Never A Dull Moment

History Repeats Itself

2010-04-14T09:49:00.005-04:00

Just when you thought your children had learned from their mistakes, they set out to prove you wrong. In January of 2009, DS had been whittling and managed to slice up his right index finger in such a manner as to require a trip to Urgent Care. Well, guess what? He did it again!

Right after school, I took DD to her piano lesson. I left DS at home, alone, as I've done many times before during DD's lessons. Upon our arrival back home, I discovered bloody bandages on the kitchen floor! I called out for DS and he came slowly walking into the kitchen....with a HUGE bandage on his left index finger (I'm pretty sure he used about 6 feet of medical tape to hold the bandage on!). Upon inspection of the obviously injured finger, I immediately had the kids get in the van and off to Urgent Care we went. At this point, it was nearing 5pm, and DD had to be at school for her musical program by 6:30pm....so I called DH to have him pick her up on his way home from work so she would be able to get supper before going to the school.

After a very long wait at Urgent Care, during which DH did come and get DD, we were finally finshed. After very nearly lopping off the tip of his finger, DS now has this lovely bandage on his finger for the next several days:Meanwhile, it was already 6:15pm....almost time to be at DD's school! So my mother-in-law met DS and me at Urgent Care so she could take him to get a quick supper before dropping him off at his Boy Scout meeting, while I quickly headed home, arriving just in time to leave for the school with DH & DD.

After watching DD's musical program, I finally arrived back home to stay at almost 8pm. It was then I started finding out just how much bleeding DS had done....and in how many places! Besides the kitchen, he had bled in his bedroom, the upstairs bathroom, the master bathroom, the carpet in my room, and on the quilt on my bed! I found bloody bandaging in the hallway, in the family room, and next to my bed. I must say, after discovering all of this, and knowing how DS reacts to blood/all things medical, I am very impressed that he remained as calm as he did during the 10 minutes after it happened before I got home. I did ask him why he didn't call me when it happened, to which he replied, "I was already busy having a conversation. I was praying!" (He said he was praying God would make the bleeding stop and heal his finger.) I must say, we must be doing something right in raising this child if his first thought in a crisis is to call on God rather than a human. :)

Hopefully, this time DS has learned his lesson. Be careful with the knife! And never whittle when he's home alone! Ah, the joys of motherhood!

It's Monday!

2010-04-05T09:07:00.002-04:00

Yep, it's Monday. Definitely Monday. One of "those" days. Yep. What a way to start the week. I'm sure you're wondering what happened....especially as it's only 9am on this particular Monday. Well, both kids had a part in this one.

Neither child could find their sneakers this morning. And both of them have gym class today. Which, of course, means that both of them need their sneakers today. I don't know how they do it, but it seems that if they both need something on a particular day, then both of them will have "lost" that item. Go figure. So, of course, neither realized this until it was time to head out to the bus stop this morning to go to school. So there was a lot of frantic looking all over the house.....with no luck! So I sent DD off to school in her Crocs with the promise that I would continue looking for her shoes & bring them to her if I found them. I gave up looking for DS's and called my parents. We had been at their house this weekend for Easter. Guess what!!??!! YEP!! DS's shoes are at my parents' house.....an hour away from here!

So what did we do to solve this problem? Well, I sent DS to school in his sandals. For gym class? For that, I sent his very old, too-small, missing-the-shoestrings-sneakers (which are in very pitiful shape considering he used them all last summer to wear when he mowed the grass & other such stuff) in a bag with him to use just during gym class. And to solve the missing-shoestrings problem? Good ol' duct tape of course! So, yes, my son will be wearing duct-taped falling-apart shoes for gym class today (and for who-knows how long considering his better shoes are currently an hour away!). Ah, the joy of children.

Oh, and for DD? I finally remembered that she had last worn her sneakers on spring school picture day last Thursday....carrying her sandals that she was going to wear for the pictures in a bag to be able to change into them later in the day. Then I remembered that she had come home Thursday wearing the sandals, not the sneakers! I finally found her sneakers this morning in a bag under her bed and was able to take them to her at school. At least one of my children will be wearing shoes with laces for gym class today!

Spell What?!?

2009-11-13T23:30:00.001-05:00

The things my kids learn in school never cease to amaze me. School is definitely a whole lot different than when I was a kid! After DS had the word regolith last year for a spelling word, I didn't think I would be stumped again so soon. Well, this time it was a word from DD's spelling list. What word did I not know? How many people know what triskaidekaphobia means (much less how to spell it!)? I certainly didn't! Not until this week, that is. Yes, DD's teacher assigned that word for spelling this week. So I learned from my 2nd-grader that triskaidekaphobia is the fear of the number 13. Who knew?! And yes, DD was able to spell the word correctly. Amazing. I guess that instead of asking "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?" they need to be asking "Can you spell better than a second grader?"

Where Did It Go??

2009-08-19T14:07:00.009-04:00

Wow! The summer just flew by and now the kids have already been in school for a week. Time seems to have this way of zipping past the older I get. We did have a lot of fun packed into the last month of summer break. One of the highlights was the visit of friends who moved out-of-state a couple of years ago. The kids (and I!) were excited to get to spend some time with them when they returned for a visit. My friend, J, may have a differing opinion though.....especially after DS & DD taped her eldest son to the floor of the playroom (using an entire roll of masking tape in the process!). And if that wasn't enough, DS also spray-painted him blue after that. Luckily it was only his arm.....which was still a bit blue by the end of their visit..... It must not have been too startling for J though, as she did let 2 more of her children spend the night with us later in the week. While they were visiting we also had some more "normal" adventures as well.....visits to the park, splash time in the fountain (great way to cool off on a hot day!), and a visit to the children's museum. (Please click on the pictures in this post to see the whole picture....they have been chopped off in the post somehow.)
Dale Chihuly blown glass sculpture in the stairwell:
Actual lightsaber prop used in filming the original Star Wars trilogy (temporary exhibit at the museum):Obi Wan Kenobi's spaceship prop used in filming:During this time as well was the local 4-H fair, in which DS entered 3 projects. I'm proud to say he received blue ribbon awards on all three, with his woodworking project being the best.....it scored a perfect 100/100!!
And as a final way to finish out the fun, yet very busy, summer, I took DS & DD to the state fair. We had awesome weather that day, and had a lot of fun. Even though we enjoyed the animals & exhibits, I would have to say that the best part of the experience (and it was their first time to the state fair) according to the kids was getting their first tastes of funnel cakes & elephant ears.

All in all, it was a very fun, busy summer. Now I'm just trying to come to terms with being the mother of a middle-schooler.......

Just WHAT Is That In My Washer??

2009-07-11T19:52:00.004-04:00

I did laundry today....4 loads. In an average week I do around 8 loads of laundry. I refuse to add up how many loads I've done in the past 11 years since the kids have come along (especially since DD spit up so much as a baby that I did at least 2 loads a day for about 4 months!). It never ceases to amaze me the things I will find in the washing machine as I'm doing the laundry. No matter how many times I remind everyone to check their pockets as they sort their laundry, there's almost always something that makes it through.

I've found more rocks than I care to count (both DS & DD have at different times "collected" them), enough coins to buy any entire vending machine's worth of snacks, lip balm (thankfully found before it made its way to the dryer), a few crayons (also found before the dryer), fruit snacks (unfortunately NOT found before the dryer.....putty knife works well to remove these from the dryer drum after it's cooled), assorted candy wrappers, a handful of uneaten candy, loads of tissues (always in the dark load when they appear), rubber bands, toy jewelry, a few rubber snakes, and more things that I'm sure I've forgotten.

There are three things that are even more amusing than the rest. One time I had a wet, furry toy mouse come flying out of the washer at me as I pulled clothes out.....this was only amusing after I realized that it was one of the cat toys and not a real mouse! Last year I heard something clunking loudly in the washer. When I went to see what it was when the spin cycle finished, I found.......two full-sized screwdrivers....yes, TWO! (It was later determined that these came from DH's pockets, not the kids'!!) Today I added to the list of amusing washing machine discoveries. This is what I found:
Yes, two orange disposable ear plugs.....which at first I thought were cheese puffs (not thinking at the time about the fact that had they indeed been cheese puffs, they would have completely dissolved in the wash water). Where did these come from? My son's pockets......where most of the strange things that have shown up in my washer originated. Over the years I've determined that you just never know what strange things will be found lurking in the washing machine.

Fourth Fun

2009-07-07T20:39:00.002-04:00

We had a fun weekend celebrating the 4th of July. Unfortunately there was rain predicted for the actual 4th (Saturday), so the kids set off their fireworks on Friday evening instead. They had a blast! (Pun intended!) This was the first year, for many reasons, that they have had a chance to do their own fireworks. Between the smoke bombs,

sparklers,

and spouting fountain fireworks,

a great time was had by everyone. Also, thanks to my parents' competitive neighbors, the we were even able to see a lot of "traditional" fireworks shooting off high in the sky. The kids are now asking if we will buy them that kind for next year. DH, of course, is just as excited as the kids......

Zoo Adventures

2009-07-03T14:49:00.015-04:00

Earlier this week the kids & I met friends (J & P) at the zoo for a fun-filled day. We had awesome weather...not too hot, not too humid....and had a fun time. We started out the morning at the Oceans exhibit, where the kids had a chance to pet sharks. Both DS & DD declined this opportunity. DD started to but got a little freaked out when the shark came close enough to touch.We then moved on to the area where the kids had the opportunity to touch a starfish. DD did decide to do this and was amazed at how different a living starfish feels from the dead ones she's seen in gift shops.Per DD's request we then moved on to the Dessert Pavilion to view her favorite reptiles. I don't know where she got her love of these things, but she has claimed snakes as her favorite animals for years. She's quite put out with me that I won't let her have one for a pet. From there we went all over the zoo looking at various animals in their habitats. One special exhibit that the zoo has on loan for the summer is the Kimodo Dragons.
After viewing most of the animals (and DD having a chance to also pet her favorite animals), we ate lunch & let the kids play in the spray park in the zoo. We then headed over to the adjacent Gardens to check out the butterfly house. One compliant butterfly even stuck out it's tongue at us:After viewing the multitude of butterflies (which DS was thoroughly bored by!) we checked out some of the rest of the Gardens area to see the frog fountain
as well as some of the pretty flowers that abounded.Then DS & DD spotted this fella:

and quickly decided it was time to go home. All in all it was a very good day. And one of the best parts is no one got hurt, no on got sick, and no one had a total meltdown. Gotta love those kinds of days!

Gone To The Dogs

2009-06-27T14:24:00.003-04:00

Our local art museum is sponsoring a public artwork display this summer entitled "Dog Days of Summer." Several local artists have painted/decorated life-sized statues of dogs that have been placed all over town for people to see. As a part of their kick-off celebration for this exhibit, several elementary and middle school students were invited to have their own dog artwork displayed at the museum for the next month. I am so excited and proud of DD as she was one of the kids who were selected! She is definitely a much better artist than I could ever hope to be. Congratulations, DD!

How To Get The Attention Of Lifeguards

2009-06-23T19:09:00.002-04:00

One of the local high schools offers swimming lessons during the summer. Four days a week they offer "open swim" immediately following the lessons for the public to come and use the pool. Today was the third time I took DS & DD to open swim after DD's swimming lesson. I've always wondered just how much attention the teenage lifeguards are paying to the swimmers at times. Well, today I had the chance to find out.

We had been in the pool for about an hour when the incident happened. DS & DD were throwing diving rings out into the pool and then taking turns going out to collect them. They also decided that I needed to dive after a few as well. As I was coming up from collecting 3 of the rings I hear a loud, piercing scream. Of course it was coming from one of my children....DD. I got ahold of her and put her up on the side of the pool as I tried to figure out why she was screaming. At that point I noticed the blood dripping from her lower lip. So I climb out of the pool and walk her into the girls' locker room to check her out and clean her up. A couple of minutes later, after I had gotten the bleeding to stop, one of the life guards came in with a first aid kit to see if DD was OK. As I answered her that DD was fine, all I could think about was that the response time was not very quick. Hopefully it was just due to the fact that I had already gotten to DD and gotten her out of the pool & was obviously taking care of her.

Now you may be wondering just what happened to DD to cause the bleeding & screaming. Evidently DS had gone to get one of the diving rings and in the process kicked DD in the mouth. (He did apologize profusely when DD & I came back to the pool.) Ah, the joys of children. You just never know what will happen next.....

Always The Unexpected

2009-06-16T23:13:00.003-04:00

I just never know what to expect during even the most mundane outings with my children. One would think that with only 2 kids, life would be a little more bland. But not with my two! We went to the bank this morning. Both kids had done chores for my mother-in-law (who currently needs extra help around the house & yard due to recent knee replacement surgery) and she had paid them for their efforts. So both DS & DD had checks they needed to deposit in their savings accounts. Now, I have taken both kids to the bank many times before without incident and had no reason to believe this time would be any different. They're 11 and 7 now....how difficult could it be? I found out the answer to that today.

I had both DS & DD fill out their own deposit slips (want to start them early on knowing the ins and outs of financial responsibility!), then we headed over to the nearest teller. DD made her deposit first. As I was handing her the receipt, I noticed that the amount listed on it as her current balance was way off....as in about $13,000.00 off!! I pointed out the error to the teller, who realized she had printed off the wrong balance. She quickly corrected her error (at this point I should have realized that things happen in threes!).

DD had picked up a sucker from the basket of suckers while making out her deposit slip and requested to be able to enjoy it at this point. She also then asked to get a drink at the water fountain. I gave her an affirmative response to both requests and let her head off for her drink while DS made his deposit. Just before he finished up, DD runs up to me saying, "Mom! Help! My sucker's caught!" I look over to see her holding out a section of her hair away from her head.....with the sucker dangling from it! I tell DS to finish up his transaction as I take DD to the bathroom to deal with the stuck sucker. (Luckily it comes out very easily by running her hair under a flow of water from the sink....so she ended up with very wet hair, but at least the sucker was out!)

