months later when I started showing, dad came home from a business trip and got his first glimpse of the bump; mom says he cried a little. My mom has also been wonderful and supportive, helping me keep track of my responsibilities and encouraging me to make good health choices.

A few days later, we were able to share the news with Kevin's parents in person, and with Pat and Kim who had their first daughter last Spring. They were naturally excited and we all agreed it will be fun to have the cousins fairly close together. We feel so blessed to have a baby with all the grandparents so close, and although Kevin's brothers' families will make less frequent visits, I think it will be an awesome opportunity to experience other cultures and learn about the world through all the aunts, uncles, and cousins spread far and wide.

By our anniversary trip in mid-September, I could feel some definite changes and growth. We chose our midwife, Louisa Wales, asked our pertinent questions, and started working on our plans for the home-birth, sleeping arrangements, learning about infant diet, etc.. The nausea came in at six weeks and pretty much pummeled me until the end of the first trimester. Accordingly, I watched documentaries by the dozens. Now I know pretty much everything about sharks, tigers, China, food, coral reefs, pollution, and Ancient Egypt. Somehow, this will all come in handy. When my infant is crying, I will just tell it a story about Queen Nefertiti and the Texas-sized trash island in the Pacific.

About the thirteenth week, the sickness slacked off significantly and I started working out occasionally, and seeing friends, as well as getting back into my swing of household responsibilities. My bedroom was an unholy mess and all my clothes smelled weird, so the long process of cleaning and organizing finally resumed. Shortly thereafter, I was able to take my mom, aunt, cousin, and grandmother with me to my appointment with Louisa, where we all were able to hear the heartbeat for the first time. It was, of course, magical. There was a certain something about greeting the first heartbeat with my whole matriarchy. Iris loved it, but was a little surprised that we weren't able to hear the baby crying. Usually, when she puts her ear to my stomach and listens for the baby, she tells me it's crying. I apparently have a pretty crabby/malcontent child in there. Iris promises to help me rock the new little cousin when he/she comes out, so hopefully that will make him/her feel better.

Just a few weeks ago, I finally started getting those conclusive little wiggles, like a caterpillar schlepping around in my uterus and occasionally throwing a mini-disco. Somehow wiggles make the first trimester all worth it. Some days I love being pregnant, and some days I'm kind of done, but it's been a huge learning process and we can't hardly wait to meet that little caterpillar kid.

University District Campus, Mars Hill

2010-08-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

Mars Hill acquires University Baptist Church building in the University District

The House Above the School

2010-07-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

Last night I dreamed:

I was talking to one of my old coworkers from the school in Seattle, and she had been renting a room in a house that was really a school also. She had a bedroom off the hallway, and then the rest of the main level of the house was taken up by school uses. She told me that the whole house was for sale, and she was moving to the midwest somewhere. I was curious about it and went downstairs to a weird cellar area with Kevin and a banker, and we found out that the house was actually selling really cheap, and it turned out that we had enough money in our checking account to buy it right then. We were super excited, and Kevin ran up to look in the window by the door for a visa sticker, so we would know if we should write a check or use the debit card.

After we had completed the transaction, I sat upstairs and talked to my coworker again. She told me about her plans to move, and about her last vacation, and I told her about the girl who had stayed in the house and been her substitute at the school while she was gone. We reminisced about how strange it was that all these people we knew had already lived there, but that I was going to live in the house now. She got busy with something in the classroom area and I peeked into her room to see what it was like.

Standing in the hallway, I noticed that there were stairs leading up to a top story. I remembered seeing an upstairs window from the street, but I had never been up there for work. So I started up the stairs and when I got to the top, I was amazed. A long, wide hallway of dark wood stretched ahead of me, and natural light flooded in from several rooms off the hall. I walked along, looking into each one, and found beautifully papered bedrooms and offices, some with people in them gathering up their things to leave. The house was sold as is, so I knew all of the furniture would be staying in the rooms. I felt like hyperventilating as I realized that I had already bought the house and all this space came with it. It seemed so strange that such a large, well appointed level stood above the really quite average, slightly grimy ground floor. Finally I came into a room at the end of the hall, and I knew it would be my bedroom. It had green brocade on the walls and a bed in the middle of the room had been crafted to look like a giant birds nest.

I came out the room, and an older woman who appeared to be some kind of district administrator asked me some questions. I thought about using the extra bedrooms upstairs as special studios for the school. The woman explained to me that the tower on the edge of the house was condemned and very unsafe. We stood at a window that looked over the roof toward the tower; it was accessible only by a frail South American-looking suspension bridge. I assured her we would be very careful, and climbed out the window to cross the roof toward the bridge. Kevin and a few other friends climbed out behind me.

As we approached the bridge and discussed the best way to salvage the tower, I woke up.

Mikey Graduates

2010-06-15T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Mike brought over his diploma! Yay! We are so happy he's finally done with highschool, on time and ready to go. Today we'll be talking about his plans for what to do next. He's working on a deal to move in with a friend this month so hopefully that will go really well for him. Also you should make sure to look up his band, Starfish Rescue Team. They are on myspace: http://www.myspace.com/starfishrescueteam
You can just ignore anything on the page that offends you. The music is pretty fun, but the words don't make any sense. The boys like it like that, apparently. I hope you will enjoy it.

Thelar Wetlands

2010-06-01T18:18:00.001-07:00

In college, I had a class called Local Flora which was cool because instead of five hours of class time plus homework, we had two hours of class time plus frequent field trips to nature preserves and hiking trails in the area. While the class left something to be desired, some of the trips were great exposure to really spectacular Pacific North West landscapes. One we visited was the Thelar Wetlands just west of Belfair, which is a gorgeous natural area in a marshy tide flat area off the Hood Canal.

Yesterday, Kevin and I packed up Iris and some home made bread to trek out there on a "Photographer Trip." Iris was really ready to get some time out of the house, since Mommy had been sick for a few days and school let out for the summer last week. She brought along her zippy Crayola digital camera, and we sang "Over In The Meadow" on the car trip out.

Our first discovery after getting through the beautiful woodland walk was an educational center with great native plantings gardens, a small amphitheater, and a suspended skeleton. Iris noticed the animal didn't have any legs and concluded "It's a swimming dinosaur." The whale paintings decorating the nearby area would not dissuade her!

A few steps down the path, I took this shot. It looks like something out of pioneer days between Kevin's Irish hat and the untouched landscape beyond. Don't look too close; you might see the plastic water bottle in his hand.

