So today was another super scorcher, and as I sit here typing, my nape is throbbing with a sun burn ;_;
D'oh! I try to be so good about putting on sun screen, and did my face and arms but didn't realize how exposed my nape was during all my bike riding today... Oh, well. I've applied aloe vera so I'll hope for the best!
Anyway, today's highlights included the passive but larger outreach effort I'm making for my Student Exodus endeavor: business card sized shout-outs!
The front of the card
The back
These will be taped to (by?) the doors of student-filled apartments in the next couple of days.
The idea being that students will take the minute or two it takes to make a curb alert post on CL and leave their items on the curb, rather than chuck perfectly good things in the dumpster.
The QR code brings you directly to a Corvallis Craigslist new post form.
I got 1000 made, and when I think about just the apartments on 11th street, it makes me wonder how far I'll be able to stretch these things :D
Besides that, I am now going to start listening to "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" on audiobook while I make more origami stars. This batch of origami stars will be for my goodbye present to the CWS 8th grade graduating class ^^
Will post photos of that when they are all done!
Until then, take care and Happy Student Exodus Progress!!
So today was the 2016 Summer iteration of the Corvallis Family Clothing Swap.
I swear, with every Swap I can feel the machine of it running smoother and smoother.
I have a dedicated team of volunteers who go above and beyond to make sure the Swap is going as well as it can both during and after all the attendees are there.
I love these ladies!!!!!!!
I felt that today's crowd was maybe a little smaller than usual, with both new attendees and veteran ones alike :D
Must've been the sweltering hot weather (99 degrees here in Corvallis!) that made people decide to lie low and be more subdued...
A lot was brought in but a lot was taken out too so that by the end we didn't feel overwhelmed by the mega piles of leftovers or anything :)
Mandy S. was such a dear, looking out for my and my sister's clothing needs and finding many a good professional pieces for Kathy-neechan down in VA.
So thankful to our sponsors, as always.
I had this vision that Dash would go around and take video testimonials of happy Clothing Swap goers so that we could send them to our sponsors, but the shyness bug took over. So he opted, instead, to take photos of happy folks on their way out. I think I'll make something of a collage/PPT for our sponsors using that instead. ;)
It was cool to talk to certain attendees who'd been attending since their little ones were in utero and who are now wee little babies sitting in their baby carriers. Talk about an intergenerational experience :D
It was too hot to try on my new finds to showcase in a fashion show style, but trust me I have found a couple treasures~!
Well, til next time take care and Happy Summer 2016 Clothing Swap!!
My, what a day!
High of 88 degrees and a mixture of fun and productivity and personal endeavors and progress!!
Firstly, I got to spend a couple of hours this morning with the sweet Karen C. who helped me start my journey of tackling my favorite song from R&M: Do You Feel It? by Chaos Chaos. On the piano!!
It's amazing. I feel like I'm at a first grade (max!) level when it comes to reading music and Karen's there are college graduate level reading and performing a beautiful piece without having even ever heard it before~!!!
#aspirations
Then I got some work done, created some key pieces for tomorrow's Clothing Swap, and then...the icing on the cake:
Yahoo!!
Yeah, that's right.
It's a new copy of my Spanish birth certificate which was the last piece of documentation I needed to be ready for our cita with the Spanish Consulate in two weeks in San Francisco.
After anxiously waiting two months for this, I am finally all ready for proceeding with getting the kids' Spanish citizenship arranged and even getting our own Libro de Familia -- buya!!!
We also topped the night off with pizza and wine, so I'm gonna sign off early tonight.
Thanks for stopping by, take care and Happy Certificado Literal de Nacimiento!!
I thought I'd share with you something we do at the table every evening for dinner: Roses & Thorns
This is pretty much each family member's opportunity to share their rose (best part) and thorn (worst part) of the day.
It's a nice way to hear about everyone's day and often leads to more in-depth story telling about it or tangent conversations in general.
