1, 2, 3. By my Dad's office at work there is an old pear tree, so he brought me two big hauls (the first batch went bad before I got around to doing anything with it, woops!). They're sort of hard pears that don't exactly ripen quite right, awful for eating but great for cooking. I made pear sauce for the first time and it was downright luxurious. Just peeled and cored pear chunks, a splash of vanilla and a dash of cardamom. Cook down and puree. Delicious.

4, 5. Indy has plenty of toys, and in truth she plays with a lot of them very frequently, but sometimes when she's spent the whole morning in our hair and had a million time outs I realize that maybe she's more bored than naughty. Then it's pantry items to the rescue. Mixed dried beans (which she calls "coffee beans," very appropos I suppose since she loves to put them in her little coffee/tea cups) and quick homemade playdough.

6. This guy. He's reached that gnaw-on-every-thing-and-I-mean-everthing phase. Parents everywhere, you know what I'm talking about. I don't even necessarily think teeth are imminent, but you never know.

7. Toasting spices for homemade pho.

8, 9, 10. Wool. Pulled out a bunch of wool diaper covers a few days ago, and found some of those awful moth larvae and their holey evidence. Boo. Moved everything to the cedar chest in our room and threw a lavendar sachet on top of them. Washed and lanolized a few and (no! not blood!) dyed a few. Unsweetened kool-aid packets are basically an acid dye, so they work wonderfully on protein fibers like wool and silk. Some of Indy's wool wraps were stained with no hope of recovery, but now they're red and adorable and look good as new.

When I was young, around the age of 10, I used to reply that I wanted to be a "bugologist" when asked what I wanted to be when I grew up. I liked bugs. A lot, actually. But the response was born out of equal parts genuine interest and perceived identity. I liked bugs, and others picked up on that, and then they spoke that identity back to me and it became this thing that felt more like it was put onto me than exuding out of me. After my bugologist days I went through a brief frog-loving phase, then, as school progressed, I was an "academic," then a writer, then a short stint in college taking psychology classes so that I could become a counselor (something I genuinely did NOT want to do). I still love writing (hence this space), but it wasn't until I met Alan that I discovered and exerted more of my own passions and identity. Also, when you get married people tend to assume you're responsible for yourself and stop telling you what to do so much (it's kind of nice). Speaking into other people's lives is neither abnormal nor intrinsically bad; I think it is people's natural way of delighting in the personalities and passions of their loved ones. Still, all of us "speaking" should pair it with careful listening and asking, and all of those listening should learn to filter voices and think a little independently. I think all of us become aware of those voices at some point, and then travel the journey of understanding how they have defined us, taking what is good, and then finding our identities on our own. It's a coming of age sort of process, I suppose. Anyways, this post isn't building up to some great proclamation about knowing exactly who I am now, because I'm still in the process of figuring that out. But in the absence of other voices defining it for me, I've both realized that I don't really know, and I've been able to work at that definition on my own (or at least between God and myself), and things become ever clearer with time. 

As parents, Alan and I sometimes wonder and marvel at what our children might become. What will they be like? What will their talents be? Hopefully (Lord willing) there will be many more of them, and they will all be so different, with different dreams, and we get to see it all unfolding! That is so fun! What richness! I pray for wisdom as I help mold, and watch unfurl, their little souls!

As far as Indy goes, she is like me in many ways and not like me in many ways. The other day we found this guy hanging outside our porch window, so we caught him in Alan's childhood bug-catcher and brought him into the porch to get a better look. 

I think praying mantises are so cool!

I decided to let him out so that we could see him better. 

Indy's reaction?

Perhaps she'll pursue theater? We'll see :)