Iris and I set off, both taking tons of pictures and talking about the plants and animals we saw. Although the weather had started out yucky that day, clouds burned off about noon and by the time we were out of the shade it was actually pretty warm. As the sun hit the ground though, the warm air triggered a heavy wind. When we were all the way out in the open, the noise of the tall grasses blowing around us were too loud to talk over. We enjoyed that part of our walk in quiet.

Our path was elevated above the marsh with pipes placed below us to help water flow in and out. Even in the woods, there were wooden promenades to protect the delicate ecosystem from curious feet. It also helped protect our curious feet from the pools scattered through the meadowscape.

There were lots of birds out. We saw swallows beating into the wind, seagulls plowing toward the water, and eagles far overhead. This mother led her ducklings through the marsh beside our path; they must have been hungry because they hardly looked up from the green weeds below the water.

The photo below was one of my favorites, because it represents the image I remembered most from my first visit to the wetlands. These narrow secret forest tunnels were such vibrant places, and in the bend of a v shaped one, there was a perfect little bench for our picnic. It was good timing too, because Iris was hitting low blood sugar depression mode. She dragged her feet, stared at the ground, and asked if we were almost back to the car. After we ate, however, she popped up, waved her arms, and yelled, "Let's go guys! Where can we go next!?!?!"

I was excited to catch this Red-Winged Blackbird as we retraced our path toward the education center. I had been trying to photograph how many birds there were, but it was hard to see them in the cattails and the distinctive shoulder coloration was invisible. How impressive that my little camera was able to catch this so clearly, although of course I hardly had time to aim it.

All in all it was a beautiful trip and we left feeling invigorated and so appreciative of the area we call home. It's so important to make time for these natural world expeditions, to connect with God and nature. We talk lots about protecting the environment and stewarding the earth, but it's easy to lose touch with the reality of creation. Especially with children, how can we expect each other to act as stewards when we spend all our time in synthetic and built environments? We felt pretty blessed to be able to share this wilderness with Iris and of course to renew ourselves and our vision of the kingdom.

The Ongoing Saga

2010-05-19T20:30:00.000-07:00

Last week, Kevin's job situation started looking up, and there have been a few bites, including one guy who had quite a bit of work lined up. Although that guy's been a little challenging to get a hold of this week, Kevin has applied for a business license and is setting up to take that job and any others that come our way. He even has fancy business cards with old schooners and yawls on them, and they say "Kevin R. Connally, Shipwright." That's pretty sweet.

Mostly, we just keep on keeping on for now. We've discussed a longer term stay with my parents than we had originally planned on: things have been going really well with all of us here, and we've been really content with the set up, fluid though it may be. They agreed that it's been good for everyone so far, so we'll revisit some of the teamwork planning to tighten it up, but it looks like we may be here a while. My one regret with that plan is leaving my gorgeous franciscan ware in storage. Other than that, we're both really excited and thankful that my family has been so generous with their space and resources.

Also, we're coming up on the two month mark of being uncle and aunt to Ayden, who lives in Washington D.C. with Pat and Kim. You can see some super cute pictures at http://achangeofwashingtons.blogspot.com/2010/05/aydans-first-month-of-life_11.html . Our favorite is her onion shirt (or onesie, it's hard to tell), from Walla Walla. All her stuffed animals are the same size as her body. We're excited to meet her this summer when that branch of Connally's makes an epic pilgrimage back to the North West.

That's that for now. Hopefully we'll have some exciting boat pictures from Kevin before too long!

40 year Anniversary of Bremerton-Kure Sistership

2010-04-18T21:10:00.000-07:00

Monica and I met up to get ready before the event dinner celebrating 40 years of sistership between Bremerton and Kure, Japan. 38 delegates represented the City of Kure, where we stayed for the summer of 2005. We were excited to meet others involved in the program, and of course had a great time chatting with Nikki, who we worked with before leaving on language, ettiquette, and managing our iternerary. She introduced us to the students who went last year, and we sat with them as well as some ladies on an event board.

Having been on the receiving end of a lot of cultural demonstrations while we had been in Japan, it was interesting to see what Bremerton chose to show these delegates on our side of the water. The Kure group also had a few performances of their own, including two traditional performance dances, a presentation of three puppets, and a group dance called "The Coal Miner's Dance," which is basically the Japanese version of a kind of cha-cha macarena line-dance.

Leading up to the event I found myself reflecting on that experience all over again. Since my travel to Japan had been such a formative and important experience for me, I found myself wondering how I could give back to the wonderful sistership program, which sends three students to Japan and houses three Japanese students every year. I also felt pretty intrigued about the possibility of going back to Kure on a shorter term trip, like the adult delegations that rotate every four years.

The above is basically a simple photo montage of the event itself, hopefully capturing some of the cameraderie that was shared between the Japanese group, many participants and supporters in Bremerton, and the other interested parties that all turned up to support the 40 year sistership between Bremerton and Kure.

Port Townsend Trip

2010-04-16T14:42:00.000-07:00

Yesterday Kevin and I took an impromptu trip, joining my family heading north to Port Townsend for Matt's soccer game. Since he's not playing on the team that went, Matt didn't mind that we took a walk and explored during the game. Kevin and I first grabbed coffee at "Better Life Through Coffee," a neat shop right on the water that serves coffee with Dunganess Valley Whole Raw milk, like we keep at home. They had a great ambiance and the entertainment offered was right up our alley- we need to check out Wise Traditions magazine, which we perused while in there. Kevin took a call from Lavengro people about a training this weekend, and otherwise we were uninterupted for a little spontaneous date.

After that we walked through the Wooden Boat construction center where they have all kinds of great public education programs and community-stregthening resources. We had seen the center the first time at the Wooden Boat Festival 2009 during our anniversary trip, and it was nice to see how it had continued to develop since then. While there, we strolled down into the docks and checked out who was tied up- spotted the Pliades, among others.

Finally we got up the energy to hike up Washington into the neighborhoods above, where we visited a wonderful park I remember from my childhood on the penninsula. Of course we also just oogled the beautiful victorian architecture and community. While we were up there we chatted about how much easier our transition goals, lifestyle choices, etc. would be in that town, but agreed that the town wouldn't ever need us as much as Bremerton may. As much as we allow ourselves to daydream about a giant victorian over the port, we're committed to Bremerton for good! Even so, I look forward to our second anniversary this year and another trip up to the Boat Festival!

