January with a Vengeance

The winter storm hit and we finally got enough snow to play in. :) The dog is in raptures, kicking up her heels in the back yard like a calf in a spring pasture. My HC thinks it has something to do with her German (Shepherd) heritage and the fact that she has thick black fur. But when she comes in with rapidly melting cakes of dandruffy snow and shakes all over the play room, the excitement is lost on me.

The play aspect of the snow also quickly lost its novelty when my HC bundled up the kids and took them out. I stayed inside, cleaning frantically, lest the power go out as it is wont to do when the weather does anything out of the ordinary (like rain, snow or get really windy). And there is nothing more aggravating than having no power or warm water, a smoking pile of Mt. St. Laundry and an earthquake of dishes in the sink. But I digress.

So I was washing the dishes and putting clean laundry away, smug in my industry, when lo and behold, I hear wailing and crying children and an aggravated Daddy stomping at the front door. I grabbed the closest towel, a small kitchen towel, tossed it on the floor and prepared for the onslaught of frosted unhappiness. The door opened and 3 red-faced, ice-encrusted snow people squeezed in, two of which were howling. My HC had been playing with the kids outside and chased Ian. Ian did a tumbleweed into the ditch and got completely immersed in snow. He quickly learned the inconvenient effect of cold snow inside warm clothes. On his way out of the ditch, cold and wet, he slipped a couple more times and my HC had the effrontery to laugh. Thus the first round of howling. After a second or two of heated discussion and throwing of blame as to who caused the tumbling into the ditch, two stubborn males stomped (and cry/hollered) their way towards the door, towing an innocent, frosty Erin, now adding her own noisy chorus of crying because she wasn't done playing outside yet.
Well, my 5 minutes of quiet was over and I hadn't even gotten to sit down yet. Then the abominable snow creature yelling like a yeti needed assistance stripping at the door. It was not fun peeling all those frozen, stiff clothes and boots and layers off of him. Then it was Erin's turn. My HC had already washed his hands of the whole affair and retreated back to the bliss of the iphone. The kids finished expressing their emotions and ran off to play and I was left with cold, soggy piles of clothes, coats, boots, mittens, etc and a wet floor. :/

After a snack, more laundry, and a Netflix movie, (having coaxed my handsome HC from the clutches of the evil app), the neighborhood kids came a-knocking. My husband fled, again, and launched himself on the bed, claiming he was resting. The neighbor boys pleaded for some disctraction to ease their 12 year old boredom. My kids pleaded with me for more time to play in the snow. My husband projected loud fake snoring from the bedroom. So I got the coats and accoutrements from the dryer, dressed everyone and went outside to freeze. My Florida born, thin-skinned self would much rather stay Inside and enjoy the snow.



But I stood around, amused the neighbor boys for about 5 minutes before they got on their bikes to be bored somewhere else and then proceeded to yell the same thing about 78.4 times to keep the kids out of the neighbor's yard, whose snow was prettier, deeper, not as cold and so much funner than our own larger yard, which had dirt, dog poo, foot prints and other undesirable elements.


And evidently the neighbor's snow made much better snow angels.

Then it was my turn to drag noisily protesting merengue-children inside to peel snowy clothes off Again, and set them next to the heater to thaw (no handy Campbell's soup to melt my snowman). Followed by begging for hot chocolate and more snacks.

But I am happy to report that I got to work some more on my mini-quilt, made from the leftover squares of Ian's twin quilt. I also got a big box this week from my Grandma and Mom of mat-er-i-alllllll (said in an Oprah yell)! My next project is an amateur's attempt to turn pretty fabric into (hopefully) a casserole dish holder/carrier. Or a cotton origami figure.

In the meantime, we are still dealing with unwanted aspects of the snow, mostly sliding-glass doors that are frozen shut, and frozen car trunks. :)


An update: We ran out of Magic Treehouse books after we finished the BFG. So, since we are learning about the pioneer days and the gradual settling of the west in our History lessons, we are now reading Tucket's Travels by Gary Paulsen, a favorite author of mine. Francis Tucket is a 14 year old boy who gets taken from his wagon train by Pawnee Indians (on his birthday!) and rescued by a mountain man. The mountain man teaches him how to shoot a rifle, ride an Indian pony and survive in the wilderness. Eventually, Francis will try to make his way, alone, to Oregon to find his family again. How is Ian enjoying it, you ask? Ian wishes it had pictures.

