Nurse-In Montage

Here is a cool montage of various Nurse-Ins around the country. I just love seeing all the nursing mamas and their little babies and toddlers in slings and wraps. Almost makes me want another to snuggle up in a sling -- almost.

It also reminds me that I've been meaning to replace my Kerry Edwards bumpersticker on the back of the van. Even my very liberal, W hating friend Jen said that I really need something new. I've been debating about what to put there and felt like I wanted something environmental but also a little bit edgy. Then this week, I found one of my old bumperstickers and decided on this one: BREASTFEEDING: Better for Baby, Better for Baby, Better for the Planet. I also had another one of my favorites that I had on my old van it was : BREASTFEEDING: Anytime my baby is hungry, Anywhere I am. I love that one, but it doesn't exactly apply anymore - no baby or child to nurse anymore. :(

Can't hardly believe it!

After a week of vacation from school, Monday arrives and becomes a Full Blown True Snow Day - shocking, I know! Then Tuesday arrives and guess what? Apparently, some teenagers vandalized the school buses and we have another day off.

So we've now gotten an extra 2 days off after a vacation week. I'm sure I'll be back at work tomorrow, in the meantime, I'm just enjoying the added vacation.

ch-ch-changes!

What follows is a look into my recent renovation life. (It goes backwards in the blog - sorry about that). Over the holiday break, we started working on our kitchen. My bil, Ron offered to engineer the project and helped us with an unbelievable amount of work and materials. My mom gave us a $450 gift card for a combined Xmas present (incredibly generous of her!) to help fund the project. On that initial trip to Lowe's we used up the gift card plus about $50 on materials needed for the job. We had been torn about the cabinets and were initially planning on getting an installing them in December, the lack of money and being unable to find ready made 36" upper cabinets, made us change plans and go with another set of open shelving above the countertop. It worked out nicely since Ron had brought all the shelving with him (he had it left over from a project at his house) and I ironed on the edging and all we had to do was to purchase the tracking and the brackets. All in all, we only ended up paying about $50 out of pocket for a major overhaul for our kitchen.

We still have quite a bit to do, while one half of our kitchen looks nice and pretty in it's peaceful blue color, the rest needs to be finished. This will entail painting the cabinets (which means, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, sanding, painting, painting), also taking them down and patching, sanding, priming, sanding, priming, painting, and painting the walls, then putting the cabinets (outfitted with new hardware) back up, replacing the countertops and putting down new flooring. The plan to do all this during the Summer of 2007.

And here we are!

This is where we are today. I'd have to say that if you didn't know any better, you might think it's nothing to write home about (and clearly there is a whole lot more work left to do, but it will largely wait until summer, when I have more time). To get a sense of how small my kitchen was, the fridge that you see on the right is up against the doorway that goes to the diningroom. On the left, you can barely see the sink and to the left of that there is an 18" countertop and then the doorway to the diningroom. So really, this is my entire kitchen, so hopefully you can see that this change really doubles the feel of the kitchen.

Yeah for paint!

Lots of sanding, plastering, filling, sanding and more sanding, then a few coats of primer followed by a few coats of paint (blue-gray on the walls and white on the trim). Now to just start putting everything back in order and clean the mega dusty house.

Can you say dust?

This brings us up to February (about one week ago). We've taken everything back down and got the light fixture up, the electrical finished (yes, there are *8* outlets on my new wall at the coutertop and *2* below the countertop. So while it feels like a step backward, after some more elbow grease and a whole lotta cleanin' on the whole house. We are on our way.

Now here is progress!

It might not look it to you, but this is heavenly to me! The change in how big the kitchen feels is amazing! It feels like we have doubled the space. It is just remarkable. We've got the shelves up along the back wall, they go from floor to ceiling and because of the formation of the walls (it's like a little niche), they look like they were built in. The shelving along the other wall (from this view we are seeing it at the edge of the shelving) fits in perfectly too. Eventually, we will replace that with cabinets. The new countertop is in place and looks good. Still more to do, but this was our kitchen from late December to February.

Getting There

Okay, so here you can see that the toliet is gone (along with the sink that was behind the other wall) and the majority of the wall is gone. Ron and Greg were putting in the sheetrock for the new wall in the picture. Pete is supervising this part of the project. :)

The beginning

So here is the beginning. This is my kitchen before. Well, actually I'd already done a bunch of stuff to get to this point. That little 'window' in the middle of that wall? Well, there used to be a tiny door on it, and the door lead to this space behind the wall. The space went back about 4 feet and the right about two more feet. So while this gave us a lot of storage space, it was virtually unusable, since things would go in and never come out (or at least we could never find them again). Also all the molding around the the doorway to the bathroom (I'd long since ripped off the bathroom door because it took up too much room. On the wall straight ahead we had our pot rack, which really held quite a bit, I'm still at a bit of a loss on where to put the pots now.

