Update 28 February 2011

The delay in serious blogging may well last another week, but I am hoping that will be the end of it for the time being. The audits will be over on Friday and it looks like our weekend adventures are slowing down from here. (They have to starting at Ostara -- we have big plans for gardening and preserving this year!)

My 365 project is ongoing, though it took a while to find time to upload shots over the course of the week. As you can see, not every shot is a real success, but I am getting closer and closer to what I want when I take the photo. As an example, on day 50, I finally got a good shot of the texture of the bark. On day 45, I was very, very pleased by the texture of the snow. Then again, the photos for days 47, 51, and 52 are not anything I would ordinarily share...except they were the best I got that day. But the taking photos every day, even (especially?) when there's nothing I want to commemorate is doing great things for my skill. It encourages me to take risks because if I don't get good ones, I can keep trying. That's not as easy when it really matter that I get some good photos - I tend to shoot safe then.

Jack had his annual "I Love My Friends" not-a-birthday party yesterday. We all had a lovely time! I think for a winter party, four friends was just about the perfect size. It meant that the wild party games the kids made up with party "blow-outs" and poppers didn't get out of hand and there was room for everyone at the table without too much crowding. I am hoping that eventually Miss Sari will share some photos--I thought about photos, but I had to host and the temptation to hide behind the camera would have been too intense. :p

I am beginning to wonder about me, actually. For the last couple of months, I have started to tremble and go blank when I am around too many people. It looks and feels like low blood sugar, but it happens even if I just ate. Time to try an increase in my thyroid tablets, I think.

Jack has lost six teeth at this point...with three of them currently missing. He's starting to have that eight-year-old jack-o-lantern smile. It's adorable, and thankfully, he doesn't seem worried about it. (I was always so self-conscious about the ragged grin that I developed a closed mouth smile that lasted for many years -- Jack seems interested, but not concerned about the teeth-fall. I'm happy about that.

We are pondering getting some chickens this year. With frozen chicken of the quality we want going for $20 a bird, $1 per chick and some processing fees and a bit of supplemental food for 10 weeks is looking like a very rational decision. There are a few tricky things to work out, like how to get the chickens to abattoir, but if we can do that, we'll be getting started in a few weeks.