The home phone is fixed, the cell phone has no service unless I drive toward Roseburg. My guess is a tower is down around Cottage Grove, because that’s where I noticed it gone. And the internet is a little spotty, but I don’t know if that’s related.

The home phone is fixed by way of a black cable stretched through the blackberries down by the creek, and a message saying the situation is “temporized” and they’ll be back Monday to work on it. It makes me wonder what got it this time, decaying sheep, digging raccoons, general ground water, which is what usually gets the electric line. This is the tin foil and hay string phone line, which if they’d ever decide to replace might get upgraded to one that could handle two lines, or dsl (if it came to this area), or other exciting thigns like that. I think it’s the original that was put in in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s and hasn’t been touched since except when it has to be repaired.

Logan’s had two days back at school now and is enjoying herself. We’ve played on the playground as usual after school, which helps. Yesterday we ate lunch out with Sandy and her mom Sherri in celebration of starting the school year, and Logan and Sandy, being twins, ate twin lunches and giggled constantly. The two year difference in their age evidently doesn’t effect their twin status. Some things are better not questioned. They tried to plan a sleep over, but since neither is allowed to have sleep overs yet, it was a moot point. The request I heard later was for an all day play date. I’ll keep that one in mind. 9 to 5 even sounds like a lot. Maybe if all four parents took a shift.

Aside from the play time, Logan’s class seems to be shaping up well. She’s had no complaints, and many positive things to say about how it is going. The teacher uses lower case letters in their names this year. The got to choose which row their desks would be in today, although it wasn’t absolutely stuck to. Logan chose to sit closest to Mrs Marooney’s desk and appears to be very happy there. She says she’s having some trouble with drawing things but is getting help from Mrs Marooney. They had circle time and played their flutes today. She was able to share part of her snack with someone who forgot to bring one. (Anyone who has something they’re willing to share can offer it to someone who forgets theirs, I think.)

This weekend we’re going to work on planning Logan’s birthday party and put away laundry so that we’ll be able to find school clothes for next week. Big excitement there. Well, maybe on the party planning part. John turns forty a week from today. Logan is planning what happens that day.

I haven’t posted any of my pictures from St Louis yet. I spent the weekend slowly putting things on the computer back the way they were before the computer was upgraded from old to new. Among other things my itunes program got moved. In the process it found more songs than actually fit on my ipod, and lost some that were already on my ipod, so I recreated and rearranged things by hand. Now I just have to convince it do put them where I want them to go. The new computer is much faster and snazzier than the old one was, which is exciting, and the CPU glows green, which takes a little getting used to. Its in a room by itself at night, which is good.

We also rearranged things in the house this weekend. John did house cleaning while Logan and I were gone, making things clear enough to finally move furniture around a bit. The house is now more open, and with luck will be a little warmer in the winter when sitting in direct line with the wood stove can make a difference. We shifted the buffet from one side of the dutch door to another and moved a recliner to where the buffet had been. It doesn’t mean much without pictures, but perhaps I’ll take a picture later on. It looks good now. Logan asked to have our table made small and round again, which fits well, but looks very small. It’s the same table I grew up with with a removable leaf in the center. One that Grandpa Marble and Uncle Curt worked on at some time in the past I believe.

Logan’s first day of school is today. I’ve woken up horridly early, but that should make getting her up on time a little easier. John sewed her a tote bag for the things she has to have at school according to the color theme mentioned in the teacher (red, white, or yellow) only to find when we got there that the teacher had put in a theme because she thought people would ask more than because she was attached to the idea. However I think that the LL Bean Backpack from last year (from some long ago purchase that Logan unearthed for last year) wasn’t what the teacher had in mind. And the white and yellow tote bag is pretty and works well. After having had it requested to be there by a week ago yesterday, and getting it there late because we didn’t go (that was the day we came home from St Louis), it was a little disappointing to get to the Parent Evening on Tuesday and not see other bags already on their hooks. I had been in a panic that they’d all been due and ours wasn’t ready yet. The idea is that everything is there already when the kids start school, and I’ve always gone with that. We get Logan’s stuff there ahead of time as requested. John took off work extra early on Tuesday so he could sew the bag because it got missed on the weekend. I figured the others, or the majority of them would already be there. Ha.

