The First Writing Residency

Dear Residency,

When I walked onto 'campus' for the first time, all my past images of French writers freezing in a small cafe in Paris left my mind.  Writers get to work in the Sun!  Not only do writers get to write in the sun, but they get to live at a resort for ten days!  You must be kidding me, I thought, but it was true.

It started my new adventure feeling like I was preparing for a birth.  I packed a bag, filled with things I thought I might need.  I was in denial that I was actually going to be away from my family for so long.  When my husband asked me if I knew what my flight number was off the top of my head, I simply could not tell him.

There was fear, as there normally might be when something amazing is about to happen.  Will I be like everyone else I was about to meet?  Would my crazy side freak people out?  Would I get all the reading done before workshop?  Were my pieces actually worth reading?

Within a couple of hours I started to meet people.  I got to sit by a fire, in the sunshine, drinking ice water with people who already felt like friends.  I had known a few of them on facebook and even some of them in my classes on blackboard.  What I did not know, was that I would cry so much.  I never thought a graduation of students I had known for ten days would actually make me sad. 

Being a writer really forces a person to feel a part of a secret world that one thinks nobody understands.  People aren't mean about it, they just have a glazed over look when one starts to describe the experience.  Then, one steps into a world where everyone understands, there is a common language, and nothing is the same again. 

It is so easy to forget that even though writers might enjoy alone time, they too appreciate community.  Being without kids allowed me to participate in a world I have not experienced in nine years.  I love my children.  Leaving them, for a week of writing, was really difficult.  However, remembering that sometimes I get to be just me, was really quite nice. 

So enough of the sappy stuff.  What happened to me?  I learned that comments about my work was very helpful!  I also learned that all the articles about an MFA being worthless are not entirely true.  I have changed my entire manuscript because of really important feedback.  It was good to stop hitting the pretend wall I had created for my own work.  Writing in a writer's community was way more fun than mumbling through thoughts alone.  Other writers are really cool.  The brain can collect a lot of information in ten days, but beware of the fact that the day you get home might surprise you.

Just like after a birth, one might be really tired and extremely emotional.  I must have cried a couple of times for not real reason.  Mommy never stopped being mommy, but somehow, I am different.  We all are.  Being home felt like an out of body experience at first.  Our house felt foreign even though I had barely been away.  At the same time, everything was the same. 

Do you ever recover from your first residency?  Are you going to be hooked for life on being around writers all the time?  These are questions I look forward to learning more about.  Residency, you have become a new best friend. 

Until June,
Marion

The Writing Universe

I must admit it has been a few years since I have looked at the book I wanted to have written and maybe published before my dad passed away almost two years ago.  My mind floats away, back to a time when everything was exciting and I knew I could still hear his voice.  Now as I write about my late high school years and into my college years I feel as if I am transporting myself into an alternative universe.

There are times that are still freshly familiar in my mind.  The moment my dad dropped me off at college, the first time walked into my dorm room.  Reliving the past to write memoir is and experience barely tangible to write about.  How does one write a memory on a page in such a way that another person wants to stop and savor that moment?  We think about this in fiction as I have heard countless French professors tell the story of the Madeline cookie in Proust and how the taste of the cookie and tea brings back a vivid memory of the past.  I remember recounting my own memories, a time where I was singing a song in English in the middle of a church in Bangladesh and the Bangladeshis were singing the same song in their native tongue.  I cannot remember how they sung it differently, but if I thinking about the song in English, the Bengali language faintly chimes in the background as it is woven into the way I hear the song forever.  I can remember what everyone's passionately smiling faces looked like and the warm evening air.  The scent of curry gently wafted through to room.  Pink flowers were passed out to many of the women and we tucked them behind our ears.

It is amazing how one moment of a memory can bring back so many sensations.  As I journey through a manuscript I have not been working on, layers of memories I forgot to write down emerge.  I never worked on something for so many years.  I never knew that the outline of hints could lead me to even more vivid memories.  Each read draws me closer to the time on the page.  I long to step into it.  Then I hear a crash!

My kids are playing with water again and I have to go and take care of it.  The present time snaps me back into actual reality.  I am glad these distractions exist, or I might be swallowed up by visions of the past.  Being present is much more important and there will be no past later, if there is no present.  Even if the crash startles me out of a dream-like state... even if I am cranky because I wanted to stay there just a little bit longer...there is room to go back later.  

The beautiful part of the writer's dream-like universe is that one gets to create it.  I travel to the page in brief ten minutes chunks, hours linked together, and moments where I sit and think.  It is a capturing experience, but I get to beg to be let go, or even find myself forced free. 

People ask me often when I find time to write.  Do I ever sleep and I tell them it just happens when I can make it happen.  I write in small windows of time and larger ones if I can.  I go to bed by 10:00 most nights and wake up at 5:30.  I guess you could say writing is a part of my routine, just like meals and brushing my teeth.  You do not have to be locked away never to be disturbed to write, you just have to be willing to open and close the door to the writing universe.

Angry Mamma Hen

What is one of the worst things that a person can do in a not so great moment?  Make a writer very unhappy!  Here is what happens when a writer does not like what she has been told she is doing wrong.  It ends up in a blog. 

Normally I would keep this post to myself, but this is an issue I have been hearing about for eight years.  Early in my time here in Port Townsend, I saw an article about how kids should be appreciated more in this small community filled with elderly people.  There is a dance studio in amongst a bunch of offices on Water Street.  These offices are for lawyers, artists, some other people.  Everyone pays for their space..it is a place of business.  There are some that require silence apparently, and some that are slightly less silent. 

In my experience, dance is a great way to teach children structure.  However, when a child is 4 or 5 that is just the beginning of such a structure.  This class only meets for less than an hour one day a week.  This is also the class were even younger kids might be around since if the oldest is 4 there is most likely a sibling that is 3, 2, 1, or an infant.  Last time I checked a hallway was not the same thing as a library.  Sometimes babies cry, which is treated better at the library than this hallway.  There is a little bit more noise before and after the class...why might this be business people?  Perhaps parents are desperately trying to get their children into the dance class we paid $70 a month for?  Maybe we have some money invested into this too?  If none of these little kids want to take a dance class anymore, chances are the won't be an audience for the next age group and so on.  Is it possible to give the youngest kids a little bit of a break?  It is only one hour, in fact less than that, of YOUR week.  Your lunch break is probably longer. 

