Throwing up a post this Friday morning! It's chilly here in Houston which puts me in SUCH a good mood. And my little sister is visiting this weekend (Right, Lil??) and my little brother who's been out of town all month is finally back and we're all having a pizza night tomorrow. So many good things big and little!

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I read most of Gary Taube's new book The Case Against Sugar this week, and I'm sufficiently terrified of sucrose, fructose, and all the other -ose's. The book was actually pretty dry - and I LOVE reading about health and wellness books and food histories - but it's a pretty compelling look at the story of sugar consumption and the rise in chronic disease. Whenever I feel my healthful eating resolve starting to teeter, I check out a book like this.

When Jacob saw me reading the book, he sat next to me with a bowl of ice cream.

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The kids and I went to the park yesterday morning. It was 55 degrees and when we were getting back in the car Jake asked if he had frost on his face.

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The remodel is still trucking along. I'll try to get a post up about it next week. I'm no longer sleeping in a total construction site...it feels more like...a garage.

The kids are troopers about it all:

The suckers were from before I read the Taubes book.

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Jake really likes to shorten words. Yesterday he called his Uncle Michael "Mikes." He thinks it's extra cool. Often he'll shorten words and we won't even know what he means. Like the other day when he asked for these:

bloobs

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Jacob and I have been scrambling for a new show for both of us to watch. He has his kinds of shows (dry British or Australian humor) and I have mine (overdramatic period pieces), and we'll often find shows to watch together (Stranger Things, Poldark, The OA.) But we've been floundering for awhile to find a new one, so we picked up The Man in the High Castle. I didn't like the first half of season one but I'm really liking the second half.

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I'm reading the Laura Ingalls Wilder's books with the kids. I love them all so much. Right now we're reading Farmer Boy. My favorite part is how much this nine year old boy thinks about food. At one point he was reflecting on how pretty his mother was and that she was never prettier than when she was carrying a ham to the kitchen table. #parentinggoals

A couple months ago we made butter tinted with carrot juice just like Ma Ingalls. I'm thinking next week we'll make Almanzo's favorite food: fried apples and onions.

(Disclaimer: I realize replicating Little House recipes sounds industrious. Let it be known that the only thing I'm really doing well is making it to the couch every night with a bowl of popcorn.)

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The other day I was asking Jacob how one even begins the process of finding a good therapist...and then literally two days later we got an e-mail from a good friend of ours from college who has written an ebook about how to find a great therapist. You should definitely check it out or at least visit his website which has tons of information about therapy (cost, kinds, frequency, what to expect). This guy is basically the coolest, and I'm so excited for this initiative!

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And now the BIG THING - which is NOT another baby. 

We're gearing up to move to my hometown in rural Texas this summer. I. can't. wait.

We'll rent my parents' house while they relocate to my grandmother's old house, and then we'll start the slow process of buying ten acres from them and building a house on it. It feels like a dream, and I'm so excited about it. (But Jake told me he likes being a city kid because he gets to drive on highways -_-)

We'll buy ten acres of unimproved land except that it has an acre of high fencing around a vineyard of Black Spanish grapes. 
It has a creek!

 And carpenter anthills the size of basketball courts!

It's basically a deer habitat and is totally overrun by wild mustang grapevines ten inches thick at the base, and we're totally in love.

We're thinking this for the backyard:

Then I'll be able to go seriously Ma Ingalls on everything. It's such an enormous dream come true to move home and read Wendell Berry and work the land and watch sunsets.

Visit Kelly for more quick takes! Happy Weekending!

7QT: Running, Kids Say the Darndest, and DIY Diaper Cream

- 1 -

Thanks for the encouragement on Wednesday's post. The succulents I planted are still alive which is impressive in this house. I tend to kill succulents faster than they would die naturally if you dumped them out.

- 2 -

I've finally gotten my jog back on. I want to train for the Congress Avenue Mile in Austin, but I tend to get injured whenever I train for races. I can jog and jog and jog but as soon as I think the words "training plan," I swear an old injury will start twinging.

Kallah posted her injury proof running plan. For my runner readers (especially those with experience jumping back into running postpartum): what do you do to avoid injury?