One would assume that DS would be waiting for me just outside the bathroom door as he knew that is where we went. We were only in there for a couple of minutes, but when we exited the bathroom, DS was not anywhere to be seen! Someone else was at the teller's station where he had been. I started looking around (the bank is very small & it's very open with even the doors to the offices being all glass) and couldn't find him anywhere. I even looked out the door to see if he had gone to wait by the van. Nope! At this point the bank manager had come out of her office and noticed me looking around. She asked what the problem was, and when I told her I had lost my son she promptly started frantically looking around the lobby (she started by looking at the kids' area, which is stocked with paper, crayons, a small table, and little chairs....until I informed her that he was a tall 11-year-old!). At this point it dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, he had decided to go to the bathroom. So I went over to the men's bathroom door and hollered in, asking if he was in there. And yes, that is where I found my son. (And when he came out, we had a little chat about letting me know if he was going to be somewhere other than where I was expecting him to be!) I must say, I never thought I would lose my 11-year-old, especially in someplace as small as our local bank. And especially as this is the child who has never been one to wander more than 2 feet from me at any store or such, ever! But I guess that just goes to show that life will never be dull with these two around!

Never Take Your Eyes Off Of Them....

2009-05-31T21:08:00.008-04:00

Friday we had friends over for dinner. So DS & DD had K1 & K2 to play with that evening (K1 is 8, K2 is 2). Most of the time K2 played on his own, although he did join in with the older kids from time to time. So most of the playtime was spent with DS, DD, and K1 playing together. After dinner, while us grown-ups were visiting in the family room, the 3 kids went upstairs to play. Now they are old enough that one would think you don't need to constantly watch them. A lot of giggling was being heard. A lot. I knew they had been playing with a toy that is basically yarn coated in wax, but I could not imagine how it was causing so much giggling. So when we went to see what they were up to, this is what we found:Then we opened the door to the room they were hiding in....and this what happens when two girls gang up on one boy (in case you can't tell, that's a WHOLE roll of masking tape used to bind up his feet and hands):Needless to say they had been having a lot of fun! And this is why you never take your eyes off of them, no matter how old they are.....

The End of An Era

2009-05-27T14:09:00.002-04:00

Today was the last day of the school year for DD & DS. It was an exciting day, yet a touch sad as well. Today was the last day of 5th grade, and thus the last day of elementary school, for DS. He has been at this school for 6 years.....Kindergarten all the way through 5th Grade. It's hard to believe I have a middle-schooler for a child! Surely it was just yesterday that DS was toddling off with his toy tools, mimicing DH as they worked around the house. Now he's old enough to use real tools all on his own to build/fix things. While I am excited for this new phase of his childhood (what little of it is left!), I am also sad to be finished with this phase of it with him. It also marks the last time DS & DD will be in the same school building, ever. By the time she reaches this point in her school career, DS will be a Freshman in high school!! To think of it that way really makes this all sink in even more.

At school, to celebrate the 5th-graders' achievements, they had them all stand up on stage in front of everyone at school (during the awards ceremony) to be applauded. Then at the end of the school day they had all the other students line the main hallway to applaud the 5th-graders as they left the building for the final time as students of this school. So DS has "left the building," moving from elementary into a new stage, middle school.

Watch It Wiggle....

2009-05-12T14:39:00.003-04:00

I had an interesting "job" to do this week. On Sunday (Mother's Day no less!) I spent the afternoon making Jell-O brains. Yes, you read that correctly....brains made from Jell-O. Oh, the things we will do for our children! The brains were for DS' class at school. They are studying brains this week. Since today was the day I needed to bring them in to school, I made them on Sunday so I would have time to re-do them in case something went wrong with them. Luckily they turned out correctly on the first try. So for the past two days my fridge has been filled with "brains!"When I took them in to school today, the kids were highly amused. They used the Jell-O brains to be able to see in 3-D what the brain looks like (without having to have a "real" brain to look at.....a few of the kids were having enough problems with the Jell-O ones!).After studying the model brains, they were given the chance to then eat the brains as a snack. Nothing like watermelon-flavored brains to start the day out right!

Beware of the Offerings of Children

2009-04-28T23:19:00.002-04:00

Last night I had the opportunity to once again play the role of "Tooth Fairy" for DS. I had no idea he had a loose tooth (he had not mentioned it to me). He said he had no idea it was loose enough to come out. While I should have performed my role on Sunday night instead of last night, I can honestly claim that the delay was not my fault. DS forgot to put the tooth under his pillow (no, he no longer believes in the Tooth Fairy, but he continues to want to play along for the fun of it and actually put his lost teeth under his pillow in order to receive the customary payment for his teeth). I'm sure you're wondering what was so interesting about this particular lost tooth. Let me explain.....

Every previous tooth that DS has lost has been fraught with a bout of nervousness from him about whether or not it will hurt to come out. He's lost enough at this point that he knows it doesn't, but he still gets a little nervous. So I have removed all of his previous loose teeth for him as he has been unwilling to try to pull them out himself. Well, things were different on Sunday. I did not pull out that one. Neither did DS. The tooth was so loose that it fell out on its own while he was eating a snack in his Sunday school class at church. How did I find out about, you ask? I found out when he walked into my classroom, said, "Here, Mom, I have something for you." He then proceeded to drop the tooth into my open hand (with a huge grin on his face at the time). There were quite a few chuckles once the people sitting nearby realized what he had given me. It's not just every Sunday that a mom is presented with her child's tooth at church. Hmmm.....DD has a very loose tooth at the moment. Maybe I should be prepared next Sunday for another presentation.

Making Music

2009-04-27T11:49:00.003-04:00

It's been a very busy time for DD with her piano playing. On the 18th she participated in Junior Festival, which is a piano "competition" in which the kids are basically competing against themselves. They get points based on how well they do, with different point levels achieved providing different color ribbons. At certain cumulative point levels (they accumulate the points year after year to reach higher & higher levels) they receive increasing sizes of trophies. This was DD's first year to participate in Festival. She was very excited to be able to participate, although a bit nervous as well. She performed in 3 different categories: Solo (in which she had to play 2 memorized songs), Duet (in which she had to play 2 non-memorized songs, which she did with her friend AP), and Theory (in which she took a written test over music theory). I am very proud of her achievements: Excellent (blue ribbon) in both Theory and Solo, and Very Good (red ribbon) in Duet.

Then this past Friday DS & DD's school had the annual student talent show. The kids who want to participate have to try out, and then those selected from the try-outs get to perform in the show. This is the 2nd year DD was able to participate. It takes a lot of courage to get up in front of over 700 people (students, staff, parents, etc) and perform. She played one of her memorized solo pieces from Festival, Ladybug Waltz, and did an excellent job! I am so proud of her desire to share her talent, and her being able to perform in front of so many people. For only having taken lessons for one year so far, DD is doing very well in increasing her skills as well as overcoming her shyness to share her developing talent. Great job, DD!

Hair Yesterday, Gone Today

2009-04-19T20:35:00.003-04:00

Last week, after much thinking about it and a decision to wait for more growth for a while, DD decided to cut her hair. Now for most of us, this isn't such a big decision. But for DD this was a huge decision as she has never before had a haircut---she has been growing out her hair for her entire life. So for her to get her very first haircut at the age of 7 years was a big deal. The other decision she made along with this was to donate her hair to Locks of Love, a charity that takes donated hair and makes wigs/hairpieces for children who are dealing with a long-term lack of their own hair (such as alopecia, or in fewer cases children with long-term hair loss from cancer----these children are the minority because in most cases their hair will grow back relatively soon whereas the alopecia children can no longer grow their own hair at all). I was so proud of her for this decision to help other children. In order to do this, and still have the length of hair she wanted after her hair was cut, she waited a few months after making the initial decision to cut her hair to make sure she had enough to donate. So now instead of hair hanging down to where she was sitting on it, her hair is now just barely below shoulder-length. Quite a change for a little girl who is so used to super-long hair! She loves her new hair length and is happy to have been able to help out other children in the process. She is also already talking about letting it grow out again to be able to donate her hair again in the future. It definitely makes a mom proud to see this desire to help others show up in her child.

A Birthday & A Holiday

2009-04-13T13:59:00.005-04:00

Yesterday was a very busy day. It was DD's 7th birthday, as well as Easter! It is hard to believe that DD is already 7 years old! The time has passed so quickly. It has been a fun 7 years and I'm looking forward to what the future holds for DD.....I am so proud of all she has accomplished already.

With the two events coinciding, there was a lot of excitement yesterday. Birthday decorations, birthday cake, birthday presents, family over to celebrate, Easter baskets & goodies, Easter egg hunts.....just so much going on! Because of when her birthday landed, DD requested a bunny cake this year (which she had had once before, when she turned 2 years old). It definitely made the tie in of the two events even more evident. Definitely a fun day!

Happy Birthday, DD!!

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go In The Water....

2009-04-09T19:19:00.002-04:00

This evening DS had a swimming lesson. He takes private lessons at the local university's aquatic center. We have resorted to this method as other, more common methods of learning to swim have failed due to his extreme fear of deep water. I must say, he has done extremely well over the past several months and made great strides in his comfort level in the water, and thus is getting much closer to being able to actually swim on his own. Most of the time when we are at the aquatic center it is a relatively uneventful time.....just a swimming lesson, showering & changing afterwards, and he's done. Not the case this evening.....

DS had only been in the water about 5 minutes when there was a bit of a commotion at the other end of the shallow area of the pool (it's an Olympic-size pool so the shallow area is huge). Soon one of the other instructors was walking over to the near side of the pool with a young child. As she approached the parents sitting in front of me she says, "He threw up in the pool." OK, this is not what you want to hear when your own child is in that same pool! I immediately called out to James to get out of the pool (it's amazing how quickly he moved when I said that!). His instructor came over to see what was going on as well, and then she immediately had the life guard on duty call on the walkie-talkie to the pool manager to report the incident. At this point they both cleared everyone else out of the pool. I sent DS off to shower & change as this meant there would be no more pool time this evening! Clean-up efforts began while he was in the dressing room and it was rather amusing to watch all of these childless college students dealing with this issue (at least from this mom's point of view!).

I think this will go on record as the shortest swimming lesson of all time. And I am relieved that it wasn't due to anything one of my own children did!

The Joke That Never Was

2009-04-03T14:44:00.002-04:00

April Fool's Day was on Wednesday. Many people, including my children, greatly enjoy the antics of this day. My kids spend hours upon hours plotting and planning tricks to play on DH and me. DD spends the day waiting with bated breath for tricks to be played on her (she greatly enjoys this part as well....unless it is DS playing the trick on her!). DS, on the other hand, spends the day trying desperately to avoid being tricked. He tries to stay one step ahead in figuring out what just might be a joke on him so that he won't fall for it. For instance, his teacher this year had put up on the chalkboard that the kids needed to study for a Latin quiz to be taken that day (each day she lists things on the board, in the order that they are to be done, that the students need to accomplish in the morning....then it is up to them to manage their time wisely and get it all done). DS quickly figured out that the Latin quiz must be a joke (yes, they are studying Latin, but no quiz had been announced previously). So even though Mrs. B. was telling the kids that they must have forgotten that she announced it before Spring Break, he was sure she was trying to pull a fast one on them.....and he was right!

Well, I had no joke I was planning on playing on DS. He was sure I was going to though! On Wednesday morning I needed to call my Mom to ask her a question.....only when I called, my brother answered the phone & told me she wasn't there....she was at the emergency room! Now, I know this is not something she would joke about, so it never entered my mind that they would be trying to trick me (especially as they had no idea I'd be calling at 7:30 in the morning!). She had a nosebleed that wouldn't stop after 40 minutes, so my Dad had to take the day off work & take her to the ER. Now, when I told DS about this, he was totally convinced that I was trying to pull an April Fool's joke on him! Nothing I could say would convince him that I had actually called and that my Mom, his Grandma, was actually in the ER! Nothing! Needless to say, when I called later in the morning to check on my Mom, she got quite the kick out of this (and she had her nose taken care of & is fine). She was just waiting to see what would happen when DS got home from school that afternoon.

As soon as DS got off of the bus, he immediately asked if I was ready to tell him "April Fool's" yet! I tried again to convince him that I was not joking, but he would not believe me at all. This went on for a good 1/2-hour. I finally gave up. What finally convinced DS that I was not joking?? My Mom had to scan and email me copies of her hospital ID bracelet (with the date on it!) and her discharge papers (with the date on it AND my Dad's signature, proving he was there!) for visual proof that we were not trying to pull an April Fool's joke on DS and that my Mom had really been to the emergency room that morning! It was too funny! It was definitely better than any real joke I could have ever come up with. Never before have I been able to "trick" someone by not actually tricking them to begin with!

Legos and Dolls

2009-04-01T16:47:00.002-04:00

Last week was a very busy week. The kids were on Spring Break. Now for some people, that means a less hectic time, a time to rest up and get energized for the last few weeks of the school year. Not for us! I think last week was just as busy, if not busier, than any other week we've had this year! Trips to the grandparents' house for the kids, 4-H workshops, swimming lessons, a sleep-over, and then to top it off an extra-special trip the kids had been looking forward to for weeks.