I know that probably the 4-5 time slot is more of an issues other days as the younger age groups meet during this time.  It must be frustrating to have to hear people in the public hallway of your building.  I know parents in Port Townsend have different parenting methods.  However, DO NOT ASSUME WE ALL PARENT THE SAME WAY!!!!

My family of 8, yes, 6 kids is probably one of the better behaved in town.  So before you scan the hallway for the short little Asian (helpless looking woman in your eyes) taking care of SIX kids to yell at, observe that it is not my children running around the hallway.  You might see my older kids helping me with my younger ones.  My oldest is only nine.  I bet you have been complaining about nine year old kids, right?  Well hold your tongue when you see mine. You made him question why an adult would tell off their mom when none of her children were at fault!  Yes, he is smart. 

If you have a problem with a dance studio being in the middle of your office space, this is not the parents' fault.  We are in search of high quality dance education and your building happens to be where it is.  These complaints have been going on for years.  I wish the adults in this building could actually start acting grown up.  Most of us do not have time to be caught up in your petty office politics.  Sometimes people are actually being disrespectful and I understand that, but if you have no clue who it is...KEEP YOUR MOUTH SHUT until you know!

Mamma and the MFA

Yes!  I got in to my first choice MFA program about a month ago and I have been so excited ever since.  If anyone knows me well, then this is no surprise.  I have wanted to work on my MFA for years.  I even got the materials to apply for Goddard in Port Townsend about three times and came out with a positive pregnancy test before I began the process of applying every time.  Now I have decided I really want to be a part of University of California Riverside's Low Residency program in Palm Desert.  After looking at programs, this one seems to really be focused on the professional writing side of things over teaching, even if some of the graduates do go on to teach.

The number one reason I want my MFA is because I have been writing manuscript (s) for awhile now and I want to be heard.  In every profession one is only listened too because of who one knows and writing appears to be the same.  Plus, I look forward to getting pointers for rewriting my work from actual published authors.

I spent a lot of these last ten years telling myself I did not need to spend money on an MFA and I could write on my own, but the truth is, this is the easiest way to make contacts and really find out what publishers are looking for in different kinds of writing.  I even plan to try out the world of screenwriting, something I would be afraid to mess up on my own.  I know nothing about screenwriting or film making, all I know is I like watching things.

So here I am, waiting for school to start.  As I prepare for the unknown I cannot help but feel like I am preparing for a baby.  I have been frantically cleaning my house and trying to come up with the best way to keep things under control in the shortest amount of time.  I have been timing different bread baking methods because nobody in my family wants to eat store bought bread and the fancy bakery bread lasts one day in our house and it costs almost $7 a loaf!  Then there are dinners.  Preparing and freezing meals should in theory work well, but with all the health hazards revolving around plastic and metals, is anything safe in the freezer?  I have yet to find the perfect solution for this.  Maybe certain glass, but I bought four glass containers and they warped even though they are freezer safe.  None of the lids fit right to this day.

Homeschooling is on track and in order, finally.  We were off to a crazy start, but now we can get everything done in the morning on most days.  Everyone is motivated to focus so there is more free time anyway.  I am glad my kids are realizing how nice having a strict schedule can be.

On top of the housework I hear I have a lot of writing due the first week of school and we start talking about the first book the first day of school.  Technically I am in school now.  I have been frantically reading as much as I can and writing in every spare moment.  Who knew 31 pages of a screenplay could take form so fast.  I am enjoying my new and secret creative world.  I feel like I have several hidden stories in my head and actually a place to share them.  Maybe someday others will like what I have to say too.

Writing world, here I come!

Little Girls in Dresses, Boys Racing on Bikes

My world is changing as I glance at my youngest daughter in her checkered pink daisy dress and my youngest son wobble walks around.  I no longer really have a baby in the house for the first time in a long time.  It has been years since I have had my whole self.  I am not a feeding station for one baby and a growing station for another.  My thoughts are clearer, but my heart is screaming.  Babies grow faster than anyone realizes.  I never realized that not having another one close to the last would put me in a place many other moms are in after one or two babies.

One forgets that cuddles are a part of life when one has a baby around.  Now my youngest nurses once a day and pushes me away the rest of the time.  This is natural of course.  He has just learned the thrilling skill of walking.  He also knows how to say "No" very clearly.  Baby Isaiah has a voice of his own and he has places to go and things to do.

People still ask me if we will have any more kids.  I always imagined six, though I never wanted to admit that out loud.  In the process of having babies it is easy to miss how amazing each child is.  I was pregnant for years, so I was distracted too.  Each child has his or her own personality.  When I take the time to observe, there are so many special qualities to them.  Joel is my great helper.  He loves babies a lot.  He always helps with Isaiah and begs me to have another one soon.  Ellie loves to chat and read.  She has a secret world that she shows me in glimpses.  Dominic loves to be noticed.  As a middle child he wants to keep up with the older two kids, but sometimes just cannot.  He loves trucks and cars.  He also is interested in lighthouses.  What a combination, right?  Charis is so quiet.  She is the one child that could be missed if one is not careful.  She teaches herself skills and silently keeps up with everyone.  She and Bria are partners in crime right now.  Bria is my main observer.  She tells me what everyone is doing and she clings to my lap more than the rest of them.  Isaiah, as I mentioned, loves to explore.  He is loved by all the siblings and he cannot imagine a world without so many people around.  When the crowd is outside, he goes in search of them.  He has a great ability to speak up and be heard.  What can I say, children paint a lot of color into my life.

"Do you think having kids makes you feel like a real grown up?"  I ask my husband one night.
"Having kids forces you to be less selfish.  They make you think about more than just yourself," he mentions.
"Before I had about three kids I still felt like my high school self," I add, "Now that we have six I don't feel like a child anymore.  They have made me grow up.  Sometimes I am kicking and screaming."
"Even knowing that having kids replaces selfishness, there is still room to grow," Tim adds.
"That is really true," I say, "I would not be the woman I am without all my children.  They have changed me in ways I don't always think about."
"Being a parent is so natural, yet so many of us are afraid of becoming parents.  We don't want to give up what we have for something unknown," Tim states.
"I never thought having six kids would not feel like that many kids.  When did this happen to me," I say.