Logan’s wearing her white and pink dress from the last day of school again for the first day. We’ve cut up a small man’s t-shirt to use as a slip under it, because the fabric is transparent, and then she’s also adding a regular t-shirt to protect her arms from the scratchy sequins. She loves the sparkly fabric that Wilma chooses, even though it prickles her skin. Shopping for a girls slip has failed twice now, and I should have just made one over the summer, but some how, I missed that idea during summer. Evidently little girls slips aren’t needed much any more. Neither J C Penney’s nor Macy’s carried them in the store. The mall specialty stores didn’t have them. Some did refer me to the expensive specialty store, but the last I checked it stopped a couple sizes smaller than Logan. Some suggested Target, but I’ve never seen slips there. Logan’s taking a change of clothes for later in the day, which I always endorse with a white dress, so I’ll get pictures early, I hope, and leave it at that. Today is the assembly and then everything ends at 12:30 with pizza time, because it’s Thursday. That means lots of play time before we go eat lunch, but I’ll pack snacks.

If anyone’s tried to phone us, our home phone is out of order, I started to call it in last night and realized we hadn’t actually physically checked each of the land lines to make sure they were hung up properly. So this morning we’ll check the last one and then call it in. Call my cell or John’s work if you need us. It is possible to check the voice mail when the phone is out, we just don’t know to do it, because the phone never rings here.

The Botanical Garden also had an indoor kids area with a big tree sort of thing to climb in, and a section where kids could dress up and see themselves on a tv screen acting out a skit. We stopped there on the way to the big children’s area and played for half an hour or an hour.

The big children’s area was huge. There was a rope to walk down with nets on either side, or a board walk, similarly netted which I could manage next to it. A large boardwalk climbing area, logs stacked log cabin fashion, and most importantly once we got there, a water fountain area to play in with swim suits.

Jane left us a that point, and after sufficient soaking of children we rounded them up to go and eat lunch and head our separate directions to rest. I took a lot of pictures, which I’ll post some of once I’m home. The statues at the garden were amazing. I have pictures of all of the kids and some of the kids in groups, but they are tiny on my camera at the moment, so I’m just believing that they are good.

Yesterday Logan and I spent the day with Erin and family, visiting Jean and David and then going in to the city in the afternoon, but that will have to wait for later to write about.

So here we are. I don’t have the pictures to put up yet, but we go Greta, Logan, Ryan (one every six months) then a break, then Wolf and my house fire the same night, then a shorter break, then Devlin. Dev is now two and a bit, and Greta eight and a bit. They all played at the MO Botanical Garden yesterday and had a great time. I haven’t gotten all the adults I came to see in the same place at once, but they are meeting in bits and pieces, and that works well enough.

Aunt Jane and Uncle Cary picked us up at the airport Wednesday, and helped us get through the saga of a lost carry on suitcase and booster seat. They’d turned out to not fit well on the first, very small airplane, and then, even though they were gate checked, we were never permitted to retrieve them. I’ll be checking them for the way home all the way through, or beating people with my cane along the way. Possibly both for good measure. The booster seat has never reappeared, but the suit case surfaced by Friday, after much worrying about the teddy bear in it and rough sleep at night. United sounded very helpful on the phone, but was very slow. I’ll be writing them a letter when I’m home. Logan is happy with her new booster — United didn’t replace it. We did. They told me they’d send $50 travel vouchers, but those haven’t come either. (they said they’d send them by email.)

Jane and Cary facilitated all that at any rate, and got us fed, before taking us to their place to decompress a little, and then out to Alan and Pegs where we’re staying. I slept two or three hours the night before, and a little on the plane, so I was in a daze, and seem to have lost my time sense completely for the trip. It actually makes it a nice trip. Things happen and I go along with them The schedule isn’t too important.

Logan took a day to settle in, and we were both tired Thursday, so we stayed closer to home for that day. Friday we met Erin and went to a Children’s Museum in St Louis called the Magic House. Greta had school that day, but the other four kids ran wild and had a ball. The museum has three floors with different activities and things aimed at different interest and abilitiy levels at each. We probably spent the longest on the first floor, where there was an interactive play area. Logan spent a while checking out purchases in a grocery store. Everyone dropped fish in the water and followed them along a stream covered by a glass sidewalk, in order to fish them out at the other end. There was a mail box, constantly being filled with plastic ice cream cones — I didn’t figure that one out. I sat on a bench and called United about the suitcase in that area. There were also big climb in, up, and around areas. Some were aimed at smaller children, but signs said siblings were permitted, so with Dev and Wolf, Ryan and Logan passed. Three mom’s and four kids worked fairly well, and we just kept counting heads.