Tonight Roses & Thorns look something like this:
Roses
Dash = hanging out with William
Ella = playdate with Beatrix
Chrissy = raspberry picking with the kids
William = "this dinner" (is default answer)
Thorns
Dash = getting pricked by the prickly plants out back
Ella = none
Chrissy = not really liking the star to of "Sense & Sensibility" which I'd just begun listening to
William = mama making him eat his dinner
Before R&R we always given thanks too, either with reciting "Blessings on the Blossom" or singing the "Thank you God for ____" song or just exclaiming いただきます！
What are some family table traditions you have in your household?
I'd love to hear about it!
Until next time, take care and Happy Roses & Thorns!!
I don't know if I told you this already but the kids have two different schedules at school that looks like this:
Although Ella goes to school five days a week, William only goes three (M,T, W) and though they start at the same time (8:15), Ella gets out at 2pm, while William gets out at 12:30pm.
That means that three days a week, assuming I'm the one doing pick-up (I usually am), I have to kill time between 12:30pm and 2:pm.
That's one and a half hours.
I opt to hang around on campus rather than go back home, because 9/10 times I've ridden the bike to school, which means it'd be 30 minutes to home and then 30 minutes back to school again...so I might as well sit tight there.
I talked a little about what I do while waiting for all that time back in my Waldorf in the Spring post.
But I thought I could take this opportunity to disclose a little bit more about how William and I spend the early afternoon together.
We'll start with when the weather is crappy.
Depending on its availability, we'll take advantage of having the school gym all to ourselves.
William will practice dribbling while I play on the piano, or we'll nab some books from the front office and read them quietly.
A few times we got to be spoiled by Miss Wendy and hang out in the Golden Roses room where William played and I got to sip tea with her.
We've also been known to volunteer to sweep the hallways which get quite dirty from all the dirt and muck that gets tramped inside.
But when the weather's nice, oh how good it is to hang out at CWS!
There's the various playgrounds to take part in; seeking shade in the woods; exploring the greenhouse and garden; or even climbing the bamboo out front:
I swear, he's suddenly shot up, this kid.
That last one's technically a new addition but one that I look forward to rocking for the remainder of the year and next fall too.
Oh, man.
Speaking of which next year is going to be even more interesting with the difference of the two kids' pick-up times.
William, being in kindergarten, will still get out at 12:30 but Ella's class won't be released until 3:15 @_@
I'm not quite sure what the game plan will be then in terms of pick-ups but one thing's for sure:
I have enjoyed this routine very much this 2015-2016 year, and I cherish all the bonding time it's given William and me.
Well, until next time take care and Happy Waiting With William!!
Wow, I was absent for a long time there.
A month and then some, to be exact.
But you have to understand, I was suuuuper busy and updating my blog just fell by the wayside.
To make it up to ya'll, I will now give an overview of just what it was I was so busy with in May, starting with...
1) Origami Lucky Stars
As I'd mentioned briefly back in April, I had been slated to help decorate for CWS's annual Spring Fling adults-only dance. In my mind, I was envisioning making a bunch of little origami lucky stars that would hang off branches throughout the gym in a woodland-esque scene.
Unfortunately, after a couple of weeks of feverishly folding 200+ stars, the Spring Fling got cancelled suddenly, so I was a bit left in the lurch.
Nah, not really.
I ended up giving a few away for Mei's 11th birthday (お誕生日おめでとう！), incorporating them into Japanese lessons and Sunday School class and...this!
Rainbow order, of course.
So yeah, I now consider myself quite an expert at Lucky Star creation, so if you ever wanna learn, just let me know! I work with 8"+ long strips cut to 1/2" but my goal is to get down to 5 mm to use in jewelry and the like ;)
2) Student Exodus
Some of you may recall my 2016 New Year's Resolution post back in January, wherein I mentioned wanting to do something to divert waste during the great student move-out happening in June. Well, after thinking about it over five months, I finally came up with a plan which I set into motion the third day of May.
