Greening the Desert

We bought a house! (our first house ever!)

And we live in the desert. So this is the backyard, when we moved in.

Now it has 7 struggling saplings that I planted in the first month when we got the house. After a brutal desert summer (one week solid 115's) and some near deaths, all teh little saplings are...still alive....still alive.

Not grown at all, but alive. 

I've discovered Geoff Lawton's "Permaculture: Greening the Desert" videos about Jordan, and after seeing their before and after shots, I have hope. Jordan also gets annual rainfall between 5 and 10 inches, and looks, well, like my backyard.

Permaculture is full of hope. Of man working within the created order to make the earth better.... where jackals once lay, grass and reeds and papyrus will grow....

The wilderness and the desert will rejoice,
And the desert will shout for joy and blossom;
Like the crocus

2 It will blossom profusely
And rejoice with joy and jubilation.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
The majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They will see the glory of the Lord,
The majesty of our God.

3 Strengthen the slack hands, and make the tottering knees strong.
4 Say to those with anxious heart,
“Take courage, fear not.
Behold, your God will come with vengeance;
The retribution of God will come,
But He will save you.”

5 Then the eyes of those who are blind will be opened,
And the ears of those who are deaf will be unstopped.
6 Then those who limp will leap like a deer,
And the tongue of those who cannot speak will shout for joy.

For waters will burst forth in the wilderness,
And streams in the desert.
7 The scorched land will become a pool

And the thirsty ground springs of water;
In the haunt of jackals, its resting place,
Grass becomes reeds and rushes.

8 A highway will be there, a roadway,
And it will be called the Highway of Holiness.
The unclean will not travel on it,
But it will be for the one who walks that way,
And fools will not wander on it.

9 No lion will be there,
Nor will any vicious animal go up on it;
It will not be found there.

But the redeemed will walk there,
10 And the redeemed of the Lord will return
And come to Zion with joyful shouting,
And everlasting joy will be on their heads.
They will obtain gladness and joy,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.

The moving truck plan

 We rented a moving truck to move Josh's piano from his parents house. With 2 furniture dollies, and josh's dad's help, it was pretty non-eventful.

We rented the moving truck really for its steel ramp.

The kids loved the moving truck.

After we got the piano moved, they held a musical programme, their joy overcoming the 106 degree weather.....sufficiently to even lure their parents out of the air conditioning,  for the performance.

The programme was "Zelda' s theme"  and "Hark the Herald Angels Sing".

Afterwards, Jenny told me when we outgrow our 15 passenger van, we can buy a moving truck, and use ratchet straps to the walls as seatbelts....

Return of the Sadars....

Yup, we are back.

And this post is already a year old....been sitting in my "to finish" folder....

We got internet again, after a 4.5 year break. 

Not having internet was really good for me, in many ways.

But alas, the blog kinda died. 

But we did not! And hopefully, the blog will live again.

 The best thing about keeping this blog is it made me write down more of the cute stuff they did. And I want to remember that. 

(Also, I cannot figure out what is going on with this font size...)

Isaiah is talking about brothers again. I think he figures Ruhi's out, and the supply lines are up and running again.

He has given me permission to have a few more daughters, after I have enough sons.

"how much is enough brothers?" I asked.

"20" he said.

I tried to break it to him, short of a miracle, that wasn't going to happen. 

But today he started talking about how wonderful it would be if we had 20 more boys, and then 2 more daughters "...and then mom, that would be enough"

Keziah makes up many stories. Her sisters breathlessly report them to me. Three sisters hang on the twists and turns of her plots. She has at least four different stories going. It went to my head like wine at that age, and I only had one twin in my audience. Puzz is queen of her worlds, at this point. 