- 3 -

Jake is seeming so much older to me. I suppose having a second baby will do that to a mother.

The other day he was outside arguing with his imaginary friend about who's turn it was.

When I hug him, he's taken to patting my head and saying: "You're a good girl, mama."

He fake laughs a lot, basically whenever we laugh about something he fake laughs and then asks, "Excuse me, Papa, why is that funny?"

I can't tell if this means he's destined for comedy or decidedly NOT destined for comedy.

- 4 -

But older seeming or not he still mispronounces things - and mispronunciations are among the best parts of parenting.

And though it's been a long time since we've used "bluebabies" or "strawbabies" in our fruit smoothies, and "roghut" may now be a more correct if laborious "yooohgerrt," no, Jake, this is Mass, this is not a "bathtizing."

- 5 -

Lucy June is ever still a mama's girl. This is still the best and worst thing about my life.

I suppose that's why God made every phase of parenting so temporary.

- 6 -

We're about to run out of my favorite diaper cream. 

I got outfitted with it via baby showers when Jake was born and I LOVE it, but now that I need to replace it, I'm royally balking at the price. $9.00 an ounce!?! That's like $4.50 per tablespoon!?

I'm a bit of a DIY for better or worse type, so I thought I'd give it a try.

The two main ingredients are olive oil and beeswax, and since my babies really aren't that rashy, I decided to make do with just those two and skip the fancy calendula-type stuff. I didn't intend to make very much of it, but my ratio was very off at the beginning, and as I attempted to save my efforts, my batch kept getting bigger and bigger until I had a cup and a half of the stuff.

My rookie efforts were pretty messy. Simply melting the ingredients together didn't get me the consistency I wanted, so I kept graduating my mixing tools from spoon to fork to whisk to immersion blender. Ultimately, I was left with a usable product that seems like it will work almost as well my beloved diaper cream...and enough of it to last until Lucy June turns 12.

- 7 -

The experience prompted the age old question:

Happy Fish Day! Visit Jen's for more takes.

The Big Purse Dump: A Link Up

Linking up with Kendra today for The Big Purse Dump. I shall preface this with...I don't carry a purse. Que surprise, the woman who has worn fingernail polish all of three times in the last two decades is purse-less. Don't worry. Someday I will grow up and learn how to accessorize. It's my goal for my thirties.

I realized a few years ago that I was a total goldfish when it came to purses. However big my purse was I grew to fit into it, so I stopped carrying a purse and went the clutch route. This is the one I've been carrying for the past...year?



(Full disclosure: it's a seed bag from the hardware store...I know I know... I'm my own cliche.) It typically gets thrown into diaper bags or left behind altogether since I mostly just pocket my phone because my case houses my ID and primary credit card.

And the honest dump.

 

Cash. Chapstick. Pen. Receipts. Spare car key.

Rhogam record. Coin purse. Rosary. Checks

Dr.'s appt reminder from September. USB drive. Cards. Key to?? Anthropologie gift card. Natural bodycare recipes.

Gift cards to Amy's Ice Cream in Austin. Sunglasses. Address book turned grocery prices record.

So let's see. What in this mess is actually worth talking about?

Well this chapstick for one. Vanilla Mint. It's the best chapstick ever but it's been discontinued, so I've been nursing it for...ahem...too long to admit.



These Amy's Ice Cream coupons were a wedding gift from an Austin friend.


Every time in the last five years that we've been in Austin we've forgotten them, so they graduated to my purse because NEXT time we will be ready. Which might be Edel in July if you want to tag along.

And my favorite thing in here? Easy. This many years old green pouch and its contents.



It's a Florentine leather coin purse that an old boyfriend's brother bought me in Italy to replace one that was stolen from me. (Yes, Chelsea, your husband got it for me because he's swell. Now stop reading and start a blog.) The coin purse stores a crucifix that Jacob bought me in Budapest and a love letter he sent me while we were dating; it's falling apart, but we're not ;) awwwww.

And since you're all on the edges of your toilets wondering how our potty training is going, I'll let you decipher it for yourself.