Life in General

These are the days of our lives...in January. The daily minutiae of our lives is what sets us apart from the other families with 2.5 kids (the dog is the .5, not the half-pint with red hair) and also gives us something to talk about when people ask "what's new with you?" So let's see...
We are reading the BFG by Roald Dahl. My HC remembered this book from his childhood and since I can count the number of books he admits to having read on one hand, we immediately checked it out and started reading it with the kids. This is a bit disturbing to Ian, who is apprehensive abou the idea of giants reaching hands through windows and munching people like popcorn, but the pictures are cute and the part about the BFG tooting is so funny, it eclipses all the yucky parts. I have had immense fun doing the voice of the Queen of England (and the whispering butler). Erin tends to fall asleep during bedtime reading (praise the Lord), but she also enjoys the pictures until she does. When we were finished with this one, we're going back to the Magic Treehouse just in time to correlate "Revolutionary War on Wednesday" with the same topic in History. Yay. So definite school points there.

Erin is going to be ready for pre-k next year. She is very interested in what Ian is doing and loves our one on one time when we work on Cubbies (Awana). I am hoping that she will actually say her verse this week during check-in time, though even the 4 year olds get all bashful and hug a leg when put on the spot. ;)

Ian is about to finish one of his reading books next week, the Robinson Crusoe reader with all the neat craft/drawing ideas that go with it. So far we've made a popsicle stick boat(that's what it's supposed to look like), a tiny island, some rocks, a tent and cave out of various materials, a playdoh goat and a big stack of illustrations. Mr Cheaterpants has been insisting for a couple of weeks that Robinson Crusoe will be finding a strange man on the island with him. I have been denying this, since we haven't read anything about that yet, thank you. Today, we got to the part where Friday is delivered to the island by savages and escapes, where Robinson Crusoe welcomes him and feeds him bread and raisins. Ian was elated and gloated like mad. "See, Mommy?! I TOLD you there was another man. I was right!" Add the victory booty dance to that. And a giant Mommy eyeroll. I will be sorry to finish this book. And a couple of weeks after that, we'll be finishing his other reading book. And by the end of February, he'll be finishing the dreaded, hated Phonics. I gave him the option of just doing one page per day instead of two. He was excited about this until I told him that it would extend Phonics until May, or we could continue and finish by the end of next month. He chose next month. :) It looks like math and spelling will be our long running subjects for this year. Those are two things that have more to do with understanding and less with grunt work. (Like the phonics rules, word-writing and language story-writing.)
We'll be starting a new chapter in Science next week and we'll be spending a lot more time on these than we have the rest. It has to do with sea creatures, with one animal per lesson. We're making an animal notebook with our drawings and colorings. I am very excited. The chapter after that is land animals with more of the same. I hope we can go to the zoo for this chapter! Ian will be happy to be finished with history, but I think he'll enjoy the next chapter on Pioneers. We will attempt to make a covered wagon. haha.
And we're only to the Capital H's in cursive, another hated subject. I'm not being too strict there. He traces a lot and just has to try to write it on his own. I am more concerned with him learning how to form them correctly than doing a bunch of wrong ones on his own. There's plenty of time for cursive in the future, right? Says the 98% of people who still don't form letters correctly...
So there, boring minutiae, yet the kind that occupy my days and thoughts. And it's Friday evening finally. So I'm out.

December December

December already? It seems like 2010 flew by but dragged at the same time. I guess that's how all things go. But things especially seem to drag when you are deprived of something that you enjoy, love, are addicted to, etc. Like, diet dr pepper, your car, your sanity because it's too cold to play outside and the kids are bouncing off the walls.... :)
Thanksgiving was good, HC's birthday was good, his trip was good. And now we have Christmas to look forward to. And after Christmas is the long slow wait for spring. But in the blur of days are small moments that make up the things that we remember the most. Tiny cold toes squirming their way to your lap under the couch blanket. Popcorn and hot chocolate in special mugs while watching the weekly Disney movie. Watching the dog have the fastest pee in history due to the temperature change of snuggled-next-to-the-heater to frigid winds and frozen ground. Remembering how miserable it was in the summer every time I was forced to use the oven and now, having it on almost constantly with roasts, cookies, chex mix and muffins in there. Cute winter hats. Looking outside and seeing snow (our yearly quota of 3 snows a year...).
So no matter how things seem to drag, there are other things to focus on.

