2014's First Words

I finished another historical fiction novel a couple weeks ago (The American Heiress); just about all these words came from it.  What a treasure trove of new vocabulary!  This year, along with my new words, I wanna include the definitions of my favorites as well.  I wish I had been doing this all along really!  

bombazine

hoyendish - wild and boisterous; usually in reference to girls

rococo

cochineal

exophtalmic - having or characterized by protruding eyes

spinney - a small area of trees

pelmets

billet

adamantine - unbreakable

passementerie

parure

caryatids

recusant - a person who refuses to submit to authority or regulation

tumbrils

baize

glissando - a glide from one pitch to another

chatelaines - a woman in charge of a large house

garrotte

salver

aigrette

uxorious

conker

ulster

hansom

fug - the unpleasant air in a room that is very crowded; stuffy air

moribund - at the point of death

contretemps - an unforeseen, inopportune, or embarrassing event

salubrious - health-giving; healthy

Decidedly Dissolved

I can't even BEGIN to document here the drama that went down this week with my parents when we received their response to our response to their letter.  Suffice to say, it was just a bigger demonstration of more of the same conflict that has led us to the last year and a half of estrangement, more of the same conflict that has poisoned the last twenty, TWENTY!!, years of my life.

I just keep shaking my head and my eyes glaze over when I think about or try to talk about this whole ordeal that is my parents. I can't.  I truly, really, sincerely, just can't even.... I don't even know.  I just can't! It's enough! It's just. Enough.

Now?  Now we will continue in our established estrangement indefinitely. And after two swift emails back and forth with them yesterday, Josh and I threw in a side of a restraining order of sorts as well. 

This has been the most defeating, hopeless experience of my life.  Don't mistake me for being sad though.  The situation is sad, but I am so far from sad.  Just tired and numb and OVER IT and relieved.  I am not proud of this relational dissolution.  But I am not afraid of it either.  It just is what it is.

I don't want to talk about it any more.  Just wanna mark the day/week/year that my divorce from my parents was finalized.  What drama began when I was 13/14 has finally ended in my 34th year.  {Insert more of the bewildered shaking of my head.}

And just for a little comic relief, I have to note now how I have been singing with some serious oomph this weekend a few anthem-type songs including Frozen's Let it Go, Katy Perry's Roar, Sara Bereilles' Brave, and a new one I love by Autumn Blair called Hear Me Now.

When the Browns Retreat

This holiday weekend, Josh got an itching for a retreat.  So that's what we did.  We retreated right back on over to a spot we really enjoyed two Fall Breaks ago ... Fall Creek Falls State Park.  On our agenda:  not a blessed thing besides just hanging out! 

It was cold enough to just stay put at our cabin.  The water level had gone down, which we didn't expect, so it really limited the fishing that Josh and the kids looked forward to doing from our porch.  But really, it was cold, so that in itself would have limited their fishing minutes anyway.  So instead, we played board games, video games, read books, drew pictures, and watched movies. 

I sat by the fire and enjoyed this view from our couch.

Great shot of our little escape by the lake.  

One of several awesome fires I made happen.  I found I couldn't get enough of the gentle thrum and snappy popping sounds that come from a good, hot fire.  I didn't expect to enjoy keeping it alive so much.

Morning view.  Ahhhhh....  Josh said it was even better before this, but you know I am not crazy enough to get up as early as those kids of mine.  This view will do just fine!

After a buffet lunch at the hotel area, we let the kids shiver and run off some energy at the little playground and explore the shoreline for a few minutes.

We skipped the hiking, but drove to several pretty lookout spots within the park.  Fall Creek Falls.

It was so much more expansive looking in real time.  

I swear the camera shrinks every landscape shot!

Along the gorge.

Piney Falls.

And just because it was so sweetly sunny, we let the kids race on big wheel and scooter in a couple parking circles along the way.

I stopped flipping through my magazines long enough to capture this sweet view, too.

Tossing rocks into the lake while we got ready to leave.  The day we left it was GORGEOUS out!  We ended up exploring the campgrounds and letting the kids play near there and ride bikes on a bike trail before leaving.

Goodbye, little cabin!
Thanks for a truly restful, peaceful long weekend away from home.

The kids are already talking about when we'll be back. :) 

Kindergarten Plans

Soooo, this happened on Friday and we got the official notice in the mail on Saturday.

What this means is that Anna is headed to Kindergarten in the fall at the same school Noah attended for two years.  The difference is, it was a smidge out of our control whether or not she could go there. With Noah, the application process was first come, first serve.  After a bit of mob frenzy at application times since then, the acceptance format has been changed to that of a lottery selection.  We were feeling a little on the fence about Union for Anna or keeping it simple and sending her to the school we are actually zoned for instead, so we didn't really mind the big chance of her not getting selected.  I didn't even go to the lottery drawing, I felt so ambivalent about the whole thing. Truth be told, I can see me homeschooling her happily, but Josh is pretty firm that Anna should experience a year or two in a traditional classroom.  Sooo, anyway, we just prayed up the falling of the chips and, in the end, Anna landed at Union.  Can't say that I am as giddy as the next parent might be, but I am glad to at least know that that is one decision made for the coming year and that it is a spot that we are familiar with so it is one less variable to keep track of til July.

Anna plus kindergarten, huh?  That is gonna be a trip!  I better go ahead and start drafting an apology letter for the know-it-all that I fear she will be after all her reading lessons with Josh and all the hours of exposure to Noah's second grade curriculum. Seriously, how many preschoolers do you know that think in terms of skip counting past a hundred, synonyms/antonyms, continent locations, magnet science experiments, water facts, and holy spirit references?  I really, really have no idea how this round of kindergarten is gonna go down.  I'm afraid actually. :}

Anna, the Shutterbug

My love is in love with the power she wields with her new grown-up camera she got at Christmas.  She click-click-clicks away, burning up batteries and filling up her memory card in no time.  This past week we got around to uploading her pics to give her room to take more and we giggled our way through her portfolio.  It's so amusing to see things in the snapshot view from Anna's perspective.  Enjoy these highlights from her first reel...

Poor Papa.  He can't even catch a few zzzzz's in peace.

Shots that show what hits her at eye-level are so cute to me!

She thinks this shot of Papa's foot is HI-larious.

 

I think the view of her finger-like toes is Hi-larious. :}

 

First selfie!  

 

 

"Dat's while I was napping." Uh huh.

This view from her bed cracks me up.

 

Her Nashville shots impressed me!

 

Stuff she does with Daddy at bedtime.  I was intrigued that she wanted photos of this stuff.

 

At a New Year's Eve get together with good friends.

 

The ones she is most proud of are the ones she took while on her "nature walk" when she was specifically looking for all sorts of natural things to photograph. :}

I recently showed her how to use the video camera function on her camera, too.  THAT should get interesting.  :}