Conversations at Bedtime

Seth: "Mama, did you know that people in China are asleep when we are awake"?

Me: "Yeah, I did".

Seth: "How"?

Me: "I learned it".

Seth: "How do you learn things"?

Me: "The same way that you do".


****LONG PAUSE*****


Seth: "From Nic"?

Silly Seth Video

Seth Video

Packing up for the summer

Things feel a little crazy to me lately. We signed our new lease yesterday and I couldn't be more excited, yet it feels permanent now. That makes me homesick. I miss my room; a room that will not even stay the same upon my returns. I was allowed to do so much to it-- the lack of freedom in a rental house will seem restricting. But, I am happy. I love it here, and the house is wonderful.
Moving is still going slow and we have a lot to get done by this weekend. Nic takes things too slowly, and I wish that I could be the one to cancel all the services and talk to the landlord about looking at the place for damages. We leave in 5 days and none of that has been done. Oh well, I have to tell myself that it is not my problem.
Doing the one thing that I can do, I have planned our trip home. We will be stopping in Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains for a night, maybe two. I am looking forward to the long drive home. Seems crazy, but it will be a nice rest. Seth usually does well in the car--hopefully this trip is no different.
When we come back there will be a nice routine and maybe we can get on track again.

Winding Down

The weeks seem to be slowing down a bit as our long return home approaches and not much activity has been going on. However, we do have some good news and decisions have finally been made. I have chosen the Montessori school for Seth for a few good reasons, the main reason being that it is Montessori-- he is used to it, and I know I love it. The familiarity will help with the transition as well. The other reason being that despite its lack of family feel outside from the teachers, the administrative is nicer and more enjoyable than The Neighborhood Schoolhouse. It was slightly scary to pick any private school in Brattleboro because of the high tuition prices and I was wondering how I was ever going to be able to afford such prices (around $8,000 per year). We will figure something out I am sure, and my grandpa agreed to help us out quite a but-- something that I am very appreciative of.

In other good news, we got the house! It is a beautiful house near downtown. It has four bedrooms, a huge kitchen with a walk in pantry, a laundry room with a washer and dryer, a nice backyard with ample space for gardens, as well as a forested area, and a ready made compost just to mention a few things. We sign the lease on Wednesday and move in at the end of August! We are pretty excited, I only wish we could move in now.
Instead we are moving into a storage shed across the street. It couldn't have worked out better because now we do not have to drive anywhere to move out of the apartment. Moving has been a slow and tedious process, and with only 9 more days here we will be going crazy before it is all over.
As a little side note, Nic and Seth made a raft yesterday afternoon and played with it in the brook out back. Seth is in love and he couldn't be cuter riding on his raft, living out Nic's childhood dream.

Summer Heat

Our weekend was full of unexpected heat. It started off with the strolling of the heifers on Saturday. Of course we missed the cows walking down main street, but we did not miss the humidity of the parade that followed. All in all, it was fun and got us out of the house before noon. Later, Nic taught Seth how to use a slingshot. It was too hard for Seth to pull back, so Nic, being inventive, fastened the handle to a piece of wood allowing Seth to shoot pebbles into the brook. He loved that very much, and so did we because it finally gave him something to do for awhile-- away from us.

On Sunday, we looked at another house for rent in Marlboro. Needless to say it was pretty awesome and now we have some thinking to do. After that, we made a trip out to Madam Sherri's old "castle" in the woods. She was an old, rich woman in the 20's and 30's who had a mansion out there to throw parties with illegal booze. Some years ago the house burnt down, but there are still remains that are fun to climb on.
During the heat, we have been swimming a lot. The brook by the house has an excellent swimming hole down a little bit from us. Today, as the temperature reached 101 degrees!, we swam for a good while. The water was finally warm and very refreshing. We also ate dinner outside because the house is hotter and we ended up wading in the brook once again. This time accompanied by Nic playing the guitar. Apparently, Texas is the place to be right now as the weather there is in the low 70's.

Swimming in the Brook Behind Our House

We went swimming again today. It seems we are doing more of that here that we ever did in Texas despite the cold weather and chilly waters. It must be the beautiful scenery. Here are a few pictures of our swimming adventure today, I think think they tell the whole story. I am also including some pictures of us a few nights ago playing in bed before bedtime.

A Story About Seth

Today, Seth made a new friend. He has been doing that lately--most likely out of boredom. Today the friend he made was an elderly man who lives across the street. Seth was sitting on the front porch playing his flute when I heard a tiny voice yell out, "How was that?" followed by an older voice that said, "Pretty good". It wasn't 15 minutes later that Seth came running in the house, smiling from ear to ear, proclaiming, "A very nice man gave me a bike". True enough, there was a small, wooden trike for toddlers outside. After riding it down the street a few times, Seth told me why he liked the trike so much. He liked it so much because it was the perfect size for our baby--the one we would have after I found someone to marry.
If all that wasn't cute enough the ending surely is. We told Seth to go outside to tell the man thanks for the trike, and he promptly ran outside and told the man that the bike was too small for him. When we asked him if he thanked the man he replied, "yes".

Hiking in Marlboro

Today was a beautiful day, much unlike that of yesterday's dreary, drizzling rain. Because the weekend was meant to be spent camping, yet was rained out and we had to make a sheet tent in the house instead, we went hiking in the woods of Marlboro in the sun and light wind. After we made a quick stop looking at a potential house, we trekked through the woods behind Nic's college. It was perfect weather that made hiking enjoyable, however it was also the kind of weather that brought out Vermont's annoying black flies. No one seemed to be bothered nearly as much as Kacy was in her tank top-- ending our trip slightly sooner than expected. Oh well, it was still fun and we found a great spot for camping next weekend.

When we got home to our messy apartment, we realized that something needed to be done to help us keep the place livable-- if that can even be done without a dishwasher.. So, we came up with a plan. Here it is: we have a list of chores that need to be done, things such as dishes, cooking, trash, sweeping, and so on and so forth. The distinguishing factor of our list is that no one is assigned a duty, not even on a rotational basis. We do not want chore list Nazis. We have a point system assigned to the chores and we sign off on them as we go through the week. Come Saturday, whoever has the most points is treated to dinner by the two losers-- not to exceed $10. Brilliant I believe. Good work gets deserving reward and losers are not out more than $5 a week. A fair price to pay for not pulling their weight. Hopefully it will help keep the house clean as much as it will help one of us be nicely fed.