kitchen updo

as a reward to myself for all the purging and organizing I've been doing I decided that a kitchen redo was in order.  When I moved into the house the kitchen was really nonexistant.  It had a bathroom sink/cabinet, no counters, no cabinets it was not functional.  We got some inexpensive laminate cabinets from Menards and made a countertop out of tile.  I painted the trim bright red, got a red ceiling fan and a bunch of chili pepper accessories.  The kitchen was happy, bright and functional.  It's been about 12 years.  The kitchen needed fixing again.  I didn't do before photos because the process of priming all the red trim was slow and it NEVER occurs to me to take before photos.  I dug one up that shows a little of the kitchen before:

I decided to go bright again but this time tone down the trim and jazz up the walls.  I love the outcome. It was just what I needed to get through the end of winter blues!

Our Journey East

This weekend we decided to head east.  It was the 2nd annual February gathering of really cool people.   We journeyed nearly all the way across Wisconsin and ended up in the O.C..  We had a wonderful time.  Really really really.  It's so awesome to know now that Lucy (and I) can handle (mostly) chaos and schedule flopping.  I was sort of doubting this ability on Saturday morning but we bucked up and made it through.  Thanks to our awesome wonderful most coolest friends, we had a blast and made lots of new and good memories.  Lucy also ate her first hotdog.  Never could get her to eat those before. 

when we arrived Jayme and Diane were creating a hashbrown masterpiece that went wonderfully with the amazing cauliflower "hotdish" that Jayme made off of Deidre's blog that forever and forever changed my relationship to cauliflower and expensive cheese. Gimmeee more!

B-boy and Lucy Loo teamed up to get some laundry sorted.

Lucy and baby beautiful cleaned up some chips and salsa

the kids took turns roasting hotdogs over the fire

these two hardly had anytime to fight because there were so many other kids to distract

everyone had to help frost and decorate the half-birthday cake

baby beautiful was all over those pink sprinkles

all of a sudden my photos aren't self turning and i am at a loss for how to do it.

we walked through the snow and played at a park

we celebrated

it was a wonderful weekend.

so sorry we trashed your house D. 

What's been going on ...

We feel like we are coming close to the end of winter.  Things feel more managable, more hopeful. 

My New Years Resolution of catering less to Lucy's picky tastes in food is really paying off.  Our meals are more enjoyable, more diverse and healthier.  Lucy has started eating oatmeal (hearty oatmeal) for breakfast.  She's had lots of roasted veggies, black beans and rice, split pea soup and a bigger variety of pasta.  We are definately on a good road here.  Whew.

Lucy hasn't lost her spunkyness, her defiance or her spirit but she has grown a lot and when she is well rested and not hungry her extreme behaviors have centered a little.  She is easier and each day that goes by without extreme struggles seems to roll to future good days (much in the same way a bad morning can lead to a bad afternoon, to a bad evening).  We are having more good days then bad days and that is saying a lot given that we're still neck deep in ice and snow here.  NECK DEEP.

I leave you with a sample of the after dinner show that Lucy put on tonight.  Very cute.

Make an on-line slide show at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Dear Nancy ....

May your eternity be filled with music, warm sunshine, beautiful flowers, majestic birds and the peace you deserve.

we love you.

cancer sucks.

What a nut ...

She's all sorts of fashionable.

Lucy loves ...

Lucy loves anyone her Auntie Jen wants her to love.  I support this but I really wish Auntie Jen would start wanting Lucy to love Bob Dylan, Ani DiFranco, Leonard Cohen, The Beastie Boys, Neil Young, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.  

For now I endure:

There are times when the only way I can stop her from misbehaving is to say "OH Lucy, Adam Lambert would not be happy if he saw you doing this/heard you saying that"  

Finding Sanity

Sunday morning started out on a very surly foot.  Whew.  My kid was a sassssy pants.  We needed an outing.  One that got us outside, amongst other people and moving our bodies.  We headed to the zoo.

Lucy found a soul mate.  We must have spent 1/2 an hour outside at this bear exhibit. 

Lucy and this bear talked to each other.  They touched each other through the glass.

I really think he soothed her soul.

When we got home she was really balanced, very nice and had a good attitude about helping me shovel.

ahhhhh the healing power of animals, exercise and outdoors. 

WE NEED SPRING

Things that don't make sense:

Lucy decided to fight with a brick wall at school.  The wall won. 

This bump had absolutely no impact on this child's energy level and

ability to talk talk talk talk talk.

Lucy is one of those kids that people like to "figure out" (and I am one of those people).  She's a mystery and it's futile to really try to solve the puzzle that is Lucy because she is also a shapeshifter.  OHHHH she's a tricky one.  

