Yeah…we haven’t made much headway on the unpacking yet. Good thing Brenda’s coming to help us with that. She and Bug are flying here tomorrow, and will be here for two weeks, whee! That should give us plenty of time to unpack and do a little sightseeing too.

Since we knew Brenda was coming to whip us into shape, we weren’t in a huge hurry to get the unpacking done. We decided it would be a good idea to paint Annalie’s room while most of her stuff was still in easy-to-move boxes. Her bedroom was a dark wine red that, while a lovely color, wasn’t a great color for a little girl. Also the room just needed to be painted, it had obviously been a few years.

Sunday we primed. I had photos of us priming the room, including some cute ones of Annalie making crazy designs with a paintbrush. I thought I had downloaded them, so I cleared the memory card. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Oh well.

Yesterday morning when Annalie realized that we were going to wait for Troy to get home before we started the actual painting, she was rather annoyed. She wanted to paint! She wanted princessy, ballerinaesque, girly-foo-foo pink walls! So by the time Troy got home, we ate dinner and changed into our painting clothes, she was super excited.

We carefully explained to Annalie that if she wanted to paint, she would have to listen carefully to our instructions and follow them. She definitely likes to do things her own way so I thought that might be a dealbreaker right there, but no. Annalie listened, repeated the instructions back to us, and nodded determinedly when we asked if she understood that if she didn’t follow the directions that she would have to stop painting.

I remember when my mom painted my room when I was about Annalie’s age. I was all excited about it till I actually helped with the painting a little and realized how boring it was. I thought Annalie would do something similar. She stuck it out though!

Annalie painted and painted, followed the directions to the letter, and only had a couple of small mishaps (getting a bit of pink paint on the baseboard and accidentally putting her hand on a wet wall when she lost her balance) both of which were things that everyone does sooner or later while they’re painting. In all, I’d say Annalie was responsible for about a quarter of the paint that got on the walls in that first coat, which is pretty respectable for a five-year-old. She just kept rolling on the paint till it was time for bed.

Okay, she stopped a couple of times for breaks, but I don’t blame her for that. Those rollers are heavy when they’re loaded with paint. And five-year-olds may not need coffee breaks but they definitely need silly breaks.

Heck, even dads need silly breaks once in a while.

By the time Annalie announced that she was tired and we realized it was 15 minutes past her bedtime, we’d almost completely finished the first coat. While I got Annalie into bed, Troy finished up and cleaned the rollers and brushes and trays. Today we did it all over again for the second coat.

Even though it’s a bit crazy that we painted right away, I think it was easier since we just had to move boxes around, not a whole room full of stuff. And if there’s anything more exciting than unpacking and setting up in a brand-new room with a fresh coat of paint, I don’t know what it is…unless it’s having wonderful friends who will do the unpacking for you!!!

We are SO looking forward to you getting here, Brenda and Bug! Fly safe!

After a week of rain and being cooped up in the house, we celebrated yesterday’s sunshine by going on a two-hour photowalk. We set out from our gate, cameras at the ready. In the back of my mind I was thinking that this would probably be the last photowalk we’d take in this town.

Brace yourself. There are a lot of photos in this post.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Annalie was stopping every three feet to take pictures of the grass, of a flower, of a “pretty white car.” She loves taking pictures, this kid. To combat my urge to hurry her along, I tried to find an interesting picture to take each time she stopped, right where we were standing.

It was fun to challenge myself, and it led to a few cool shots that I probably would never have taken otherwise—looking up at power lines, of the scrollwork on the gate of an apartment complex, a hummingbird in flight.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

We walked much farther than on our last photowalk. Then, it was almost bedtime and we just took a quick walk around the block. Yesterday when we set out it was early afternoon and we had all the time in the world, so we walked all the way downtown.

Now when I say “downtown” I am not talking about downtown San Diego. I’m talking about our little town center, which is basically one long main road lined with restaurants, antique stores, coffee shops, and other small businesses. It’s not terribly exciting but it’s homey and friendly and there are always people walking around. There’s a small farmer’s market there every Friday afternoon, and an antique car show every Thursday evening. Our downtown is one of the reasons we’re going to miss living here when we move.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

This jewelry display outside a secondhand-clothing store caught Annalie’s eye, especially the sparkly star rings.

I aimed my camera at her as she took another photo. It’s kind of fun taking her picture when she’s distracted and I’m not trying to get her to pose.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

We stopped at a coffee shop that Brenda has been urging me to try for a while now. Kinda sad that she’s been there several times while housesitting for us, and I’d never been there till yesterday.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

It’s a very cool shop. Each table is colorfully painted with a different design bearing the shop’s name; long, narrow paintings of girls who look like they live in hip graphic novels line the walls; a giant lazy Susan full of jars of loose-leaf tea sits on a high shelf next to the cash register; and at least one employee has an English accent.