The Blur of Summer

Wow. I see now when my last post was. That was quite a while ago. And so much has happened since then. We had the summer library program and I wrote about 6? 7? articles for it, including a kiss-butt sponsor article to thank the sponsors for all their donations. I felt very shmoozy, but tried to keep the cheese level down. We went on vacation (sort of) back to the home-town, and got to see a lot of family. We were there for the kids' birthdays, and had their party at the park. They had a blast! It was one of my goals (and parental desires) to have a big bash with all their family there to play with them and spoil them. Previous parties have had 2 people there. One year we had a couple of much older kids and some coworkers, but it felt more like a barbeque type thing than a party. Anyway, the kids had so much fun and played with all the family and still talk about it.

Another time, we will discuss the difference between visiting-family vacations and other vacations where you sit and do nothing until someone decides to sight-see. We had fun, but we were really tired when we got home. :) And of course, no one reads this but my family members and they will be horrified: "We thought you had fun! We tried so hard to make it fun for you!" [dissolves into sobs] We had some really fun times, but it is hard to coordinate schedules with 10 people and the 'are we or aren't we?' aspect. We also wish we could have spent more time at the beach....a lot more?


We got home and recovered some. Then it was my birthday! The big 3-0! We went to one of those Japanese Hibachi restaurants and freaked the kids out with the flames. It was funny.



The rest of August was spent doing schoolwork, keeping the house together and trying to find a way to save Play n Learn, the library thing we go to every Tuesday. Cherokee Nation cut the funding and it will be ending next week. So we wrote some letters to the Council House and fussed a bit, but I'm pretty sure that no one will go against the Mighty Budget Cut! The decree has been made. There have been noises with the other mothers about continuing it independently, but it is a lot of work and I think it will fizzle out eventually. I have volunteered to read stories, but it won't be like the 2 hours of playing at stations, crafts and snacks that we do now. But at least it will be free.
Something else that happened. [sniff sniff.] My friend, my homeschooling encouragement, the one with the 2 kids conveniently the same gender and ages of my own kids, has moved! As soon as we got back from FL, they moved to TX, following the awesome new job her husband got. We are so excited for them, but I am selfish and I miss her! And the playmates for my kids.
And now it is September. In a couple of weeks, Ian will be finished with 1st grade. We will take a couple of weeks vacation and then start 2nd grade.
We joined a homeschool co-op out of Siloam Springs that has great activities. We went to a group swim at the Aquatic center there and it was fantastic. There is a Fire Safety trip in a couple of weeks at the fire station there and a trip to a Corn Maze in Missouri on October 1! Woo hoo! So everyone who thinks that socialization is an issue can relax. Though honestly, socialization is the LAST thing I am concerned about. It's not like we are hermits in the Canadian wilderness. Those are kids I would worry about socialization, yet I'm sure they are pretty normal too.

I am almost done with Ian's quilt! This just the quilt face. I have put the back on and am doing the final handwork. It seems to be so slow, but only because I am so close to finishing!
I have been using my free time (haha!) for the treadmill, and even then I am interrupted several times. Eventually though, the kids will come to respect Mommy's quiet-don't-mess-with-me-or-I-will-trip-and-end-up-smeared-on-the-wall-with-carpet-burn treadmill time. And the dog will quit trying to jump on with me while I am trotting.

So with our normal routine, the kids, the dog, the homeschooling, the travel, the HC's job, etc, we have been busy. If you need an example of how hard it is to do anything for more than 2.47 minutes at a time, then know that, while writing this, I have been interrupted about 8 times due to a schoolwork help request (silly ones, like, what's that word? Oh! It's right there on the page.) and 3 times for a pee break, since Erin has fallen early into the ritual of girls going to the loo in groups. The dog is barking, my HC is texting, Erin needs a bandaid for some imagined boo-boo, the kids are screeching at each other because Ian won't quit making an annoying noise that Erin takes exception to. Sigh. Another squabble. Sheesh!
Summer was such a busy blur, and the fall promises to be even more fun. But don't worry, I'll try to keep you posted. :) It could have been worse, right? I could have posted all my summer articles again (yawn!).

