daily life

In Which I Immediately Crash Our New Car

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Tony’s already broken this story on Facebook, which I guess is appropriate, since he’s kind of the hero, and I’m kind of the villain. And our car is kind of the victim.

About a month ago, we were in the market for a new car. “New” as in “new to us.” Since, as you know, Craigslist is our preferred place to get stuff we can’t get for free, Tony spent a good several days checking out the used car market in Orlando. Our basic criteria were that it be under $2500, run reliably, and not be a gas guzzler.

Really, is that too much to ask?… Read more

Working Mother

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I think it’s time to tell you all my big news. I didn’t just happen to decide to go to the Social Security Office because it sounded like fun. The reason I needed a new Social Security card this week is that I have a new job!

Yep, I’m excited. Although I’ve done work from  home in the meantime, it has been quite a while since I worked full-time away from home, and I am definitely ready to leave SAHMhood behind.

Don’t get me wrong. I love my kids, and I enjoy spending time with them. If I didn’t like being with them, at the very least I would have sent them to school rather than kept them home with me all day for educational purposes.… Read more

Our Bureaucracy Fix for the Day

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Raj and I took a little jaunt down to our local Social Security Office today. We don’t have much occasion to visit government offices here in the U.S. In fact, I haven’t been anywhere since I went to the DMV to get a Florida Driver’s license almost exactly one year ago. I like to think of enduring these types of visits as a sort of bureaucracy tax we pay for the privilege of living under an organized government, except that instead of taxing money, they’re taxing our time and patience.

Our first reason for going was fairly straightforward. I lost my Social Security card a few years ago.… Read more

Raj’s First Birthday Party

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

It’s been quite a while since I planned my last kid birthday party. In fact, the first and only birthday party we’ve ever done was for Axa’s first birthday. It was quite a gala affair, complete with multiple party games, sugar-free carrot cake, and even real scrapbook-style homemade invitations. Since then, we haven’t really done birthday parties, partially because we’ve been slow-traveling all over the world and things have been crazy, and partially because I’m just not one of those Pinterest moms. We usually go somewhere special as a family to celebrate a birthday, like SeaWorld or the Zoo, and I make cake and the birthday child’s requested meal, and then we open presents as a family.… Read more

The Joys of a Liquid Diet

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

As I mentioned in my last post, I had jaw surgery two and a half weeks ago. No, I don’t really want to talk about it, since thinking about what my surgeon was doing while I was out still makes me queasy (if you’re absolutely dying to know, you can look up orthognathic surgery on Wikipedia and learn all the gory details. There, I just taught you a new word). Nor did I take pictures of myself after the surgery, when I looked like a cross between a gigantic chipmunk and a basset hound. Because some things are just better left to the imagination.… Read more

Meanwhile, Back at the Castle

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

One of our less brilliantly successful forays into attachment parenting was The Family Bed. When Axa was born, we had a queen-sized mattress on box springs on the floor. Unfortunately, it was Tony’s old bed from when he was growing up, and he still had his old habit of sleeping diagonally on it. That technically still left half of the space on the bed open, but it was not very usable space, since it was bisected by him. I got my revenge when I was pregnant, because I slept on the wall side and rolled my very pregnant body right over him every time I needed to go to the bathroom (which at eight months pregnant was pretty often).… Read more

Dumpster Diving in Deltona, Part 2

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

When it comes to the frugal branch of the homemaking arts, I am pretty much a failure as a couponer. In fact, I’m lucky if I manage to redeem the coupons stuck right on the package for instant savings. But I do have a nose for other people’s garbage. Because I’m all for saving the earth, saving money, and saving hassle.

Since my last post on dumpster diving in May, I’ve taken abundant advantage of the fact that people leave all sorts of goodies out next to their garbage can on garbage day. Every so often on that magical day I take a walk or a bike ride around the neighborhood to see if it’s my lucky day.  … Read more

Thanksgiving–the day after

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Soooo . . . I was really dying to write this post, but then I decided not to because I figured nobody would really be interested in yet another post about what I ate for Thanksgiving. But then Michelle (through whom I am vicariously living in Umbria) asked me how it all turned out, and I figured, as I usually do, that if one person is saying it then there must be at least ten or twenty of you thinking the same thing. Right? So here’s a little rundown on how all those Thanksgiving recipes actually worked out for us.… Read more

Christmas Ornament Memories, Part 2

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

I really had too many “special” ornaments on my Christmas tree to fit into one day, so here are some more.

This one is a leaf made out of clay. The color didn’t really come through in the picture, but it is glazed with a deep, shiny gold. It’s also very, very heavy for a Christmas ornament of its size, and you can probably see where it was broken in half one year and carefully glued back together. My Young Women’s president at church, Sharon Duqué, made these for all the Young Women one Christmas. In the northern California town where I grew up, there are still huge oak trees standing around town that are left over from before there were any people or houses.… Read more

Christmas Ornament Memories

Sarah Bringhurst Familia

Growing up, I remember how much fun we had every year getting out the Christmas ornaments for the tree and reliving the memories. There were the delicate balsa wood birds my dad had made when they were very first married, and the fascinating blue amulet from Greece that Jesse’s birth-midwife gave him as a baby to ward off the evil eye. One of my favorites was a little salt dough ornament that our beloved pet rat, Walker, had nibbled the foot off one year. We kept it even though it was a little mangled, to remind us of her.

Now that I’m all grown up with my own family and Christmas tree, I’ve had some time to collect my own ornaments.… Read more