We took our latte and hot cocoa to a table outside, so we could watch the dogs that were tied to the fence around the small seating area. Annalie thought it was really cool that there was a double dish outside with a water bowl in one half and dog treats in the other. While we were sitting there, Annalie suddenly started pretending she was a robot, complete with beeping and booping noises. I asked her if that meant she was bored and ready to walk, and she said, “Yes. It. Does. Ready. To. Walk.”

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Then she pointed across the street and asked in her normal voice, “Can we cross over there so we can look at the beautiful gowns?” I love the photo she took, especially how you can see the sky and clouds reflected in the window.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

We varied our route on the way home, so we could pass by some different sights. Annalie said that this church (which is more than 100 years old, by the way) looked like a palace. She said she especially loved the “beautiful golden windows.” I swear, she really does talk like that.

I have no idea why “Food is good” is painted on the window of this community-association thrift shop. It’s been there for ages, and it makes me laugh every time I see it. Yesterday I asked Annalie if she could read it for me, and she sounded it out without any trouble at all.

Homeschooling aside: I feel like she should know all those words on sight without having to sound them out, because I know she’s read them many times before. She is able to read a lot of words now, but she still thinks she has to sound them out every time, except for a small list that she knows immediately (Annalie, mom, dad, cat, dog, love, book, stop, go, yes, no, exit, red, blue, yellow, green, pink). I keep telling her that she can remember what a word looks like and then she won’t have to sound it out the next time, but for some reason that doesn’t seem to be clicking in her head yet.

However, if I spell words out loud for her, she can usually figure them out much more quickly than by looking at them, which is totally foreign to me. I have always been such a visual learner that it’s challenging for me to remember that Annalie doesn’t learn best the same way I do.

Anyway. I’m not worried about her reading skills. They’re on track for her age, if not a little ahead of where she “should” be in kindergarten. And her verbal skills are definitely above average. I know she’ll read soon enough. Really at this point I feel like homeschooling is more about educating me than it is about educating her. She’s just having fun figuring the world out and I’m along for the ride.

I’ve always rather liked this building. It’s been abandoned for a while now, which makes me kinda sad.

I didn’t stay sad for long, though, because we came to the house with the animal statues in the yard. There’s a big metal rhinoceros on the corner, and a tortoise is tucked up under some bushes on the other side.

After I took the picture of Annalie with the rhino, we spotted a black-and-white cat on the sidewalk. She came right up to us when I said, “Hi, pretty kitty!” and rubbed against our legs and let us pet her for a few minutes. Then she trotted up some nearby stairs and disappeared.

We walked on, moving a bit more quickly since the sun was getting lower in the sky, the air was getting cooler, and neither of us had jackets. We were glad we had our hot drinks to warm us up.

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

Photo by Annalie, age 5y8m

We took more photos: a sunlit gumball on a sweetgum tree; my coffee cup sitting on a wall as I stopped to tie my shoe; stones in the sidewalk where a corner had been smoothed down; street signs on a curve in the road. Then we discovered that one of our neighbors is an urban chicken farmer.

Well, urban poultry farmer would probably be a more accurate description, since we saw at least one duck and several other birds running around the yard, and a few more in a large, airy aviary on the side of the house.

When Annalie saw the duck, she laughed and exclaimed, “That duck is having a bad hair day!” His odd feather tufts brought to mind a strange Elizabethan wig. Maybe he was just in costume for a play.

While Annalie stood on a low wall and admired the fowl, I looked up and noticed we were standing beneath some really tall palms. There are a lot of tall old palm trees like this in my town. They’ve probably been there for at least 50 years, possibly closer to 100.

Once the chicken and the duck lost interest in us, we moved on and crossed the street to check out the sidewalk stairs. I’ve always kind of loved them. They’re on the corner right by the first house we lived in here, and I used to walk on them all the time. We don’t live close enough to them now that I ever walk on them, but I figured they would make a good spot for our daily photo for Troy.

First I had to wait for Annalie to take these photos. I actually asked her, “Why do you want to take photos of a van?” and she just shrugged. But once we got home and downloaded the photos, I saw that she was apparently taking a picture of the clouds and light and trees as reflected in the van’s windows. She never fails to surprise me, this kid of mine.

Um…yeah, that photo probably won’t work for Troy.