Back in the Saddle

With much fanfare and celebration, we are so joyful to have a computer again! Talk about withdrawals. After spending months in the library waiting on the slow computers and spending 45 minutes trying to pay 3 bills online, I am beyond relieved to be able to do it at home (and it's so fast!). Now the only problem is that we've managed to fill our time with other things and have to rearrange again to remember to check the email every day.... hope to get our new pictures downloaded and figure out this windows 7, then we'll be back in business for sure. ;)

Into the Fall

Things have been different at our house with the death of our computer. The desk is used for papers and bills, free time is used playing inside and out and all my daily websurfing is being replaced by other things, like reading on the treadmill. A good thing, believe me. I find myself composing blogposts in my head at odd times. Like the third night in a row of no sleep when everyone had the flu a couple of weeks ago. What misery!
Now we just have lingering obnoxious coughs. Erin says "Blesh" after every one of them. I guess she thinks they are sneezes?
Ian got his cast off yesterday. In September, he fell off the monkey bars at the big playground (a rare treat for his kindergarten class) and broke his elbow. Thankfully, it did not need surgery and seemed to have healed nicely after 4 weeks in a water cast (we love water casts!!! No itching at all and nice long baths without having to keep anything dry...). Ian's face was comical yesterday as the nurse came at him with the saw to cut off his cast, but he got through it. Now he just has a puny little arm and has to be reminded that he can use it. The first thing he did after getting the cast off was to wiggle a bit and say "Hey! I can touch my ear!"
He is enjoying being able to turn over easily in his sleep and being able to wear long sleeved shirts again, since it was 34 last night here and a bit chilly.
Erin is just buzzing right along, asserting herself at every opportunity, yet still managing to be charmingly adorable at the same time. She is wrapped around Daddy's finger so tight he bounces. This year she was Little Red Riding Hood for Halloween and everyone made much of her cuteness. Ian was a quiet ghost and didn't get it that everyone kept calling him Casper.
My HC is still having fun at work, though the driving all over the place gets old, naturally. The real estate agent wants us to lower our asking price again, but we're not going to. She is not happy with our decision, but we'd rather stay here with our currently manageable payments than end up with nothing left over to purchase again and have to rent the exorbitant prices that are now so normal. Even in our little town, a 2 bedroom rat hole is renting for 5 or even $600 a month. No Thanks! So that's frustrating, but at least we LIKE our house! It's just in the wrong town!
Also trying to save up for Christmas, which is increasingly hard, as anyone can attest. The holiday season always seems to turn into a giant Excess Party, where money and meaningless gifts are flung about in abandon. For the rest of us, who struggle anyway, we wish that others would realize what a big deal it is for us to buy our 20 Christmas cards and finagle the postage to send them. Last year there were some hurt feelings from a few that didn't get a Christmas card from us. I didn't have the energy to explain that we only got 20 and had to ration.
It is so tempting to just gloss over financial difficulties, but so much of normal worldly life is about glossing over and faking prosperity. It's also hard to hear others whine about their difficulties and how Christmas is 'so hard' when they only have $x amount to spend on their kids this year because money is tight and blah blah blah. It's hard to feel sympathetic when you know they make $1,000 a month more than you and eat out every day for lunch.
And now the self-pity part of my post is through. We are grateful for what we have. It could be so much worse. It's just a bit frustrating to see the piddly amount in the savings account, since we've been saving for 8 months.
And there's a fair share of guilt since it was my turn to go to the dentist this time and took a big chunk out of the kitty. I would feel no such guilt if it was my HC that had to go to the dentist. And yes, I really needed to go to the dentist and now all my teeth are fixed, etc. But still! Argh!
In happier news, it looks like we will be having company for Christmas and we are all very excited. Maybe this time there won't be an ice storm and the power won't be out for a week. ;)
Other happy news: we are done mowing the grass until next spring! Yay! Now as soon as we get a freeze, all the flies will die. That is what I'm truly waiting for. Hope everyone is doing well. I miss interacting with everyone. I just wish I could post pictures. That is truly the worst!