I've learned LONG ago not to cling to any particular food likes that she has.  The minute she loves somehting and I run out and buy more, Lucy decides to divorce that particular love.

Friends are the same story.  One minute Lucy and Yaime are dying for a playdate, they have one and then for weeks after they are sworn enemies.  

I might spend some time lamenting about how crazy active Lucy is, how I can't interest her in puzzles or books.  Lucy will walk in, grab a book and look through the pages for 10 minutes.

Today her teacher told me that Lucy shocked her by singing a song the class had been working on.  Seemed as if Lucy was not listing at all the past couple weeks, definately not participating but today she sings in as if she's been joining in all along.

Tonight I made cheesy rice for dinner.  Nothing offensive, pretty child friendly.  Lucy did not like it.  She really needed to be pressured to eat it.   After dinner I had her help me make "green puree", which is a mixture of 2 parts steamed spinach, 2 parts steamed brocolli, 1 part steamed sweet peas ... pureed.  The plan was to freeze it and add it to different foods.  I talked to Lucy about the power of the green vegetable.  Lucy decided to start eating the puree right out of the processor.  She probably ate about 1/2 cup.  Huh?  Whatever, tomorrow she won't even want to look at it.

I give up. 

Dear eye rolling victim,

to she/he who found my blog by googling; "love my friend, but tired of her eyes rolling at me"

I am so sorry.  I hope Raising Lucy offered some relief.

What's going on .... a rambly ramble

Well, like a lot of you, my mind, my heart and my peace have been in Haiti lately.  Oh I have the priviledge to turn off the tv, turn off the news, the internet and zone in on the little things that annoy me or make me feel like I have so little, on and off throughout each day but it's pretty intense the overwhelming overwhelmingness of the pain happening in Haiti right now. 

So it seems trivial to complain about not getting enough sleep, not having too many moments of quiet ... going from sleep to parenting, from parenting to work, from work to parenting, from parenting to housework from housework to sleep just to start over day after day after day after day.  It really does and boy have I felt guilt over and over about my whining about these things.  Guilt of course DOES NOTHING for others who are suffering and it really doesn't help me much either. 

Seems like the blog-sphere is exploding with people who are doing amazing things to stretch their minds for the new year.  30 days of nothing, Jayme is doing some amazing stretching each month (so cool!).  Carrie is well on her way to a year (possibly a lifetime) of healthier eating for her family.  

We're kinda on the edge of spectacular here in S. Minneapolis.  We're doing some half-*ssish attempts at health and orderly living.  Quite frankly with our budget we are close to the 30 days of nothing every month.  What with paying off the past decade of decadence it leaves nothing to spend on the here and now.  I imagine one day the budget won't be quite so stretched and I'll be left wondering "should I save this money, donate it or buy new shoes" until then I'll keep the lights on! 

What we are doing here in Casa de Lucita (in terms of goals and resolutions) is:
1. sticking with the making meals for our family (not just with Lucy's fussy tastes in mind).   It's been a few weeks now and things are going better.  She's definately eating a lot more veggies and fruit since she prefers them over the other things I cook.  That's cool with me.  She tries everything and really usually only takes a small reminder to not whine or complain.  She hasn't been sent away from the table  for over two weeks.

2. I have decided to not spend any more money on meat for us.  No we're not going completely vegetarian.  We still have meat in our freezer, and in soup in the cupboard.  We'll still eat it when someone cooks for us or pays for our dinner out.  I am just not going to spend more of my money on something that is kinda cruel and definately unhealthy.   Yesterday Lucy half-heartedly ate a taco stuffed full of black beans (that i had chopped int eh food processor) and brown rice, seasoned with taco seasoning.  Yeah us! 

3. I am systematically purging and organizing our house.  We'll have a big ol garage sale this spring.  I will no longer be bogged down in stuff.  My house is already looking calmer and I am feeling calmer.  Sunday I hope to start working on the basement areas. 

4. Lucy and I are also working on her behaviors.  Trying to work together to figure out where "the line" is and what will happen when she crosses it.  She's a good girl but can be very challenging.  I don't want to always be calling her to the line and it is taking some time to figure out what's important and how to manage it.   Thanks to her magic clock bedtime and wake time issues have mostly ceased.  My child who will fight me on every little thing will almost always walk into her room when I tell her it's bedtime.  Sometimes she'll complain but she is 95% done complaining by the time she gets in bed.  She will go to sleep on her own with no problems.  She will not go out of her room, and will either sleep or quietly look at books until her clock turns yellow (at 7:11 a.m.).  Yeah Lucy!   


I have turned in our school choice cards for Mpls Public Schools and have applied to one charter school.  I should know by April where Lucy will be going to school.  Yikes! 

That's it for now.  Must pick up the house before bed. 