Ah, that’s better. I picked this spot for our photo, wondering if Troy would recognize it. Of course, if he’s reading my blog post now he knows where we took it. Oh well.

Annalie’s camera started flashing a low-battery warning at this point, so I told her if she wanted me to take a photo of something to just ask. That was a mistake, because she started pointing things out for me to take photos of every third step. So I distracted her by asking her to read signs as we passed by. She was quite proud of herself for figuring out the word “elementary” on a school’s sign, as well as the name of our street, and that “Av” stands for “Avenue.”

Then she distracted me from the reading lessons by pointing out a clump of blooming rosemary, which was really quite lovely. I wish our landlord’s gardeners weren’t so consistent in cutting back the rosemary growing in our front yard. I’d have loved for it to bloom. Maybe I’ll have some blooming rosemary wherever we live next. And wherever we live, I look forward to more photowalks with my girl. They’re crazy fun.

For some reason, my blog comments haven’t been getting emailed to me as usual, so forgive me if I’m slow in responding to a question in your comment. I’m trying to figure out how to get the comments emailed to me again and am having no luck, since none of my settings are any different than they used to be. Anyone out there know how to fix this on a WordPress blog?

Annalie and I woke up this morning to the sound of rain on the roof. I was awake before Annalie for once, but I stayed in bed where it was warm, listening to the rain. It wasn’t long before Annalie woke up. She immediately hopped out from under the covers to stand on the bed and peer out the window, then turned to me, all excited. “Mom! It’s raining! Can I go outside and play?”

Whaaaat? What do you mean, it’s not everyone’s first impulse to go outside at 8am and play in the rain in their pajamas? This does not compute.

I know some people despise rain. They dread days without sunshine. All I can say is, I sympathize but I don’t really understand. I love rain. I have done for as long as I can remember. Days when I wake up to rain are just about the only days when I’m happy to get up early. When Troy is home he normally lets me sleep in on Saturdays but if it’s a rainy morning he wakes me up, because he knows I won’t want to miss the rain. I’ll go to the kitchen and get myself a cup of coffee and then position myself near a (preferably open) window so I can watch and hear the rain.

Rain is my happy weather. It’s next to impossible for me to be in a bad mood when it’s raining.

Annalie loves rain too. I have many, many photos of her playing in the rain, jumping in puddles, holding an umbrella, even drawing with sidewalk chalk in the rain. Rain is fun! Not to mention the cup of hot chocolate she knows she’ll get when she goes inside.

Rainy days are also good for baking. Today I cranked up some Christmas music and got a whole bunch of my Christmas baking done, which means in the next day or two I’ll be getting a whole bunch of Christmas mailing done. And I only ate a half-dozen or so of the World’s Best Apricot Cookies. Maybe a few more than that.

Unfortunately I had to refrain from eating these pretzel pralines. They’re all going into gift packages soon. I only ate a couple of pieces to make sure they were good. Maybe three or four. You should make some and eat more, though, because they’re quite tasty!

Pretzel Pralines
based on Ideas in Food’s Pretzel Pralines (via Brownie Points)

• 2 cups sugar
• 2 tsp. kosher salt (or half as much table salt)
• 4 Tbsp butter, cut into small pieces
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 6 cups of sourdough pretzel nuggets (or broken-up pieces of sourdough pretzels)

Butter a large cookie sheet well and set it aside on a heatproof surface. (Note: Don’t do what I did and assume that you can just line a pan with waxed paper, because the waxed paper will stick to the bottom of the caramel-coated pretzels and you’ll waste a good 15 minutes peeling all the bits of paper off the candy at the end.)

In a large stockpot, begin melting the butter over medium heat. Combine the salt and sugar, then add to the melting butter. Add the vanilla. Stir constantly, watching carefully, over medium heat with a wooden spoon.

After a couple of minutes, the sugar mixture will begin to melt and the sugar will caramelize. Once the mixture is smooth and no longer grainy, add the pretzels and quickly stir to coat the pieces evenly. If you leave the pot on the heat too long the sugar will burn, but if you remove it from the heat the mixture will quickly harden and it’ll be nearly impossible to stir, as I learned the hard way. So keep it on the burner but work quickly.

Once the pieces are all coated, dump the caramel-covered pretzel pieces out onto the buttered cookie sheet. Using the spoon, quickly spread the pieces out in a single layer. They’ll cool fast. If you want, you could drizzle a little melted dark or white chocolate over the cookie sheet at this point. Then you can break them up into bite-size pieces and package them to give away as gifts.

Or you can keep them all for yourself. I won’t tell.