Iris and Adele Tea Party

2010-04-14T17:59:00.000-07:00

Today Iris stopped in for a few hours in the afternoon. We wrote some letters, one to her friend Lauren and one to Nana and Papa. We also had a nice outside tea party and Iris got on her inner photographer. It was awesome! She's actually got a pretty good eye for centering an object, getting a little balance going on in the photo, and today she was trying out the difference between standing up close and standing far away, seeing the difference in size and perspective.

Earlier I was working on a website I put together, to organize our focus on resilience and transition-related stuff. It's going pretty good but I'm not sure what to include next. You can check it out at http://sites.google.com/site/kitsapfarm/home . If you think of anything I should add, or have questions about the project, send me a note either in a comment here or to my email: melody.adele@gmail.com . Thanks for reading today!

Easter at the Stouts

2010-04-13T16:16:00.000-07:00

Pictures are in from our Easter this year. Lots of friends from Keyport, and a few others including Kevin's parents Connie and Rory, gathered at the Stouts' home for feasting and a great egg hunt for the kids. Iris and Ariana played hard with Rachel and some big kids outside, while ladies passed around Nathan and chatted in the relaxed dining room area. Meanwhile, since we had so many guitar players and other instrumentalists, a band was formed around a coffee table, playing some hymns and worship music.

This collage was another experiment on Picasa- it likes to post directly to a blog, so I hope you enjoy collages! I'm a little addicted to the color dropper for the back ground.

In Memory of our Seattle Apartment

2010-04-12T23:38:00.000-07:00

In the process of learning a few techniques on my computer, I ended up making this collage from photos I took shortly before we packed everything up to head over to Bremerton. It's sort of sentimental to me, and as I review the pictures and just the way the light seemed to hit our life, I realize what a blessing it was to spend the first year of our marriage in that place. It also makes me a little forward nostalgic... looking ahead to the time when we are able to set up another life in another place. It will be funny to get all those old things out of the storage unit and produce a brand new home from them.

180*

2010-04-11T21:51:00.001-07:00

Since our last post, we've had a lot of changes. Probably the most impactful was our decision to forego Japan, as the day drew closer to make a final commitment. People have been kind of confused about how it happened, but it went quite smoothly between us, actually. For a long time it had just been an assumed agenda item for me, but we decided to seriously look at where we were and how we were going forward. Once we put the trip in light of our long term goals, as they have distilled in the last few years, it seemed like a kind of peculiar detour in some ways. After praying over it for several weeks we agreed that, though God would have blessed either route, we felt that what we have been learning about eachother and about life was pushing us a new direction from where we had been when we started the application process. It was a much more direct route to plan on staying in the states, and though we missed some opportunities I really looked forward to, we both have a lot of peace about the decision.

Straightening our road by eliminating the Pacific however did not exactly equal short! Since our lease came up when we were planning to leave to Japan anyway, we agreed to move back to Bremerton to set up house near my family. With my family, actually, for the time being. Statistically, the multi-generational household is really in right now, and for us it means a little extra stability to be saving while Kevin looks for work. While we look forward to house shopping and starting a family, it's been a huge blessing to have the old Nipsic house open to us. It's been surprisingly nice to gain a little domestic expertise from my mom (which I necessarily rejected as a highschooler). Of course it's great to just all be together and reconnecting.

In the process of moving, we got sad news that my great grandmother in Luisiana had passed away. In spite of the loss, we were happy to travel with so much of my family to join Nana in Ruston, where we were able to help with the funeral and spend some time with my great aunt, and also my great uncle whom I had never met before. We refreshed our sign language to communicate and enjoyed a Mardi Gras trip to Natchitoches (say Nack-a-dish), the oldest town in the Luisiana Purchase.

While Kevin keeps up the job search, I've been helping my dad with a number of tasks relating to Springtides Corporation, especially his upcoming publishing project. He launched his book, Your Ultimate Sales Force, late last year with a gala event, and now we're working on another project relating to the BizBuilders network. As usual, I really enjoy working with him and getting to spend a little extra time with my busy daddy.

So, Bremerton! We're looking forward to putting down roots and all that means, although it's skipping a few years ahead of where we thought we'd be. The community of Manette, where we live, is a pretty good place to keep playing with the Transition concept. We're also plugging back into Keyport where my family has gone since they moved to Kitsap County, and we're excited to see how new relationships unfold. We're also very eager to keep in touch with the close friends we left behind in Seattle, especially with the wonderful kind of visits we've had lately with Jon and Rachel (who are getting married this summer) and Elizabeth and Jason, among others.

That's a fair summary of the interlude. Keep in touch!

2009-11-05T16:07:00.001-08:00

So, turns out every week is a little much to manage, and not that much happens to us anyway, so bi weekly it is. The last two have been pretty good, albeit frustrating because of school. Speaking of which, things are going nicely there. I got started on the centerboard for the catspaw dinghy. The case is nearly finished, and the slot in the keel is cut, so things are moving along. The quarterknees are done, and the transom is looking good. That's about it. I managed to damage the same finger three different times this week though, that was a bummer. It's mostly recovered.
Adele having a dairy allergy, she's had a hankering for pizza lately. So we went to a vegan pizza place on Tuesday. Turned out that was a mistake. For me, anyway, the fake cheese made me sick for the rest of that night. I wasn't super happy about that, as you may imagine.
Adele has her interview for Japan on Saturday. They flew the people in from Japan, and they're doing the interviews at the airport. Actually, at a hotel near the airport. So this is it, this is when we find out if we're leaving or not. I mean, a few weeks after this, but this is our last chance to make sure they know how awesome she is.
Ratty has pneumonia again. The doctor said this might happen, apparently some rats just live with pneumonia for the rest of their lives. That's no good, but you can keep it under control with antibiotics. So tonight I'm headed up to the vet to get some for her.
The last weekend we were at the Davidson's for Halloween, which was super killer, and Jon Lewis and Rachel Edwards came to see us. They got engaged on their way over. That was pretty exciting. I think that's it. Sorry if that was horribly boring, I guess you had to be there.