The doorhangers come with move-out timeline/calendar and two complimentary bags
I pretty much adopted what OSU does for their on-campus residents, and tweaked it to work for the Greek houses (frats and sororities) that I targeted for this. The idea is that the students can turn their move-out into more of a donation drive, with their unwanted items going to local non-profits and families in need.
I dished out the resources and materials for 1000 "move-out kits" total, but at this point have only handed out 400 or so between a dozen or so Greek houses. Oh, well. The leftovers can be used for next year too ;)
Next week will really be the busy week of winging by the houses and picking up the items to redistribute.
I'm nervous but excited! It's the first year anyone's done this (from what I can tell) and I've gotten lots of positive responses from folks I've told. The GT will even be covering it too, so yay!
Watch out for more updates on that next week and beyond ;)
3) Audiobooks
So between these two repetitive and time-consuming tasks, I've found myself with a lot of time to listen to audiobooks!
Within three weeks, I listened to:
George Orwell's "1984"
Jane Austen's "Pride & Prejudice"
Paulo Coelho's "The Alchemist"
and now I'm 30 minutes away from finishing a podfic for the BBC Sherlock show called "Disregard the Danger."
I love audiobooks for their multi-tasking capabilities, and I must say that I have a couple of preferences when it comes to them.
Firstly, I like one reader to narrate the entire book, doing all the characters' voices and everything. None of this "cast of voice actors to do all the characters" B.S. ;P
I also like them to be hella long. "The Alchemist" was just over four hours long which was too short for me, sir.
Anyway, I don't know what I'll be listening to next, but I'll be sure to share it when I'm done.
4) Art
There was also quite a lot of art done this month!
Ella, the resident artist of the family, has been developing her style more and more, especially with the help of a new desk (thank god for curbside finds!) and her Pokemon book.
Here's one drawing of hers that particularly tickles me pink, which she did for my 32nd birthday:
Rick & Morty forever and ever.
Just look at Morty's cheek! It's bulging from the cake that's in his mouth. Awesome, right?? :D
Myself, I've been working a lot with the local schools and artists groups, but got to do something I'd never done before! I worked with the Corvallis Drink & Draw Social Group!
The group usually meets at a pub or other such location to draw in a social setting. But they'd never had a themed session with a clothed model so I got to be their first one :)
The theme was "Cowgirl" and it was a lovely time with a super lovely and talented group.
Below are two pieces created by the lady who runs it, the very talented Patricia Smith:
Held each pose for 30 min. Not bad! :D
Jason Courtney also shared some with their Facebook group page, that you can see here. Wow, so talented!!!
5) Lamprey Creek
As for an outdoor activity, I'd like to share with you what we have been up to as far as Lamprey Creek.
Thanks to the proactive and wonderful Tess Hoffman, CWS will be an official contributor to the restoration of the newly named Lamprey Creek in MLK Jr. Park here in Corvallis.
What that means is on the first Saturday of May we helped clear away the blackberry bushes chocking up the creek; and last Saturday we helped set up and take down the official awakening ceremony.
It's good to show the kids that volunteerism is what makes the world go 'round, especially for such a noble cause as this.
Ella sporting her CWS shirt!
It was a good time, and I look forward to coming back in the fall to help plant a garden or two! :D
Those were pretty much the main things I thought I'd share from the month of May.
I feel I ought to share a recent photo of William too, so here he is on May 1st at our church's "Lego Day" event:
So excited with his teacher Miss Louise.
I've also been playing a lot of piano, and even memorized a beautiful piece by Brian Crain in just one week! It's called "At the Ivy Gates" and it's just lovely.
I also hope to pick back up Amelie's "Comptine d'Un Autre Été" and hopefully a Rick & Morty song or two!!!!! I suddenly feel like I can do it! Wish me luck~!