Both Tim and I look at each other and smile.

"I feel the same way," Tim says.

Family Swim Time

Dominic:  When are we going to the pool?

Me: Probably Friday.

Dominic:  We are going to the pool after nap?

Me: It is Tuesday, not Friday.

Dominic: Is that tomorrow after nap?

Me:  No, in a few days.

Dominic: Okay.

Bria and Charis run down the stairs in their swimsuits, Dominic is already wearing his.

Charis: We are going swimming?

Me: Not today.

Charis:  But I am wearing one swimsuit and Bria is wearing two.

Me:  We are going to the pool on Friday so that Daddy can help us.

Bria:  I am going to the pool!

Ellianna: Not today Bria!

Bria: But I'm going to the pool.

Joel and Ellianna at the same time: On Friday!

Yes, the Ruybalid family has not been swimming all together ever!  The last time I was in a pool we had four kids and Bria on the way.  In fact, I did not know where my swimsuit was.  I thought I might have thrown it out in the trash.  However, after digging in the garage for a week, I found it.  I guess I am not off the hook for the family swim trip.  Cape George pool, here we come.  Six very excited kids cannot wait to spend some time in the water!  I will post more about this adventure later.  

Life As a Script

So I have this idea that I want to try writing in a different way for a bit.  I used to take acting classes as a teen and we were given all these short scenes to work on.  Some were from plays and other scenes were written for the class.  As a culture most of us watch scenes on TV all the time and I realized my life could be like this, right?  I mean how many shows with families have you watched throughout the years?  So here goes.  Feedback on if you like this style is also encouraged.  I am playing with the idea of writing several entries like this.

 Getting into the Library:

Me: Everyone find a buddy and walk across the parking lot.  Remember to look for cars.  (I am carrying baby and a giant bag filled with about 25 pounds worth of books). 

Ellie: Bria doesn't want to hold my hand.

Me: Take Charis' then.

Dominic:  Nobody will hold my hand.

Me:  I will.

Ellie:  Charis won't hold my hand.

Joel:  Charis will hold my hand.

Me: We are going to miss story time if you don't figure this out.

Finally we get to the library and open the door.  I stand at the return book station for several minutes while my kids watch for books they want to renew.

Me: Lets walk into story time (Half my kids walk toward the children's library as I direct them to go into the other shortcut door straight into the room we want to be in.  We get there and take our seats.)

 Lunch Time:

We pull into the driveway and see that Daddy came home for lunch

Me: Let's get out of the car quickly so we can see Daddy.

Dominic: Joel's not letting me out of the car.

Me: Joel, why are you giving Dominic such a hard time?

Dominic: Stupid!

Me: Just get into the house, please.  I still need to make the lunch.

I frantically get Isaiah, Bria, and Charis out of the car as the other ones get out on their own.  It is time to make sandwiches.

Snack Time Yesterday:

Dominic is trying to share my chair

Dominic: Mommy I am going to tickle you and then tickle myself.

Me:  You cannot tickle yourself because you know when you are going to try and tickle.

Dominic: Then I will just tickle you...hehe.

Ellianna:  May I please have more.

Me:  I just made you homemade crackers to go with almond butter and you already ate half an apple.  There is no more.

Joel:  But mom I am always so hungry.  Sometimes in the night I am hungry too. 

Me:  You eat more food in one day than Daddy does.

Joel: But I have a bigger stomach than him.

Me:  Don't you think Daddy has the bigger stomach.

Joel: I use more energy.

So here goes.  I am just warming up.  This could get better because kids are very entertaining and I have six of them :)  Hope you liked this brief experiment.  Any ideas of what you want to know about how things go during a basic day in my life?  Let me know and I may write it out for you.  :)

Diet, Exercise, and a Budget

For those of you who read my last blog post on postpartum weight loss, you remember that I have finished my year with Lindsey Brin's workouts and moved on to...I did not mention exactly what I moved on to.  To take care of my aching feet I looked into yoga.  I found Jillian Michael's "Yoga Meltdown" level one on youtube, so that is where I started.

This workout is great because it is still challenging even though I have been working on really hard workouts for a year.  There is a small amount of movement to add in some cardio, but not a lot.  I added in the Natalie Portman ballet workout, also on youtube as well.  This covered two days a week, Monday and Wednesday.  Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays I either took one of these days off or found a ballet type workout on youtube.  I like Ellen Barrett workouts and I used to do some of the Crunch Fitness pilates, so the "Pilates and Yoga Burn" took over one day of the Tuesday or Thursday workouts.  Then I just did basic ballet bar work from when I used to take class a couple of times a week.  One weekend day I pushed myself to run 3.8 miles and beat my time of 38:50.  I accomplished this.  I cut one minute off this time the first try in two years and another thirty seconds last weekend.  These Lindsey Brin workouts have paid off.  The run I do includes four major steep hills and pretty much none of it is exactly flat.  If you live in Port Townsend, I am talking about running all the loops in Cape George Colony.

The results of these two weeks have been great as far as some rest, some added lean muscles, and some cardio.  I have felt great with lots of energy, but not too tired.  With Lean Out (Lindsey Brin) I needed a quick afternoon sleep by choice or not.  I would sometimes just fall asleep nursing.  I think my body needed a break.

In the weight loss game, I have lost not a pound.  I am testing the theory that I might be at a good weight for me while breastfeeding because I have changed a few things to my diet and see little to no change.  I am not gaining weight so that is great.  I don't depend on super tough workouts to say at one weight.  That is encouraging.

Now diet.  How do I even know what to start with.  In the past I tried calorie count, but after several months of this, one basically knows that the extra helping of something will put you over your calorie budget.  There are several fad diets out there and all kinds of books I could spend money one to try and find the one that might make me shed ten more pounds but our budget does not allow for that.  One could search for stuff on the internet...guilty of this.  There is way too much information out there.  Eat fruit, don't eat fruit.  Cut out honey, eat honey.  This is good and this is bad.  Don't you just want to eat?  I know I do.  All the pictures of yummy food don't help either.