Currents

2009-10-22T15:44:00.000-07:00

I'd like to apologize for the silence that's been happening in this blog, it's been a while since we've posted, and even then it was not regular. I have, however, decided that's not very kind to those we don't speak to very often, so beginning today, I'm going to be posting every Thursday, the last day of my school week. This one will be a little long to catch you all up, but they should be pretty manageable after today.
First things first: our church has recently opened up a new location in the U-district which actually meets on the campus in Kane Hall, which contains the school's largest lecture halls, currently we're in the second largest. We started up a few weeks ago, and things got off to a roaring start. Everything was very well planned out and prepared, and the new sermon series on Luke kicked off that same week, so things lined up nicely. The series on Luke has been well received, even one sermon on abortion, and Pastor Mark has a lot to say. You can listen to these sermons and others on the Mars Hill website. After the sermon, there's a Q & A time, and the UD pastor, Matt Jensen, and usually a few others field questions brought up during the sermon. It seems that the church is really reaching the school, and we're very encouraged about it. Please keep praying for our church.
Adele is no longer the lead teacher in the Butterfly room, she stepped down a few weeks ago to let the other teacher, who has been and will be there for longer take over the lead position. Her stress level has dropped appropriately, and she still gets to spend time with all of her favorite kids.
I've begun school, and I'm currently working on a lapstrake catspaw dinghy. The last plank is finally on, and for much of the rest of the quarter, I'll be making and installing the seats, trim, and mast for this boat, perhaps even sails and rigging. Also, a friend of mine, Ryan Down, skippers a wooden schooner currently docked on Lake Union. He has hired me to completely redo the galley, which me and my Dad will be designing, and may include a home-built refrigerator(!). He's paying me in trade by teaching me to sail, both on his schooner "Lavengro," and on the smaller boats at the Center for Wooden Boats.
I think that's all for us here, but we're happy and content, and more in love than ever. Please write or call, we'd love to talk to you.
-Kevin Rory Connally

Samson

2009-05-30T13:26:00.000-07:00

A couple months ago now, Kevin asked how I'd feel if he cut off his hair; I was skeptical. For our entire marriage, and friendship too actually, his hair has been longer than mine and I had really made peace with that being the state of things. How would I recognize my husband without his mane? But that was exactly the point. Where he wanted to be a bear, Kevin felt more like a lion with the thickness that it continued to have, even at the awesome length of well over a foot. He couldn't possibly be serious. I decided that he would forget about it, and so dismissed the question forever.

But he couldn't forget. While I was in Louisiana, Kevin asked again, this time with more urgency, if it would bother me for his hair to be cut. "How much cut?" Quite a bit. I wasn't comfortable with jumping into the decision, so I suggested: "How about you get a good trim up and see if it's just the way it's hanging that's bothering you, rather than the length itself?"

Kevin agreed and we got a shape up at a local barber shop, which came out fine but didn't seem to make much of a difference. "Give it a few weeks."

It was okay. Kevin still felt that something was not right- we talked it all out and on Friday night we spontaneously agreed that a haircut could be good. I parked him in the hallway where the mess would be most manageable and set out to Totally Revision Kevin. It took over five minutes to hack through the ponytail alone, and then I shaped it up until we felt okay about it. The photo documentary below was rendered for your enjoyment.

I think we're actually going to go a little shorter because after he washed it it turned into highschool hair.
So there you have it.

More Boat Stuff, and some others.

2009-05-27T17:12:00.000-07:00

So, more boat stuff. Me and Meg just finished the boat we started working on forever ago, which is tight, but it took us way too long. We chose to do some very intricate and foolish, although beautiful things, like the tank trim, which took forever and I don't think I'd make that decision again. But we're finally on to the varnish, which is nice. I like varnishing. So anyway, I think I mentioned earlier that I'm building an oar. If I didn't, there's a lot of back story, but suffice it to say, there's a fellow who wants to move his boat without an engine, so he needs a sculling oar. I'm building it for him. I'm almost done with it, I'll finish it this week, which is very encouraging. After that I'll be able to take it out with him and test it, trying different blade shapes and seeing which works best. So that's what's going on there. I'm excited about that. Then, also for you interested, I talked to Dave, and decided on what I want to build in the wooden shop for myself. I haven't quite talked to him about this boat, but when I spoke with him about the peapod, he was not enthusiastic, and suggested some others. The boat I chose was one of the others. So while we haven't really discussed this, I'm pretty sure he'll like it. I'm going to build a flatiron sharpie skiff. You can look up a picture of one on the google machine, they're pretty sweet. But the best part is that they're easy (ish) to build, relatively cheap, and good sailers and rowers, which is what I'm looking for. I'd like to make it 15' or so, but we'll see what really works. It may be that I need to make it shorter just so I can get it down to the water. Who knows. That's another thing, I need to figure out where to put it, and how to get it to the Sound, and a few other logistical things. But I'm working on all that. For the summer I'm still figuring out what I'm going to do, but there's a summer internship available at the Center for Wooden Boats down on Lake Union, so I'm shooting for that, and it's only open to students in my program, so the odds are good. That's really all for now, perhaps there will be more updates later. Toodles!

The Story Iris Wrote on April 18th

2009-04-25T09:18:00.001-07:00

Once upon a time there was a fairy and the fairy’s name was Jewel. Jewel liked to fly and jewel heard the bats said: “Take your apples away and don’t eat them any more. The end.” They wanted to be eaten from the big fairy but a la loo came back to dead. The end. They lived with the bad fairys, one named Jack, the other named Jill, happily ever after. They are the good fairys. They sing “I love you, you love me, you’re the best friend who we should be. With a great big hug and a kiss from you to me, don’t you say we I know you.” Because they’re good fairies. They had a some tape like this tape. The bats didn’t love them any more. They said, “Take the apples away. Throw them right away. Don’t eat them any more.” Then they had problems, like bad words to say. “I lav yur yur lav may.”

Res Ecclesiorum

2009-04-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

I don't know if that's right. It's supposed to say "Church Things," but I think that means I'm supposed to use the ablative, but I think Ecclesia isn't even Latin, it's Greek, so who knows. Brendan. Brendan knows. Anyway, I promised a Church one a while ago, but it hasn't happened yet, so here it is. As some of you know, December 28th was my last time playing with Achilles Heel, the band I helped form to lead music at the Lake City Campus of Mars Hill. Since then, there were a number of Sundays that we went to Ballard, because we needed a seven o'clock service. We felt really at home there, since both our community groups attend there (Brendan's group and Rachel's girl group) and we just know a lot of other people there, but still felt that we were supposed to be at Lake City. So we went to a member's meeting up there, and felt pretty out of place, and not in line with their mission for reaching Lake City, so we decided to move back to Ballard permanently, which we did. It's been really good for us. We started serving down there, serving communion at the seven o'clock service, and we've been loving it. Right now Mark is going through 1st and 2nd Peter, speaking about suffering, and it's been very good for the congregation. All the sermons are online, and there's a booklet you can print off too, I would recommend it. Community groups are also good. Brendan's keeps growing, Adele's girl group is also supposed to be pretty good, but that's only hearsay, I don't go. So, during that time on Monday night that our house is filled up with women, Jon Lewis and I go have Pub night, and go over our weeks: what we saw Jesus do, what he's been doing in us, what we're reading, that sort of thing. But recently we decided to turn it into a community group, and we're thinking it'll get kicked off around the middle of May. So that's awesome. There's a few more projects that I'd like to get going as well, but I need to talk to people and see to things; generally get things more nailed down before I publish it. So there's that. That's what's been going on at Church.