Treehugger link

This is a site that has a bunch of little short video clips with 'commercials' that people made on going green. Interesting stuff -- I especially liked the "choose" one.

http://truths.treehugger.com/

Allergy news!

I can hardly believe that I'm saying this but it looks like Sean may have outgrown some of his allergies!!! When we had his comprehensive blood work done about 2 years ago, it listed 23 foods that he was allergic to. The effects of his allergies were largely as eczema. They began 2 weeks after he weaned, when he was 3 1/2 years old. We were on vacation in Chincoteague when it first showed up on the front of his ankle. He had what looked like major poison ivy that would not go away - the front of his leg was a scabby mess for soooo long (we are talking YEARS) that it is a miracle that he doesn't have scars there. All night long, he would scratch and I would say, "stop scratching" and hold his hands and arms so that there might be a chance that the sheets wouldn't be bloody from all the scratching in the morning. After the blood work and the monster list of what to avoid (the most difficult were wheat, dairy and soy - everything else was pretty easy - largely grains, and fruits and vegetables), we began to see a difference. Last summer was the first time that he was able to swim in the river (the river being saltwater, it would burn his eczema too badly) and man did he love it!

Some of the foods that were on his allergic list, I've been introducing in small amounts (often without him really knowing) like citrus fruits, bananas, some grains (oat, quinoa, etc) and he'd been doing okay with them. So this week, we started with real dairy - yogurt to be specific and he seems absolutely fine!!! I'd been introducing it *in* things (as an ingredient for a couple of weeks). I would even say that his legs look BETTER now - which is amazing considering the amount of plaster dust we have had in the house, even my skin feels chalky all the time. So right now the only two things that he is avoiding are peanuts and wheat. Peanuts he may never outgrow, but I think we might try the wheat during April vacation. I feel like my entire world is about to change. He's been so good for nearly 2 years, I'm really hoping that this is the real thing!

Friday Feast

I've seen this line of meme before, but never gave them a whirl until today...

Appetizer - Where on your body do you have a scar, and what caused it?

I have a scar on the inside of my left thigh. It was from a burn, a burn from a cup of coffee. It happened about 17 years ago while I was on my way home to visit my mom and we stopped for a cup of coffee for my (then) boyfriend. Yes, it was from McDs. At the stop light, I took the lid off to put the sugar in and when the light change and the car started moving, my hand jumped and I ended up dumping the whole cup in my lap. He pulled over to get out and give me a hug and I got out of the car as fast as I could and ripped off my jeans by the side of the road - just then he came around and saw the skin on my legs coming off on my jeans and threw me back in and hightailed it to the hospital. I ended up with 1st, 2nd and 3rd degree burns. And no, I didn't sue and get millions (tho' my burns were worse than the woman who did sue).

Soup - What is something that has happened to you that you would consider a miracle?

Having kids.

Salad - Name a television personality who really gets on your nerves.

Emeril


Main Course - What was a funny word you said as a child (such as "pasketti" for "spaghetti")?

Not something that I said, but something Ahren said...When she was a wee thing, I would stop at the Sunoco gas station to get a pack of Resee's pb cups and I would usually also get gas. So I'd say we were stopping for some gas. Later, when she started talking she called Resee's pb cups "gas". It was too cute.

Dessert - Fill in the blank: I have always thought ______ was ______.

having money was equal to happiness. (I know better now)

This and That and The Other

What a week it has been. I've been getting lots done on the kitchen. Ron (and Patty) came down late Sunday evening until Tuesday morning, to work on finishing up some stuff. Ron got the electrical finished along with more sanding, plastering, cutting ceiling moulding and putting in a new door frame. After he left, I continued working on sanding, sanding and more sanding, then a couple coats of primer and then a couple of coats of new paint and pput in the outlet covers. Then I put the new shelves back up and returned things to their fairly normal state - but much prettier now. There is of course, still a whole boatload of stuff to do, the whole rest of the kitchen, but at least there is a part of the kitchen that looks nice.

The most challenging thing was dealing with a major layer of plaster dust all over everything in our house - literally. The curtains will all need to be washed, everything in all the cabinets and drawers will need to be washed. All the spice jars are covered with dust, the tupperware cabinet, the piano in the livingroom, the pictures hanging in the hallway -- EVERYTHING! At least I've got most of it under control, or at least to a semi-livable point.

Last night, Michael and the boys came up for dinner and we got the official word that Lucia and Michael will be moving to Vermont. Lucia got a job as a Senior Pastor at a UCC church there, they are excited, but we are sad. For the past 7? years, they have lived nearby (about a half-hour away) and Ahren and Sean grew up with the boys (Micah - 12 and Asher - 9) being a big part of their lives. Now to have them moving away, it will be hard. They will be about 3 hours away, which will make weekend trips doable. When I told Ahren and Sean today, they took it better than I thought they would. Sean was actually more upset than Ahren was. Ahren kept saying that it will be harder on them, because they will be leaving everyone, we are only losing them. It helped that I told the kids that when we visit we will be able to stay over night, Sean thought that was cool, and wanted me to promise him that we would get a bunk bed for him to sleep at at their house. I told him that I couldn't do that, and he seemed okay with that.