Oh, I also got to translate the remaining volumes of this super sweet manga called "Kilala Princess":
かわいい〜♡
Can't wait to read it to Ella. I think she'd really take to the art and storytelling devices~
We also had three families over for dinner on three different weekends, which is pretty big for us, but something that we definitely want (need!) to do more often.
We've discovered that the trick is making it a "build your own ____" kind of dinner. Examples include "build your own burrito" and "build your own sandwich." "Build your own pizza" is a good one too ;)
Well, that is all I have to say about May.
June is gonna be awesome busy in its own way and hopefully I'll be better about updating so that I don't have to dump a bunch of stuff on you in one go. :D
Til then, thanks for stopping by, take care and Happy Merry (chockfull!) Month of May!!
I'm going to be doing a three-in-one post today about everything that happened Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
First off, HAPPY EARTH DAY!
That's right, Friday was Earth Day.
I celebrated in two ways:
1) zippo car driving; only walking and biking.
2) energy efficient home tour!
I'll talk about the car-free aspect of the day first :)
After biking Ella to school, I came back home and made it a Mama-and-William morning.
We strolled on down to the bagel shop in town and then to the library to pick up books about bees.
The sun was shining and I really wanted an excuse to go visit a friend of mine that works at the bagel joint. ;) William did an excellent job walking on his own two feet (for once!) so that was good.
Then, in the afternoon, after getting Ella home and braving a sudden intense hail storm (that's spring for you!) I got to go on the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition's 9th Annual Earth Day Tour Event! This year's theme was "energy efficient homes" so we got to tour three homes of people who had upgraded their houses to be as energy efficient as possible.
Here are some shots from the tour:
Look at all those bicyclists! And solar panels! :D
The tour was made up of about 50 people, most of which were bicyclists while the rest carpooled their way between the three locations.
The first home boasted of its insulated floors, solar panels, and something I hadn't seen in a long time: ductless heat pump!
Forgot to take a photo of it, so here's one off the internet
These are super common in Japan and Europe and so insanely energy efficient. The next best thing is a "natural gas high efficiency furnace" -- which just so happens to be what our home is equipped with!
Got to say, I really appreciate how the owners before us made a ton of fantastic upgrades to our home so that we don't have to worry about high heating bills or having to replace anything in a good number of years. Hurray!
I'm enamored by the idea of having solar panels, but our tree-heavy property makes it not as high on our priorities list as, say,basic insulation. I was glad to get some references to local contractors who can do that too!
Moving on, the second home was owned by the woman who had spoken after me at the Town Hall Even back in 2015.
Again, all the bicyclists outside her house :)
She founded and runs the Seeds for the Sol program that aims to make solar available to everybody. If anything, maybe I could get them to come and assess our property to see about some creative solutions to making solar panels work for us despite the plum tree in front and tall douglas fir in the back.
In her home, she had the energy-saving installation of new windows (that actually open -- a problem we are looking to remedy in our own home too!) and a heat pump water heater.
Super energy efficient~!
Alas, this style of water heater requires a good 30'x30' space (like a garage/attic/basement) to run best which I cannot imagine happening in our home. So I just checked, and we have a Rheem Fury Water Heater which is not the beeeeest per say, but still too new to be replacing it, me thinks.
She also made a point of how they plug in most, if not all, of their appliances into power strips to turn on and off for maximum energy-saving. I used to be so good about that, but have fallen off the bandwagon, so seeing that inspired me to be more diligent in that realm.
The third and last house was owned this by this cool couple:
Loved that cat on the shoulder~
They lived in a tiny 625-ish sq. foot home really near our neighborhood and pointed out that their most energy-saving decision was in the purchase of their home: that it be small and in a location that didn't require them to drive hardly ever. That's a lot like us! Only our home is 1250 sq. feet...and I thought that was small! @_@
They have a similar issue with trees on their property and so came up with this clever solution to make solar possible for them:
Not the best shot, but that's a greenhouse!
