Monday Missives - Boot Camp

One reason I haven't been writing very much this summer is because I've been getting my writing fix in composing letters to my boy.  I thought it might be fun to share some of our messages (he's ok with it - I asked!) on Mondays.

(Alec, middle of July) The weather has been crazy!  It has been 100 degrees plus almost every day that I have been here.  That generally means that by mid-day we are in "heat cat. five" uniforms, which consist of unbuttoning the wrists of our jackets and rolling up our pants to the top of our boots.  (I haven't gotten one blister yet, although my feet are sore every day.)  By dinnertime we have to go take a cold shower and change into P.T.s, (short sleeve shirt and shorts).  But the last few (3) days we have had rain and thunderstorms.  I love the rain, but it makes training miserable in unbearable ways.

(end of July) I'm still adapting to the military lifestyle... We are still in red phase.  Red phase is what they call total control, we can't do anything without a drill sergeant.  Once we phase up to white phase, we get more time at night for personal stuff, which means that you will get letters more frequently.  

(Answering some questions we asked)  Is basic hard?  Yes and no, because it is physically demanding on you every day, and you are sore 24/7.  Yes because of all the mental stress and pressure they put on you.  Drill sergeants are always yelling, you're always running.  No, because it's like summer camp sometimes.

What do I do for fun?  Nothing.  I have no time to myself.  That's the short answer.

What is basic like?  A lot of P.T., yelling and running, and classes that put you to sleep.

What is my schedule like?  Wake up at 0400 or 0500, formation for accountability at 05:45, P.T. from 0600 to 0700, change, breakfast at 0800 to 0900, training until noon, lunch for half an hour, back to training 'till 1700, train, clean, personal time for 30 minutes, then lights out at 2130.

I have to say, I do miss home.  I miss just being able to go for a bike ride or take a nap whenever I want to.

(from my recent letter)  We survived the first day of school.  David went to school a day early, for the 7th graders to find their classes and get lost without fear of getting pounded.  He did get lost a few times, but he's getting it down fairly quickly.  He has men's dance, and thinks he'll be able to do the splits by the end of the term.  

Ben's choir teacher had exclamations about how long his hair is getting.  She doesn't want him to cut it because they are doing an Elvis song for their fall concert, and his hair (dyed dark, of course) would be "just perfect" for an Elvis pompadour.  Ben is typically hesitant to even try out for the solo, not liking to perform in public.  

Chris is happy that he is playing tenor saxophone again this year, instead of having to lug around the heavy bari.  He is in the AP computer science class that normally only seniors take - and he's bored so far.  I think he will really enjoy that one.  

We walked Eddie to school today... and Trent called in a bit late to work so he could come along, too.  Eddie already likes his teacher a lot.  It was a hard decision to figure out where he should go to school, but I think we made the right choice (to have him at our neighborhood elementary).  I'm at peace now and the worried, anxious feelings have vanished.

I am looking forward to spending some focused time with these little ones (Angel and the twins) in home preschool (I have taught preschool at home to all the children).  I think some of their recent trends of temper tantrums and moodiness is due to not having enough mental challenges.  No matter how much we'd like to quit something uninteresting, or how much we think we deserve a break, the fact remains that we are not meant to be sedentary creatures.  Our bodies, minds, and spirits were designed to be stretching and growing.  As soon as we get comfortable in a state of relax, we start to atrophy,  Our muscles weaken, our minds get mushy, our resolve starts to dissolve.  There is nothing wrong with resting - we do require some downtime - but it needs to be short.  Continuing and working and enduring is what we should be about.  Not too fast, but just steady.

Love, Mom 

Enjoying Summer?

We sure are!

Amazing views, wonderful families, happy together.  Not without hitches, to be sure, but this is how life is happy.

Love this.

Chicken Coop Update

This is a case when a project (although it would be nice to just have it done already!) becomes an opportunity to get other things done.

Like remembering that you have to build on a solid foundation.

Like listening to each other and learning to appreciate other people's experience.

Like remembering the childish delight of figuring out how things work.

Like feeling that satisfaction of making progress, rather than waiting for completion to be happy.

Ben, with Chris assisting

Chris and Ben

Ben and Alec

Like watching the boys learn to work together, and just buckle down to get a job done.

 Like growing enough faith that someone else knows how to steady themselves, and not worrying.

We put the chicks in when it was this much finished.  The windows were framed but not cut out - the door was cut out but propped back in place with boards and heavy bricks.  Good enough for now.  

 Like figuring out when things are "good enough" to work for a while and take a break.

 Ben took a chance to try out par kour, climbing on and jumping off the roof.

Right now we've got the roof on, the painting done, most of the finish trim up, the run fenced, and the window screens in.  And our chickens are happy.  Still have some work on the inside to do (permanent roosting bars, nesting boxes, shelving, and a sick chicken hospital), but we'll get there.  I think we've learned a lot in the process, even though we're not done yet.

Take The Kids To The Movie

Already.  They've been wanting to go to the movie, you know.  But you're too hot and too sluggish.  Ben finally took them yesterday, but they had to walk the mile-and-a-half back, sweaty and dejected because the show sold out.  But I think they are still wanting to go.  They even "spilled cans of paint" on the driveway to spell it out.  Maybe you should take them?