Tomorrow the plan is to get all my plans done for the month of March for school, which would really be a good thing, considering I've been really putting it off all week.

A Tarot Card Quiz

You scored as III - The Empress. The Empress is a maternal symbol. She is the mother figure who loves, nurtures and protects.
She will protect you, she will always be there when you are in trouble. When you fall over and graze your knee, the Empress will kiss it better.
Yet she is not a weak figure. Her compassion is strength. If her children are threatened she will stop at nothing to protect them. If well aspected in a Tarot spread, the Empress can symbolise security, protection and unconditional love. If badly aspected it can represent over-protectiveness, fear of risk taking and refusal to face the real world.

III - The Empress		100%
II - The High Priestess		94%
XIII: Death		88%
IV - The Emperor		88%
VIII - Strength		81%
XVI: The Tower		69%
XIX: The Sun		63%
I - Magician		56%
XI: Justice		50%
0 - The Fool		44%
VI: The Lovers		38%
X - Wheel of Fortune		25%
XV: The Devil		13%

Which Major Arcana Tarot Card Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

Interesting school week...

This past week has been a really odd one at school. On Monday I had a PPT, so I was out of the AM class for a little over an hour, then that afternoon I had a meeting at Central Office regarding the Early Childhood Initiative that the Board of Ed is working on. Monday night I had a Prudential Board Planning Meeting at church. Then Tuesday was regular day, except that I had to go and pick up Sean when he got sick at school. Tuesday night was the Kindergarten Readiness program at the elementary school (more about that later). Wednesday I had to stay home with Sean, so I miss both classes, then had to take Ahren to theater rehearsal and pick her up later. Today was back to a normal day. Tomorrow will hopefully be another normal day (with a special meeting at church in the evening and theater rehearsal for Ahren again.

The K Readiness program was interesting, and no, I don't have any children who will be attending K this fall. I was there for professional reasons. I want to make sure that the curriculum that we are following will be adequately preparing our students for K in the fall. They did a slide show of what the K day looks like and it was remarkably like our preschool day. We do a morning meeting letter, we do daily journaling, we do centers, and letter work, snack and outdoor play. The turn out of the program was really quite impressive too, and I'd have to say that probably a good half of the people there were from our preschool and almost everyone in my classes came up to me afterward and remarked that they were so happy that their children will have such a smooth transition to K in the fall. I was pretty pleased and it made me feel good having so many parents comment to nicely. Last year one of the other teachers really gave me a hard time, making things difficult and it caused me to doubt my abilities. I think it was more about her own insecurities that it was about me and my teaching skills. In any case, I was glad that I went to the program because it reinforced to me that I'm doing a good job.

Sick little guy and blech

So yesterday, just as my morning class left, I got a call from my kid's school, that Sean had just thrown up. :( Luckily, Tuesday's I don't have an afternoon class. So I was able to pick him up quickly and bring him home. He seems to have that yucky stomach bug that's been going around. So I've spent the last 18 hours helping him aim his puke towards the bowl and doing laundry and trying to convince him that he really can't eat anything or drink anything right now. Even when he was taking a sip of water, it would come right back up 5 minutes later. No fun.

In between all that, I've been trying to get a couple of Web pages done, which is hard for me this time because I can't really upload them and troubleshoot them as they go live. Since I need to email the finished pages to someone else to upload. So I want to be sure that they are right, so as not to bother her any more than I already have. I'm sure that she isn't happy about the current methods of work as well, since it ends up making a ton of extra work for herself.

Knitting news

Well, it seems that I've picked up my needles again and have been busily knitting various things, also finishing some unfinished projects. I finished the Boogie Vest from Knitty, using a light blue yarn that I got when I went to Vinal Haven, ME, with my dear friend Diana. It was quite a week that I will never forget. Then I whipped up a little earwarmer/headband thing from Knitty, but Sean decided that he wanted it (he doesn't really like hats much). So now I've got some super basic socks on the needles. The great thing about socks is that they are small and portable, the bad thing about socks IMO, is that you need to make two of them, which means that I often fall into the SSS (Single Sock Syndrome). I know I could do two of them on 2 circs at the same time, but I find that my yarn becomes a tangley mess, which I hate.

I think I've also decided to go ahead and retire from LLL. I was thinking about staying on as a Leader Reserve, but I think the timing is right to just retire all together. Too many things have changed in the organization and the Area, and hanging on would just make me wishful for the good ole days. It's odd how LLL was such a big part of my life for so long (I'd been attending meetings since Jan '97) and I thought it would be a much more difficult decision to come to, but as it turns out it's easier than I thought - I guess that goes to show much things have changed.