It’s time for me to wake Logan up, so I’ll have to write more about other things in another post. Vacations should be longer than this. I’m coasting along doing nothing but fun stuff, and not driving! And seeing all the folks I haven’t seen in five or ten years to boot. Having visited out her in 1990, give or take, it’s like being back home again, except this time there are even more familiar faces. And kids too.

I’ve spent a lot of time grumbling and waiting for Palm to come out with an upgrade or even a price reduction if I have to buy the same thing over. I finally asked a few months ago — evidently they aren’t really changing them any more. EVeryone’s switching to things like the iphone. Not me, then. But the palm continued to get worse.

This month Donald the Computer Guy got an iphone. (Donald Barrows Computer Solutions www.computersolutionsmc.com ) Donald is who keeps our computer nudged along happy enough to not crash despite the fact that we run it overloaded and in way too hot and dusty a room most of the time. While John was there working out what has to be done to our computer this time around (we gave up it’s being rebuilt and replaced — but it will be cool and fast again, for a month at least!), he got to see Donald’s iphone and even tried it out.

Keep in mind that while John is completely immersed in computers and electronics in more than one of his jobs, he’d really prefer to have nothing to do with these gadgets. He doesn’t want or like cell phones. He came to the email age very reluctantly, he’d rather take the stuff apart than use it most days. But he was impressed. It was something that looked like it did what my current Electronic Brain is supposed to, only perhaps without the constant snags. So he came home and told me not only that, but that, also via Donald, there was a deal going on. Our cell phone company had been bought out by ATT (they did send us a letter, but being without TV and newspaper, we miss the ad campaigns) - and if I wanted to switch now before all deals were final I could get the iphone for less than the cost of a new Palm, with no charges for a cell phone (because it is one) or charges for changing my cell contract. So after my eyes stopped bugging out that John was endorsing a new electronic toy for me, I went on line and started checking to see if my data would convert.

The next day I tried driving again for the first time and took all four of us in to the wireless store to see if I could get an iphone. Jazzmin and I dropped John and Logan at While Away and went on our own, and it actually wasn’t busy. It still took two hours. Changing everything went fairly quickly, there were just a lot of details to do. The cheapest and most efficient way to do it was to change my entire contract, which covers phones for the family — although Jazzmin and I are the primary users-of-cellphones. Andrea who we rarely see is also on our contract, and before I did anything to hers I had to track her down, because I didn’t want to leave her with no service while I was holding an integral piece of a new phone for her. With me buying an iphone they said we qualified for four free phones (fortunately Logan wasn’t with us to try to claim one, so we just didn’t take four free phones!) We ordered the iphone for me (Tuesday I hope it will be in!), changed out Jazzmin’s to one thats ATT compatible and a better quality than what she had before. In addition due to the way ATT is structured she was able to get internet access and more text messaging because I was getting it and it worked in to a family plan. Nearly heaven for a teenager on the go. Phones have changed a lot in the year or so since I got my razor phone, and it’s been decent and acceptable but nothing exciting. Jazzmin’s looks like a lot of fun. Andrea got the same one a couple days later. I am left with my same old phone with an ATT sim card in it until the iphone arrives, then everything changes.

The everything changes is why I started writing today. In order to get the palm date to the iphone, the easiest method appears to convert it to MS Outlook. But there’s no direct conduit. Same as there’s no palm to iphone conduit. So after finding many pay-to-convert options I found a reference on line to using Yahoo Calendar to convert a Palm calendar over. My calendar minds all my appointments through things like the six month tooth cleaning. I’d rather not have to copy those over by hand if I can avoid it. So I tried their instructions, and it worked. Mostly. There was my first notice for today “Pay the Damn Bills” at 4pm. It should show at 9am. I checked settings — the my time zone for yahoo was set to 0, GMT I think. So erased that calendar against all warnings, and uploaded my exported file again. Wa La. Pay Bills at 9. Call Mom at 10. Tomorrow there are two doctors, a play group and Logan’s swimming lessons. It’s all there.

I can look it up on line, without the notes that tell me who each apointment is for (I might be able to put htem in, but I’ll do that later on the iphone, so I think I’ll skp it here) if I want to. I don’t know that I want to, but it’s something new. Now I’ve put the file from Yahoo back on to my computer in a format that MS Outlook can handle.  And there it sits, because Outlook says it’s missing a file to install it, and the Outlook disks are already with Donald ready to go on the new computer.