My conclusions, there are traditions from years and years of eating that are important.  Eat lots of veggies.  Eat seasonally.  Having a farm share helps us focus on eating food that is in season in our climate.  Make sure the food you get is grown where the soil is not stripped of it's nutrients.  Think about the meat you eat.  Buy meat from good sources even if it costs more.  We have eight people to feed not and we only get a pound of beef for one meal, half a whole roasted chicken (so I can make the rest into soup, or two pounds of fish.  Yes, this is not that much meat, but for quality meat it is all we can afford and I would rather have some than none in a meal.  Each meal is mostly veggies, some rice, good quality pasta, homemade pizza dough, or once in awhile potatoes.  I cook with coconut oil or butter most of the time.  We soak all our grain in yogurt whey.  I personally cut bread out of my lunches recently, partly because I am too lazy to cook bread everyday and because I don't know if I need a bread, pasta, or rice with every meal (some would say you don't need this everyday, but I don't know about that theory either).  Breakfast is usually steel cut oats because it is cheaper than anything else.  One dozen eggs is one meal.  We have my freshly milled pancakes on one weekend day and eggs the other.  As for snacks, we no longer have crackers unless I make them.  I really like making Paleo crackers with almond flour.  These are more filling and taste amazing!  We have raisins, apple, or some other kind of fruit and nut combination for snacks.  Sometime homemade yogurt and honey is great too.  Now that I make all that I can for scratch, I don't feel the need to mindlessly eat all the time.  I am happy with a few homemade crackers because one batch is only enough for one day.  There usually aren't leftovers to munch on later.

There is a jumbled but brief overview of our diet.  We are not perfect all the time.  I buy bread so my kids can have more bread than I feel like making.  I intend to phase this out, just like the crackers.  The family food budget is tight, so I think the more I make, the less we should be spending eventually.  The next step is to get a garden in our new yard that will actually grow us a decent amount of food.  This is a project for next year or later, but I still have a goal to do this one day. 

I just started Lindsey Brin's "Weight Loss" again to see if I can get rid of five pounds again like I did the first time I did this program.  I am doing the weight loss 10K training, so it is slightly different.  So far after four days not change in weight.  We'll see.  Last time I only lost the weight in the first three weeks. 

Homemade Yogurt is Worth the Wait

I remember the first time I talked to a friend about making yogurt.  She brought over some that she had made a few days ago and it was so amazing!  Honestly, I did not like yogurt until I tried hers.  It was sweet instead of sour, with an smooth texture.  This was a few years ago, since I am sure I was either pregnant with Dominic or Charis. 

Soon after this day I went out and bought some yogurt starter and set out to try my own batch.  I had a propane oven that would only go as cold as 170 degrees.  I spent a whole day heating up the oven, waiting for it to be 115 degrees and then putting my culture into the oven in a glass jar.  It felt like forever before there was something the kind of looked like yogurt.  Let me just say, my first batch was not so great.  I tried three more times, but gave up.

Then a month ago a friend and I were talking about making yogurt in a crock-pot.  This is appealing for so many reasons.  One can make more yogurt at once and one doesn't have to devote the oven to a whole day of yogurt making.  I also got a special yogurt thermometer, because I know the first times I failed at making yogurt, temperature was a big part of that. ( http://www.amazon.com/Yogourmet-105-LS-9619-Yogurt-Thermometer/dp/B000N23Q1A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1400882785&sr=8-2&keywords=yogurt+thermometer)

The first time I made my own batch of yogurt I used White Mountain Bulgarian yogurt as my start.  This stuff costs almost seven dollars at our local food coop.  It worked well as a start, but I wanted a texture just slightly less lumpy for my yogurt.  Plus, I wanted a slightly sweeter flavor. 

I went back to the yogurt start I bought a few years ago, I mean I bought a new packet of course.  Yogourmet yogurt start worked really well. 

So how do I use a crock-pot to make yogurt anyway?  I found this great website http://www.culturesforhealth.com/how-to-make-yogurt-in-crock-pot

Then I tried to modify it to work with raw milk.  I only heated the milk to 115 degrees.  This takes one hour in the crock-pot on warm.  Then I added the starter or 1/2 cup of plain live cultured yogurt.  Stir it in well.  Then cover the crock-pot and put at towel over the whole thing.  In about three hours use the yogurt thermometer to check the temperature of the milk.  If it is too cold then put it on warm for about 30 minutes.  Watch it closely.  Turn it off when it is back to 115 degrees.  Then wait. If it is late I night I will just check it when I wake up and warm it up if need be in the morning.

Climates change how long this will take.  It could take somewhere between 6-24 hours to look like yogurt.  There will be some liquid (Whey), but you can save this to ferment oatmeal, bake in bread, or look up other uses.  You don't have to do much.  You can leave the house, but keep checking it when you think about it.  Then when yogurt is done stain it with a cheese cloth.  Then put it in glass jars and cool it.  I have read,  one should put it in the fridge for about 8 hours.  There are cultures that can make you sick if you eat yogurt warm in fermenting process.  Cooling the yogurt in the fridge stops the fermentation process.  Yes, this whole process can take two days.  It is not a quick food to make, but worth it. 

Walnut Tea Cakes

I have been searching for a filling treat that has more nutrients in it than the standard Russian Tea Cakes I used to make with my best friend Carrie in third grade.  This was a Christmas time treat and it was a messy one to make.  We would cover ourselves in powdered sugar, but it was a lot of fun and walnuts taste great in cookies. 

1/3 cup of coconut oil
1/4 cup of raw honey (we got mint honey from the Yakima Valley, it tastes so great!)
1/2 cup of crushed walnuts
1 cup of almond flour
1/4 cup of coconut flour
1 egg
1/4 cup of crushed walnuts for dusting

roll into 2 tbsp balls and then roll in crushed walnuts.  Place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for around 12 minutes. 

I hope you enjoy these as much as our family does.  :)

My Workout Journey Postpartum

The Truth About Reading

The moments I have wanted and dreaded at the same time have happen for me the last few months.  Tim and I took a leap of faith and decided to pull our kids out of their small Christian school and homeschool.  I thought it was going to tear the world I expected to have apart, but it hasn't.  Keep in mind this is the first time in 5 years I have not been pregnant and breastfeed and being a mom to several children.  I am just breastfeeding right now. 