The First Week

Last Monday was the last day of school. It was also the middle of my HC's first week at his new job. He really likes it, but the 45 minute commute is pretty rough. So he's gone for 12 hours, sometimes more, depending on required overtime, like a call at the last minute. But he did see a moose. I didn't believe him at first, but then he whipped out the camera phone. It was blurry, sort of like those pictures of Sasquatch. You can sort of tell what it is if someone tells you first, but the "moose" looked like a cross between a deer and a horse. He promises that it really was and said it was a female and he suspected a newborn in the bushes, but being someone who enjoyed life, he decided to observe from a distance. What a smart guy.
Erin had another virus that kept us from doing her entire allergy testing. My HC also had to go back to the doc for another physical, since a letter was required. Then it was back to the allergist on Wednesday for Erin's followup and Ian's blood tests. Ian was a trooper and did great. All the nurses said how well he did. I guess they get a lot of screaming and hysterics. He cried a little, but the stickers and sucker and post-visit Hot Wheel from Walmart worked its magic. We find out the results at our next visit. Erin is on her no milk/wheat/egg diet for 6 months. At the end of that, she might go on a rotation type diet where she can have one item every 4 days. Taken in small doses, she may build a resistance to it. He also cautioned us to be aware of the development of more allergies, like rice and potatoes. I refuse to think about that. If we have to do without much more, we'll be stick figures.
As it is, we got a cookbook called "Sophie-Safe Cooking" by Emily Hendrix. She grinds up oats in a chopper and makes her own oat flour. Then you can make muffins and pancakes and cornbread. Every recipe in this cookbook has been great so far, though we are still adjusting to the texture of oat flour. The porcupine meatballs are a raving favorite so far. And the apple muffins. The cookbook is "A Collection of Family Friendly Recipes that are Free of Milk, Eggs, Wheat, Soy, Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Fish and Shellfish." Perfect for us and such a gift from God! Try going for 2weeks with no carbs and you'll get it.
On Wednesday, we came home from the allergist in Tahlequah and went on The Great Road Trip of 2009. My HC had been summoned to Little Rock, AR to do the PT portion of the hiring process for the Arkansas State Police. They're like Troopers in other states, but they get to do more than just traffic. He had to report at 8am and do a jump, sit ups, pushups, a sprint and a 1.5 mile run. He passed with flying colors, though he does admit to having difficulty with the 24 situps. And he was pretty sore the next day. :)
Immediately following the run, they had to go inside to do a written test. We find out in about 4 weeks if he passed. If he does, it moves on to the next phase: Background Check. Then they contact everyone you've ever known (according to my HC) and ask them questions. He is nervous about this part.
ASP is hoping to be able to form an August academy. If not, the academy won't be until January (Aaah!). :(
It was a long drive home. It took about 4 hours, though who knows for sure since we stopped so often. There are gorgeous rest stops in Arkansas, though, for the record.
One even had a creek that we played in. And did I mention the Cracker Barrel at almost EVERY exit?! Oh yeah.
Living in Arkansas won't be so bad at ALL.
Friday we recovered. No one wanted to go anywhere.
Saturday was a workday and Ian had a party to go to; the fire chief's son turned 6 and had his party at the fire station. You should always have a healthy respect for invitations that say "Prepare to Get Wet". Water balloons and I'm not sure, but there may have been a fire hose involved.
I'm not sure because we dropped Ian off and stayed home to clean it because we had a showing!!!
And later that day, we had an offer. It was 10K below the asking price and with a lot of extra demands that we were supposed to pay for.
Today we counter-offered. We'll see how it goes. If it is successful, they want a June 30 closing date. Wa-hoo.
It's been a busy week.
Next week is the library program.
I regret that I don't have the blurry picture of the moose to share. Maybe I can convince my HC to email it to me. hehehe.

Two Little Monkeys

Two little monkeys like to jump on my bed. Today (albeit at school), one fell down and bumped his head. "On the hallway," he told us when we picked him up from school. But with all head wounds, they call parents, so I was alarmed to get the call that he had fallen and hit his head. There was no blood, just a red mark and the crying had stopped. He wanted to go back to class (though he might not have been so quick to say that had he known that it was naptime). Did I want to come get him or send him back to class? It was only an hour until pick-up time. I told them to send him back to class.
Then when we picked him up, we saw it. It was not quite the little red bump that I had imagined. Sheesh!




When we got home, he was immediately coddled, kissed and plied with chocolate pudding, which is what is all over his mouth. As Papaw would concur, chocolate pudding can do wonders, especially for bumped heads. It's a bonus if you get to lick the pudding lid.

