It's been quite the week around here. Jane has cut five teeth in the last two weeks and finally has been inching towards sleeping through the night. Yes, I know, it's about time now that she's nearly ELEVEN months old. So last night she did sleep all the way through the night. You'd think I would be celebrating this morning instead of drinking my third americano. She peacefully slept while I worried all night about her. Classic mother stuff. I should have just gotten up and checked on her but no, I just laid in my bed and obsessed. Sigh.

Telfer and I are also in full-on project mode. Telfer is working on turning a huge closet (one of two) in our bedroom into a little home office for me. I am so excited I can barely stand it. The plan is for me to start working from home in the next year or so (long, boring, a little sad but mostly good story for another day). We are also almost for sure going to do a bathroom remodel downstairs and so we are just trying to get an idea of how much it's going to cost. We just love doing all this stuff together. It's so fun. I will post some before pictures soon. 

Our biggest news though is Nana, Telfer's grandmother, moved from Long Beach, California up to Olympia at the end of last week. She has a beautiful unit in Panorama City, a local retirement community about ten minutes from our house. Pray for peaceful transitions for everyone involved! 

Hah! I am so behind on this and it's boring now. Oh well. Patriotic books for July! I love that many of the books on the US or politics are bound in red or blue. I also love that I haven't read most of these books! So bad but always bought at yard sales or library sales with very good intentions.

Books:
Walden | Henry David Thoreau | should reread.

1776 | David McCullough | might read someday.

The Sorrows of an American | Siri Huvstedt | on my 52/52 but haven't read yet.

Travels with Charley | John Steinbeck | my only beloved Steinbeck

The Library in America |Paul Dickson | bad pictures, even worse text.

America | Jon Stewart and the Writers of the Daily Show | Telfer and I listened to this but we are big fans so…we would think this is funny.

BookNotes: On American Character | Brian Lamb | strongly doubt I will ever read this.

State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America | Matt Weiland & Sean Wilsey | Reading this now. Highly recommend. Just read the Arizona essay by Lydia Millet last night. Yes, I am still on the "A's".

One Man's Meat | E.B. White | Haven't read this particular volume yet. Saving it really. Included because E.B. White is THE American essayist.

Game Change: Obama and the Clintons, McCain and Palin, and the Race of a Lifetime | John Heilemann & Mark Halperin | So I have read this. Gulped it down basically; compulsively readable. 

The Opening of the American Mind | Lawrence W. Levine | Maybe I read this in college? I don't remember.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin | Have had this book since I was a teenager. I don't think I ever made it through.

The Constitution of the United States | Bought in Philadelphia. Seemed appropriate. 

 

I am going through paper and notebooks this afternoon and ran across this quote that I wrote down in January. I needed to find this again. And Telfer and I have a bit of a joint crush on David Brooks. May we all have an abundant influx of information and affection.

"I have come to think that happiness isn't really produced by conscious accomplishments. Happiness is a measure of how thickly the unconscious parts of our minds are intertwined with outher people and with activities. Happiness is determined by how much information and affection flows through us covertly every day and year."

David Brooks in The New Yorker — the article is available online.
January 17, 2011 

We are back home after a week of vacation with my family in Bend, Oregon. We had such a good time with my parents and sisters and Nate and cousins and swimming and popsicles and playing ball and eating (extremely well). After five nights of horrendous sleep, Jane decided on the very last night that she COULD sleep in the portable crib after all! I had a few freak-out-mother-moments due to lack of sleep. Why are we paying money to NOT sleep in an uncomfortable bed with bad pillows? I calmed down. 

And now we are back and happily digging out from a week away. The girls and I walked Henry around the lake yesterday morning and Telfer has been on cardiac the last two days. I love getting away but I think I love coming home even more.

It has actually felt like summer the last few days in Olympia. We love it. The 4th of July ended up being a bit of a debacle. Telfer of course was working but it turns out our house is in the center of all firework celebrations in the area. Although you can't see much you can hear everything. Cate is not a fan of loud noises right now and the sounds were deafening. I decided (probably a bad decision) to wake her up instead of letting her awaken on her own. I took her outside to watch the neighbors light off their fireworks thinking it would be better for her to see some instead of just hearing the loud noises. She was not impressed. So, for the first time in her life, she slept in my bed. And then Jane had an upset tummy and we were all up. Good times. 

We are getting ready to go meet my whole family in Central Oregon for a week. Looking forward to lots of bbq-ing and swimming and sun.