Have I mentioned the snow?

Trying to get from the garage to the back door, originally uploaded by audcrane.

Photos of Telluride and the snow on Flickr.

All kinds of news...

You'd think without a real job I'd have plenty of time for blogging, and I'd think so too, and yet, here we are, a month later.

Well of course my big news is that I've left The Magellan Network and am freelancing 20 hours a week. Somehow I am more frantic than ever, trying to squeeze everything into those 20 hours and failing. Still, I am enjoying being slightly less stressed out about what's happening at Magellan, and more time with my baby girls. I am cooking and baking like a madwoman, and not doing near enough laundry, but I'll get it all evened out somehow. It seems like there is more than enough work for me, at least right now, so that's nice because it's pretty hard not to be paranoid about money with no "real" job between us.

Ryan is working full time now and more, and less. As with most freelanccing when it rains, it pours, so we are adjusting to that too. I think he's pretty hapy, though we do have a space challenge we need to address. Too bad there's so much snow outside or I'd be ringing up ToughShed for an exterior office space! He went snowboarding yesterday in Telluride, which is as close as I've ever been to the Alps in the United States. I gather it was an incredible day.

Calliope has just started signing. We think to ourselves, 'finally!', because Clementine was signing at 10 months, but really Calliope is right on track. She has taken her first steps, two weeks ago, so in that way she's ahead. She's such a physical baby, which I know is typical of the second child, but there are things I don't think can be attributed to that. She figures out toys that need squeezed in a certain place faster, she learned to eat and drink much more quickly... She is still crawling most of the time, but will walk a few steps if it's convenient, and she stands, squats, and then stands again without any trouble at all. She is signing 'all done', which frankly is the one we've tried hardest to teach her in order to put a stop to the very loud complaining when she wants out of her high chair. She also just today started signing water, which she signs with her index finger to the mouth, *very* cute. Her favorite thing to do right now is hold someone by the hand and walk around tugging her little wooden car behind her. She also discovered that someone can be her sister. Clementine does a great job at this, even though she wishes Calliope would go the direction SHE wants to go. Really, really cute.

Clementine also manages to feed Calliope when she won't eat from anyone else, hurrah!

Clementine's language skills continue to amaze us. She says things like, "But the POINT is..." and talks about her teachers offering to put on her socks but, "I refused them." She is having amazingly vivid dreams that wake her up most nights wanting whatever she's dreaming about: watermelon, cake, or my favorite, "something else". Even if it's something easy like water, we never offer her the right water, and it just makes her mad. We have been talking about lucid dreaming, and she declared one morning that she'd remembered she was dreaming and turned the mean little men she'd been dreaming about into pink ponies. Who knows, seems reasonable that it would be easier for a 2-year-old to learn to have a lucid dream than an adult, right? These conversations do seem to help with the dreams, but maybe I'm just fooling myself. We have been talking about her birthday and have decided today it will be a dance party. I'm excited, and have posted to Durango Freecycle to borrow a disco ball.

Speaking of that, here is the most recent post to Durango Freecycle:

Beautiful (or fat, depending on what you need) young Barnevelder
roosters. Also, not for dinner, one gorgeous New Hampshire Red
rooster. He's dominant, but not mean, he's a pet. And also not for
dinner, a Golden Pencilled Hamburg bantam rooster. He's pretty, but
needs a home with fewer roosters and more hens.

Okaaaayyyy, now here's the most recent post to San Francisco Freecycle:

I have 44 issues of Yoga Journal running from Feb 2001 (#158) to December 2007 (#207) - this is not a complete set, but it's pretty close (missing 6 issues).

On Durango Freecycle I've seen horses, requests for baby monitors so the requester can hear when the "goats get out", and lots of various other country-living farm stuff that I don't even understand. It does make me feel like a fish out of water. Add to this, as I write the Oscars are on, and a good 40% of the movies I have never even heard of. And the latest post to the Durango Parents group was an 18-year-old mother of 1 already who is pregnant again who is looking for a place to socialize with moms who aren't "so old". >sigh< I have subscribed to The New Yorker in an effort to stave off the feeling that I'm adrift.

Ok, more posting now, I promise. And let us know if you have any work to send our way!