Meanwhile, Monkey #2 would not be happy until she was lounging about watching 'Neequa. Her favorite Backyardigan is the pink one with pink polka dots and her name is Uniqua. With Ian it was Veggie Tales. With Erin it is always Backyardigans. Sigh. It could be so much worse, I know! It could be something completely obnoxious. So I am reduced to singing "Mystery Lifeguard" to the tune of "Guantanamera" and about Pizza Delivery in Ancient Mexico to the tune of "Bicycle Built for Two".



The last of the teeth are coming in. It's canines now. Yay! Until they arrive, she is chewing on her hands, her sleeves, biting people. (She said her first sentence. "I bite you," and accompanied it with a chunk taken out of my shoulder...)
Not hard, just enough to make you jump and eyeball her little sharp teeth.

Ian got a new Leapster game, the Kindergarten one, so he has been engrossed in it (yay! points for me; I got him a game that he actually likes...it's harder than you may think).

Today has been a long eventful day and Erin's next dr appt is at 7:30am tomorrow morning! We'll see how that goes.

Is it Spring yet?

Spring officially starts this Friday and I am hoping that it will put a spring in all our steps as well. Aside from Spring Break, we have all been battling colds and winter sickness. Winter sickness roughly translates to "Sick of Winter!" One day it's warm and in the 70s, then the next day it's sleeting. No thanks! We want spring. Erin has been sick with one thing, then with another. We've been to the doc's every week for something or other. We are currently on a new antibiotic (a ten day one; not a convenient z-pack) that causes constant diarrhea. So we are eating constant yogurt. I don't think Erin will touch yogurt again after we finish these meds. She will probably ever correlate yogurt with sickness, the way others think of ginger ale, or Gatorade or chicken soup. Have I mentioned this year that my family is strange and no one cares for soup?
Or meatloaf?
Or sloppy joes?
Or potatoes?? No, I'm serious. Baked potatoes are okay sometimes. Mashed potatoes every once in a while. Potatoes in an au gratin or in a stew? Ewwww! All that's left in the pot is gravy and potatoes. There is no rhyme or reason to this behavior, but it has spread to the children. Anyone with an antidote must contact us immediately and save us from this abnormal half-life.
I need to think about something else before this starts to resemble the plot of a L'Engle book.
(Please don't force me to explain that L'Engle wrote A Wrinkle in Time and other strangely provocative books.)
Back to my reality. Last Friday started our Spring Break. By Saturday afternoon, I was pulling my hair out.
Due to Erin's recovery, we stayed home from church, but God rescued me somewhat by sending Girric over to play for a bit in the afternoon. Then Girric had to go home. And the chaos resumed. The week is looming before me like the beginning of of a new rollercoaster. You know that sooner or later it will end, but how many times will you be turned upside down, or toss your cookies, or lose your shoes, car keys, sanity, before it's finally over? It may even be fun, or have a great view, but sheeeesh, the screaming.
Oh, speaking of screaming, my sister Vicky is going to be hearing a lot of it. She just had her baby on Thursday. Happy Birthday to Aislynn Bronx. :)

Makeover: Floor Edition

"This project was supposed to be about replacing the carpet!" Clearly, from the pictures, it didn't end up that way. When we moved the furniture out of our room/laundry room/back entryway, the cheesy panelling was moldy and rippled. Ruined! We calculated the cost of drywall and insulation (because there wasn't any!) and took a trip to Lowe's.


15 sheets of drywall, 8 rolls of insulation, 9 strips of trim, a box of nails and a tub of spackle later, I would like to take this time to mention that I am the Expert Insulator (and I have the fiberglass grains to prove it!). I have also (almost) mastered the staplegun. I still kinda stink at hammering though. I still say it's because we only have right-handed hammers. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.



This is some of the mess that was scattered about the living room. We ended up laying our mattress down and sleeping on it for a couple of nights. Boy were we ever so glad to have the bed set back up in our room! The kids really liked having something to bounce on and play in. They especially liked the nice cushy bed when they were watching movies or eating goldfish crackers (pieces of which are still embedded in various parts of my body after sleeping on crumb shards).


Finally, last night, the spackling was dry enough to coat with primer and the primer was dry enough to paint. The carpet and linoleum were rolled out and the trim was smacked on. Now about that mess in the living room...
Today it snowed all day. I was intending to take a picture of the finished play ground, but the back door was frozen shut and there was no chance of me getting dressed just to walk to the back yard for one picture. Maybe tomorrow. ;)
Meanwhile, putting in drywall and such is not something for the faint of heart. We are both sore and with colds, smacked fingers, cuts, bruises and gritty eyes. No more projects! At least until the new front door comes in this week...