I mentioned in a previous post that homeschooling was never something I planned for myself.  My husband did a lot of research on homeschooling, but I always thought my kids would do just fine in public school.  Then I had kids.  I knew right away that I did not want my sweet little five year old to be put in a class of seventeen to twenty kids to figure life out.  He was very quiet and we even waited until he was six to consider any kind of school.  When we really had to decide something we picked a small private school and were blessed with some help paying for it.  Joel went to school and opened up a lot socially, but I still questioned if we had picked the right place for him.  It was the best school we could find, but by second grade he really was not learning a whole lot. 

People started to make faces at me when they realized my son could barely read a sentence in five minutes and math was even worse.  We worked on phonetics every summer and simple math to keep him on track, but school seemed to erase all of our work.  I felt depressed, but also sad because I did not want to see my child struggle in school the way that I had.  So there you go, Tim was right. 

We did not make it through second grade.  I have been working on second grade with my son and first grade with my daughter.  My daughter would probably do well in any school in town, she just has that kind of personality, but my son is different.  Not a bad different and certainly not dumb.  The boy can figure out all kinds of things if he wants to.  As mom I can teach at all levels, but it is also important to me to help my son feel like he is not behind.  Plenty of kids don't really start reading until later ages, one just doesn't hear about it.  Maybe one hears, X percent of the population is illiterate.  Why is that the case?  How did this happen?  There are so many factors that go into reading.  If I had one kid I would blame myself so much more if he was like my first son, but I have a daughter who reads everything she can get her hands on.  Our home is filled with books.  I read to my children, so does my spouse, and grandparents.  These kids know that reading is fun and important.

A friend looked at me one day and said, "The nice thing about homeschool is that he doesn't have to read yet.  Most kids pick up reading when they want too."  I remember thinking, but are they being hassled like me about my child not reading?  Have a failed completely?.. and then it hit me.  She is right.  We can read history and science together.  We can focus on grammar and talking about stories.  We can do so much to make books still important, at a level beyond nursery school, and really get to know why reading is worth it. 

When I learned to read I was placed in the dumb group called the sparrows or something like that.  We knew we were dumb because while all the other kids had long chapter books, we had baby books to look at.  Let's face it, maybe I had some trouble reading, but I knew what a real book looked like.  I never really grew into a person who loves to read.  I can say now that I like to read, but I love to write much more.  My husband tells me I must like writing because there was less pressure on me to write.  I can say at younger ages that is probably true. 

So as I sit with my kids and feel like hopefully they are actually learning, I realize they are getting a lot more help than most kids are.  If my son was in school, reading at his level, he might slip through the cracks, but I am not going to let that happen to him.  I am more aware of where he is at and I am able to be alright with that.  As a homeschool mom my friend is right, he doesn't have to read yet.  As
I leave insisting on reading alone I have seen a lot more improvement.  My little boy is now interested in books, he wants to have a chance to read to me, and even if every word is not perfect he can get through a sentence in less time than before. 

I can give him a chance to practice and we will get there.  Everyone tells me that by twelve, homeschool kids usually can read.  I would not say my son cannot read at this point, but we do have more work to do.  In just a few months there has been a lot of progress.  Sometimes we are the obstacles in our children's progress.  Just because a system tell you that one should read by five years old doesn't mean that kids wake up one day reading.  It is our job to nurture a skill, not beat it out of kid.  Don't feel bad if you are in my situation.  I used to feel ashamed like I had missed one to many library story times or something, but just as kids walk at different ages, they also read at different ages too.  I would rather have a son who starts reading at twelve and loves it for life than a kid of reads at five and hates it.

Complete Change

It has been two months since my husband and I decided to homeschool our two oldest children (the other four are not school age yet).  In such a small amount of time I have watched our whole family dynamic change and grow.  My older kids are very helpful with the little kids and with household tasks.  The are begging to learn to cook and I have taught them both to make scrambled eggs so far.  Both of them could make mom and dad breakfast with a small amount of help.  This is great. Cooking is not the only home based task my kids are learning.  We all clean the house together and organize laundry.  So when do we find time for school?

The mornings are early in our house.  I wake up around 5:30 most days and everyone is awake by 6:30.  Joel and Ellie need to practice piano first thing.  It is hard to make them practice for a long time at these ages, so the often practice twice a day.  Dad is involved in as much of this as possible since he know much more about piano playing a music than I do.  We eat breakfast and by 7:30 I want us getting ready to do math.  The younger kids view this as coloring time.  I also will read stories if some of the kid want me too.  Next we have to work on Language Arts.  We have been focusing on writing about what we read, so this is parent focused.  I try to add things like nouns, verbs, etc.  and we have workbooks that include this as well.  Science is a family favorite, so often we all read about space, animals, or weather together.  Our activities are simple at this point, but fun.  History is all about the world this year.  We started with an intensive study of Bangladesh, but we are moving to brief histories of other countries now.  It is fun to see what the kids remember in a week. 

In the model where one is tested constantly, I realize that very little information sticks with me today.  Learning is such a natural process, but I feel like we forget this sometimes.  I used to be so afraid to homeschool because my kids might not learn everything.  The truth is, they learned less before.  Don't tell them, but they end up doing more work.  However it takes less effort because they are so much more involved with what we are working on. 

My biggest challenge is my younger four kids.  Some of them enjoy just playing on alone, but there are many interruptions.  We do not have much time for activities outside the home, but I make a point to take the kids to story time once a week.  Sometimes I feel like I should be doing more with them, but then I realize what they gain too.  They have older kids around playing with them, guiding them in activities, and they get to learn cool new information right along side the older kids.  Our family as a whole is bonding more than we would if the older two kids were still in school. 

I never planned to be a homeschool mom and I did not think the role would fit me, but now I can see how it can work.  The funny thing is I say I did not want to homeschool, but I used to imagine myself a teacher when I worked on my French Literature degree in college.  It has taken me ten years to figure out how to use my degree wisely and I think pouring all my skills into my children is not a bad way to use my liberal arts education.  This does not mean I only plan to educate my kids, but I feel like I am finally using my degree in some way. 

Pretty Fierce: Weightloss (Lindsey Brin) DONE!