I might have to rethink my rewards system...

Till tomorrow, friends!

Check out more 7in7 posts here.

2013 in 13

Let's see. 2013. What a year, what a year this has been.

I began the year with aspirations to start a wedding flower business. But that quickly dissolved after I made some bouquets that slowly and aromatically decayed the same week that morning sickness arrived and I spent the rest of my pregnancy barely able to look at flowers.

We watched our first egg hunter collect a stash of hardboiled and free range eggs that we dyed with turmeric, beets, and blueberry (because that's how we do.) 

Kicking toys out of the way to pretty up outfit/baby announcement pics.

Our little walker became a little climber.

My little brother scored us a new sister.

Jake turned two, and we didn't take any pictures but here's one from around that time. And it has balloons.

We did however take one picture of our anniversary getaway up at Big Bear.

Then we moved across the country Clampitt style.

Jake shows prompted affection for his unborn sibling.

Jake acclimates to his new culture.

Jacob starts a new job.

I birthed the sweetest baby in all the land.

Looking forward to an entire 2014 spent under Texas skies.

Linking up with Dwija

Happy New Year!!!!

Taking Seven: Guinea Hens, Shallow Thoughts on Happiness, and Other Even Less Related Things

Joining Jen today in the Friday ritual. And what a Friday it is.

It has already been the loveliest day. I'm feeling so much better with only remnants of drainage and facial pain that serve to remind me of just how much better. Birds are singing, my new batch of yogurt is straining, and the sun is peeking in and out of the clouds on the serenest of October days. We just got back from a lovely walk where we met some very friendly horses who sniffed Jake's head, and it was like a Disney movie or something.

Commence photo dump of recent visit to the guineas with Nana Suz.

"I'm just a guinea in the coop. My name's Grey Guinea White Guinea" - Sure, kid.

Sorry if you're not sunshiny today because all is rays at The Rhodes Log.

Let's record all the happy things shall we?

- 1 -

A few minutes ago my brother brought my son into the kitchen. Jake was holding a wrench and asked if he could go help Uncle Robert work on his truck. Twist my arm, kid. I looked up at my brother who said, "Is that OK?"

And I thought: OK?? You obviously don't speak "Mom."

So the little man is workin' on a truck outside, and I'm currently enjoying a second cup of tea and feeling only a little on top of the world.

- 2 -

My sister is coming home for the weekend!!! Huzzah! I should probably go put all her shoes back in her closet...

We didn't grow up sharing clothes because she was eight years younger than me. But in our more adult lives we've done all kinds of adolescent indulging in each other's closets. The shoes are contentious because my feet are a smidge bigger than hers and I kinda maybe stretch them out a little bit...but ever since she took my favorite shirt to study abroad for a semester and I spent six weeks looking for it, all bets are off.

If you know me, you know that I go shopping about once every...eight months...and at any given time I'm rotating about three outfits and otherwise living in cut offs. I don't love this about myself. So yeah...If I had all the money in the world I would probably be wise to get a personal shopper.

- 3 -

Have you ever asked yourself what you'd pay for or how you'd live differently if money really were no concern? I posed that question to Jacob on a date recently after I'd read Laura Vanderkam's All the Money in the World: What the Happiest People Know About Wealth

I didn't love the book, and I didn't agree with everything, but she did have some interesting points.
She attacked the penny pinching attitude and brought up, what I will call, The Latte Question. Have you noticed that as soon as you start talking budgets everyone talks about buying a daily coffee? The Latte has become the go to metaphor people use in America for wasted money. "Think of the money you could save just by routinely skipping the $4 latte."

Vanderkam falls in the camp that encourages you to figure out a way to sustain the latte habit, some new means of cash flow, because, she argues, that the daily sacrifice can take a significant toll on your overall happiness.

I'm probably not representing her point very well, but I didn't agree with it. I suppose because the Latte becomes valuable to me only when it is scarce. I suppose it's the Catholic in me, but I love sacrifices. I love them for themselves, and I especially love how they season the Feast.

How would you live your daily life differently if money were no concern?