Done! Almost.

Today was supposed to be the finishing day for Le Grande Playhouse. We were almost finished. We started to put the ladder together and then noticed that there were no ladder rungs. Anywhere. We hadn't really paid too much attention to the metal parts, since there were piles of wood of varying lengths lying everywhere. Then there were no ladder rungs. I went inside to call the number on the front of the manual. The service rep was very nice and agreed to send it to us. I sighed. He asked for our address and I gave it to him. I said our town's name and he said, "Oh, that's great. Our office is in Siloam Springs! You can just come and pick up your parts and it will be a lot quicker." Yay! So we loaded up the car and drove to get our ladder parts. We got home and put it together. We had some drama putting the slide on because we wanted it to start farther back on the playhouse so no one would fall out before the high sides began. But we figured it out and then tried to put the roof on and the little window screen while both of the kids weaved through and around and over and under to go up the ladder, through the playhouse and down the slide as fast as possible. We finished and then sat back to watch.


Erin had to go in for a much needed nap, so she's not in these pictures, but rest assured, she loves the slide and can get up and down the ladder like a champ (believe it. I watched her go up time and time again and even change her mind and come back down).



What do you think? I think they like it.










For an added bonus, we opened the swing beam package and found several missing parts. Like swings. And the trapeze bar. And the swing chains. And a couple other things. We are on a first name basis with the sales reps now. Sigh. Now we can get rid of the rusty, squeaky old swingset and enjoy our new one. :)

Ice Storm

On January 27, a storm swept through our little town and completely turned it topsy turvy. All our appointments were cancelled due to nasty icy roads and school was cancelled too. We lost power a little after noon. We were scheduled to go on our bi-monthly grocery trip, but had to postpone it too. It's really tough to be out of bread when you're stuck home with the kids!
My HC was called in to work and I resigned myself to a very interesting afternoon/night with the kids and no power. A lot of the town runs their heat on natural gas. We do too, so we weren't worried about heating the house. We still had water. Yay for flushing toilets! But we didn't have any hot water. And none of the usual activities that engaged the kids worked. No computer, no tv, no lights!
Another big yay for camping gear! We got out our Coleman lantern (battery op) and our kerosene lamps and about a dozen tea candles. We were in business. It was so cold outside, I couldn't get the grill lit. I don't know why, if it was the cold, or the ice that was starting to accumulate on Everything, or what, but I couldn't get it lit. I was very thankful that there was still some warm water left in the water heater. We ate sandwiches and had warm stand-up baths. I let the very grateful Buddy and the "This is GREAT weather!" Berry in for the night. I lit candles in the kids' rooms and we went to bed. The next day, we woke up to this:
















I don't remember what happened every day, but I do know that it wasn't much fun. The damage was very severe to our town. At one point, Ian and I stood on the carport and listened to the almost constant crack-the-whip sounds of icy branches twisting, breaking and falling off of huge trees. They fell onto houses, cars, sheds, the street and demolished several fences. Branches and entire trees, coated in over an inch of ice, continued to fall for several days. My HC got the grill working and we cooked on it and heated pots of water for more stand up baths. We went to the EMS building for a hot meal and a couple loads of laundry. HC got a hot shower because he had to go back to work. Fire and Rescue went door to door to make sure everyone was okay and had heat. Some went to a shelter at the Assembly of God. Red Cross came after a few days, held up by the person in our town who was in charge of Crisis Management and didn't think the damage was extensive enough to call FEMA. He is not well liked at this time. FEMA and Red Cross had been in Arkansas, 15 miles away since the first day.
The Street Department worked around the clock to keep the roads cleared, though I don't know who was fool enough to drive with all the ice and snow all over the roads.


















In the meantime, we went outside to play in the snow that fell over all the ice. It was very cold and we had to keep going inside to warm up. Ray from the EMS building let us borrow his camping propane burner, so we had some hot chocolate. The kids had a blast sliding on the ice, riding in Ian's Power Wheels, and inspecting the ice. We also saw a Channel 6 helicopter, surveying the damage. We provided them with some excellent footage of booty shaking and slipping in the snow just in case they were filming us.





