One Last See Ya Later

I just found this picture and it made me all mother-heart happy.  The Monday before Alec left for boot camp, we all went to an outdoor ampitheater to listen to Ben sing with his a cappella group.

Alec had come from a meeting, so he drove back home in a separate car.  I stopped and watched him walk away, thinking that I'd best get good at watching him leave.

But I liked the thought of him going into the light - to new horizons and exciting challenges.  It's fun, in a heart-wrenching way, to watch your kids grow up.

Big Families, Big Pans

I thought I'd write a note about cooking for a family of ten.  Already our family is starting to shrink, with Alec at boot camp and Chris spending the summer as a scout camp counselor.  Trent works most evenings, so I don't have to cook for him, either.  And if Ben is gone galavanting, the house feels so empty that I wonder if it is worth making dinner at all!  Keep in mind that when these four are gone, we "only" have six mouths to feed, but the rest of us eat less than the man and the teenaged boys do!

So I shall remind myself what it is like to cook a large meal.  I will need this information again, because Alec will be home for Christmas, and I'll have all ten again.  Hooray!

Potatoes - my mother taught me to cook a medium potato for eat person, plus a couple.  This rule of thumb works pretty well for us, even considering that the youngest three might split one potato between them.  Leftover baked potatoes not bad to have around.  If I am making mashed potatoes, however, I should use five potatoes just for Chris.  Extra mashed potatoes can easily be made into potato patties for breakfast, or used to thicken a soup.  As if we ever had leftover mashed potatoes!

Pasta - two pounds are good for a meal with a salad.  And about that much sauce.  I rarely measure - I just make it until the pasta is moist but not soggy.

Meat - we don't eat much meat as a solo entree.  We do use meat in other dishes, though.  For a barbecue, the bigger boys will easily eat three burgers a piece.  Total burgers = 18 to 20.  For the meat we use in a dish such as tacos, 2-3 pounds is a bare minimum.  Trent likes to stretch the meat by adding oatmeal, beans, rice, or corn (or whatever else he finds in the fridge), which gets lukewarm reviews.

Cereal -  a big bag for breakfast, if we are in a hurry.  Cold cereal is our Sunday morning go-to breakfast, because it is quick ans self-serve.  If we are having a slower breakfast, it may be closer to two bags.  For hot cereal, we usually use about 5-6 cups of dry oatmeal/farina (which is cooked with a 1:2 ratio with water) or 4-5 cups of cracked wheat/six grain/steel cut oats (cooked with a 1:3 ratio with water).  Yeah, it goes in the big pot.  If we are having eggs and hot cereal, then use half that amount.

Bread - if everyone is home, we can easily polish off three loaves of bread daily: one for breakfast toast and two loaves for lunch sandwiches.  If we are hungry, add another loaf.  If the bread is fresh and hot, coming right out of the oven, subtract an entire loaf with butter and jam right there!  Trent usually makes a 4-loaf batch of bread about every three days.

Eggs - 18 for breakfast, as long as we have other things with the eggs, like sausage and toast.

Condiments - a big (big!) bottle of salsa will last us for a month.  A bottle of mayo is gone in a week.  Ditto with peanut butter and barbecue sauce.  A pound of butter might last a week, unless we make cookies or other nummy things.  A quart of jam will last a couple of weeks, though.

Drinks - we can guzzle a gallon of juice (slightly less of milk) at a meal, so usually we just have water.  Tastes great, and is less filling.

Ice cream - evaporates around here.  Just always have one of those big gallon tubs on hand.  Or two or three, because we can easily eat a whole tub for dessert.  Especially if it's strawberry and Ben is home.

Produce - a dozen apples will do us for lunch.  An entire head of lettuce makes a nice dinner salad, with a quarter head of cabbage, some cukes or tomatoes, and three or four good carrots thrown in.  Plan on a dozen bananas for breakfast.  I'll use two bags (2 pounds) of frozen veggies for a dinner.  Medium-sized fruit (apples, peaches, oranges, etc.) go one per person.  A medium watermelon will work for a dinner and lunch the next day - unless we are thirsty or outside - and then we'll eat it all up!

Containers - two 9x13 pans are required for casseroles.  For German pancakes or something fluffy, we need three 9x13 pans.  One 9x13 for cake (and we'll polish it off).  I love the big bowls my sister-in-law got for us!  They are big enough for a large salad - and I don't have to serve pasta out of the pan.

Cooking for a big group doesn't really take much more time - you just need bigger dishes and bigger sizes and a bigger table and a bigger mindset!  Cleaning up, however, is a different story.

An Addition!

We have a new critter at our house!  We almost had a duck, because the neighbors found the cutest little fuzzy duckling wandering around in the street.  But I guess they decided to keep it.  Darn.

No, our newest critter is much bigger.

This isn't a photo from our house, but it tells the same story.

And less wanted.  A mama raccoon has been bringing her four babies to our porch every night to eat all our cat food.  At first it was cute, then not so cute, then expensive to feed all of them and our cats.  And now the mama raccoon is starting to get a little snippy with our pets.  We're afraid that if we don't put out the food, she'll go after our chickens.  It's wildlife extortion, that's what it is.

So we're looking for a nice way to subtract our additions.  Our local animal control doesn't do wildlife, so Trent has been watching coon trapping videos on YouTube.  We'll see how it goes.  Hope it doesn't get nasty!