Today is my last day of Pretty Fierce: Weightloss!  I am so excited even though I wish I could have maybe lost a few pounds more.  I guess that will happen when I start Pretty Fierce: Lean Out tomorrow.   The end results are:  I lost five or six pounds.  I say this because the scale moved around a bit and my lowest weight was 114 pounds three weeks into the program, but I ended at 116 pounds.  I started at 120.5 pounds.  Keep in mind the last three weeks focus more on muscle tone than cardio and the first few weeks are all cardio and some toning.  I feel safe to say I will probably see that 114 again if I bump up the cardio.  I think I lost an inch in my measurements, but I lost the document with my actual measurements.  I remember some of them and I can now fit into a pair of jeans I bought in a size too small because the company would no longer be selling the jeans and I knew I would fit into them someday.  I bought them after Charis was born and never used them.  Now two more babies later they fit!  Crazy.  I still wish my belly looked better than some of my friend's newly pregnant photos, but I was pregnant a lot in the last 8 years and this is the longest break my body has had in 5 years! 

I will post a photo soon.  I had my husband take one this morning, but now I cannot upload it until we update some software.

As for my overall sanity... I think working out takes away the element of wanting to feel better about oneself, but never doing much about it.  There is power in knowing that maybe I am not where I want to be, but I will be someday and there is some progress.  Between Ellie and Dominic I had two years of no pregnancies.  I did breastfeed that whole time, but the scale stuck at 118 pounds ( I was 101 pounds when I got pregnant with baby number one) and never moved.  I ran six miles at a time several times a week.  I did situps...all the stuff that worked in high school.  None of it helped.  I never restricted my diet, so that sure did not help.  I felt like maybe I would never enjoy getting dressed again.  Now I know that it doesn't have to be that way.  It isn't even that bad not eating every cookie I just baked, or just eating because I feel sad and lonely.  I like the energy from the workouts too.  I have not had caffeine on purpose for a couple of years now and I feel much better too.  The workout is all I need to feel ready for the day.  Even though I get moody, I was more moody with my daily cup of coffee.  Red tea is just fine.    I love the occasional latte too. :)  Decaf these days and it must be fair trade, swiss water processed.

I imagine I will always struggle a little with diet more than working out because I love food.  I love making food and I love eating food.  I have started to make up healthier ways to eat things, but let's face it, real ice cream is better that everything else...coconut is a close second.  I hate agave, so if it is coconut I must make it myself.  I think there are too many diet fads out there and I never want to have to say I will eat with your family if you follow all of these rules.  There are some things that I have to avoid like peanuts and that is frustrating enough.  

So there we have it...Still not perfect.  I still have 15 pounds to shed before I read my weight before no babies, however I am still breastfeeding so if I get rid of 5 to 7 pounds I will be thrilled at this point.  I need to keep some until I finish nursing.:0)  I am happy to be a few steps closer to my goal.

Week 6: Pretty Fierce Weight Loss (Lindsey Brin)

I only have two more weeks to go until I complete all of Pretty Fierce Weight Loss!  My weight has stood still this week, but I am not worried about that yet.  I seem to see a bunch of weight loss and then none and then some again.  Plus, I am glowing from being told by a someone at a shop I frequent (but maybe every 3 months or so) that I look great and I must have lost a lot of weight.  The true test is when people who barely know you can tell the difference, right?

This week is going to be tough with workouts.  My husband's new job has him leaving the house earlier and earlier.  Sometimes he is gone by 6:30 A.M.  I have had to change up my routine to fit a workout in after I put the kids to bed, but it is far less fun because I am then telling the kids to go to sleep constantly as I attempt to get the most out of my workout.  This is why mom's join the gym and just leave for a break.  The last week of workouts has a session that is over 70 minutes long, so figuring out how to get this done will be interesting.  I might be up super early that day.

Other thank working out, I am still attempting to find time to read.  I like quiet, so having the kids running around is not going to work.  Tim gave me one of his books to read and I hope to get it finished by the time we have our romantic Valentine's day dinner.  I don't always read what he reads, in fact he reads, and I write, but I promised him that my gift would be a conversation on the book of his choice this year.  Usually I just listen while he talks about his books.  It is not that I don't miss learning new topics, but being a mom fills 90% of my brain and the 10% left is used for projects.  However, I miss college and I miss great ideas and meaningful conversations, so it is time to attempt to add this back into the mix.

It is now almost one year since the estimated time of my dad's passing.  People say it hits hard again around this time and they are not kidding.  All of a sudden it feels like yesterday that I had the last conversations I would ever have with my dad.  I miss our trips with the kids.  My dad always took us on walks, trips to the lighthouse, aquarium visits, and so much more.  This is now missing and I wish he was still here to be a part my life.

The kids are missing him again too.  They go through periods of time where they talk about him a lot.  This is one of them.  He was going to take them camping last summer and they are still sad they never got to go.  They tell Isaiah that he would have loved my dad.

There really is no cure for the pain other than to feel it and find some peace in it.  I wish there was a zap of joy you could have to counter the pain, but pain is there and it is real.  31 is too young to no longer have a dad.  I think about how much more he could have been around to see.  It saw a lot of my failures in my 20s.  I am thankful he got to see most of my family, but we should have had more time.

Homeschooling is now a set part of our life.  We are making it work and getting everyone involved.  This week the little kids are involved in Joel and Ellie's mini play on firetrucks.  This play is a musical with their songs and dances to go with.  We plan to show Granny at a Sunday night dinner.  It has been a dream of mine to have all our kids be a part of dance together.  I can see that happening now. 

My new kitchen discovery is all about almond meal.  It is expensive so I got in bulk from Azure Standard.  We have been making fruit muffins using almond flour instead of flour and these muffins are filling.  Greek yogurt goes really well with them too.

Here is my recipe:
4 cups of Almond flour
3 eggs
1/4 cup honey or maple syrup
1/2 cup fruit
4 TBSP melted butter
bake for about 30 minutes in a 350 degree oven

line the muffin tin with 12 cups and fill evenly.  These muffins stay about the same size when cooked.  Ice with 1/2 cup of Greek yogurt and 1 TBSP of honey.  You will love them:)

Half way through Pretty Fierce

I am so excited to have made it this far through my workout program.  Week five has been my favorite week because I finally get to rest a little bit after four weeks of working out almost everyday.  My body really needed a little more sleep and I still feel great.  I even lost one pound. 