We took the kids to Chicago for a day! DD had decided that this year for her birthday she wanted to do something very different since having a party with her friends on her actual birthday was not an option (seeing as how it lands on Easter Sunday this year). She requested a trip to the American Girl Place in Chicago. DD had been saving up her Christmas money, allowance money, and birthday money to buy herself a doll and she was ready to make her purchase. DS heard her plans and decided against a party this year as well, thinking that a visit to the Lego store in Chicago would be a good replacement. DH & I gave the kids each the amount of money to spend in Chicago that we usually would have spent on their birthday presents. Anything above and beyond that they were responsible for paying for out of their own money. They both readily agreed and the trip was planned (it worked out well as Spring Break landed 1/2-way between both of their birthdays).
We visited the American Girl Place first. DD was beyond excited! (DS, on the other hand, was not so excited----he spent the entire time wandering around with us playing his Gameboy!) She was in absolute awe while looking at all of the dolls and their accessories throughout the store. The store was quite amazing. Two stories of dolls, accessories, books, and clothing, as well as a photography studio, doll hair salon, craft store (to make doll T-shirts or other accessories), doll hospital, sweet shop, and restaurant. As a treat (originally for DD, but DS greatly enjoyed the food as well, if not particularly the pink, dolly atmosphere!) we ate lunch at the restaurant after DD had made her doll selection & purchase. She purchased Chrissa (the "Doll of the Year") with her own money, which she was very proud of,and used her birthday money from us to buy a doll carrier and several books. (I do have to point out at this point that she ended up with an extra book as a reward for finally riding on the escalator in the store. She was terrified of it and refused at first to ride it, but after several attempts finally faced her fear and rode it.....and now loves escalators!)

After lunch we headed down the street to the Lego Store for DS's birthday treat. He was quite excited to be surrounded by so many of one of his favorite toys! There were several very large Lego models built and on display that intrigued both kids. Poor DS had quite a hard decision to make as he tried to figure out just what he wanted to buy. So many Legos to choose from! After filling a small container with loose bricks that you can choose from on your own, he spent a very long time trying to decide which model-building set he wanted. After a while he had finally narrowed it down to the fact that he definitely wanted a Star Wars vehicle.....but there were several of those to choose from! With some very much appreciated help from one of the store employees, DS finally narrowed his choices down, one-by-one, until he chose a set that will make the Twilight starship from Star Wars Clone Wars......and to top it off, it was on sale for 1/2 price! What a deal! He was almost as excited about getting it for such a good price as he was about the Lego set itself!

After finishing up at the Lego store, we headed back to the parking garage to load up and head home. The kids, as well as DH & myself, had a wonderful, fun-filled day in Chicago! The kids had never been there before and were quite intrigued with the sights to see (especially Lake Michigan & the Sears Tower) as much as they were with the two stores we specifically went to see. All in all, a wonderful way to help them celebrate their birthdays!

Musical Performances & Flying Objects

2009-03-18T11:31:00.002-04:00

Last night was DS' last musical performance of his elementary school career. The fifth-graders did a lot of musical numbers from the '20s all the way through Elvis. They played selections on the recorders they have been learning to play all year. I was highly impressed with how well they did! Of course, it seems that something unexpected has to happen during these performances. No, it wasn't when the gymnasts were doing their tumbling act.....they all survived without incident. No, no one choked on the strings holding the recorders around their necks. Instead, it was taken from the stage out into the audience (and no, the audience didn't cause the incident, they received it!).

During one of the numbers, a few kids came up to the front of the stage to mention times when they listened to music (while exercising, while at the beach, while doing homework, etc.). Well, one girl came up and said, "While bowling." And these children had props in their hands. So, yes, she had a bowling ball in her hand....which she swung like she was actually bowling. Only she wasn't supposed to let go.....but she did!! Yes, that bowling ball went flying out into the front row of the audience! Stunned looks from the kids on stage, gasps and squeals from the audience (especially the front row!)! Followed by relieved laughter as the bowling ball bounces as it was made of hard rubber & was hollow (it was one they used during gym class, so it was made to be light and rather harmless). The girl leaped off of the stage, chased the bowling ball until she caught up with it, ran back, and climbed back up on the stage. All of this happened very quickly. There was a short pause in the music, and then it started up again.....once all of the kids on stage had stopped laughing.

So, once again an excursion to my children's school has provided us with unexpected amusement. You just never know what's going to happen next over there!

Case Solved!

2009-03-16T17:03:00.002-04:00

DD has been missing her glasses since Thursday. The kids had a 1/2 day on Thursday (as well as Friday) for parent-teacher conferences. I know that she got off of the bus before lunch with her glasses on her face. By the time I realized she was no longer wearing her glasses it was a little after 4:00pm, while at her piano lesson. I figured she had just taken them off sometime before we left for her lesson (she only needs them for reading and other such close-up work) and forgot to put them back on before we left. We have spent the past 3 1/2 days looking all over the house (even in strange places like under the couch, in her dresser drawers, in the fridge, etc.) for DD's glasses with no luck in finding them. So this morning I even had her look in her desk at school, thinking there was a distinct possibility I had misremembered seeing her with them when she got off of the bus on Thursday. No luck....they weren't at school either. So today I was at a loss of where else to possibly look and almost resigned to ordering her a new pair (which would, of course, had to have been paid for out-of-pocket since the vision insurance won't pay for 2 pairs in under a year) when a funny thing happened. I posted a status update this morning on my Facebook page that I was frustrated about DD's glasses having gone missing. This afternoon I checked my Facebook page to see that DD's piano teacher had commented on my status update that she had found a pair of glasses at her house. So after school today we headed over to the piano teacher's house.......YES!! They were DD's glasses!! I was so relieved! Evidently DD had worn them to her lesson but taken them off and set them aside while waiting for her turn at the piano, then forgot to pick them back up. So DD has her glasses back. Case solved!

Proud Moments

2009-03-16T15:16:00.003-04:00

Today was the end-of-the-9-weeks award ceremony at my children's school for the 3rd 9-weeks grading period. Spring was definitely in the air as all of the school children were more restless than usual. They did, however, cooperate for the most part and remain quiet when necessary, thus proving what an overall well-behaved bunch they are. I am proud of DS and DD! They both made the A/B Honor Roll again this 9 weeks! Great job DS & DD! Mom is proud of you!

Remembering....

2009-03-15T20:09:00.002-04:00

I need to remember something tonight......DD lost her first tooth!! So I need to remember to play the Tooth Fairy. She was quite nervous about this occurrence (it had been very loose for several days but she wouldn't let me near it), but excited at the same time. This afternoon DD & I went to one of the local high schools to see their performance of "Once Upon A Mattress" which is a version of The Princess and the Pea. DD absolutely loved the musical (she loves going to the local high schools' theatrical productions), but about half-way through the first half of the performance she became panicked as her loose tooth wiggled enough to cause the gum to start bleeding. She was adamant that I not pull it there (she wanted DH to watch when she had the first one taken out) but was not happy at all about the bleeding. I quickly gave her a tissue to help staunch the little bit of bleeding so we could make it through the rest of the performance. As soon as we got home, she grabbed DH's hand, I reached in, and out the tooth quickly came. She looked up at me and said, "Did it come out already?" in quite a bit of astonishment. She was sure it would hurt, despite her older brother's reassurances that it would not (and despite having watched me pull out one of his just a couple of weeks ago without him even flinching). After getting over the shock, she ran to look in the mirror to see what she now looked like. Her comment? "Mom, I think that after a while people's smiles start to look a little boring, so losing teeth is one way to make them interesting again." Said, of course, with a big, gap-toothed grin.

Time Marches On

2009-03-07T19:10:00.002-05:00

It's hard to believe but today DS turned 11 years old! Where have those years gone?? It seems like just the other day that he was born, learned to walk (at the ripe old age of 8 1/2 months!), learned to talk, went off to his first day of school..... So many firsts have come and gone. And yet I keep reminding myself that there are so many firsts yet to come. As DS himself keeps reminding me, only 5 short years until he gets his first driver's license, 7 short years until he is first considered an adult..... I am sure somewhere in there will be first dates, first love, and somewhere in the more distant future his first child will bring another set of firsts.

Happy Birthday, DS!!

No Relaxing Allowed

2009-03-03T19:29:00.002-05:00

Just when you think there might be a moment to sit and relax.....life informs you differently. At least at my house that's how it works. Tonight I was in the middle of cleaning up after supper while DH was out running a few miles. DD was supposed to be practicing the piano. DS was driving one of his remote-controlled vehicles around. As I was finishing loading the dishwasher I was just coming to the realization that I was no longer hearing the piano. It was just as I was turning to see why that I hear the loud thud followed immediately by the piercing scream along with DS calling out, "I'm sorry! Are you OK?!" I look over to see DD on the hardwood floor next to the couch (OK, she is a good 7 feet away from the piano she was supposed to be practicing!). As she was crying to hard to tell me what happened as I held her, I asked DS what occurred. DD had climbed up on the back of the couch (it's a reclining couch so it's a rather tall back) and DS had accidentally knocked her off when he bumped into her while driving his RC vehicle. DD proceeded to fall onto the hardwood floor, landing on her right elbow and right knee.

After getting her calmed down and examining her elbow, she was still complaining of it hurting. So to be on the safe side (seeing as how 3 years ago she broke the other elbow in a similar fall) I decided to take her off to Urgent Care for X-rays. DH was not back yet, but I knew he would be soon, so I left DS home to let DH back in the house (DH did not take any house keys with him when he went out for his run because the rest of us were home at the time). At the clinic X-rays were taken and the clinic doctor determined that DD just bruised the bone in the elbow (although the films will be sent to the radiologist tomorrow for further examination to be sure), so for now she just needs ice & pain medication.

Upon arriving home, no one else was home.......we arrived well after DH had to leave for a meeting of the fathers of DS' Boy Scout troupe. Since he had no idea when we would get home, DH had to take DS with him. Ah, the joys of parenthood.......nope, life is definitely never dull around here!

Growing Up

2009-02-25T11:24:00.004-05:00

It's amazing how quickly the years go by when your kids are growing up. It seems like just yesterday that DS was born. Then he started school. Then in first grade, as a little 6-year-old, he joined Cub Scouts. He has absolutely loved being in Cub Scouts. He has had the chance to do all sorts of things, from camping to horseback riding to making and racing pinewood derby cars, and the list just goes on (and of course none of us will forget that scouts is where he learned to whittle, thus providing one of his more recent injuries & trips to Urgent Care!). It has been a wonderful bonding experience for DS and DH as well, as they attend the meetings and activities together. Well, part of that journey has now come to an end. On this past Saturday DS' Cub Scout pack held their annual Blue & Gold Banquet to celebrate the achievements of the scouts. DS and his fellow denmates (they were 2nd year Webelos.....the last year for Cub Scouts) received their Arrow of Light awards:This is the highest achievement a Cub Scout can reach. I am so proud of DS for this accomplishment! After receiving this award, it was then time for the "Crossing Over" ceremony for those scouts going on into Boy Scouts. DS and one other boy from his den crossed over on Saturday and are now Boy Scouts. So while one piece of the journey has ended, another has begun. I am looking forward to seeing what all DS accomplishes in the future, both in Boy Scouts and in other areas of his life, as he moves forward and continues to grow up. And while I will continue to miss my "little baby" I am excited to watch my son as he grows into a young man. Congratulations, DS, I am proud of you!

Yes, She's Definitely My Child!

2009-02-20T16:40:00.002-05:00

Having given birth to these children myself, there is obviously no doubt they are mine. They seem to be determined, however, to keep proving this fact on a continual basis. I have always been accident-prone----from the first broken arm at age 3 (and first set of stitches at around the same age!) and through numerous other broken bones & various injuries over the years it has been an undeniable fact of my life. And as you can tell from previous posts about DS, he seems to be following in these footsteps (albeit in a different manner than I did.....cuts with a pocket knife, burned while camping.....). Well, DD is determined to continue to prove herself as my child as well. While she had her first (and I keep hoping her only!) broken bone at age 4 (she broke her left elbow....strangely the same thing I had for my first broken bone), today she decided to be a walking accident-waiting-to happen.

Immediately after the kids got home from school, we headed out to DD's Daisy Scout leader's house to pick up some more cookies that had been ordered (gotta love Girl Scout cookie time!) so we can make more deliveries. While getting back in the van to come back home, DD managed somehow to close her upper left arm in the sliding door of the van. Luckily (for all the screaming & crying going on.....it had to really hurt!) she only ended up with a large bruise. Then less than 30 seconds after we had walked inside after getting home she somehow stepped incorrectly and twisted her right ankle. Thankfully it was minor enough that after a few minutes she was able to walk on it without any problems. She did decide at that point that she was going to play with a toy that she could play with sitting down in one spot without moving around. I wonder why.....

If It's Hot......It Will Burn!

2009-02-16T16:27:00.003-05:00

This past weekend DH and DS went on a camping trip with Cousin I and Uncle J1. For some reason they find winter camping to be much more enjoyable than warm-weather camping. Personally, I will stay where it is warm. They had a rather "interesting" trip that did not go quite as planned.

At around 10:30pm on Saturday night I received a phone call.....yes, they were calling from the middle of the forest 3 hours away. DS had come down with some intestinal symptoms and nausea. OK, I can talk to him on the phone, but what exactly am I supposed to do from 3 hours away on the phone??? Anyway, I talk to DS for a few minutes then to DH. I found out after they return home the next day that they ended up not being able to spend the entire night at the campsite (which was 1 1/2 miles from the car) & had to hike back to the car for the night. By the next morning DH and Cousin I also were experiencing the same intestinal symptoms as DS (although to their relief, not to the same extent as DS).....and they also realized they had lost their toilet paper supply somewhere in the hike back to the car in the middle of the night. Thus their trip was cut short and they headed back home......with several stops along the way.