My iphone shipping information says that it will be at the wireless store Tuesday.  My hope is to go sit on their doorstep and pick it up before Logan and I go to Medford on our way to the airport and St Louis.  Then I’ll stop in Myrtle Creek, where, with luck, Donald will already be changing out our old computer for new, and beg him to make the palm data go to the iphone.  And I’ll continue on toward St Louis with a brand new shiny electronic brain that plays music and lets me talk on the phone too.  And I’ll spend all my time on the airplane that I’m not reading to Logan trying to figure out how to use it, when it’s allowed to be turned on.

Jazzmin took the one she’s in, at arm’s reach with my camera. She’s got a good aim that way, and has a lot of pictures that I wondered who’d taken for her before she told me. She also got a slew of good pictures of Logan and her friend Sandy, which I’ll have to ask Sandy’s mom if I can post a couple of.

Today is a birthday party for Sandy, who turned six yesterday. Logan and Sandy have been friends for something around a year now, depending whether you count from meeting at the summer program last year, or determining that they were both Trash Monsters on the play ground in the autumn after school. For apparently quiet sensitive children they are very well matched in their boisterous outgoing attitudes. And they feed off each other. One child times one child is three or more children in their case, at times. Maybe fore all children, I don’t know.
Tomorrow is a farewell party for Lorane Little School, where Logan went from age to to age five one or two mornings a week with Kyle Rolnik. The Little School has come to the end of its time due to a lack of children needing its care, and we’re sad to see it go, but also haven’t been in a place to need it since Logan started at EWS. I’m hoping Kyle takes a break and then finds something new that she loves to do for her work. The Little School was the perfect place for Logan and where I learned a lot about working with the natural consecquences of children’s behavior (if you throw the book across the room we won’t read it…), making food choices (I found I like brussle sprouts!) and ways of responding to words and actions in a more positive way than my first guess would have been. All good things must end, but it’s done its work well while it’s been there.

Yesterday I had to rescue a stuck goat and a stuck gosling before we could leave for the day. I’d intended to leave the goat, because she was stuck in the ram pen, where it’s not safe to go, but she turned out to be accessible from the goose area, where I had to go to rescue the gosling, who had gotten stuck on her back and couldn’t get up. The geese opted to attack but I was able to flip the gosling and let her get back to them without getting hit or bitten and without having to hurt them. The goat I cut a fence wire for and told that John would eat her if she kept doing stupid stuff like that.

The geese and goslings are actually due to move to live with a new person very soon. We couldn’t move them when they’d managed to start sitting, but now that the goslings are big enough to get in to trouble, it seems like a fine time. They’re going to Rocky who works for our wonderful Dr Herrerra at Sutherlin Vet, and doesn’t find the idea of an aggressive gander intimidating. I’ll miss having them around a little, but I miss the geese we had in Florida that we friendly and had engaging personalities more. These didn’t get as much socialization from us and Zues is just plain unpleasant.

Goats and sheep are are another story. John has to do fence repairs. Probably mostly without me because my health has been too screwy to let me be out in the heat helping him. And then after the fence repairs we wait a day and find out where the sheep or goats walk through the newly repaired fence. I’ve already asked for Keith to come and help us keep up on watering plants that are in great need and we just can’t get to. John’s managing the stock and Logan’s garden. On a good day I get the soaker hose on the roses, but the trials of the summer are showing on everything.

Logan’s summer has been very full. Jazzmin came to visit for two weeks and Logan got to go back to having an instant sister in the house. At the same time a three year old boy moved from Florida to Roseburg and will probably be attending the EWS preschool in the fall. He’s concluded that Logan is one of his best friends ever, and so she has an instant little brother in Luca, which is going over a little less smoothly than some. She’s working on it though. Luca is an adorable curly-haired guy who likes trucks and locomotives and wants Logan to see his joy in them. Every time he sees them. I keep laughing because he gets Logan on so many things she’s done to me and so many other people. She’s enjoying playing with him, but runs out of energy sooner than he does. (I laugh to my self usually, really.)

Some of the stuff we’d planned to do while Jazzmin was here got usurped because my health went screwy and I couldn’t drive for a couple of weeks. This week I re-ran into the web page from But You Don’t Look Sick

I ordered a button that says “Chronic Invisible Illnesses Suck”. I laughed at a lot of the shirts on the page I’ve linked, but didn’t think I could bring myself to wear them in public. A couple were really tempting. Being sick and not looking sick, being constantly fatigued, forgetful, and having to say “no I can’t do that because it’s late in the day and…” is a constant for me. And even with people who believe they know me I get funny looks and suggestions that maybe if I just ate a different fruit or made a different choice that would fix it. Thanks for playing, here’s your Kewpie doll, and I won’t hit you with my cane as you leave if you’re quick enough to think I’m still smiling. Putting on a good face makes it easy for people to believe things are ok. Never mistake, the good face is for Logan, and Logan knows that it’s only a good face.