We have a laptop hooked up to the TV and have been watching military history videos that Isaiah requests. Roman naming traditions were made to confuse the casual historian.Isaiah "no mom, that was decimus junius brutus albinus, not marcus brutus" 

Sarah Grace is a weeping wreck until she finally takes her medicine (today, mommy slipped it in with sugar-spiked juice), at which point, she's singing little songs, referring to herself as "Zelda" in the third person, and basically back to her old self. Pray her throat heals up. There's something about her little sore-throated wailing refusing medicine, going on for an hour, that lowers the collective happiness levels of everyone in the house. A baby in pain, but still with a will of iron. Her will is somewhere on par with Puzz's. That probably puts her at the 98th percentile in the stubborness department.

Puzz remains powerful, as the dungeon master of the girl's play stories. There was an altercation about who got to wear the hair-clip with the most pearls this morning, nad I put it into Mariam's hair over Puzz's wails, because Mariam had asked first. 5 minutes later, I walked into the room, and Mariam told me to put it into Puzz's hair. I began by praising Mariam's kindness, but suddenly got suspicious and asked why. "Because Keziah said I could not be in the story until Christmas if I didn't" Mariam said, very matter-of-factly. I lectured Puzz, but I am afraid this thing happens quite a bit recently, where even Jenny will do Puzz's bidding as they earn "10 game points" to where they are allowed to expand their inventory of weapons in "the story" that Keziah dictates. Evidently being a good story-teller has its advantages.

Isaiah actually did his grammar today. Maybe he'll get at education after all. There were his beloved history videos hanging in the balance. He wanted to make salsa, because we had a sesame street book about Elmo making salsa with Rosita's Mexican grandma. We made it, and he insisted I put a jalapeno in it, so I did. Evidently one tiny jalapeno can burn mommy's tongue quite a bit. When I said so, Isaiah asked if if there was actual fire in my mouth when I complained. I don't know if he was being literal or making a point. 

Anastasia continues to be her typical cheerful russian thug baby, but has discovered pretty headbands, nad you know by her little self-conscious expressions when she puts them on that she feels gorgeous. 

That kid is beyond cute. She has this sort of unstoppable cheerful life-force that seems to radiate from her, even as she breaks things and causes injuries. 

Jenny continues to be the moral center of the Sadar Children, although increasingly she has been disciplined as she tries to take the law into her own hands.  

She's a frustrated  little vigilante in a rough town where the delinquent Sheriff evidently is not coming up to snuff. 

Sarah Grace came up to me last night, with a little furrowed brow and indignantly announced "Mom, I wiww have to sleep in a yuchy underwear IF YOU DO NOT DEAL WIV DIS"

Which meant she had pooped in her underwear. But her delivery of the information was so cute, I kept laughing.

The other day, Sarah held Ruhi, smiling at me beatifically for 4 minutes. I was thinking warm thoughts about her nurturing heart, before she put Ruhi down, got off the couch, and announced "Mom, can I have some chocwate? I have been holding Ruhi ALL DAY". 

(I had paid Jenny in chocolate for holding a crying Ruhi while I took a shower post partum a couple months ago, and she had remembered)

She does have an empathetic heart, and was the only Sadar child to weep for Boromir in the family viewing of Fellowship of the RIng. But she bravely sits by Ruhi while I stretch Ruhi's tongue (post-op frenectomy directions). it's kinda awful to watch, and hear Ruhi's gargled screams. Puzz flees the room every time I do it. But Sarah, every time, parks herself right by Ruhi through the whole thing, glares at me and yells "Ruhi doesn't want it! Mommy, Ruhi DOESN'T WANT IT!!!" through the whole process.

In other news, Isaiah saw me looking at a "how to put eyeshadow on hooded eyes" tutorial, and then pointed to the sidebar in youtube, recommending his beloved much-watched Pyrrhic war video. "Mom, click on that one, let's see how Pyrrhus does his hair"....o wait, there's a video about how Ceaser did his hair in the Gallic Wars", pointing to another of his beloved videos showing up in the sidebar. 

I don't know if he was trying to pull one over old mom, or if he was cracking a joke. Either way, it makes me smile every time I think of it.