More Boat Stuff, and some others.

2009-04-17T20:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so. Update from last time. I'm back in school for Spring quarter; which is tight. I'm still in the fiberglass shop, which is not. It's not that bad, but I'd really rather be in the wooden boat shop. So, if you'll recall, or maybe not, maybe I didn't tell you about it, but last quarter we built fiberglass hulls from molds, which was the most unpleasant thing I've ever done. I hope it never happens again. Anyway, now we're trimming them out with wood; that's nice. When we slapped the thing together, I was working with Matt and Meg. Meg isn't very experienced, and takes a while to get things done, but works hard, and is a very pleasant artistic person. Matt's a good woodworker, but a pretty passive aggressive person, knows exactly what he wants, but makes you pull it out of him, won't just tell you, or just do it, and always made sure things were absolutely perfect, which never happened anyway. Needless to say, I get along better with Meg, and not so much with Matt, but he's not back this quarter, so it's just the two of us. Which is good and bad, because it means that we make decisions way faster, and don't have to talk over everything we do three times, but we're also down a person, and like I said, Meg's not very quick. Oh well. So, we decided to use fir and ash. Things are going pretty well, the grain on the fir is intense. It's really tight vertical grain, and the ash is wide and crazy. So that's tight.
The next thing is that I'm going to be building sculling oars for a sail transport company here in the Puget Sound. That's right. There's a company that moves local organic produce around the Sound with 0% emissions; by sail. And the head of the company, whom I met at a SPOA (Seattle Peak Oil Awareness) meeting, wants me to build sculling oars for him. Since they're 100% emissions free, they don't use engines, and need a mode of propulsion in harbor or in calm seas. So I'm hoping to be making some of those this quarter, and I think I've decided what boat I want to build in the wooden boat shop. The Bekabune will not work out, due to various factors, so I wanted to build a Western boat. I'd been thinking about many different designs, including Dinghies and Dories and the like, I wanted something that was rowable, but could also take sail, and eventually it struck me. There's a boat in the wood shop right now that almost finished, and it's always been my favorite there. It's a pinky sterned peapod, which means that it's dewdrop shaped, and it's gorgeous. The wood, the shape, the form, everything is perfect. Peapods (which are typically double ended and resemble a garden peapod) were originally used in New England by lobstermen, and are extremely manueverable. I found a design for an Oregon Peapod by Benford Design (you can see the lines drawings if you google image search those words) that is 11' LOA and has a beam of 4'-6". It's pretty tight. The Planking will be pretty difficult since the stern is so intensely bent, but we'll see what happens. So that's what's going on schoolwise. Work is still work. It's getting to me, because I don't ever produce anything there, I only sell things, which means I have nothing to show for a day of work except a paycheck, and that's pretty frustrating. I suppose if I really liked what I did, that would be it's own reward, but I don't. It's ok. But saying the same thing over and over again is no fun. There's only so much you can say about chilis. And then you have to deal with dumb customers too. Sometimes it's the stereotypical tourist who knows nothing, and feels like he has to prove to you how much he knows, sometimes it's the 40 year old mom who knows exactly what she wants, but asks your opinion anyway, and then contradicts you and tries to prove why she's right for three minutes when I would have been perfectly happy just letting her pick what she wanted in the first place. And convincing people that you know what you're talking about is hard. That's frustrating. I sell fruit for a living. I know what I'm talking about. If I tell you the fruit is good, it's good. If I tell you it's not in season, it's not in season. I don't see a dime of what you spend, I have no reason to lie. If I don't know, I'll say I don't and ask Sean or something. Come on, guys. Anyway, that's what work is like. Sometimes it's nice, but I'm definitely ready for another job this summer.

Catching up again-

2009-04-14T11:41:00.000-07:00

We've been busy busy, as you can tell from the lack of recent posts. Later this week I'll upload pictures and do a post on our trip to see Patrick and Kim, but for now I just wanted to throw a few things up:

It's hard to keep track of everything as it happens- my journals have been super sparse lately. We've both been trucking along in school and work; Kevin is finishing the second bench for our kitchen table, among other things, and I have my first morning back to my old schedule at work. The last two weeks I've been working full time subbing for a teacher who was in Mexico. It will be nice to have that paycheck come in, but I'm more and more mystified that anyone could do that all the time! It's hard enough trying to keep up our tiny little house, relationships with family and friends, personal sanity and time with God. I absolutely cannot imagine adding in a child or two on top of that schedule! But it was good for the time being. Now I'm determined to not lose the momentum I have of keeping busy, but excited to channel the energy into other priorities that have been neglected, especially recently.

My class started two weeks ago, and it's going pretty good. There was some confusion at first about how many students were officially registered and our room, but I think it's all settled now. We discussed peak oil the first week, the transition concept the second week, and this friday we'll be talking about food and medicine. We'll be meeting in our house, since we all hate the room they put us in on campus, at 6:30.

It's been great to spend the last few weekends with my family in Bremerton. Hanging out with Iris is always super fun, and every time I see her she's a little bigger. She has the most delightful personality I've seen in a three year old, and better words than most of them. Easter was nice to relax with family, in spite of the brother situation.

Our application for the position in Japan is underway somewhat: I've distributed most of the reference forms and have started gathering information.

It seems like a lot has happened, and I can't really process it all yet. Daddy gave me a copy of Randy Alcorn's Heaven after the reception when his brother died a month ago. I'd been thinking about heaven it seems like quite a bit before that, so it's been really helpful to read through that and organize my thoughts, have all the references in one place, and just let the vivid images sink in. I finished that this morning while Kevin was journalling, and it's been encouraging.

That's the summary.