I did notice it is hard to stop working out once one gets use to an every day workout.  My baby got spoiled to because I would feed him and jump out of bed, let him play, and I worked out.  Now he is trying to figure out why I am struggling to get up.

Week five is still four days of working out, but two of those days are only eight minute abdominal workouts.  It is all to prepare my body for the next three weeks of more challenging workouts.  I am looking forward to that too.

As for some attitude changes, I am learning a lot about how kids are so different.  When one has six, juggling those personalities can be challenging.  They have a lot in common, but a lot of differences as well.  Since my family started homeschooling our family dynamic has completely changed.  I love some of the changes like watching older kids help out younger ones.  Other things are not so great like that fact someone always seems to be crying, or my house sounds like a circus whenever I am on the phone.

I will be honest, I never planned to homeschool my children.  I went to public school and thought it was fine, but then I met Tim.  One of his first priorities was homeschooling, so slowly I have read more about it and I understand his reasons.  Understanding those reasons and taking on the responsibilities of homeschool are two different things.  I have put off having all kids home because of lots of pregnancies close together, but now seems like a good time to try and start.  My two older kids have some basic reading and math skills, but still don't love working without me helping a lot.  I am learning to balance that need with the fact that there are four other kids that want my attention nonstop.

Homeschooling is a juggling act.  I want to plan a lot that includes everyone, but it doesn't always work.  Baking works the best, but we cannot do that everyday.  Most of the kids like coloring.  I read other homeschool mom's blogs and they try and do similar things.  I hope as we get used to our new schedule things will get better.

For now I need to learn to smile more.  I love my kids, but it is loud a lot more and sometimes I want to lock myself in my room for hours.  I have less energy to be a great wife, but I will be working on that.  It is tempting to only complain about the kids.  They are my whole day at this point and even with some fun moments, there are more challenging ones at this point.  Keeping a good attitude is half the fight, but not always as easy as it seems.

I am not writing these things to be negative, but to be honest.  I am human and I am not yet supermom, though I aspire to get better at that.

For now some pic of my workout progress.

still not perfect, but better

I look less pregnant

My sweet Isaiah

Before Pretty Fierce

Made Through Week 3

Week three of Pretty Fierce: Weight loss (Lindsey Brin) has taken me longer than a week to finish.  My family got hit pretty hard with the stomach flu and I lost two days recovering myself.  Just getting a taste of what it is like to sleep in until 6 A.M. instead of 5:40 A.M. spoiled me just enough to not want to get up when the alarm is ringing.  I got to cheat a little on my early morning workouts this week as Monday was a holiday and my husband was home from work.  There are optional outdoor workouts that I never do because it is usually dark and cold, but I took advantage of the sun and a much needed break from our house and did some interval running for 35 minutes.  It was great.  I love the trails near my house for this.

Two days after being sick I stepped on the scale thinking I probably should at some point.  It was in the garage to stop me from being obsessive about the scale.  It is too easy to feel like one is making no progress when the scale doesn't move for weeks.  So to my surprise the scale moved more than I could imagine.  I was 120.5 when I started working out and two and half weeks in I was 114.  This was too good to be true and my body has since settled into 117, which is still less than I did after Ellie was born (baby 2) and before I got pregnant with Dominic. 

No I am challenged with my focus.  I nameless person asked me, "Why do you keep saying you want to get back to where you were?"  I guess the concept of "getting back" doesn't really work.  Let's face it there are six kids, I'm 31 years old, and my body will have the marks of pregnancy probably forever, not to mention some gray hair.  Maybe it is not getting back, though when I say that I am not erasing my children in that mix, I am talking about being strong and having my body look like it did before having children maybe I should build some more goals.

When one has been pregnant more than not it is easy to think, after every baby, I will finally remember what it is like to be me again.  However, me, has changed right?  Me has a baby or two or sometimes six.  Who is me then?  I am trying to figure that out too.  Am I getting back to a girl barely out of college?  No, that cannot be right.  Am I trying to figure out what it means to be thirty one and really an adult.  Is this a mid life crisis?

My goals for the future have always included being married and having lots of kids.  I never realized that wonder woman with 48 hour days was also on the list.  If I did everything I wanted to do I would never sleep again.  In college my schedule looked something like this:
8:00 A.M. press snooze bar
9:00 A.M. wake up
10:00 A.M. super early class
11:00 A.M. class
12:00 P.M. work at The Kid's place during lunch
1:00 P.M. class
2:30 P.M. serious nap
4:00 P.M. start homework?
5:30 P.M. dinner
7:30 P.M. ballet
9:00 P.M. Go to the library and get all the homework I did not finish done
3:00 A.M. Bedtime

Think about how many wasted hours are in the schedule!  I had no idea that was such an easy life.  This is my schedule now:
5:30 nurse baby
5:40 workout
6:20 shower
6:30 eat breakfast
8:00 get baby back to sleep for nap
8:30 homeschool-family reading
9:00 snack
9:30 more homeschool
10:45 think about getting the kids to clean up and the eat lunch
11:30 little kids need a nap, School kids have some kind of educational game to play
2:00 Nap is over, try to play outside
3:00 Dinner prep
4:00 other than Tues. we eat (Tues is dance class night)
5:00 wind down
6:00 and 6:30 bedtime for kids
7:00  Mommy and Daddy time, RubyRumps sewing, writing...etc
10:00 sleep.

Yes life is different.  Sometimes I am crying other times I amazed at how much one can pack into a day.  :)  The person who challenged me with the concept of "getting back" is right.  I cannot get back to old me, but I can make a new better me.  I long to be a loving wife and good mother.  Sometimes my attitude needs some help too.  Other than trying to change the outside, I plan to work on my mind too.  Maybe a I need a  reading list.  I am open to hearing about some good books.

Workout Update and More

Pretty Fierce weight loss (Lindsey Brin) seems to be working.  I have not weighted myself because I cannot find my scale in the garage, but I measured myself and in almost two weeks I have lost close to an inch everywhere.  I could tell some good news was coming my way when I realized my jeans felt just a bit less tight!  How exciting. I have the wake up and workout part down.  There is even tons of motivation to work hard while working out.  The one set back is getting my mind where my body is when it comes to food.