In the middle of this, my dad decided to make a surprise visit. He and Nana called from Alabama. "We have a bushel of oysters and about 100 lb of deer meat!" Uh....we don't have power. "We'll get some ice," they said. Boy oh boy, did we have ice. We put all our fridge and freezer stuff outside in coolers and plastic storage boxes. I beat ice off of the fence to put in the coolers. They did just fine until Saturday, when the weather got too warm.












We had a great visit with Nana and PopPop, who got a hotel room so we could all take hot showers and baths.
Our powerline had a large branch on it and it ripped the line out of the side of our house. We were very glad that PopPop (who is also an electrician) was there to help us fix it. He also replaced our sadly outdated 1950s fuse box with a safe breaker box.













PopPop and Nana also got us a generator, because boy howdy did we have some laundry piled up! The power came back on Sunday afternoon. And we've been cleaning up ever since. The town looks much better, but there's still a lot to be done.



















On the upside, when there's no electricity, the kids learned how to do other things.

My First Committee

I must now take a moment to feel completely weirded out by the fact that I'm a grown up and I was asked to be on my first grown-up committee. And it was for one of my favorite places. Yay!
I got an email from the Head Librarian at our library and she asked me if I would like to participate in the 2010-2013 Library Planning Committee. Lunch would be provided...the only catch is that it's a workshoppy sort of session (those are my own words) and that it would be from 1-5? (those were her words) and lunch was at 12. I immediately talked to my HC. Nrrrt! Scratch that. Insert "should have" in there somewhere. In a whirl of being flattered that she would even care what I thought, and elation at being on my first grown-up committee, I emailed her back and told her I'd do it. My HC didn't have to be at work until 4. He could watch the baby and pick Ian up from school and then I could keep them at the library for what little time remained.
Well, ha ha ha and fiddle dee dee. Guess who found out he had court at 1? And guess who, when I was busy sleeping in, woke me up at 9:30 to tell me that he had to go to another court session at 10:00 and he just found out? Well, he really did just find out, the courts don't do nice things around here like give notice. So I was left to work out the details of my afternoon. So I did what anyone would have done in my position. I loaded up a huge bag full of baby toys, snacks and a sippy cup. And I went to the library.
And it was a lot bigger deal than I thought it would be. Librarians from schools and other schools and educators and Friends of the Library and council members and the Regional Director of the Eastern Oklahoma District Library system from Muskogee. The local bank manager, the guy who processed our mortgage. The school superintendent. School board members. Biiiiiig deals. And real reporters from real papers (instead of my freelance library work). It was introduction time. Everyone had a big something to add after their name. Everyone looked at me, the youngest one in the room (by a good amount), who had brought her cute but noisy baby. I gave my name. Then I added a dazzling smile and said "Library Patron." Because by golly, my library card is the most loved and used thing in my wallet, other than the odd tissue. Everyone smiled and nodded. They moved on to the other movers and shakers in the room. And we got down to business. And boy was it a looooong business.
You know those huge drawing sheets, like the ones they used to use on Win, Lose or Draw on TV? The big ones that you draw on with smelly permanent markers and then tear off? Well, after groupthinking and commenting and discussing, the room filled up 5 or 6 of those things. Then we stopped for snacktime and I had to go get Ian from school.

I picked him up and went home to change a poopy diaper. I had forgotten wipes and thought it would be pushing the envelope a little too far to change the mud in front of those still eating spinach dip and carrot sticks. I told Ian we were going back to the library until Mommy was finished with the "boring grownup meeting." He was thrilled. He loves the preschool computer and the big blocks and the bean bags and giant books. He was a perfect gentleman and SueAnn, the head librarian went to get him so he could have snacks too.
You could just about see haloes over their heads and EVERYONE in the room commented about what good kids I have and how I must be a great mother. Wow. Well, we try. And we bribe with soda and sweets. But we're still mystified as to how everyone behaved for so long. Finally it was over and we loaded up and went home.
So wow. I was on my first grownup committee and I really think that I am helping to make a difference in our community. And it feels Good.

*For those interested parties, please note that this is one of the only pictures we have of Erin with her eyes open. Also note the red tint of the photo. I had my finger over the flash (which flashes 3 separate times!), which caused the discoloration, but led to open eyes. Sigh.