2009-03-09T18:36:00.000-07:00

Okay, folks, so here's what's going on boat-wise at the Connally household. Let me begin not quite at the beginning, but somewhere thereabouts. That still strikes me as incredible that I have a Connally household now. Yar. So. A fellow named Jonas at my school, who is in his first quarter in the wood shop, is building a boat for himself. This doesn't usually happen. Usually, people rotate to a different boat or project every few weeks, so that when they finish they've done all kinds of things, and haven't spent their whole two quarters planking. But Jonas wanted to build an 18' catboat, so he got the plans from the Wooden Boat Center on Lake Union, and he's finished lofting it and is cutting his sawn frames. All that to say, this intrigued me. As many of you know, although I am in a boat-building program, I'm not there perse to learn boat-building. It was just the most comprehensive program at the school. What I really want is to be an accomplished carpenter who can make anything that needs to be made, including a house, furniture, barrels, boats, carts, all manner of things. I was glad that the best program for this goal would be boat-building, however, since I've always had a deep fondness for wooden boats and ships. At any rate, my goal here is to learn carpentry skills, not necessarily boat-building skills, since I'm not aiming at getting hired by a boatyard, which means I wouldn't mind not jumping around as much as they would normally have me do. This also means that I would graduate with a boat, not just a degree.
So there's my goal, now for the story. Me and Adele took a trip to Vashon Island, where we intend to move, about a month ago, for Valentine's Day, and while there, our eyes were quite opened; to a number of things, though I'll only go into this one now. We'd been reading a history of Japan, and in it, there is a painting of some fishermen in a boat. It truly was an elegant craft, and captured my imagination. People had been asking me if I'd study Japanese boat building while over there, and I hadn't really given it much thought. Obviously Japan is an island nation, they must have some sort of maritime tradition, but I didn't know anything about it. But now, with this illustration, I did, and as soon as we got home, I looked on the internet for more pictures. What I found was a man by the name of Douglas Brooks, who has been a boat-builder for a number of years, and done three apprenticeships in Japan, interviewed 45 tradtional boat-builders, and travelled up and down the country. I immediately wrote him a letter and as it turned out, he was extremely helpful, willing, and kind. The boat I had seen in the picture was most likely a Shimaihagi, a craft 30' long, and mostly used for fishing. On his website however, I was most intrigued with the Bekabune, a 12' boat used for gathering seaweed and shellfish. There are a number of obstacles, though, to building this boat: I need black iron nails, so I need a blacksmith, I need Japanese tools, and I need a shop set up for building Japanese boats. Apparently, the Bekabune is also very difficult to construct, so I'd need an instructor who'd done it before. It took a little while for these to sink in. My thoughts turned towards another thing. I am an American. Perhaps I should just build an American boat. At least until I'd actually been to Japan and seen these boats up close.
This is my plan now. Assuming I can pay for the lumber, I'm going to build a 9'-10' rowboat that could potentially take a sail. I hope to get in contact with the Northwest Boatbuilding School in Port Townsend to get some lines drawings and plans, and will start in the fall, or even in the spring if I can swing it. "But what about Japanese boats?" you ask. Well, when we're more established on Vashon, I'll fell myself a cedar tree and build the Shimaihagi, which is more suited to the Puget Sound than a Bekabune anyway, and use it to transport goods to Tacoma, Seattle, and Bremerton. Commercial sail is making a comeback. Speaking of which, I talked to a fellow the other day who's helping to bring it back, and I might help him fit out some hulls that he got for free. So that'd be sweet.
Yup. That's the plan, we'll see how it plays out. I hope everything works. It's in the Lord's hands. If He's put it in my heart, it will work, and if it doesn't; oh well, it wasn't from Him anyway. I think that's it for now. I said in my last post that I'd write soon about how church is. That's coming soon. Probably tomorrow, actually.

Coming Up Stuff

2009-03-06T12:56:00.000-08:00

This is just meant to be a sort of quick update on what's been up:

On the 19th this month, Kevin and I are flying out to Washington D.C. where we will visit Patrick and Kim Connally ( achangeofwashingtons.blogspot.com ) and hang out. We are pretty excited, since we'll be able to stay for five days and catch up with that side of the family, as well as probably hit a couple museums or something. It's a little bit of a surprise trip, and since Kevin's birthday is the 23rd we're calling it his birthday present. We're both really looking forward to it.

My class is coming up; I got kind of sent around the block on trying to line up the signature I needed to get it on the time schedule, but I think my thesis advisor will be able to do it this weekend, so I'm pretty excited about that too.

Last night, we visited the Seattle Peak Oil Awareness meeting in Phinney Ridge, which was super fascinating. There was a pretty wide range of attendees, and we watched two presentations- one on radio, and one on food preservation. The leader of the group, Dave, turned out to be the owner of an emissions-free sail trade company. He has four vessels that cruise the Sound, picking up and marketing produce from all around. They go up to the Straights, around Kitsap Penninsula, and all around Seattle for sure. I don't recall him mentioning going south at all, but it's quite possible. Of course, Kevin talked to him about the company- potentially we'll be able to learn about that through him, which is fabulous since Kevin's been thinking about how to apply his trade to our transition mission the whole time.

I started another sock. It's coming along lovely, and should be done by the end of this week. Kevin brought home one of the table benches he made a few days ago, and hopefully will have time to finish the second one next week.

That's the bulk of it. Thanks for staying tuned; more when things start stopping.

Transition Class

2009-02-11T12:32:00.000-08:00

I have wonderful news! Well, I think it's wonderful because I've been neurotically checking my email for the last few days and this saves me the work of finding some other venue- the University of Washington Comparative History of Ideas program (which I graduated from), is willing to host my class on Transition as a response to climate change and peak oil. I'll go on the schedule for Spring quarter which starts at the end of March, and my class will run all quarter, two hours each Friday evening. I'm really excited, because the adviser I talked to was happy with my idea to extend invitations to the community for free, but students at UW can receive 2 credits for the course. Kevin has been really supportive of my interest in teaching on this subject, and he'll be able to take the class.
For anyone around here, I'll keep you updated on the times and location, and I may try to record at least some of the activities and make it available online as well.

Also fun and cool; today I'm lead-teaching the three year old class-room at my school. I'm halfway through the day now and it went pretty well through the morning. We had a cooking project where the kids cut up and added ingredients for Purple Soup, in honor of Valentine's Day- it included a red cabbage, a red onion, a beet, a turnip, and three red potatoes. It's crock-potting now and looks pretty good to me. We'll see if it passes the kid's taste test at snack.