We did go to FaerieWorlds for two days of Jazzmin’s first weekend here. It’s similar to a Fairy themed reconnaissance Renaissance Fair. I volunteered at admissions in the shade, while first one day Logan and Jazzmin, then the next Logan, Jazzmin and John wandered the fair. There were costumes all over, which made admissions a fun place to be. Logan and Jazzmin wore some of the wool felted wings that our friend Kari makes, which are beautiful art work all on their own. It was a little too hot, but that’s the nature of these things. Logan made a friend from the hula hoop booth and learned to hula hoop. Jazzmin hula hooped with seven or eight hoops at once. They both had their faces painted at some point — Steve Laskey took some amazing pictures of Logan with her face paint, I’ll put them up when I’m a little more organized. He got a good one of John walking with me too. I look pretty miserable, but I did a double take when I looked at John.

Logan’s still in swimming lessons, although running a little behind due to weird schedules.  She’s gotten to have extra play dates with some folks while I go to appointments, and a whole lot of time with Jazzmin here.  She sported several new hair styles courtesy of Jazzmin, including eight braids, which held for two days beautifully.  We all had a lot of fun during Jazzmin’s visit and are looking forward to the next one whenever we can plan it.  Pictures will come once I get a chance to resize them.

This is long enough for today, Logan and I again have a full day in Eugene.  Being able to drive again keeps me busy, and Logan has her social calendar fairly full.  School starts September 4, and between now and then we spend a week in St Louis visiting a dozen people we haven’t seen in many years.  What a whirl of gaiety!

Logan chose her desk and chair and made sure they were of the right height so that her knees didn’t bump and her arms weren’t too high.  Her name will go on both of them as well as over the coat hook at one end of the row of hooks.  While John and I talked with Mrs Marooney, Logan and Jazzmin (visiting for two weeks) checked several desks before determining that the first one Mrs Marooney had suggested was the one Logan was the most comfortable with.  Logan also fully explored the second grade room, and John looked at chores that needed to be done in order to help make the room ready for school.

One comment I’d heard on Mrs Marooney was that she was fairly strict.  She was surprised by that, but said that she had kept the rule of no children sitting on desks all the way through her eighth grade class, and felt that rules needed to be consistently enforced.  I believe that our class will thrive with some clear and consistent guidelines.  John and I told her about our family and have scheduled our first ever teacher visit.  Evidently most children at EWS have the teacher visit their house every so often.  This has only been suggested to us once, and was quickly lost when I suggested that due to Logan’s fear of men she’d probably prefer to meet that teacher in a place she was used to teachers being, such as school.  No teacher has ever actively suggested visiting the house as a yearly activity, and when I invited last years teacher to have a gathering here, I was brushed off.  The more I find about typical grades teachers, the more I dislike the one we started with.

The 2008-2009 year is looking very positive with Mrs Marooney in place.  I look forward to working with her and to finding out what our class will be like.

I just needed to share that.

I cropped one of the pictures closer up so you can see Logan’s hands better. We heard a couple weeks ago that John’s sister Philomena has lung cancer. She’s starting chemo tomorrow, and they think it will get the cancer, but because it’s also in her lymph system, there’s a 3/4 chance it will come back. (I think that’s the reasoning. I get this second hand from John, mostly.) I got white cancer bracelets for us to keep Aunty Phil in mind. They are too small for John’s wrist, as usual. he’s never been able to wear them for me either. You can see Logan has on a white bracelet and on her collar a white ribbon with an angel holding it, which matches one we sent to Aunty Phil.

Yesterday I got two more pictures. We took a couple pictures of a quilt we made for a friend who had a baby a couple days before school ended. Logan came outside just as we finished, dressed completely in clothing that is either mostly outgrown or that she’s refused to wear for the last several months because it’s uncomfortable. I just got her new boots because she found the plastic rain boots so uncomfortable at school and wore her good shoes out in the rain all spring. She didn’t wear these long yesterday, so maybe they weren’t as bad. And there wasn’t a bit of rain. It’s been dry for days and days.

John I got before he knew I was taking his picture, so he’s actually smiling. It was an accident, if he’d realized the camera was pointed at him he’d have scowled.