I value frugal living so highly it's actually really hard for me to answer that question. But I would probably have local organic produce delivered to my house instead of having to fetch it myself. I would also get semi regular manicures and massages. A lot of massages.

- 4 -

One very interesting statistic that Vanderkam cites, however, is that happiness only corresponds to how much money you make up until an annual household income of $70,000. That is, people's recorded happiness levels tended to go up with their income until they hit seventy grand at which point the graph didn't stay true. More money didn't necessarily make people happier.

Such an interesting statistic.

[Insert Moral or Some Such.]

- 5 -

Tonight we're taking Jake to a high school football game to watch my cousin play. Jake's love affair with balls has quelled somewhat and been replaced by an obsession with heavy machinery, but I think he's going to have a blast.

- 6 -

As of last night I am officially more pregnant than I've ever been. Jake was born at 39 weeks 3 days and I'm sitting on 39w4d right now.

Snug as a bug and always a little to the right. 

Already a family record breaker. I wonder if she'll be as miserably competitive as I am.

Perhaps being massively pregnant isn't the most comfortable of states...but I'm SO GRATEFUL that I've avoided labor through this illness, and that Jacob's been able to get some really good work in at his new job in Houston before taking a break to father a toddler and a newborn. I'm hoping little lady waits till her due date which is Tuesday.

I was born on my due date, and we could be like twinsies.

I'd also like at least a few more days so we can do a better job on the name game. Jacob went soft on my #1 pick and since then we've been bickering at the drawing board.

- 7 -

I sort of apologize for the randomness and general lack of substance that is this post. Or not really. I have to rush and make sure my grandmother's dog isn't eating one of the guinea hens. We'll see how well a 9mo pregger breaks up a spat on the farm.

See Jen for more of the day's takes.

Nursery Rhymes, Nuptials, and Never Nudes

I'm sitting in my office now. I probably should be tallying grades or doing something productive because Oh! Productivity! I need you to be mine this week. But no. I'm becoming strangely nostalgic about teaching and so I turn to ye old blog.

My last day to teach is Wednesday. And then little October Baby has me taking a break from the working world for the foreseeable future. I haven't felt a twinge of emotion about my four years of LMU ending until today.

The end of the semester marks the time when my students come in and recite poetry.

This delights me so much I can hardly talk about it. They come in like little poems themselves, tense and nervous, wiping sweaty palms on pant legs. They start in on their fourteen-liners and stutter and falter through the first couple stanzas until they can see the end at which point they start going a little faster and fall more easily into the cadence of the poem. Then they finish. And they smile. And off they go feeling proud. I feel like I've given them something. Something very real.

I will however NOT be feeling nostalgic on Wednesday when I'm grading. Grading is miserable. Period.

We've been busy bees as of late. I've been mostly coming out of pregnancy nausea but dealing with lots of end of semester details which leaves me dead tired. So Jacob is still doing all the housework, and we're watching too much Diego and Super Why.

We traveled to Texas the weekend before last for my little brother's biggest of big days. The wedding was everything that is lovely. 

I watched my brother marry the most beautiful of brides under a giant oak tree, and I couldn't have been happier. Commence photo dumb:

He's 6'5" and she's obviously no shortie. They make SUCH a striking couple.

Be jealous that your nieces won't get that hair.

My little sister reading like a boss.

My almost 93 year old grandmother cutting a rug with my father.

In other and also very good news. My little man has FINALLY become a hugger which has been perhaps my favorite milestone yet.

Encouraging the groom on his big day.

Now to wrap up, I could tell you how a piece of firewood fell over on Jake's foot yesterday and ROYALLY mangled his poor little toddler toe. Or I could tell you how he had a major blow out at my non-parent-friend's dinner party the other night with nary a diaper in sight. OR I could give a slew of other stories that would immortalize my recent less-than-impressive-parenting, and they would all be so at home on this blog.

But I won't. 

Instead I'll tell you to sit tight and pray that I update you tomorrow because guess where I'll be tonight?

I will be at the premier of this show at the Chinese Theater and sitting next to Michael Cera. 

(Fine. That last part is a lie, but the rest is true. True. TRUE! Don't hate me too much, Bluth fans.)