From Iris' Birthday in Seattle:

Good News and Bad News:

2009-01-29T09:18:00.000-08:00

Bad news first: I'm sick.... for the fifth time since August. This time it's a cold, and I'm on my feet now but the first day of it I was so sore I could hardly get out of bed. I'm living on fruit-vegetable juices and chewable C, so hopefully this one will be shorter. Although they're pretty understanding at work (pretty much everyone gets sick at first), it's been discouraging to be confined to bed all the time. I haven't been really able to make or keep many of my commitments or take very good care of our household, and it's hard for Kevin and I to enjoy life together, since I'm always exhausted and dead by the time I see him. I don't remember the last time we had a weekend without me sleeping as much as possible.
Speaking of weekends, another frustrating detail: Kevin's stand at the market has lost an employee a little earlier than expected, so he's working sundays for a few weeks to help out. Since we've been blessed to keep pretty stable financially in spite of our seemingly bad economic timing for starting out for Life, it's good that Kevin doesn't always have to work Sundays. But for the time being, it means that he'll be working three straight weeks without a break. He's usually really helpful and good about taking care of stuff I can't get to- especially since I'm sick all the time- and with all his energy going elsewhere, everything is sure get totally out of control.

The good news is: we became parents yesterday when 4 year old doctor Jacob delivered my three slightly illin', gender-non-specific children by cesarean section in the middle of the Unicorn Room at 11:32. The birthing was complicated by the fact that one of the children had migrated into my right leg, and both of my arms were broken. In spite of all this, Jacob triumphantly delivered the triplets, two of whom were three by twenty four inch pieces of wood, one whose name was Holly, and a potential fourth child. It was unclear. All this after reviving three other hospital staff, who collapsed suddenly from poison, with an innovative CPR technique involving tickling of the ribs- to stimulate the heart. All seven (or maybe eight) of us are indebted to Jacob for his technical skill.

Photos: Above- honeymoon outing and dining room at Mallard Cove. Below- Pie I made in November.

2009-01-23T19:18:00.000-08:00

As many of you may have heard: Kevin's Christmas present from me was a beautiful little friend whose name is Ratty, after the river rat in Kenneth Grahame's The Wind in the Willows, which we started reading in preparation for the addition to our family. My friend Cindy, who stood in the middle of the bridesmaids at our wedding and who is starting her doctorate program to be a veterinarian in September this year, sweetly volunteered to take us to her favorite rat store in Burien. We picked her up slightly before Christmas (so that she could join us at the Connally family event in Tacoma), and she has been a lovely little friend ever since.
The idea was that Kevin wanted a dog so bad, he just couldn't possibly hold off until we get back from Japan, but obviously it would be rude to get a dog and then reject it, full aware ahead of time, only a year or so after bringing it in to our home. Besides, every door into our apartment building says: "No Dogs Allowed." However, Miss Ratty is strikingly doglike, more so than it would have been fair to expect. She loves to cuddle and comes when she's called. She licks fingers and sniffs everything. She's even potty-training! We love her very much, and take her with us everywhere we can. She's made trips to Jon's house, and just tonight I took her to Bartell's to rummage for some necessary items, and she cozied down in my sweater, chirping occasionally but always being perfectly well-behaved.
Her coloration is called aguti, which means it looks brown and is made up of red, blond, black, and brown. Like Kevin. Also like Kevin, her belly is white, which we love because it makes her look like a wild animal. She eats whatever we eat, and she loves to hunt around the room for her dinner.

Below are a few photos just because I thought they were cool.... One is a fancy breakfast set with the dishes aunt Tara gave us, and one shows some of the decorations we had up for Christmas. Oh, and Kevin eating that one breakfast.

Preschool!

2009-01-17T10:43:00.001-08:00

To follow up Kevin's elaborate boatschool/market posting, I thought I'd tell a little and share about what I've been up to. While I'm still working at the Science Center ( PacificScienceCenter.org ) on weekends teaching birthday parties, my main activity has been at University Baptist Childrens' Center, an extended preschool two blocks from our home. I love the commute, and the work is pretty fabulous. I always tell people I just play on the floor with little kids, though it's a little more complicated than that. I work about 30 hours a week now, going in at either 9:00 am or 2:00 pm, and always leaving at six. From 3:00 on, I'm usually with one-year-olds, and then I have some closing tasks making sure the center is ready to open the next day. If it's a longer day, I often spend the morning with the Unicorns (the official name of the 4-5 year-old classroom), doing crafts and reading books. Every day, it seems like, the kids are a little bigger and saying crazier things. My friend Gus who just moved up to the Butterfly room for 2 year olds, is an ongoing stream of funny affection, "flirting," and always greeting me with excitement. A month or so ago, he expressed a lot of frustration that I was already married, and still always asks other teachers where I am... It's pretty cute. We like to play a lot of pretend, and the kids are always trying to feed me plastic ethnic food of various kinds, which of course is always delicious.
It's been pretty wet and cold since we got back from the break, so most of our play is inside lately. Since the preschool is housed in a large brick church, there is a pretty nifty fellowship-hall type room which the kids call Social Hall, or Shoshal-all, depending on how old they are. On some days we are able to set up an indoor climbing structure with a slide and a few levels to play with:
A while ago I took the remainders of the bubble tubes from our wedding; the kids LOVE to have their own little tubes of bubbles, and some of the one-year-olds have amazing fine motor coordination, very carefully pulling the wands in and out of the tubes and blowing a good stream of bubbles. Others are less curious about the process and more interested in the taste.

Toward the end of the day, I often have an hour or two with five or six kids and another teacher, Whitney. She has always been sort of the school fixture for art-learning and designed the art-studio on our main level. So we have fun together, pulling off the kids' shirts and setting them free with tempura, chalk, bingo-dabbers, pastels, and every color of paper. It's pretty incredible what they come up with sometimes, and I'm always bringing home scraps of things we played with to make books with later. My book-making stack is about to eat the couch. Needless to say, I'm really enjoying my work. Kevin asked the other day if I was happy with it and if it was fulfilling. I only thought a minute before answering, "Definitely!" I'm learning so much about children and parenting- while it does make me really look forward to having our own kids and being able to make all of the important developmental decisions with them and work with them, I am really happy to just be getting training and practice that is so tangibly relevant to what we want to do with our lives.

As an amendment to a previous post: it came to my attention that my reference to angora rabbits, etc., in the middle of the paragraph about Daddy's book Could be interpreted as a complaint about it being boring. Let me assure the public: that was not at all what I meant. Since the book was about business (and I'm thinking particularly about a chapter that focused a lot on home business), and the people that you do business, upkeep of that community, etc., I meant rather that it helped me think about the business of raising angora rabbits for making angora yarns, which Kevin and I have played with the idea of lately, and the people on Vashon Island who would be our immediate business community when/if we manage to move there. Sorry for not drawing that connection very well. Yeah. So I need to get the web address for the site where you can check out the book. It's still in pre-sale, but I sent the manuscript out this morning after a little trouble getting it off my computer, and it should come out soon here! Shannon, the contributing editor, asked about my "rates," and said she'd passed the information to a student with another proofreading need, so I made some up, and who knows? Maybe I'll do some more of that kind of thing in the future. I definitely enjoyed getting to take time reading Daddy's book closely, and if I were doing a good chunk of proofreading I'd be able to schedule quite a lot of reading. It could be fun.