By the time they finally arrived home, DS was feeling mostly better, albeit very grumpy from the lack of sleep. As they were relating the tale of their camping experience to me (which we highly suspect was a result of a mild case of food poisoning) DS says to me, "Mom, my hand hurts." I look down.......and see a burn on the outer back side of his right hand!! OK, so you tell me about the intestinal issues but no one thinks they need to mention the burn?? Evidently DS had decided to see if the portable propane heater they had brought along for the first time was hot.......AFTER it was turned on! They answer? YES, it was hot! Hot enough to burn him......and leave the pattern of the mesh grid that was over the heating element on his hand. And while it would have been best to have treated the burn immediately after it occurred, I treated & bandaged the burn as soon as I was told about it. I guess next time I better check to make sure they have the proper type of first aid gear packed for their camping trip.

So while I have always had the goal of providing my children with a loving home and raising them to be good, responsible Christian people, I think I need to focus more on just getting them to adulthood in one piece. For DS, that's only another 7 years 3 weeks 4 days to go! Think we'll make it?

Crisis Averted: Priceless!

2009-02-05T14:58:00.002-05:00

I have decided that one just never knows what will happen when spending time at my children's school. I went in today to take some pictures and help out in DS' class. His teacher had divided the class into groups of 4-5 students and each group formed a business. Each business decided on a product to make to sell. On Sunday several kids met at the store with Mrs. B. to purchase the raw materials needed, and today was the beginning of product production. One group is making notepads. Another is making slime. DS' group is making play dough. A fourth group is providing a service instead of a product----they are offering tutoring. The last group is the one that tried to create a school-wide crisis this afternoon.

The last group is making plastic spoons dipped in chocolate. To do this they needed to melt the chocolate for dipping the spoons into. They first dumped an entire bag of chocolate chips into a plastic bowl, then they placed the bowl in the microwave, and lastly they turned on the microwave. Here is where they made their mistake! I am not sure how long they put the chocolate in the microwave for, but it was definitely too long! I was walking around taking some pictures of the kids working diligently on their projects when I hear DS' voice call out, "Mom! The microwave is smoking!" Sure enough, when I look over at the microwave in the corner of the room, there was a ton of smoke pouring out of it. I called out to Mrs. B. She ran to the microwave and pulled out the bowl of chocolate, opened the nearby window, and held the smoking bowl out the window. DS ran to the other window and threw it open. I grabbed the nearest stack of papers and started waving the smoke away from the smoke detector (oh-so-conveniently located close to the microwave of course!) hoping to keep it from setting off the fire alarm. (Most of the kids meanwhile had the looks on their faces reminiscent of deer in the headlights.)

Luckily we were able to keep the fire alarm from going off, so the entire school did not have to empty out (which would have sent over 700 students out into 12 degree weather!) and the fire department did not have to come to the elementary today. So while it was intended for the kids to learn about supply & demand as well as things like profit margins, they also had another lesson today. When melting chocolate in the microwave, only heat it for short (we're talking like 30-second intervals here!) amounts of time and stir it before putting it back in the microwave for longer. Whatever you do, do not try to do all of the melting in one long segment of time. Instead of melted chocolate you will end up with burnt chocolate and melted plastic.

Cost of worksheets for classroom learning: $0.05 each
Cost of pencils for doing worksheets: $0.10 each
Cost of hands-on learning instead of worksheets: Priceless!

Just When You Thought It Was Over.....

2009-02-03T10:46:00.003-05:00

I'm sure many people thought our floors were completely finished.....nope! We had installed, sanded, stained, and polyed the hardwood floors months ago but due to time constraints with DH being in school (as well as all of the various activities the kids are involved in) we had been unable to install the baseboards and quarter round. Well, we have finally installed them! Woo-hoo! The baseboards and quarter round are now all installed throughout the areas where we installed the hardwood floors. Here is a picture of a small area between the garage and basement doors:
Here is how it looks down the hall now. It is so nice to have the finished look now instead of seeing all the rough edges along the wall. We also painted the hallway before installing the baseboards.....nice, fresh, new feeling in the area now!Here is the dining room. The table is the one we had before installing the hardwoods and it now matches nicely!And a view of the floor, table, new patio door, and the antique secretary we were given that also matches the new decor nicely. It is so nice to have it all finished!And before you think our flooring project is over, rest assured we are not done yet! We still need to install the tile in the entryway by the front door. Then we will be done. We are planning on getting that done this month (one can make plans you know!). And hopefully the installation of the tile will go much more smoothly than the installation of the hardwoods did!

You Whittled What???

2009-01-22T19:22:00.004-05:00

DS has been involved with Cub Scouts since first grade. He is now in 5th grade and preparing to soon transfer from Cub Scouts into Boy Scouts. He absolutely loves scouts. It has taught him many skills. Some skills are very useful. Some skills make a mom cringe. One of those skills is whittling. Yes, my DS learned how to whittle and became skilled enough (although that may be a subjective assessment!) to earn the "whittling chip" award and granted the privilege of carrying his pocket knife to scouting events.He has been reminded many times to be very careful with his knife, and for the most part has been cautious. There have been a few minor nicks along the way, but for the most part he has whittled safely. Until tonight. This evening after supper he had gone up to his room (and was supposed to be getting ready for his scout den meeting) and was whittling a stick. Well, he whittled more than that stick. He whittled his finger! His right index finger to be exact. And since he's right-handed, I'm not sure exactly how he managed to do that since that's the hand that holds the knife. He claims to not know exactly how he did it either...... So off to the local Urgent Care we went because it was a deep cut, right on the tip of his finger and into the nail. Luckily they have this nice product called Indermil, kind of like super glue for skin, that they can use in some situations instead of stitches. That is what they used on DS tonight to his relief (he does not deal well with anything medical so he was greatly relieved to not have to get stitches!). So now we get to keep his finger dry for the next 48 hours and not let it be scrubbed or soaked for the next week.....fun to figure that out when it's a finger on a hand that needs to be washed multiple times a day......guess he'll get to use some baby wipes to clean his hands for a few days. And there will definitely be no whittling for a long time while we review the safety precautions he needs to take so that he only whittles wood and not flesh.

Atten-HUT!!

2009-01-22T08:26:00.004-05:00

Now that I have your attention....I'll get on with my story.

For all that you hear these days of kids not behaving in the classroom and the lack of respect and decorum that today's kids have in comparison with kids of a couple of generations ago, I have witnessed the complete opposite. Twice a week I volunteer at my children's school. One day I help out in DD's classroom and on the other day I help out in DS' classroom. I was in DS' classroom yesterday. Yes, they can occasionally get loud and off-track from what they are supposed to be doing. But DS' teacher has come up with an ingenious method of bringing them back under control that works amazingly well. I have witnessed many teachers over many years use many methods to try and bring classrooms under control. Let me tell you, I have never seen anything like this! I was stunned at how immediate the response from the students was. Not only was the response immediate, but it was with 100% participation....which is the key to its success. If they didn't all respond immediately and in the same manner, it wouldn't work. What is it that she is doing you ask? Well, she has this small desk bellthat she rings whenever she wants them to get back on task. All she has to do is ring it once and every single student immediately stands up wherever they are and are completely silent. They have immediately come to attention as if they were in the military. I haven't witnessed anything like that since the days when I was in the Air Force ROTC back in college and a senior officer would enter the room! Amazing! Very stunning to see that kind of response from 4th and 5th grade students (it's a 4th/5th grade mixed class). She even once accidentally bumped the bell when setting something on her desk and once again they were up on their feet and completely silent. All I could do was look on in wonder.......wondering if that would work with the kids when they were at home! Somehow, I think not. But it is obviously extremely effective in the classroom and more effective than any other method I've ever seen put to use. Kudos to Mrs. B. for such a simple yet completely effective method of controlling classroom behavior!

And The Award Goes To.....

2009-01-12T18:15:00.003-05:00

Today my children's school hosted the awards convocation for the 2nd 9-weeks grading period. Now some of you may remember what happened with the convo for the 1st 9-weeks (if not, see the posts for October 20 & 29, 2008)......an amusing host of "Murphy's Law" in effect. So today I attended prepared for just about anything to happen. Both DS and DD made the A/B Honor Roll for the 2nd 9-weeks grading period and went up to receive their awards. Many other children went up to receive their awards as well. And thankfully nothing went wrong. I'm sure the principal was much relieved. It was a blessedly uneventful convocation with just lots of smiling faces and cooperating equipment. A good way to start out the new calendar year for sure. Congrats to DS and DD!

A Tale of Two Customer Service Experiences

2009-01-07T14:44:00.004-05:00

Well, nothing like starting out the new year with dealing with customer "service" departments from various companies. In the latest dealings, at least they cancel each other out I guess.....one bad experience with one company followed by one good experience with a different company. Does that put me at neutral??

It started out with our cell phone. The day after Christmas DH went shopping with my Dad (an interesting experience in itself, which I can't blog about because I didn't go.....learned that lesson many years ago after a 3-hour shopping trip to get my Dad one pair of shoes!). During this outing, DH dropped my cell phone and it broke apart.Poor guy, he tried to put it back together, but it wouldn't stay together. Interestingly enough it would receive calls and I could hear him talking on it (when I called him from another phone), but he couldn't hear me. So we needed to get a new phone. Now, unlike most other people with cell phones, we don't use our cell phone enough to warrant a "contracted" service phone, so instead we use a prepaid service through TracFone. This is much, much cheaper for us in the long run as we spend maybe $50/year for the number of minutes we use on average. So we ordered a new phone from TracFone to replace the broken one. Here's where it gets interesting. We selected 3-day shipping. Took five days to actually arrive....and that's with originating only an hour away! Tracking through FedEx showed they sent it 3 states away before sending it back where it originated, then finally sending it on to our fair town.....only to hold onto it for another 24+ hours before finally delivering it. Ugh! Once it was finally in hand, I went online as instructed to switch the same phone number from the old phone to the new one. It didn't work. Then came the fun of dealing with Customer "Service." They call it "service" but I'm not sure they understand the meaning of the word. It took 4 1/2 hours, 8 people (none of whom were native-English speakers which only made it that much more difficult to communicate), and much frustration to get the phone number switched to the new phone.......only to have it end up being able to make but not receive calls. A cell phone is not very useful if you cannot receive calls on it! One guy even tried to convince me it was a problem with the cell phone tower causing the issues. At that point I gave up and decided to call back a different day to try again with different people. Amazingly enough when I tried the cell phone 2 hours later (ummm.....that would be about 6 1/2 hours after starting the whole "quick and easy" process!) it miraculously was able to receive calls as well. Thank goodness because I really was not looking forward to dealing with more customer "service" people about this. Whew!

Now on to my other, much more pleasant, experience. DD received an American Girl doll (Mia) for Christmas, much to her delight. Mia had been ordered back in October and inspected upon arrival to make sure everything appeared to be OK. Everything appeared to be OK. The one thing I neglected to check was the toy doll-sized MP3 player she arrived with. It was supposed to play music at the push of a button. Unfortunately on Christmas morning DD discovered that this particular one did not work. Even changing the itty-bitty button battery (that DH made a special trip to the store to buy) did not fix the problem, so it wasn't just a dead battery issue. Also, one of Mia's leg warmers was sewn shut so it couldn't be put on the doll. So 2 problems for the price of one! So I emailed American Girl's customer service department (since I couldn't call on Christmas Day because they were closed). I wasn't very hopeful of getting replacements since Mia was 2008's "Girl of the Year"----dolls that are only made for one year in limited quantities, along with the accessories in limited quantities. Of course, that is why I had ordered her well in advance of Christmas...... Amazingly, I received an email back the next day stating they would be sending replacement pieces immediately! The new leg warmers arrived the following Monday (note that they arrived before the previously mentioned cell phone!), along with a new set of headphones to go with the toy MP3. Unfortunately, we did not need the headphones, just the MP3.....which was not included in the shipment. So I called immediately and talked to a very nice lady in the customer service department. She did all she could and was unable to locate a new MP3 in stock (not surprising considering it was at that point the last day of 2008 and all of Mia's accessories had long since sold out). She offered to have a supervisor do some research to see if one could be found anywhere and they would get back to me in a few days. I assumed I would not hear from them for about a week considering the New Year's holiday and weekend. Imagine my surprise when only 3 days later a box is delivered containing.......the toy MP3 player! And it worked!! DD was sooooo excited! I was thrilled with the rapid response to the issue from American Girl! They impressed me even more with their customer service when I received a phone call from them today checking to make sure that it had arrived in working condition and that we were pleased with the resolution to the issues we had had with Mia's accessories. I have never before had any customer service department follow up with a phone call like that. I must say I am extremely impressed with the level of customer service provided by the American Girl company. And of course, so is DD who now has all the working accessories she wanted to go along with her doll (which she has hardly put down since receiving her almost 2 weeks ago).

I am glad that the experience with American Girl followed the one with TracFone. I much prefer happy endings. And that was definitely a happy ending.

Crickets, Frozen Graduates, and A Christmas Surprise

2008-12-23T22:35:00.004-05:00

So the past week has been an interesting one on many levels. So much has been happening, and most of it doesn't even have to do with the upcoming Christmas holiday. Here's a quick general recap of recent events.

DS has the past three months been participating in a 6 weekend workshop put on by the computer science department of the local university. He has had an absolute blast with this workshop. First, they used a program called "Alice" to learn to do 3D animation. Then they used Legos and a robotics kit, called the "Cricket," to program their creations to do a whole host of different things. He has been quite amused by telling people that he now owns a cricket....only to then tell them after their stunned looks that it is not an insect but a Lego robotics kit. His most recent creation plays "Jingle Bells" and rings an actual bell at the end of the song. Very cool!

