More to Catch Up On

I don't even know where to start.  It's been over a month again, and somehow, just getting on the computer tends to be one of the last things I want to do.  I can't even think of the things I need to get written down.  I forgot in the last onslaught of posts to say that we got a pellet stove installed in February to try to counter the cost of rising oil (for anyone not familiar with the northeast, every one's houses are heated with propane, oil, wood stoves, or pellet stoves).  The girls were pretty good with it, but after we had it for three weeks or so, Sydney burned the outside of her left hand, from the top of her pinkie down to the bottom of her palm.  I was able to take care of her, and by the end of it she was excited to have me change her dressings.  After about two and a half weeks it was pretty well healed.  She still tells people about it occasionally by holding her hand up and saying "burn."  


I've been working hard practicing my German and somehow singing a high a note piano.  The Handel Society's final concert is next Saturday, singing Brahms Requiem.  It's a very heavy piece, inspired by the death of his dear friend and then (mostly) his mother.  For anyone not too involved in music, it's a lot of noise and German jibberish, but the more time I've spent with it, the more I've really been moved.  It is an extremely powerful piece.  I've been amazed how singing in this choir has blessed me.  It's nice to go somewhere to work, and be enriched at the same time.  


Jeremy has officially decided not to apply for a pediatric fellowship.  This means we begin our job hunt in a few months for a position in July 2013.  We're looking everywhere from Spokane, WA to Flagstaff, AZ, for now at least.  We'll see what opens up.  So I've been thinking of all kinds of things wondering how we'll be selling the house in a year.  We've ripped up more of the shrubs around our yard, and I'm trying to figure out what painting and other things we could do realistically between now and then.  I really love this house, our neighborhood, and New England in general.  It will be interesting to see what part of the country we end up in next.  


Sydney decided she was potty trained last week.  I wasn't trying anything, she just started telling me she needed to go potty.  We've had a couple of messy incidents, but the little thing loves wearing her "big girl panties" and is doing well.  I'm glad that went as well as it did, we'll see what Cora comes up with for me.  In the last week they have lost their cribs.  We put their mattresses on the floor and took away the cribs because they had climbed on them and shaken them so much they were not exactly stable things anymore.  Sydney got a black eye from I don't know what.  Cora had a massive bump on her head from running into the corner of a door.  Kate fell and scraped her head.  And yesterday they managed to stick a book between the glass panes of the oven door.  I didn't know something like that was possible.  


Well, it's way past bedtime.  I will leave this jumbled post with a thought from Katie a couple days ago.  The girls have a little plastic toy wagon (big enough to carry a small doll), and as I was trying to get things done in the kitchen I stepped on it and one of the wheels broke off.  It was one I'd had when I was little, so it was old and I just thought I'd throw it away.  Katie saw it in the garbage and pulled it out, asking why it was in there.  I told her it was broken, then she pulled it out and put in on the ground and said, "but Mom, it still works."  I looked at the wagon and laughed.  It did still work, even with three wheels.  It made me think of how often I feel like a broken wagon - like I'm trying to haul everything around on three wheels when there should be four.  But you know what?  Three wheeled wagons still work, as long as they're balanced.  Now, I'm not one to give much insight on balance, but chew on that thought for a while.  Maybe it means nothing to you, or just seems silly, but I like simple and silly.