Out for now- have a great long weekend!

So I'm at school again.

2009-01-11T11:31:00.000-08:00

So I'm at school again, as some of you will have guessed from the title. As you may also have guessed, this is Kevin writing, not Adele (in the future, italics means I'm writing). What you may not have guessed is that I'm wearing flannel right now. Actually, you probably guessed that too. Speaking of which, I pretty much love my school because at any given time, fully three quarters of the student body is wearing plaid.
So last quarter was my first spent in the boat shop, after having an introductory quarter of basic wood working instruction. First quarter boat students take "Lofting," the process by which scaled boat plans are drawn out full size, typically in the loft over the workshop, hence the name. However, I think we only spent a week and a half lofting, the rest was spent on various projects, like the one you see above. The second loft we did (there were two altogether, a seven foot dinghy and a 21 foot sloop) was actually lofted at 1/3 the size so it would fit on our tables, and then we built a forward deck section from that drawing, complete with deck beams, stringers, covering boards, and decking (port side running straight, bow to stern, starboard curved, along the sheer line. This bit was wretched. Steam bending wood is NOT a fun thing to do). This project took up half the time we spent in the loft.
Being in the wooden boat shop was a good experience. For one thing, every day at school, you look out over almost a dozen beautiful boats, all being slowly worked on. Some have been there twenty years. The interesting projects get finished up quick, but this one boat the "Eel," is just a pain to work on, so only the ambitious go near it. Apparently the fellow working on it this quarter is determined to finish it. Having the boats so close to peruse at you leisure teaches you a lot that you wouldn't really pick up elsewhere; about beauty in design, fairness, the importance of an elegant sheerline, even how the choice of wood affects the craft itself, both aesthetically and structurally. Every Monday we have "walk around," where we "walk around" and look at the boats being worked on, and whomever is doing the work talks about what they've been doing, the techniques they've used, and what's been particularly instructive and/or frustrating. The two often go arm in arm.

To the left you'll see two canoes hung up on some shelves. These are the boats are I hope to work on when I get to the wooden boat shop. Mostly the top one, but really either would be fine. I just think the top one would be easier to finish in the time given.
I am currently in the fiberglass boat shop, building a small flat bottom rowboat. I thought I wouldn't like fiberglass at all. But really it's not so bad. I hope I never have to work with it again, but I think I'll be able to get through two quarters of it. I've only had one week so far, but it's been good. Gordon, the instructor, is a good teacher. He's been doing it for 18 years, and before that he was working on the shores of Lake Washington. He still does in the summers.
I think that's all, as far as school is concerned, and there are more pictures of the boat shop below. But now a word about work. I work at the Pike Place Market, selling fruit and chili ristras (Colorful garlands of chili peppers. In Santa Fe, which is apparently famous for them, they only ever have red ones. In Washington, we grow all kinds of chilies and all kinds of colors, and put them together into delicious works of art. Evidently our chili fields are the best kept secret Washington has.). I work on Friday and Saturday, since I'm at school Monday through Thursday, from eight to six. This used to be seven to six, but the winter changed things. For those of you still reading, I'm really sorry this is so long, but I promise there are people who are legitimately interested. It's a pretty good job, the Market is one of the chillest places I know, work is steady and pays well enough. The people are great, both from work or other stand and shops, and they all give you a discount, so shopping is a breeze. Between taking home free produce from work and knowing everyone else, we get really good groceries for significantly less, the whole time supporting local business. YES! That's about it though, work isn't really what I'd call interesting; a trained monkey could do it. Actually, that would probably bring in more customers. I'm kind of surprised we haven't yet. That's the update so far, I'll write soon on what's going on churchwise, but most people ask about school and work before church, so I figured I'd write in this order. Toodles.

These pictures are all of the market when it snowed (which was one of the most marvelous things you could imagine, next time it snows, you're all coming down, right?) or the boat shop. I reckon you can figure out which is which.

Back Up

2009-01-11T11:02:00.000-08:00

Today I'm going to leave the house for the first time since Wednesday. I already ate (and kept down) a full meal for the first time since sometime Tuesday. Wednesday night I came down with a pretty monstrous flu, probably from some little kids, and on Saturday when I finally was stable enough to have any plans, I went down around noon with a migraine, which was super exciting. This whole time Kevin's been just a stellar and amazing husband, running to the store for poweraide and saltines, reading to me, and generally taking fabulous care of me. I'm so proud of him.

On the upside, I finished proofreading the book my dad compiled from 12 different authors about business and networking. 450 pages! Man. It was fun to see what he's been working on and it was almost like having visitors while I was sick. While I read it, I dreamed about my angora rabbit farm and the people on Vashon Island that Kevin and I want to meet when we get back from Japan and he sets up his woodshop. Anyway, the book will come out sometime in the next couple months; I need to do one other short piece of it that isn't ready for me yet, before it's sent to Michael Norton of the Ziglar Corporation to receive a foreward, and then it can go to a print-setter. Daddy says only he, I, and the contributing editor Shannon Evans have read the full text so far.

Lastly: HAPPY BIRTHDAY IRIS. I LOVE YOU, YOU LITTLE CRAZY HEAD. When you get home I'm going to come help you set up your toys in your new room and then you can come have a sleep-over with me and Kevin. I'm so excited to see you and I miss you every day.

In honor of Iris-

Welcome to our Blog

2009-01-10T11:47:00.001-08:00

Hello, everybody! We've had a lot of requests for somewhere to look at pictures from the wedding on September 6th, as well as general information about what's going on with us, so Kevin and I decided to put some things on-line and make ourselves available to you. I also wanted to let you all know that we care about you a ton, and we're following several blogs and sites of other friends and family, so if you have a blog, please mention it in a comment so we can see what's up with you too.

I have a plan for a few different posts, staggered out so as not to overwhelm anyone, so look for those in the coming weeks. For today, I just wanted to throw a few of the wedding pictures up, as well as the video above (I have a few other short videos, courtesy of our neighbors the Betzes, if anyone's interested), to let everyone know what we're working on.

Love you lots; A. and K.