DH on Sunday graduated with his master's degree in electrical engineering. I'm so proud of him! He graduated with his bachelor's degree in computer & electrical engineering way back in 1997, so it only took him another 11 years to get here but he made it! The graduation ceremony was on campus at 2:30pm on Sunday. Normally they have the graduates all march around the campus, around the engineering fountain, and then into the Hall of Music (where the graduation takes place). Sunday was different. With the air temperature hovering at around 5 degrees and a strong wind creating a windchill of -20 (yes, that's negative 20!) degrees, they marched those graduates, clinging desperately to their mortarboard hats, directly from the armory across the parking lot and into the Hall of Music as quickly as possible. Those were some frozen graduates!

Today the kids and I were doing a lot to prepare for Christmas. We made & they decorated 2 dozen sugar cookies. We baked a birthday cake for Jesus. I made 2 batches of chocolate fudge. Then we needed to clean up the area in front of the fireplace in order to hang the stockings. Now if you recall, this summer we did a major overhaul on the flooring in parts of our house. This caused many things to get moved about into places where they don't belong. Unfortunately, since this project lasted past the start of the school year, many things did not return to where they belonged until today. So the kids, DH, and I all pitched in and cleared out this area so "the stockings could be hung by the chimney with care." Now I don't know about all of you, but I have learned over the years with my kids (especially with my elder child) to never really be surprised by what I might find when cleaning......whether it be what I find in the laundry, hiding under beds, or, as tonight, hiding in piles of things needing to be put away. The strangest object found this evening? A microscope slide labeled "blood"----containing who's blood you might ask?----my dad's. Who does it belong to? DS----the child who does not deal well with blood, shots, needles, etc. Like I said, you learned to just never really be surprised at what you might find around here any more.

Do Angels Wear Cowgirl Boots?

2008-12-15T10:34:00.002-05:00

OK, so I haven't posted in a while....it's been crazy-busy here. Between DS with his swim lessons, Cub Scouts, and computer science workshops, and DD with her piano lessons, church musical rehearsals, Daisy Scouts, school musical perfomance, piano recital, and finally the church musical performance last night....it's been a madhouse of activity. I'm glad that after this week we will have 2 weeks to relax a bit & catch our breaths. Now for the 3 major activities of the past week....

DD's school performance on Thursday went well. She was very tired (she doesn't do well with late nights....she will actually ask to go to bed early sometimes!) and I could tell. No smiles up on stage, glaring at the child next to her when he didn't do exactly what he was supposed to do....but she sang & did the motions. The amusing part of the evening was when the kids were supposed to sway back and forth to the beat of one song. Now how the music teachers ever thought they were ever going to get 120 first-graders to all sway in the same direction, I don't know....they were all over the place. DD decided to take matters into her own hands with the fact that the boy next to her was going the wrong way. So when she went towards him as he swayed towards her....BUMP! She made him go the right way (and yes, it was obvious she was being deliberate about it!). Luckily she didn't knock him over.

Next came DD's piano recital on Friday. She has been taking lessons since March and this was her 2nd recital. The first one was only about 6 weeks after she started lessons and did not go so well. It, like this one, did not start until 7pm and her turn to go didn't come until about 7:45 (bedtime!). Well, she wouldn't go up and play....until we finally convinced her to do it if I went up there and sat next to the piano. Then she did quite well. Now 2 weeks after this she played in the school talent show.....in front of over 700 people and did quite well (without me!)....but it was also at 9:30 in the morning! So this time around her piano teacher knew to place her much earlier in the recital.....she was 4th on the list. DD had also requested that I play one song as a duet with her, so we played that one first. Then I went back to my seat as she played her other song by herself. She played beautifully! A much better experience than her first recital!

Now on to Sunday's church musical performance. DD played an angel in the musical. The performance started at 6pm (a much better time for DD!). She was very full of smiles....for most of the time. She did very well with the singing & choreography. She was so excited to get to wear an angel costume....the satiny dress, the beautiful wings, the sparkling halo, the added glitter in the hair (which I'm sure to find in her bed linens for a while now!)......and at the last minute I did remember what footwear she had worn over to the church building! Luckily I caught her and had her remove that footwear because.....I really don't think angels wear pink cowgirl boots!

Say What??

2008-12-03T14:41:00.003-05:00

mondegreen: (noun) a word or phrase resulting from the mishearing or misrepresentation of a statement or song lyric.

Occasionally my kids will say something that will stop me in my tracks. I will ask them to repeat it so I know if I heard them correctly. Usually I have heard them correctly even if they have not used the correct words. This has happened most often with song lyrics. We have all done it.....misheard the lyrics and sung the song to our hearts content....only to discover later that we were singing the incorrect words! Well, it has happened again.

Every year I hang a count-down ribbon for each child that they use to mark the days until Christmas. It is a tradition started by my parents for my brother and me that I am now carrying on with my own kids. My parents would tie candies to the ribbon, and each evening we would remove one candy (which we would then get to eat of course!)....until Christmas Eve when the last candy was removed and the bell at the bottom of the ribbon was rung, signaling the end of the wait for the arrival of Christmas. We have put a new spin on the tradition this year. Instead of tying candies to the ribbon, I have tied clues (and to make it fair, DS gets 1/2 of the clue and DD gets the other 1/2 so they have to work together to solve it). This way each evening they have to solve the clue to hunt for their candy. Well, to make it a little more interesting, I used the theme of "The Twelve Days of Christmas" for the clues. This brings us to the mondegreen part of the story.....

The first clue (to go along with "the first day of Christmas" line of the song") was: On the first day of Christmas.......the candy hid in a tree. After a bit of thinking, the kids quickly figured out where the candy was hiding. According to DS, it was hiding in the "coat tree." OK, this to me was a little chuckle-worthy, because although I know some people may actually call it a "coat tree," I grew up referring to it as a hall tree, while DH tends to call it the coat rack.....thus DS' combination of the two, resulting in "coat tree." But wait, it gets better! So a little while later I heard DD singing. She loves to sing, and sings well. But as she was singing "The Twelve Days of Christmas" I noticed that she had put her own spin to it.....her own mondegreen. DD sang, "On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me.....a portrait in a pear tree." Umm....what was in that pear tree? Yep! A portrait! I asked DD and that is exactly what she repeated. So I explained to her what a partridge is.I also explained that she is not the only one to have ever misheard the lyrics of a song (I didn't want her to be embarrassed or feel bad about it). She even got a chuckle out of it. But I must admit, I have been wondering.....just whose portrait was she picturing in that pear tree??

Tastes Like Chicken.....Or Does It???

2008-12-02T08:25:00.003-05:00

Thanksgiving was busy this year....which explains why it is December 2nd before I have gotten around to posting this. But the holiday provided amusement as well as busy-ness. When she was little, DD used to eat turkey. Then she suddenly decided she didn't like it and there was no changing her mind....and no way was she even going to try it again. Well, on Thanksgiving this year she decided to try it. She slowly took a bite...ever so tiny of a bite....then her eyes lit up and she said, "Hey, I like it!" She then proceeded to eat the rest of the bite I had given her, ask for more, and eat all of that as well. We had our "big Thanksgiving meal" at my parents' house for lunch, which is when DD tried the turkey. So, of course, we had left-overs for supper there that evening as well.....and DD requested even more turkey. At supper she made the comment that she was surprised at how good it tasted and that she was surprised she liked it, stating, "It doesn't even taste like turkey!" That, of course, got my attention. I asked her that if that didn't taste like turkey to her, then how did she think it was going to taste? She replied, "I thought it would taste feathery." Obviously no one has explained to her about plucking the bird before it's cooked and eaten! She wasn't done commenting yet though....she went on to say, "I also thought it would be really gross since it comes from inside the turkey.....you know, where all of the gross stuff is!" Of course my dad decides to pipe up at this point and ask me if he needs to explain about chick....I stopped him before he got the whole word out. DD eats chicken and I don't want her to stop eating it if she gets too many details about it (I stopped eating it for a long time as a kid after getting the "privilege" of helping a family friend get some "fresh" chickens ready for frying once). I also wouldn't let him explain about hamburgers. So next time you all eat turkey, be glad it doesn't taste like turkey.....you know....not "feathery!"

Boots and Tires and Glasses...Oh, My!

2008-11-25T09:53:00.004-05:00

Well, yesterday was the day of broken and worn-out things I guess. First, it was noticed that DD's new pink cowgirl bootshad lost the "jewel" that is front-and-center on the left boot (now, this is the second time that this has happened....this is her second pair of boots as the same thing happened to the first pair less than a week after getting them....left boot as well....and they were replaced by the boot company). DD was upset that it had happened again, but after not having pink cowgirl boots to wear for almost 2 weeks when the last pair had to be returned, she has decided she'd rather have a pair with a missing jewel than go without her beloved boots (and thus she is currently wearing them at school today, as she does almost every other day!).

On to the tires! This story starts the day after Christmas 2004. The driver's side front tire blew out after hitting something on the icy road on the way to my parents' house to visit them. Nothing like sitting in the freezing cold weather with a flat tire miles from the nearest tire shop! And poor DH was even worse off as he dealt with the slush and traffic as he changed out the flat for the spare tire on the side of the road (luckily we were in a spot with a very wide shoulder so it we were able to at least have the van completely off of the road). So that tire was replaced almost 4 years ago. This past summer while on vacation, we started having a slow leak with the other front tire. So in July of this year it was replaced (luckily it held out until we got home....although we were in the middle of nowhere along some lonely stretches of road in the pouring rain when it needed pumped up the first time....poor DH again!). That left us with the rear tires original to the van (now 7 years old). They were getting bald and needed replacing. A few weeks ago while driving the kids down to see my parents (DH was at work, so it wasn't him dealing with it this time!) the low tire pressure indicator went off in the van. So over to the side of the road we go and I got the "pleasure" of getting out and checking the tires....only to discover that it's the driver's front tire (less than 30,000 miles on it!) that was the problem.....low on air and a bulge in the tire between the treads. So yesterday I had the "fun" of replacing 3 tires on my van. And they better hold up for a while now!!

Now on to the glasses part of the story.....DD's glasses are adding drama to our lives for sure! She is already on her 2nd pair (the original pair broke exactly one week after she got them!). Sunday she managed to lose the case she carries them in....but thankfully we discovered that her Sunday school teacher had found it and we were able to get it back from her in time for DD to have it to take her glasses to school in yesterday. Then I noticed when I was putting her glasses in the case that the left temple piece was loose. Upon closer inspection I discovered that the screw holding the temple piece to the front frame was almost out. So I used my tiny screwdriver and tried for about 10 minutes to get it to screw back in with no luck....it would not get any tighter at all. So after the kids were home from school yesterday (luckily the glasses survived the school day intact!) we were off to the eye doctor's office yet again (between picking up glasses, picking up replacement glasses, getting glasses re-fitted a couple of times to keep them from making sore spots, and now this....we have been there 5 times in the past month!). Luckily they were able to fix this pair of glasses by replacing the screw with a new one. Hopefully it will be a while before we have to visit them again.

Thankfully that was all the broken things and repairs I had to deal with yesterday. Guess now we'll see what today and the rest of the week have in store!

FIRE!!!!

2008-11-21T10:19:00.003-05:00

OK, now that I've got your attention.....no, there was no fire at our house today thankfully. But, we had the adrenaline rush of thinking there was! At the lovely early morning time of 4:30am our smoke detectors went off. They are the hard-wired kind so when one goes off, they all go off. This is actually a good safety feature....so that if there was a fire in the basement, the smoke detector going off upstairs on the 2nd floor where the bedrooms are at night would wake us up. Well......would wake some of us up (more on this later). When they went off at 4:30am they shut off themselves after about 30-45 seconds of alarming. DH went downstairs to check things out while I checked out the kids' rooms upstairs. We found nothing to be concerned about (and at this point, having been awakened from a deep sleep, we weren't even entirely sure it was the smoke detectors since they had ceased to alarm by this point), even checking the carbon monoxide detector as well. Nothing. So we went back to bed. Now DH has the ability to fall asleep immediately at any point and in any place. For me on the other hand...not so easy. I was awake for a good 30 minutes waiting for the adrenaline rush to go away and be able to settle back down to sleep hoping that we were correct in assuming that everything was OK. So finally I was back asleep. Then at 5:35am they go off AGAIN!! And this time they did not stop!! DH went all over the house checking things until he ended up in the basement. By the time he got there (and the alarms were still going off) and couldn't find anything wrong, he decided to try taking the smoke detector down there off of the wall (and thus out of the hard-wired loop they are all connected to). At that point the alarming ceased. Now it took several minutes for this all to occur. I stayed upstairs because I thought for sure that the kids would end up waking up and freaking out that the smoke detectors were going off. But did they? NO! Both DS and DD slept through it all....both times! Considering how loud those things are.....we now know how deeply our kids sleep! Amazing. They sleep as deeply as their Dad. I think the only reason DH heard it this morning is that he is suffering from a horrible cold and isn't sleeping well at all....so he's not sleeping as deeply as usual. I think under normal circumstances even he would have slept through it (his parents love to tell the story of him sleeping through the fire alarm at a hotel once while they were on a family vacation when DH was growing up!). Needless to say, even though I went back to bed, I never was able to return to sleep before the alarm clock went off at 6:00am. Guess today DH will have to either figure out why the smoke detector malfunctioned or buy a new one....and I'll have to start praying that if there's ever a fire at our house at night that I'm home to wake everyone up as it seems that not even that very, very loud and shrill noise is going to wake up these guys!