Meals are going well.  I eat healthy meals.  However, I still like making treats and maybe eating bear paws.  So the key is balancing that out I guess.  I may have done a bit better these last two weeks if I logged my food.  Last time I had a baby I went onto calorie count and tracked everything.  I was hoping to avoid that because I know when I am eating more than I should, but somehow seeing it on paper makes it more real than sneaking the odd extra snack in.  Maybe I need to be more strict and see what happens.  As a breastfeeding mom I still need to snack a bit, but I should have better control over my snacking.  I really need to get my hands on a book a friend told me about called "Trim Healthy Mama."  It is not in the budget right now, but as soon as it is, I plan to read it and blog about it. 

Outside of working out I have decided to organize my day better.  Being pregnant so often makes one get too used to winging every day.  I would like to have more goals for things I want to teach my children and how I want to keep the house.  Dominic is four and we are starting to learn some phonics.  It is really great to watch the older kids step in and lead the younger ones.  The younger kids feel great because the older kids are spending quality time with them.  There is also a lot less fighting.

My cleaning to do list is insane.  Do you ever feel like you don't have to funds to organize all the stuff in the house?  I love the idea of buying boxes, baskets, files, and so much more to keep house better, but with six kids I get through cleaning up toys and putting away clothing and dishes and the week is over.  Plus, it takes a budget to buy shelving and extras, so I am trying to figure out some creative ways to use what we have.  I did braid up a couple of sheets to try and make baskets.  I got through making one, so it is time to try and make more.

Maybe you are thinking make the kids clean up?  Oh we do.  The kids are constantly cleaning up.  They are also constantly making a mess.  I make the point of telling them to put their stuff away and then we have a conversation about organizing it.  A month goes by and everything is "put" away, but not very well, so we learn more about being tidy.  Let's face it...being a mommy leaves one in a hurricane of stuff at all times. 

I am grateful that we always having something to do at our house and I do not remember the last time I was actually bored.  :)  Kids fill up the day just nicely.

What Happens When...

Beginning a new year adds the pressure of new goals.  We have been trained to come up with much anticipated New Years resolutions from birth.  This year is no different.  I posted on my Facebook page just days before New Years day that I had already begun my fitness goals for the year.  My brother knew I really wanted Lindsey Brin's Pretty Fierce workout and I have had my eye on the day I could start this for over a year.  Yes, one has to be at least six months out of a pregnancy to even attempt the program.  For those of you who know my track record, I often don't make it to six months post baby before there is another baby, but this year is different and I can finally tackle my goal.

In the last nine years I have been pregnant six times, often breastfeeding while pregnant, and watched my body disappear into mommy marshmallow.  I know this is unfair to complain about since having babies in the first place is a gift, but I do not know one mommy who is thrilled with stretchmarks, something that once may have been a toned stomach, and limbs that are rounded out a little bit more these days.  My husband got mad at me for not putting a photo of us on the family Christmas card and I have to admit it was because I was ashamed of how I looked.  I have even put tons of work into staying in shape and I still feel this way.

Before I had kids I was somewhere between 97 and 100 pounds always.  I could eat a burger and fries and not notice a different.  Now I have gotten up to 134 pounds towards the end of a pregnancy and found myself in the 125 pound range after the birth.  It has taken me six months to get to around 120 pounds this time around and I have to say I was around that after the birth.  In fact, I started working out and gained six pounds!  This is not fun at all.  It's muscle right?  I hope so.  I will say my clothing is just starting to feel like it might be slightly too big.

I promised myself I would never get hung up on weight, but that was before I knew what babies did to the female body!  People promised me breastfeeding helps, for me I just gained more weight.  Yes, one needs some extra to support breastfeeding, but probably not an extra twenty pounds.  I love my babies and one does not breastfeed for eight years straight and not value all that mamma's milk has to offer.  However, liquid gold for my baby does not make me want to put on an actual outfit only to realize it may never fit again.

So I failed my promise.  I got hung up of baby weight I searched for a solution.  It takes two years to get your body back, the articles say.  Did these woman have babies fourteen months apart?  I doubt it.  Do I have to add another two years per baby to get a realistic sense of where my body went?  Then I found Lindsey Brin's website momsintofitness.com and it changed my perspective on things.  I wish I would have known these things around baby number one and then maybe by baby six I would just bounce back to me, but it is never too late.  With baby number five it took me forever to get rid of any baby weight and this is when I started Lindsey's workouts.  I used them for my pregnancy and this is probably the 5th or 6th time I am raving.  I never thought my stomach would be strong again, it is.  In fact with baby number six I think my labor was easier because of all the workouts. 

Now I am working of Pretty Fierce, my baby is seven months old.  I looked at the scale and it said 120.5 pounds when I started five days ago.  I only hope this means I might see below 120 again, it will be the first time since Ellianna was a baby.  When you are 4'11 like me every five pounds is like ten for normally tall people.  I have felt round.  In five days I feel hungrier than ever, so I hope I can keep my eating under control, but I know the workouts must be working then.  My core feels strong already, but it is only getting stronger.  I am also thrilled I can keep up with everything in the videos  well.  Pretty Fierce starts with a goal of working out every day for two weeks!  I have been working out five or six days a week, but I know those days off have really helped me stay motivated.  We'll see how these two weeks go.  After five days I feel great, so the next few days will be fine, it will be the end of next week I might start complaining.  I plan to keep my readers honestly posted.  If I gain six pounds again I will tell you.  Oh and the 120.5 pounds was from after being sick, so maybe add a pound for a more realistic take on things.

When does a mom of six have time to work out?  I set the alarm for 5:40, feed the baby, drag him out to play while I workout and they you go.  It is possible.  The workouts are around 30 minutes long so Isaiah is happy enough for that time.

My biggest hurdles for my goals are baked goodies (I love to bake cookies) and chocolate.  Other than that my diet is super healthy, but when I workout, I have to turn off the voice that says, this extra cookie is worth it.  Stick to one I need to tell myself.  Only one slice of pie, cake, half a bear paw....these are all weaknesses.  I had a bear paw today in fact...um, not the best choice, but it tasted really good.  So you see I am far from perfect.  Can far from perfect me get back to around 100 pounds again?