Free of Conflict

Here darling pumpky wumpky is with dear old Uncle Alex. My apologies for the blog doldrum, we were visiting some friends on the Oregon coast foDon't you love the tunic?r the past few days. The town is called Yachats. Roll that around your brain, how do you think it would be pronounced? Yeah chats? Yak hats? Oh no. You'll never guess, just give up now.
It is indeed: Yah hots. (Yah like how the Canadians say it.)

Five folks currently live in a farm house on 96 acres in this quaint see town. There are cows and one chicken (named Lonely) and gardens galore. We ate wonderful vegetables freshly picked. I love gardens for that, not only are there always vegetables to eat you feel like you have to keep up with the garden and eat more and more veggies. So tasty.

Notable happenings of our trip: croquet game on the beach (Alex won), fresh tuna and home made sushi rolls, a three hour hike up a mountain, listening to records, a whiskey fountain, and the calm quiet I've been missing since moving to the big city. I had a great time and look forward to our next visit.

More good news: we found a place to hang our hats! Home sweet home has found us at last and funny enough it's the same home I called my own the last time I lived in Portland. We'll be living in the same room even, which is a little strange but it works. I think we'll be moving in sometime next week. So if anyone has my old address on Killingsworth that is where you can find me once again.

More new news, I have a CELL PHONE now. I know, iz crazy. E-mail me for the number if you want to call. I really like it. Leaving the house and making phone calls is such a luxury. I feel like I have joined the world. There are no pay phones anymore and if there are they cost fracking 50 cents. Nah ah.

Some updates about school, I am almost done with my online class, Gender and Development. I have really enjoyed it and am excited to take more classes Fall term. I'll still be sticking exclusively to online classes so as to enjoy my bundle of wonder. Next term my potential classes are: Gossip and Shop Talk (study of different forms of communication), Grammar and The Sentence (I don't know why but I am intrigued...), and Peace History. All are currently full actually and I am relying on the teachers to grant me permission to overflow their courses. Cross your eyelashes please. It worked so well for the writing class.

Speaking of which that's going pretty well. I am having some difficulty cracking the formula of bam bam children's story. In so few words so much must happen. I am not used to being frugal with words. Clearly. Also, the conflict is so important according to my teacher. Most of my tales are more like a lolligaggle through some entertaining woods with a little hilarious sprinkled in. My teacher keeps stressing that I need a more important conflicts, more to be at stake. I am trying to remember my favorite books when I was a kid and I don't really recall that much conflict par say. Blueberries for Sal, what was the conflict there again? The bear? Goodnight Moon, not such a conflict. Harold and the Purple Crayon? Harold just drew his heart out, not to save his grandmother's life, not to make the tennis team, not to outrun the tropical storm. Hmph. I will take it for what it's worth, even though I am not feeling right now that the kind of story that will earn my instructor's approval will necessarily be a good story.

And last but not least the Ezra Darling update: he is sleeping, soundly, like an angel. He is getting much better at sitting up and can sit on his own for approx 30 seconds to a minute before he teeters over which is really quite cute to watch. He is babbling more, words that sound like dada actually. Mama I tell him over and over again. His shrill shrieks continue. Once at the farm someone stopped by and heard Ezra's shrieking and thought there was a new parakeet in the house.

Here's a video to give you a better idea.