Children of the Computer Age

2008-11-17T14:43:00.004-05:00

It never ceases to amaze me at how adept my children are at the computer. Terms that meant nothing to me as a child are a fluent part of my kids' everyday language. Being of the generation whose first experiences with computers were with the TI99 from Texas Instruments (our first home computer)and the Apple IIe (I remember how excited my teachers were in middle school when these computers first arrived at school for us to use!),it was a very long time before the internet/world wide web/email/etc meant anything to me. My children on the other hand, are growing up with computers in each classroom (we had one computer room with about a half-dozen computers for the entire school) that they use daily, computers at the library, and computers at home that are not only lightyears beyond what I knew as an older child, but that are also connected to the internet. AND they know what that means! I frequently hear DS talking about megabites, flash drives, and the like. He especially loves to throw these kinds of words around while rolling his eyes at me as if to say, "Mom, you just have no idea what I'm talking about so don't even try to understand." (or he'll even comment that he'll just go ask his Dad----DH being of the same generation as I am but having chosen a career path that lets him almost be the creator of some of these strange words that have entered our children's native language). Even my 6-year-old DD gets in on the act. Just yesterday we were in the van on our way home from having attended a live performance of "Beauty and the Beast" by one of the local high schools.We were in the middle of discussing what she liked about the show when suddenly she asked, "Mom, who is God's father?" When I asked what she meant, she replied, "You know, how did He get here in the first place before everything was made?" I told her I didn't know....that it was one of those things we just didn't have the answer to. Her reply? "Well, when we get home can we just Google it?"

Voting Rationale

2008-11-04T19:13:00.005-05:00

The kids at my children's school had the chance to vote for President yesterday. They learned about the process of voting and participated in a very realistic mock voting process, right down to having to present picture IDs. The teachers had made up picture IDs for each student using the kids' school pictures....even having the kids' ages, "address" (classroom number), and such on it. The kids showed their IDs to one of the staff members then went over to one of the computers in the computer lab and entered their votes for the Presidential candidate of their choice. It was a very realistic experience for the students. When DS and DD arrived home from school they were very excited about having been able to vote (even though they knew it wouldn't affect the outcome of the real election) and to tell me about their choices. DD was quick to inform me of her choice. She said, "Mom, I don't remember his name but I voted for the gray-haired guy." She then asked if I knew why she voted for him. When I asked why, she replied, "Because he has a girl that will be the Vice President if he wins and I don't think we need two guys in charge."Only the rationale of a 6-year-old could function like that: she doesn't know his name, doesn't know anything about him or what he believes, but the fact that he picked a girl for his Vice Presidential running mate is enough of an endorsement for DD. And in case you think DS is as easily swayed for his vote based on gender, he also voted for McCain. DS had more substance to his rationale. His class has read articles about the candidates and DS and I have had a couple of discussions about them as well (about their beliefs, the differences between Democrats & Republicans in general, and such). DS said he voted for McCain because he thought he would make the best President and make the best decisions for the country. So there you have it. That's 2 votes for McCain. Unfortunately for McCain, the votes of a 6-year-old and 10-year-old don't count.

If At First You Don't Succeed....

2008-10-29T13:02:00.004-04:00

Yesterday my children's school hosted the delayed awards convocation (see previous entry from Monday, October 20th to see why it was delayed). So DH and I went to the school that morning to attend as we knew both DS & DD had made the A/B Honor Roll and would be receiving their certificates. I must say that the staff at the school is getting lots of practice at improvising and dealing with problematic circumstances that arise that are beyond their control. When DH & I arrived at the school we discovered that the set-up for the convo was much different than usual. Usually they have everyone seated in the gym/cafeteria combo with huge folding doors opened up to be able to accommodate everyone. Everyone is then seated facing the stage that's at one end of the room, which is where the kids go up to receive their awards. Well, yesterday was different in that one of the doors was stuck in the closed position. This meant that no matter how they seated everyone the stage would not be visible to at least half of the audience (the whole room is packed full by the time all of the parents, staff, and students are all seated in there). So they improvised. They had everyone seated so they faced sideways to the usual way (so there were people on both sides of the closed folding door...but at least this way it was effectively at the back of the audience rather than in the middle of the audience) and had the kids who were receiving awards walk to the new relative "front" of the room to receive their awards rather than up onto the stage. Although this made it more difficult to see the kids receiving their awards, it was better than having to reschedule the awards convo yet again (and waiting to see what could go wrong a third time!). And thanks to a good telephoto lens on my camera, I should have some good shots of DS & DD as they received their awards. Oh, and they not only received the A/B Honor Roll Award. Another award given at the end of each grading period is the given to 2 kids in each class (and the general rule is that a child can only receive it once each school year) who show good citizenship, have good attitudes in and out of the classroom, are good examples to other students, are helpful to others, and such. Both DS and DD received the Principal's Award! I am so proud of both of them! They have both worked very hard this school year so far and done very well, both with their schoolwork and doing well in the social and behavior aspects of school. Now hopefully they will both keep up the great work they have been doing so far and will make the honor roll again for the next grading period. And I'm sure the staff at the school is hoping that the next awards convo goes much more smoothly than this one did!

Can You Hear Me Now?

2008-10-20T14:07:00.003-04:00

When the lights go out, do you need to talk louder in order to be heard clearly? Well, according to about 700 elementary students, the answer is a resounding YES! This morning was scheduled to be the awards convocation for my children's elementary school (they hold an awards convo at the end of each 9-weeks grading period to honor the kids who made A/B Honor Roll as well as a few other awards). DH & I went over to watch the convo this morning as both DS & DD made the A/B Honor Roll this 9-weeks. About 15 minutes before the convo starts, they start bringing the kids into the gym to get seated (the kids sit on the floor, the teachers wheel their chairs in to sit on, and they have folding chairs set up for the parents to sit on). This usually happens in a fairly orderly, yet somewhat noisy, fashion as the kids get situated. I've always been fairly impressed with how well the kids behave and how quiet they usually are throughout the entire convo each time I've attended over the past 5+ years that DS has attended this school. Well, this morning showed a different side to these children when something unexpected happened just as the last kids were being seated. What happened? The electricity went out! And yes, this made the gym (with no windows to the exterior of the building) virtually pitch-black. Immediately, kids screamed.....700 of them! The teachers were able to get them quiet amazingly quickly by doing a clapping rhythm they do at the beginning of every convo that indicates it's time to be quiet (the teachers/faculty start the clapping and the kids all join in until everyone is doing the same rhythm). Once it had been announced by the vice principal (the principal was not at school today) that the electricity had gone out and that the students needed to stay put until they figured out what they were going to do about the convo, that's when it got LOUD. Before, when the kids had been talking, it had been a dull roar. At this point, it became painfully loud. I had to chuckle when DH commented that the kids "seized the opportunity to disregard all personal responsibility for orderly conduct as soon as the lights went out." Although I was unable to see how DD's class was behaving as they were seated clear across the gym from us and it was completely dark, DS's class was seated directly next to us. I pointed out to DH that DS's class, in contrast to the vast majority, was sitting politely, quietly, and very well-behaved. So kudos to Mrs. B for teaching her class well enough that they were behaving properly even with the lights out!

So what happened with the rest of the awards convo, you may be wondering? Well, after contacting the electric company and being told that the electricity wouldn't come back on for about another 1 1/2 hours, they dismissed the classes (which went off well, considering it was done in the dark!) back to their classrooms and told the parents that the convo will be rescheduled for another day. Of course, no sooner had all the kids returned to their classrooms and most of the parents left the school building.......then the electricity came back on! Hopefully the rescheduled convo will go much more smoothly than today's attempt. Nothing like a little excitement to start off a Monday morning.....life is never dull!

Game of Blog Tag

2008-10-16T09:40:00.003-04:00

So it seems I've been tagged by my friend Mindy to play a game of "What's in your purse?" I'm supposed to list the contents of my purse on my blog and then tag others to do the same. Well here goes:

keys (to the car, van, truck, our house, my parents' house, mother-in-law's house)
cell phone
wallet (and all of its contents...driver's license, credit card, bit of cash, pics of my kids, some receipts, library cards for me & kids, etc)
sunglasses
disposable camera (forgot that was still in there!)
pocket calendar so I know when I'm supposed to be where 'cause my brain won't keep track of it all
2 pens
breath mints
Care Bear fruit snacks
Disney Princess fruit snacks
Yogos (watermelon flavor)
ticket stubs from the Cincinnati Zoo (from our family vacation back in July!----gotta clean this purse out more often!)
small packet with 2 needles & 9 different colors of thread for emergency clothing repairs
small tube of hand lotion
Neo To Go Neosporin antiseptic spray
multitude of various sizes/styles band-aids
2 ponytail elastics
Benadryl Itch Relief Stick for bug bites
small bottle of hand sanitizer
ziplock baggie of baby wipes
Chapstick (cherry flavor)
prescription bottle filled with my migraine medication (never go anywhere without it!)
3 Starburst candies
2 wire nuts (these things go on the ends of wires to connect them when putting in light fixtures & other such stuff....these are in there thanks to DH who needed them for a project at his mom's house and then they evidently got lost in the bottomless pit of my purse....think I can take them out now!)

OK, so that's what's all in my purse.....scary, eh? So since most of my friends still don't blog, I'll tag some of my emailing friends: Jill, Mandy, & Mom......and add a little twist: What's the strangest thing in your purse? Can you top the wire nuts? You've been tagged....you're it!

Improved Vision Is A Good Thing!

2008-10-07T20:13:00.003-04:00

Well, DD got her new glasses today! She is quite glad that she only has to wear them for reading, playing piano (to see the music), doing things on the computer, and such....she doesn't have to wear them all of the time. These are the cute pink glasses she picked out:
They have the Barbie logo on the side. She was really thrilled with the glasses case that came with them:
Nothing like a little pink purse to carry your glasses in! I must say it really helped with her acceptance of the fact that she is going to have to wear glasses.....she'll be quite stylish! And DS was quite the good, sweet big brother and told DD how cute she looked while wearing her new glasses......he said, "You'll look really cute in those while you are reading." I was really proud of him! And he sure made his sister smile! When we got home after picking up the glasses, DD immediately went over to the piano, telling me she was going to do her practicing. She proceeded to open up her pink case, put on her new glasses, and play away at the piano without having to squint to see the music. She was quite happy about how easy it was to see the notes. Now hopefully the adjustment to wearing them at school goes just as well.

Math-heads

2008-10-04T19:00:00.003-04:00

It seems we're creating a family of math-heads here. When DS was little....around 2 years old....he taught himself how to add and subtract using M&Ms candies. We never explained the concept to him but one day he said to me (while eating a handful of M&Ms as a dessert after lunch), "Momma, if I have four M&Ms and eat two of them, I will only have two left." After receiving confirmation from me that he was correct he then told me, "If I have three M&Ms and you give me two more, I will have five." (He then proceeded to eat enough of his M&Ms to only have three left, then asked if I would give him two more to make the five! Gotta love how kids think!) So that was around 8 years ago. Fast forward to today's conversation with DD who is now 6 and in first grade. They have been working with addition and subtraction basics in her class. With an older brother who is taking advanced math and a Dad who is currently studying abstract algebra while working on his master's degree, DD has evidently overheard some upper-level math discussions at our house. She was reading a cookbook to me today (she wanted to practice her reading out-loud skills and that is what she chose to read to me for some reason). On one ingredient list it stated "1 - 6 oz bag of cashews," meaning that it required one bag of cashews in the 6-ounce size. DD did not understand that and read it as "one minus six Oz (as in "The Wizard of Oz") bag of cashews" with a very puzzled look on her face. She then looked at me and said, "Wouldn't one minus six be like negative five or something, Mom? How can there be negative something in a recipe?" After a stunned moment of silence on my part, I did explain what the recipe meant and also that yes, she was correct in her math of 1 minus 6 equaling negative 5. It's a good thing DH is studying graduate-level math.....with these two kids, we're going to need that knowledge sooner rather than later.

Trip To The Moon

2008-09-29T19:22:00.004-04:00

Today DS and his classmates took a trip to the moon. Really....they did a space mission and landed on the moon at around noon today. OK, OK, so it was just a simulation, but it was totally awesome and amazingly realistic for something designed as a field trip for students. I went along as a chaperon and was totally impressed by the facility as well as by the students' performance during the mission. They went to the Challenger Learning Center (one of 52 world-wide).....these centers have been set up as living memorials to the astronauts who died in the Challenger space shuttle disaster on January 28, 1986 (as an aside, today is the 20th anniversary of the first shuttle mission that occurred after the Challenger disaster....September 29, 1988....a neat day for the kids to have had their mission simulation at the Challenger Center). The students were divided into two teams....one team was stationed in "mission control" while the other team (DS' team) was stationed in the space module that was "launched" into "orbit," first around Earth and then around the moon. The kids had many realistic tasks they had to perform during this simulation. At first, all were nervous (DS was nervous, but his nerves were very much overtaken by his major excitement about the experience....I thought at one point he was going to bounce right out of his shoes from being unable to contain all of the excitement!), but quickly settled into their respective roles and became very engrossed in what they were doing. I think that at times they probably even forgot that it was only a simulation and they were actually still here on Earth. They even handled an "emergency" with admirable calm. DS was assigned to the Probe Team, which placed him alone in a "clean room" to wire up the electronics of a lunar probe with only the verbal instructions from a member of Mission Control to guide him (the room did have glass doors that allowed him to see what was going on in the rest of the space module). He completed his task successfully! At the half-way point the teams switched places to give everyone a chance to experience both the space module portion and the mission control portion. By the end of their mission they had successfully landed their space module on the moon! DS was quick to inform me that although the mission control part was very interesting, the space module portion was a lot more fun for him. I think this definitely rates up there as one of DS' favorite field trips. I know it is probably one of the most interesting I have ever been on, especially as a chaperon (and that is even taking into consideration that in the past 2 years I have chaperoned 2 overnight field trips with DS.....one to the zoo, and one involving winter survival and hiking with 6 inches of snowfall on top of what was already on the ground, followed by cross-country skiing). So to DS and his classmates....Great mission! And welcome back to Earth!