They had always wanted a greenhouse, so they had one built in their backyard and topped its roof with 8 solar panels. And being the high school teacher that she is, the owner was very diligent about charting their energy output-vs-input since the installation of said panels back in September. It was cool to see the graph line moving up up up as the winter months recede and summer approaches :) Must feel nice, as the owner of solar panels, to see them starting to cover all your house's needs.
This is what the rest of their backyard looked like:
Raised beds galore!
Talk about self-sufficient! They had chickens, rabbits, fruits trees, and a plethora of vegetables growing. Quite an operation.
Another thing they did that really resonated with me, was that they don't even own a dryer and manage to line-dry their clothes all year 'round. I'm only diligent about it in sunny weather, but it got me thinking that I should come up with some creative indoor solutions so that I can dry our clothes without need for the machine even in the dead of winter. Dryers eat your clothes (that's what all that lint in the lint trap is, folks!) so it's not only better for our energy bill but for our clothes' lifespans too.
All in all, it was a lovely tour that left me feeling inspired and empowered to make some changes to our own home/lifestyles that are gentler on the environment and our wallets.
My hit-list looks something like this now:
1) insulate attic, walls, and crawlspace/floors
2) plug in multiple appliances into power strips for easy on/off maintenance
3) line-dry clothes indoor
Thank you to the Corvallis Sustainability Coalition and Mary's Peak Group of the Sierra's Club for organizing this wonderful event! :)
Okay, now for Saturday.
Ever since last week's Farmers Market, Ella and I had vowed to sell some artwork at this week's Farmers Market. And that's just what we did.
Our sad little set-up
The weather was a lot cooler, cloudier, and windy so it was not the most comfortable time to be at the Market.
We also learned some lessons to improve for next time. Mainly in terms of location; bringing dragon tears to hold down the corners of the artwork so that they wouldn't blow away; making a bigger/better sign; and selling little colored pencils along with the art to emphasize the "coloring pages" angle of her pieces. Ella's more of a linework kinda artist at this point, and doesn't color in her pictures, so we figured we could invite the customers to color them in themselves!
At least we had one customer: Beatrix! :D Nothing like friends to give you a hand, eh?
I'll let you know how it goes next weekend when we try again with a new strategy ;)
The rest of Saturday involved me curling up in bed on the phone with Kathy to discuss the story we're writing: massaging certain passages, nailing down character development, etc etc.
By the end of the day, I felt so lazy and comfy I didn't even want to think about making dinner, so Dash kindly invited me and the family out for an early birthday celebration at El Sol De Mexico :D
And William drew me a little picture too:
It's Rick Sanchez of Dimension C-137! ♡
Yay! I love my family and El Sol de Mexico. Best way to end Saturday by far.
And now for Sunday.
After teaching Sunday School, we were joined by the lovely Beatrix to go roller skating at Skate World in Springfield! Long time no skate, amiright?
In fact, I think the last time we went, William was just starting to walk and I got ahead of myself thinking he could thus stay upright on roller skates no problem. Wrong.
It was very upsetting for his little baby self, plus it was just me managing the two kids. So that was a little overwhelming~
But now that Ella and William are older, and Ella had a little friend to keep her company, it was a grand time had by all!
They pretty much took care of themselves the whole time.
Sure, William fell down his fair share, but he was a good sport about it, and by the end of our two hours there, he was really showing signs of having an innate sense of balance I never saw before.
So that was pretty much how my whole time was spent. Nah, I kid -- Dash would step in to let me have a few rounds around the rink child-free. Man, did my palms get sweaty having to grip his chunky little hand to keep him upright. Ha!
When we got home after dropping B. off we enjoyed some TRB leftovers and then finished off the rest of Season 6 of the GBBO. Tears flowed, let me tell you~
And one last shot that Dash took of me because he thought my hair looked cool the other day:
Pompadour?
A'ight! that's all for now, folks.
I'll update you later as to how my birthday went~ ;)
Until then, take care and Happy What a Weekend!
