The end of Kirby's perfect visit

It was wonderful having Kirby here. It was sweet every moment. He rarely went out without taking Holly and Marty, and they played Rock Band lots, and sat and talked.

His list of things to do involved some financial stuff with his dad, which they did early in the week, a list of eateries (and he made all but Blake's, I think), people to see (I think he completed the list with his lunch with Will today), and he left happy with clean clothes and good memories, and will have a link to Holly's photos of parties and the trip to the airport when he gets back home.

Speaking of home, a few days ago I looked at the kitchen calendar, which looks like this only more in focus when I have my glasses on, or when the camera isn't set to close-up. And there was something different. So I looked closer. And where I had written "Kirby goes home," he had crossed out "home" and written "to Austin."

Simple but profound and touching.


At the moment, he's on a small Express Jet plane, nonstop to Austin, where his roommate Erik will pick him up. Here are some links to larger photos of the trip to the airport. It was our whole family and Julie Rice-McClure. We took our time, goofed around, talked, joked, hugged and smiled. Kirby was, and is, wonderful.





There's nothing wrong with Holly or Marty. They retrieved a city-owned wheelchair that had been left in the parking lot, to bring it back in and, well... it had wheels and all.

Marty's 19th Birthday

Here's the Rock Band microphone stand Keith made for Marty so he can sing and play at the same time, and the other things, you'll recognize.







Other photos HERE, and more will be added there of later tonight and some of next weekend, as those times come and go.

New Big-Kid Tricks

Yeah, well mostly not so new, but I'm still having a bit of mom-feeling about it all.

Holly wanted to go pick Kirby up from the airport all by herself. Her dad's helping a friend load a truck to move out of state. Marty is in El Paso with Brett Henry, at a weekend-long SCA event. I'm hanging out at the house.

Kirby called and said his plane was late early (sorry) and Holly wasn't there and wasn't answering her phone. He's calm, because he's Kirby. I'm less calm (though I feign calm) because she's 16 and I'm her mom. Also I have no car to go get him if she's had car problems (not my worst fear, my B or C fear), though I could call Keith and get him to try. Holly's at the airport now, though, and in contact with Kirby by phone. They both called me, too. He was early, she was a little late, I worried for ten minutes. Not too bad.

Now they're going to go to lunch and then buy something for Marty for his 19th birthday tomorrow. At some point I'll get to see Kirby for the first time since he left in late August. I don't feel I need to spend a lot of time with him. I mostly want to smell his hair and his head. Odd checklist, maybe. One single urge, but I totally understand it. (Some of the moms reading might too.)

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Photos of the arrival, added the next day; click to enlarge.

Cats and Fire

Kirby's coming home tomorrow, and Marty's birthday is Monday!

Oh. The cats and fire.
(It sounds worse than it is.)



That's Shadow, Flower, Tiger, mending and laundry.

Today I saw...

Sunshine next to a storm.



My birdfeeder (the view from the other end of our library), by telephoto through a dusty pane on the door to the deck.
You can click any of these for a better view.


Our backyard bird feeder is about 15 feet up, but we can reach it from the deck. It's a dish drainer wired to the tree with baling wire, with holders bent to balance a terra cotta plant drain thing. We put two scoops of general bird seed, plus whole seed corn and black sunflower seeds every morning. The rubber-covered wire gives the birds lots of places to perch and wait or hang out.

The top photo has a mourning dove and a finch, and the bottom has two sparrows (one head-down in the feeder).

This also hangs in that tree. Holly took this one; it was in her photobucket. It's a "finch sock" and has thistle seed that they pick out of the holes in the cloth.


So I saw that photo today, but not those very birds today.

Christmas for Kirby

In a sad miscarriage of postal justice, Kirby's Christmas box arrived today. We sprung for priority mail, and a priority mail tape and sticker were put on, but it was insufficient to get it on a plane instead of a truck, apparently. Two other packages mailed the same day at the same time did arrive two days before Christmas.

For the past two weeks I've felt like a really, terrible, horrible mother. The first year one of my children wasn't home for Christmas, he had nothing. Zip. Poor Kirby! (Kirby handled it better than I did.)

On Christmas Eve, by internet/modem/magic, he played Guitar Hero and Halo 3 with Marty and Holly, so they were all together, sort of, with them keeping him from being as really alone at home without gifts as he actually was.

When he called and said the box was there, he was on his way to work and was going to take it and open it there. There are half a dozen little gifts, nothing earth-shattering, not a laptop like Marty and Holly got (Kirby already had a very spiff computer, better than they had then or have now).

Oh yeah, that Guitar Hero they were playing? Gift from Kirby. Yeah. His gift to us arrived. Our gifts to him did too! (January 5.)

Twelve Days of Christmas is a cute song (once every three or four years) but it should have nothing to do with real gift delivery!

I feel way, WAY better now.

Five Favorite Posts project

Zenmomma tagged me in a cool "archive-meme." I don't use the sorting tags for my posts. Now I wish I had. I figure all of mine are about my family and unschooling, but now I find I need to dig through to find friends and myself.

My favorite post about family:

Three teens! I have three teens!

My favorite post about friends:

Lunch with Carol
This one doesn't have a photo, but it has important credits.
A friends blog was hard to narrow down. I only have a few, but all seemed important. So after you look at the other "real answers," if you want to see my runner-up favorites, Sorooshians, Howard, Bo on a trip to see Wendy and Anne (not appearing in that film), and Ben. I wrote about "conference friends" here.

My favorite post about Moi:

I Think I'm Getting Old

My favorite post about something I love:

Flowers, compost, patience, trees

Finally, a favorite post of my choice:

Finding Beauty

This wasn't easy at all! "Something I love"? (Looking up at the photos makes it seem I love flowers, but I don't feel like "a flower lover.") I love my kids, my life, my house, my yard, the SCA, my friends, music, my website. I have a whole blog about my website! On this blog, there's a post on my History page and moving toys, and more on my pages at aboutunschooling.blogspot. The Virgin Mary's diaper bag is the most recent news there at the moment. Some serious history of my own discovering! (well... indirectly...)

Thank you for reading. If you want to jump in and do one of these, leave a note here with a link to your blog, please! (I'm declining to tag this time, but I do think it's a cool game.)