Perseverance

2008-09-26T23:11:00.005-04:00

Well, last Saturday DH completed his second marathon. Last year he ran the Air Force Marathon at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. He trained hard for 3 months and set a goal to finish in under 4 hours. He completed the marathon in 3 hours 53 minutes 53 seconds. Earlier this year he considered running this year's Air Force Marathon as well, especially after discussing it with a friend from work who had decided to run it this year. Well, it's been an extremely busy year at work (as well as at home) for both of them and neither had really done any training throughout the year so DH just assumed they would not be running it. Fast-forward to 3 weeks before the race......yes, THREE WEEKS! DH had a conversation with his coworker in which he discovered that he was still planning on running in the marathon even though he had not been training up until that point (he had set a goal for himself....a New Year's resolution....at the beginning of the year and was determined to keep it). So both DH and his friend started training for the run at 3 weeks before the race (for those who are unaware......a marathon is 26.2 miles long!). Well, needless to say, neither of them was truly prepared for the race.....I know DH's longest recent run before the race had only been 8 miles. Quite a difference from a marathon! But they had determination and perseverance! They were able to run the first 10 miles at a good, steady pace. At that point their bodies needed a break so they started walking. Unfortunately, when they started to run again DH's friend's calf cramped up. He did everything he could to remedy the situation to no avail. But this did not stop them! They kept walking at a good, steady clip (15 minutes/mile) to try to make sure they finished the race before the cut-off time of 7 hours from the start of the race. Although their pace fell a tad towards the end of the 16 miles they walked, they were able to finish the race in 6 hours 23 minutes, well ahead of the cut-off limit, and were able to receive their finishers' medals directly from the Air Force officers awarding them to the runners.So even though it was a totally different experience for DH from last year's race, it was a great day.....his friend was able to succeed in fulfilling his resolution and DH was able to complete a race he went into unprepared for. That's what you call perseverance!

Am I Smarter Than My Fifth Grader?

2008-09-24T08:40:00.005-04:00

regolith: unconsolidated residual or transported material that overlies the solid rock on the earth, moon, or a planet.
Wow, what a word. Nope, I had no idea what it meant until I looked it up. Why did I look it up? Well, because it is a a word on DS's spelling list this week! I must say this is the first time one of my children has brought home a word on a spelling list that I had no idea if it was even really a word. At least when I was back in 5th grade my parents could recognize the words without having to look up the meaning. Guess I continue to learn something new every day, even when it arrives as my DS's 5th grade homework. Puts a new spin on the "Are You Smarter Than AFifth Grader?" game, that's for sure! Guess I better go do some studying....

Can You See Me Now?

2008-09-23T18:47:00.002-04:00

Well, DD has to get glasses. She has been having some trouble seeing details like differentiating the notes on the staff of her piano books, a bit of trouble with reading books, etc. So off to the eye doctor we went for a check-up where it was confirmed that she needs glasses for close-up work such as reading, playing piano, and computer work. DD was quite thrilled that she will not have to wear them all of the time as her biggest concern was having to possibly give up her collection of princess sunglasses she wears outside....so she was very relieved to find out she still gets to wear those! Once she was reassured about that, she was quite into the selection of glasses process, much to the amusement of the lady assisting us at the eye doctor's office. DD managed to try on about 1/3 of the kids' choices of glasses (the only ones she didn't try on were the obviously boy ones and the obviously too small ones!) and was quite quick to say "no way" or "maybe." She ended up with a stack of about 8 styles in the "maybe" pile that she then had to go through trying on again a couple of times to make new piles of "most likely nots" and "most likely yeses" before narrowing it down to one pair. Oh, and it wasn't just how the glasses looked on her face (she did pay attention to that too though, very much) but she had to see what designs were on the temple (side) pieces as well. Of course, anyone that knows DD, knows she picked out a pink pair of glasses. And I was really proud of DS (who had spent the picking-out time sitting in the waiting room with the occasional pop-in to see if we were done yet) who on the way home asked DD what color she picked out and then said, "I bet you'll look really good in those." And it was said in a nice, sincere tone. Gotta love it when your kids get along!

Wood Floor Is Finished!!!

2008-09-12T08:27:00.015-04:00

OK, so they were done a week ago, but it took a few days to recover from the exhaustion enough to think straight then had to get some good pictures (and the weather wasn't cooperating for some good lighting for a couple of days) and then had to find the time to put them on here.......but IT'S DONE!! Here's what the dining room looks like (we still need to put the baseboards back up but this is the floor):
This is a closeup of the dining room floor with the heating vent that we bought and stained to match the floor (as well as the new patio doors that have a wood-clad interior that we also stained to match the floor):
This is the floor going down the hallway towards the front door:
And a closeup of the floor in the bit of hallway that goes into the playroom by the front entryway:So this part of our home improvement project is done! Yea!! I'm not even going to come close to trying to figure out how many hours we put into this floor....by the time you add up the removing of it from the old house, the installing of it, the sanding of it, the staining, the sealing of it with the poly......more hours than I care to think of (and less sleep than DH & I really needed!)! But it turned out how we wanted it to....even better than we hoped. And no complaints from the males in the house as they acquired new tools as a result of the project (even some we hadn't planned on due to running into a few snafus along the way!): jigsaw, miter saw, 2 new orbital sanders, air compressor......oh, yeah, they're happy! (And don't worry, DD hasn't been left out....I promised her a special treat this weekend for all she's had to put up with during this project and seeing as how she didn't get any tools out of the deal herself.) Now off to enjoy the floor for awhile before DH decides it's time to start the next project......

Irony

2008-09-05T08:26:00.003-04:00

Well, I haven't mentioned much about the kids lately as the floor project has consumed so much of our lives. But on Thursday my DD brought home a project she was very, very proud of. According to her, they had worked on these projects for 5 days at school and she was very excited to get to bring it home to show me. It was a piece of green construction paper divided up into sections into which they put down their favorite item under each category. Under most categories were pictures cut out of magazines: food----ice cream; color----pink; place to be----little girl running through a sprinkler; holiday----picture of jack-o-lanterns for Halloween; sport----swimming. For the final category she wrote down (instead of putting a picture) what is her favorite: school activity----math, speleen. Yes, she actually wrote "speleen" instead of "spelling" and you can imagine how hard it was to not show the irony of that on my face as I praised her for her good work on her project.

DS came home extremely excited from school yesterday as well.....which, for those of you that know my DS, is a rare occurrence. At the kids' school they do announcements over the TVs in the classrooms. So the kids are actually doing the announcements each morning (like a little mini TV newscast). The older students are chosen to present the announcements and the younger students get to take turns in groups leading the Pledge of Allegiance. DS does not like to get up in front of people to give presentations and so was extremely thrilled that yesterday, today, and all of next week he is in charge of running the camera for the announcements. So not only does he not have to be in front of the camera where people can see him, he gets to, as he puts it, "work with technology." All in all, even with the hassle of the floor, a happy week for both kids.

Will It Never End??

2008-09-02T14:00:00.010-04:00

Well, the floor has been sanded. Yep, sanded but not finished. Even with a 3-day weekend we ran out of time. How could that be you ask? Well, it was a combination of occurrences. We had to rent a drum sander (big walk-behind sander for doing hardwood floors) to sand down the old finish off of the boards and even out the floor (the boards were all uneven and this piece of equipment would not only remove the old finish but make a nice smooth surface across the entire floor as well....or at least that as the idea...). Well, the one they rented to us came with a plug that looked like this:
And it came with a cord that looked like this:We should have known at that point that it was not going to work well. But we started the sanding process (which was preceded by taping clear vinyl sheeting over the entrances to all of the other rooms in the house to contain the massive amounts of dust to the area in which we were working). The drum sander worked well for the two coarsest grits of sandpaper to remove most of the old finish and level most of the boards. Unfortunately it cannot get within about 4 inches of the edges of the walls, so that required getting on hands & knees with a hand-held orbital sander to spend tons of time doing the edges. There were also some trouble spots out in the middle of the room (due to the uneven nature of the boards) that the drum sander was having difficulty taking care of.....those also required the orbital sander. The hallway.....unfortunately the entire hallway is too narrow for the drum sander at all. So DH got out his hand-held belt sander to do most of the hard work (and that thing really throws the sawdust around as unlike the other sanders it does NOT have a dust collector on it!) followed by yet more use of the orbital sander. That poor orbital was getting a workout (luckily it was brand-new.....DH's old one had died earlier in the project)! Then came the really frustrating part.....the drum sander completely stopped working! Now a few times during it's use it had refused to turn off when the switch was turned to off (requiring it to be unplugged to turn it off), but at the point we were ready for the last pass with the finest grit of sandpaper, it stopped sanding! Which meant that we had to do the last sanding of the entire hardwood floor with the orbital sander....at which point we bought a second one so both DH & I could be working at the same time.

After all the sanding....it was time to use the rented floor buffing machine to give the floor a final smooth surface before applying the finish. Well, that thing is an extremely unwieldy beast and while it was admittedly amusing to watch DH try to use it, we quickly realized that it was not going to be able to get close to the edges at all and thus we'd be using the orbitals once again. So we decided to just do the whole thing with the orbitals. Yes, I have spent WAY more time on my hands & knees on that floor than I ever wanted to! And we're not done! Tonight after finishing cleaning up all the sawdust (ever vacuum your ceiling & walls?) we will be staining the floor. Then after that dries we will apply the first coat of polyurethane. My poor children spent the weekend at my parents' house (they had a blast.....went apple-picking!) then returned only to be immediately sent to DH's mom's house for the night. We all spent the night there then I brought them home in time to catch the bus for school this morning. Due to the stain and poly fumes they will be spending another night there as well. Nothing like getting to spend the night at a grandparent's house on a school night! But at least progress is being made! Picture of the floors sanded:

Happy Birthday To DH!

2008-08-31T15:01:00.002-04:00

DH likes to try new things. He especially likes tasting HOT things. So in honor of his birthday today here's a link to a video of him and a friend/coworker of his trying the Naga Jolokia peppers they grew. They grew them at work just so they could try the world's hottest peppers. Enjoy the video. Happy Birthday, DH!

It's All Installed!

2008-08-30T16:14:00.002-04:00

Yea! Finally! The hardwood flooring is all installed! It took more hours than either DH or I care to think about but it is all in. When we started this project we weren't sure if we would have enough boards to do both the dining room and the hallway out to the front door. We were pretty sure we'd have enough to do the dining room, but we thought we might have to buy some new wood to do the hallway to finish the project. We had managed to find a very close match that we were happy with, but held off on purchasing any until we knew exactly how much we were going to need. Well......exciting news......we had enough wood from my parents' old house to do the ENTIRE project!!! We are so happy about that! Not only did that save us money, but it is extra nice to know that the whole thing was done all with the wood from the house I grew up in.
Now it's on to the part of the project I have been dreading the entire time.....sanding the floor. Ugh! It's going to be a horrible, dusty mess to clean up after we do that. DH did go out and buy plastic sheeting to hang up to block off the other rooms to try to at least contain the majority of the mess, but sawdust is so fine it's still going to get everywhere (so even once the floor is sanded & refinished, the job will still not be done because then the cleaning will begin and I'm not going to even think of how long that's going to take!). *sigh* Oh, well, it will be so pretty when it's all done. DS & DD went down to spend the weekend at my parents' house so that they won't be trapped upstairs while we sand, stain, and the seal the floor. It's going to be a long process.
And just in case you think this will mean the end of the project.....think again! DH came home from the hardware store today with paint.....to paint the hallway! Because of course now that the kitchen/dining room is painted, the hallway looked dingy.....so it needs to be painted too! And we still have yet to replace the vinyl in the laundry room, 1/2 bath, and closet. Plus we still need to put in the tile flooring by the front door. Yep, looking like we might get finished by Christmas! (And for anyone wondering......I think I have lucked out.....neither my kitchen nor the rest of my house smells like spoiled milk so we must have gotten it cleaned up enough....yea!)

Half-Way There!

2008-08-24T23:55:00.005-04:00

Woo-hoo! We are to the half-way point! It's taking a lot longer than I ever imagined to do this part and we're to the part that's even more difficult. The first many rows went from the carpeted area on the right (which had to abut smoothly & tightly into the piece that transitions from the hardwood to the carpet) over to the
kitchen cabinet on the left (where there needed to be a small expansion gap between the hardwood and the cabinet, which will be covered with a quarter-round trim piece). This meant that we had a little bit of leeway in the exactness of the length of our boards when it came to the fitting of them.
Now we are to the part that goes from the carpet on the right to the kitchen opening on the left (where there is another transition piece to step down from the hardwood to the vinyl flooring in the kitchen...which the hardwood has to fit exactly into). So the pieces have to fit exactly all the way across.....which makes the puzzle even harder to mess with figuring out, thus taking longer to put each row together. Ugh! But we are half-way done and for that I am thankful! (The picture below was taken a few rows before we reached the half-way point and a few rows before we reached the harder part.)
Both DD and DS helped with some of the work today. DD helped get some of the pieces in place using a rubber mallet. DS actually tried out the pneumatic nailer and nailed some of the boards in place.....and had just as much fun as DH did with it! My Dad was here for a little while today as well (dropping off DS from spending the weekend at their house) and got in on the action as well, using the pneumatic nailer to secure a couple of boards in place. The cats meanwhile just chilled out amongst all of the boards piled around everywhere and watched while we worked.
DH is taking the day off of work Monday so that we can get the last half of this finally finished. I can't wait to have a dining room floor again!

It Has Begun!