Dance Recital - 3 1/2 minutes of cute

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Weekend in photos

saturday morning we went to Sesame Street Live, a Christmas gift from Auntie Deb

lucy really got into the close your eyes and imagine part

walking to the train

getting her own ticket

she's pretty dang old

look mom, no boogers

actually this reminds me of a referral photo of her, sort of the angle the photos were taken from

and tonight we blew all our money on full price movie tickets.  The Frog Princess was calling us ...

Lucy got all dressed up for the occasion.  Breathtaking.

we loved the movie.  way more then i thought we would.

So um....

So what do you do when your child is "mean" to you?  Uggghhh I do not know how to respond.  Lucy can be a hella brat to me some nights and frankly I am stumped.

Examples:  rolling her eyes at me, calling me stupid, yelling at me, screaming "I knoooooowww that" whilst rolling her eyes (me thinking, yeah well if you KNEEEWWW that then why'd ya do it?)., hitting at me (sort of threatening, but she knows she's not going to make contact), spitting, sticking out her tongue.

help me.  I need specific direction on how to respond to this.  She's 4 1/2 and I don't want to screw her up.

Mid-January Check-In

Checking in from the slightly less frozen tundra.  It got to the mid 20's today and we almost threw open the windows to get some fresh air.  Streets are still lined with solid chunks of rutted ice.  Real fun times here. 

Lucy has been busy getting back into the groove at preschool.  I've been reluctantly getting back into the groove at work.  I have officially turned in Lucy's school choice card.  Additionally I've sent in an application for a charter school that I hope hope hope hope she gets into.  Only 14 kids in the kindergarden class!  The charter school focus is Social Justice.  Every three years the middle schoolers (Lucy would be in 6th 7th or 8th grade) take a Civil Rights tour. They spend months preparing for the tour by reading books, interviewing local civil rights activists etc.  The school sounds magnificant and I can bettcha that they won't have any awful family tree, baby photo, etc etc assignments such is the level of commitment of respect to diverse types of families/peoples in the community.  We'll see. 

Every couple days I have assigned myself to purge unneeded or unbeautiful things from my home, to organize what I have and to put anything useful that I don't need/want in a garage sale pile or the garbage (if it's useless).   I am really actually LOVING this process.  The areas I have completed feel calmer and I am feeling calmer.  I only have a few more areas upstairs to tackle before moving to the basement. 
My ultimate goal is to be able to fit everything I own, in a calm organized manner on my main level or on one wall of shelves in the laundry room.  This EXCLUDES tools, home improvement stuff and outdoor toys/gardening stuff.   

So during this process blogging takes sort of a back burner since most of it occurs post-Lucy bedtime (which is also my blogging time).

Here is Lucy tonight.

Brrrrrrr ....

It's COOOLLLLDDD out there!  It's only the wee beginning of January and already we are done with winter.  We did have a cozy evening together after my first day back to work after Christmas break.  We made bread together (Lucy is great at kneading).  We had home made turkey noodle soup and NO complaining or whining over dinner.  It was just the two of us very peaceful and quiet.  After dinner we played awhile before it was pj and bedtime movie time.  After watching about 5 minutes of her bedtime movie Lucy disappeard into the mudroom and came out wearing my "shovelling" hat.  Yeah it's cold outside and being budget conscious it's also cold in the house, good thing Lucy knows how to put on the layers!

New Year's Resolution

so after today's lunch time fiasco I have made a resolution.  It's relatively simple.  I shall spend 2010 making breakfast and dinner with mostly nutrition in mind (as opposed to whatever will cause the least amount of friction with Lucy).  If she doesn't eat, so be it.  If she fusses and complains she can leave the table and go to her room until she's ready to come back with a better attitude.  I'll be nice about it and ease into the new stuff.  I am tired of the fussing, tired of the complaining and tired of the increasingly limited amounts of food she'll eat without a fight.  Done. 

Here are some photos from today:

helping mama make the "egg bake that broke mama"

scooping out the sweet potatos for our sweet potato peanut butter soup

measuring the vegetable broth

all dressed up for Ivy's first birthday party!

01-01-10

Happy 2010.  It's the year Lucy turns half a decade old.  How does that happen?  We had a grand old time ringing out the new year.  Well the day was grand until about 6:30pm when Lucy lost her stuff ... but she lost it on a different level, way easier to take.  Wouldn't have hardly been noticable if it weren't for the fact that Zep was loosing it too.  Oh well.   Lucy OBVIOUSLY didn't heed my New Year's Resolution for her, which was sleeping later then a rooster but oh well, she's in a sweet (talkative) mood.  I am slowly waking up and soon we'll start enjoying 2010.

Ivy bundled up for our annual sled ride to Jakeeno's Pizza

it was a whiney ride but it was a ride nevertheless

waiting to go home

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!