2008-08-23T23:20:00.003-04:00

Well, it has finally started! DH and I are in the midst of putting in the hardwood flooring. Yea!!!! We have 20 rows of flooring fastened down....only about 54 more to go to finish the dining room. Here is a picture of the first 5 rows installed:
I have no idea how many rows it will take for the hallway after that, but at least those are short rows of only 3 feet in width as compared to the rows that are 14 feet in width that we are doing now. There is finally light at the end of this tunnel! The worst part about this part of the project is figuring out where each piece goes....it's like a huge puzzle. Since we have a limited supply of boards, we have to lay out the pieces in such a manner as to cut as little off as possible to waste as little as possible. Plus, we have to lay them out so that the joints don't all land in the same locations and so that it looks nicely laid out with randomness....we don't want any inadvertent patterns (such as diagonals, etc.) to show up in the floor. Doing this with wood that has already been cut and laid out in another location is much more difficult than if we were to just open a new box of boards and start laying them out. The time that takes is the most frustrating part right now. Actually nailing them down doesn't take very long at all. And let me tell you, DH is absolutely loving using the pneumatic nailer! He's like a little boy at Christmas with a new toy....reminds me very much of DS when he gets a new toy to play with!
I'm just so excited that this part has finally started so I know that the end is in sight and things will hopefully soon be back to normal at my house (well, as normal as they ever get!)! Yea!!

Ahhh.....Is That A New Air Freshener??

2008-08-20T23:15:00.002-04:00

Well, I knew with my crew it couldn't last long. My "new" kitchen has been initiated. Since we still don't have a dining room floor (although the preparation has begun!), the kids have been eating in the kitchen. DD eats at a little play table. DS is way too big to fit there so he eats at the counter (oh, the things we put our children through!). I had gotten onto DD a couple of times about staying seated while she eats rather than keep popping up out of her chair.....she knows better. Well, she wasn't listening very well and ended up spilling her milk.....her almost completely full cup of milk. Now if it had just spilled onto the new vinyl, it wouldn't have been a big deal. I would have had her clean it up to help enforce the lesson of sitting still while eating, and that would have been it. But, nooooo, the milk cup hit the newly painted wall, milk then went rushing down the wall, BEHIND the new baseboard, and down INTO the air vent! So I had her grab me a bunch of paper towels as I picked up the cup and moved the table away from the wall.....then had quite the time of it trying to get as much milk soaked up from behind the baseboard as I could (DH meanwhile pulled out the air vent grate to dry it off) and then stuffed more paper towels down into the vent to soak up as much of the milk down there as I could possibly reach. *sigh* Now to just hope that enough of the milk got dried up so that drywall behind the baseboard doesn't start to smell like spoiled milk.........oh, and I really hope I got it all out of the air vent. The last thing we need right now is the lovely "fresh" scent of spoiled milk wafting through the ENTIRE house every time the a/c or furnace kicks on.....

A Tired Mind Creates Strange Things....

2008-08-18T23:42:00.002-04:00

To be sung to the tune of "Home On The Range":

Oh, give me a home where the floors have no holes
and the furniture is where it belongs!
Where seldom is heard "I have an idea!"
and nothing ever goes wrong!

Home, home that is done!
Where no projects are in progress!
Where seldom is heard a saw or a drill!
And I will finally have some rest!

Goodbye Old Home

2008-08-17T23:04:00.006-04:00

Well, as of today, the house I grew up in is no longer around. This is the house my parents spent 40 years in. This is the house where DH & I reclaimed the hardwood flooring to use in our own home (and no, the dining room is still not done). Here is the progression over the past several weeks as we've said goodbye to the old home:

But we'll still have the memories, pictures, and now in my own home we'll have the hardwood flooring, the tile entryway flooring, and 2 ceiling light fixtures to remember the house by. Goodbye, old home! We'll miss you but enjoy our memories of you!

He Wants To Do What??

2008-08-16T19:30:00.005-04:00

The dining room floor.....all we were going to do was the dining room floor! Which then turned into replacing the patio door as well....and replacing the kitchen floor....and painting the kitchen walls....and putting up a new light fixture....and painting the inside of the pantry.....and hey, we don't want wet feet stepping directly onto the new hardwood floors by the front entry so let's put down tile (which will also come from the house I grew up in and no, it's not put in yet either)! It gets better! DH originally said there was NO WAY he was going to mess with replacing the vinyl in the laundry room, 1/2 bath, or hall closet (all of which have the same floor as the peeling stuff we've been replacing in the kitchen & dining room) due to cost, labor, time, etc. Today he comes up to me and says, "So I've been thinking...." OK, I've learned over the past 13 1/2 years of our marriage that when he says that....watch out! You guessed it....he has now decided that we need to replace the vinyl in the laundry room, 1/2 bath, and hall closet (will anyone ever see that flooring as it's always covered with winter boots and other odds & ends???)......and he wants to put it in himself (no labor costs that way!). I get a strange feeling my laundry room is also about to get a new coat of paint.....who knows, maybe the closet too! (The bathroom will not as I just repainted it myself a year after we moved in here when I could no longer take the horrid dark olive green color and changed it to a nice bright yellow.) And just how did the project progress today, you ask? Well, the new patio door has white vinyl on the exterior to match the vinyl siding of the house, but came with unfinished wood on the interior side so it could be stained to match the hardwood floors. So that is what we have been working on today.....staining the patio doors. So no, I still have no dining room flooring. When we originally started this project I was hoping to be done by the time school started.....I think now I better set my sights on Christmas!

The Saga Continues....

2008-08-14T10:34:00.003-04:00

So we returned from vacation (which was a fun time visiting friends & family) to the mess that is our home. A few days after we returned our new door finally arrived. A good friend of DH's from work very kindly came and stayed until after midnight that night helping us to remove the old door, fix the HUGE hole in the floor, and put the new door in. It was a lot of hard work, took much longer than we expected it to, but finally we have solid flooring (albeit just subflooring at the moment) to walk on and a door to get in and out of the back yard with. Unfortunately, we discovered that the reason there was so much damage to the floor in the first place has to do with the deck on the back of our house. The previous owners originally put on a wood deck, decided they didn't like it, then put a vinyl deck directly OVER the top of the wood deck, which raised the level of the decking material (which is flush up against the house and door threshold) ABOVE the level of the threshold. This means that every time it rained, water would drain into the house under the vinyl flooring, thus rotting the subfloor material.....which meant that any new material we put down would also be ruined unless the problem with the deck was fixed (i.e. removing the vinyl deck). Due to current time constraints, DH cut the ends of the vinyl decking boards back far enough away from the door threshold to allow water to drain AWAY from the house which should take care of the problem until we can figure out what to do about the deck at a later date (hey, I still don't have a dining room floor yet....the deck can wait now that the water issue is solved!).
So this brings us to the next stage of the project.......the kitchen! The kitchen had the same peeling vinyl as the dining room, which meant that flooring needed to be replaced.......so we picked out new vinyl flooring to be put down in the kitchen (DH & I didn't want hardwoods in the kitchen mainly due to the risk of water damage to the wood possible in a kitchen environment). Because the scope of the project kept increasing as our time kept decreasing, we bit the financial bullet and paid for the vinyl to be installed by a professional. So two nights before it's to be installed, DH & I remove all of the appliances from the kitchen (we put them in the dining room.....since the dining room table is in the family room and the chairs are in the playroom, there was room for the appliances!) so that DH could tear out the old vinyl and underlayment (had to save some money somewhere!). Then we decided that while all of the appliances were out and there was no flooring down......didn't that make it a good time to repaint the kitchen??? Which means that the night before the new vinyl was put in DH & I were up until almost 3am painting the kitchen! I bet you think that we were then done with the kitchen, don't you??? Nope! Two days after the new vinyl was put down we got all of the appliances back where they belonged......then DH decided that was the perfect time to hang a "new" (OK, it's about 40 years old and came from the the kitchen of the house I grew up in so it's not "new") light in the kitchen, which required him to cut a hole in the ceiling of the kitchen, a hole in the ceiling of the pantry, a hole in the wall of the pantry, and expand the hole in the wall where the kitchen/dining room light switches are! (I think I am getting really, really tired of HOLES appearing in my house!!) This takes another couple of days (since DH can only work on it in the evenings when he gets home from his job) to get the light up, wired, holes patched.....and then DH decides to paint the inside of the pantry! I finally got my kitchen back USABLE a week ago. But, I must say, DH has done a very good job with all of his projects.....he's a very handy guy. But, alas, as of today, STILL no dining room floor!

Nothing Is Ever "Free"

2008-08-13T10:27:00.002-04:00

So some of you have been wondering why I've been out of touch for so long.....it all started a couple of years ago (yes, the story goes back that far!). The top layer of the vinyl flooring in our dining room/kitchen started peeling off and we also noticed a soft spot forming by the patio doors in the dining room. At the time we were unable to do anything about it financially, but we also knew that if we waited a bit we'd be able to get free flooring to replace it (the house I grew up in is being torn down....replaced with commercial development.....and we could take the hardwood floors up from the bedrooms there and put them in our dining room here once my parents completed the deal on their old house). Well, a few deals fell through, time passed, and finally this spring a deal was completed and we were able to start our flooring project. So DH, DS and I commenced pulling up the hardwood flooring out of my old home (while DD contentedly played with her grandparents at their new home). After a few weekends of VERY hard work, we had all of the wood up and waiting at our house......and then the fun REALLY began. DH began the work of removing the the vinyl flooring (which pulled up way too easily, meaning it hadn't been put in correctly to begin with!), only to discover that the "small soft spot" by the patio door was actually a HUGE rotted, moldy area that had to be completely removed, leaving a hole about 8 feet by 2 feet in the floor!!! Yep, we could look right down into the basement......NOT ideal when you have a couple of kids in the house! And it gets worse.....

So this rotted subflooring goes out UNDER the patio doors, which means that in order to replace the plywood subfloor we have to remove the patio door. Of course, we discover this on the day before we are supposed to leave on vacation......so vacation gets delayed a day (luckily we were driving so no penalties with changing when we were to leave). DH then proceeds to pull off all of the trim work around the door, inside and outside, to get ready to remove the door......only to discover that the majority of the bottom of the wood frame around the door is also rotted beyond repair! So we head off to the hardware store to buy a new door......only to discover that the only patio doors kept in stock anywhere are 6-foot wide doors.....and ours is only 5 feet wide! Which means we have to special order a patio door and wait 2-3 weeks for it to come in. Now luckily we discovered this BEFORE we pulled the old door out of the wall. So after ordering our new door, we returned home, DH stapled a tarp over the old door and pounded the trim back up over it all to get it as waterproof as possible while I finished packing. Then we went ahead and left on vacation since there was nothing more we could do at that point with the project until the new door arrived. And that is the beginning of how our "free" floor has turned out to be not so free!

....And Yet They're So Similar!

2008-08-12T20:28:00.003-04:00

Well, today was the first day of school! DS started 5th grade and DD started 1st grade, making it the first year DD has been in school all day (eating lunch at school, riding home on the bus, etc). When they returned home from school, getting off of the bus, I discovered how very similar my children are in one particular way: DD got off of the bus without either her backpack or her lunch box. She left the backpack on the bus (luckily we realized it before the bus left the bus stop so she was able to retrieve it immediately) and left her lunch box in the cafeteria at school (so we had to head back over to school to get it......making me so glad yet again that we live only 1/2 mile away!). Now to understand how this makes my children similar.....I cannot count the number of times DS has left his backpack/lunch box/homework at school in the past 5 years, requiring a trip over to the school to retrieve them. And now, on the very FIRST day of FIRST grade, DD has done the same thing! So much for saving gas by having the kids ride the bus. Must be something genetic.......wonder if I can get by with blaming it on DH.....ummm, probably not since my Mom would surely remind me of the times I myself left my own stuff at school waaaaay back when I was in elementary school!

Polar Opposites

2008-08-11T20:23:00.002-04:00

So tonight was open house/meet-the-teacher night for school (which starts tomorrow). DD is starting 1st grade and thoroughly excited (although understandably a bit nervous as well) while DS is quite put out that he has to return to school. Being the oldest at school by being in 5th grade this year holds no interest for him as he has no enthusiasm for school whatsoever. DD, on the other hand, is his polar opposite.....when finding out that she would have 3 recesses for the first few weeks of school before settling into a routine of two recesses for the rest of the school year, she informed me, "But, Mom, I'd really rather take another math test instead of having another recess." And she was dead serious. She even clapped when she found out she'd have a spelling test EVERY week. I'm still not sure how I birthed two so totally opposite children.....

So This Is What Happened Yesterday.....

2008-08-09T14:23:00.003-04:00

So I go outside to check on the kids (they were playing out in the front yard) to see what they were up to.  It had gotten a little quiet out there, so that's always a good indication with my 2 that it's probably a good idea to go see what's going on.....  What did I find, you ask?  Well, DD was looking up in the tree, so I looked up too....only to discover DS up in the tree ON A LADDER......WITH A FISHING POLE!!  OK, there's GOT to be a reason for this, especially with the way DS' mind works....so I ask......and he replies, "I'm trying to get the fishing lure out of the tree."  WHAT???  Yep!  He'd evidently gone fishing in our front yard (nope, no water anywhere near there!) and caught a tree!  Didn't ask about the one that got away.....

The Start of Something New....

2008-08-09T13:57:00.002-04:00

Well, after much thought and many comments from others, I have decided to entertain you with the happenings of my household. I figure one of two things will happen: either funny things will stop occurring, so there will be nothing to write about (hmmm.....which will make my life more simple....) or you all can get a good chuckle out of things by being glad that it didn't happen at YOUR house with YOUR kids. Enjoy!