The Illusion of Peace

I love the beginning of the month.   It doesn’t matter what month it is, (though I’m rather partial to December), just that it’s the beginning.    There’s just something about flipping that calendar to a fresh new page that gives me a feeling of starting fresh.    Weird?   Possibly.   I’ve been called worse. 

As the kids have gotten older, we have switched to one of the “family calendars” that have spaces for each family member’s activities every day.    It takes up the majority of the side of our refrigerator, but it’s worth it.   In fact, for someone who often can’t remember what day it is, it’s essential.    I have a love/hate relationship with that calendar.

When that fresh page is turned, the calendar has quite a number of neatly printed activities for each of us.    As the month continues, all the empty spots quickly fill with last-minute events, crossed-out marks where plans have changed, hastily drawn arrows moving one commitment to another day (where are all our erasers??), and assorted other day-to-day responsibilities.    By the end of the month, that calendar looks as crazy as I feel trying to keep up with it.

But that nice tidy page at the month’s start where there seems to be plenty of time for everything?    It’s energizing.

Now…off to accomplish something before reality eeks its way back into my brain!

Until next time…
C.

Leprechaun traps, guitars, and guest blogging.

How’s that for a random blog title?

I spent a half-hour this morning drying a shoebox with a hairdryer.  Now you might think that phrase seems as odd as my post title, but really, it makes perfect sense when you find out Kid 1’s  musical instrument was due today.    Yesterday was rainy, so I tried to wait out the humidity to spray paint the mishmash of shoebox, rubber bands, and broken yardstick a lovely shade of “leftover from painting the shutters-blue”.    Alas, the rain never stopped, so this morning the guitar was coated with spray-gesso in the garage and dried with the hairdryer in the kitchen.    The crafter in me is shaking her head, but the mom in me gets the giggles thinking about the absurdity. 

Kid 2 has a Leprechaun trap due in 2 weeks.    I’m wracking my brain to come up with a way to creatively ensnare a small mythological being.    And I’m wondering what the odds are that it won’t require a last-minute heat styling.

And as for the guest blogging, my post and project is up today at the Helmar Blog!    Here’s a sneak peak of the dimension created with their Liquid Scrap Dots.  Love that glue!     Check out the project and the instructions here.

Have a great weekend!

Until next time…
C.

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

This beautiful little girl turns 6 years old today!

I can’t believe how big she is.  I’ve been trying to convince her for a month now that she really ought to start going backward in age for a little while.    If she turned four instead, we’d get to spend more time at home together and we could just re-use all her birthday presents from before.    Sounds perfect, right?    For some reason, she didn’t go for my suggestion, and there will be 6 candles tonight.

So this morning, I’m baking brownies for her class treat and a big chocolate cake with chocolate frosting for our celebration at home.    Sense a trend?    My girl loves her chocolate. 

Happy birthday sweetheart!

Until next time…
C.

Home from CHA

I’m exhausted.    It was a great show overall, if a bit slow at first.  I’ll post some photos and my thoughts soon, but today I’m hanging out with my babies.    I missed the little mites.

Oh, and it’s cold here.   Really, really cold here.  Didn’t miss that at all.

Until next time…
C.

Dickens–The other kind.

Not the author, the 2-year-old.

Could be the holiday excitement, could be lack of sleep carried over from our holiday zoo excursion, could be the fact that he’s 2.   Whatever the cause, he’s sorely testing my patience.

Good thing this little dickens is cute!

How do you celebrate?

I’m having a lazy morning.  After all, it is my birthday, plus it’s a rainy morning with the promise of snow by dinnertime.  It’s the perfect morning for laziness.

So I will drink my morning coffee and answer the questions posted on Barb’s blog for your reading enjoyment this morning.

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags?  A little bit of both.  After a while, I get really tired of wrapping.  Whatever I have left at that point gets shoved in a bag.

2. Real tree or Artificial? Artificial in our house.  My mom got it for us for our wedding shower and it still looks great.  Some of my greatest childhood christmas memories were from going out to the tree farm and digging our own live spruce every year, though.  I feel a secret twinge of guilt every time I assemble ours.

3. When do you put up the tree? Usually ends up being 2-3 weeks before Christmas.  This year the tree went up last weekend, lights and decorations yesterday.  See previous post. 

4. When do you take the tree down? Um…  February-ish?  Only sometimes an exaggeration.

5. Do you like eggnog?   Ugh.  Yuck.  Ptooey.   I’d much rather have some spiked Wassail.

6. Favorite gift received as a child? A 3 ft. long Barbie camper.  The same year my brother got the 6 ft long GI Joe aircraft carrier.  They came with 675,942 decals each and my dad put them all on, swearing a blue streak for hours as he put tiny labels on miniature soup cans.  Hilarity!

7. Hardest person to buy for? My Dad.  This year I’m thrilled with his gift, though.  Can’t wait to give it.

8. Easiest person to buy for? The kids.  Amazon directly to my door.

9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yes.  Received it for the same bridal shower.

10. Mail or email Christmas cards? Mail.  Every year I joke they are more like Happy New Year Cards.  They all get out eventually!

11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? Nothing really heinous, actually.   A few sweaters that weren’t my taste, perhaps a decorative pillow or two.

12. Favorite for Christmas dinner? My mom makes prime rib every year.  Tastes great and it’s a welcome switch from ham.

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Never before Thanksgiving!  Each holiday celebrated individually, please.

14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Round robin exchanges or gag gifts only.

15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Homemade buckeyes and my grandma’s peanut brittle.

16. Lights on the tree? White, and lots of ‘em.   Our 7 1/2 ft. tree averages 2300-2500 lights each year.   I run a 9 outlet extension cord up the center of the tree, and hide a power strip for the bottom.  It’s a sickness.  I blame my father.  This year, I deliberately scaled down to 1800 for time reasons and it about killed me.  I am a Griswold at heart.

17. Favorite Christmas song? “Silent Night” at the candlelight service.  Although I harbor a secret love of all the spoof songs.  (“The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen” is an old favorite)

18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? Both, depending on the year

19. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star.

20. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? Morning.  Love the suspense!

So there you have it.  Answers to 20 questions you never knew you wanted to know about me.  May “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas” never get stuck in your head this holiday season!

Until next time…
C.

The potty is in the hallway and the tree is naked.

Tell me I’m going to love my new bathroom.  Really.  Tell me over and over again, so I remember why I’m doing this.

If you remember, we remodled the kitchen right before the last CHA show in July.  Remember how I mentioned the insanity of doing such a thing when things were so crazy?  We finished the kitchen (except for the tile, which we’ll do when I magically find the physical manifestation of the vision I have in my head), but didn’t get to the other things we wanted to upgrade before I got sick in September.

One of those other little projects we wanted to implement was the changing of the main floor powder room.  Out with the 80s builder’s cabinet and fake marble sink, in with the furniture piece and all that jazz.   That project got derailed by the aforementioned sickness and the house upgrades had remained in a state of limbo.

Until this weekend.

I was blissfully unaware that 3 weeks before Christmas is the perfect time to demolish a bathroom.  Who knew?  The wainscoting is gone, leaving the walls peeled to the paperboard, and the potty is now in the front hallway, which my kids find immensely entertaining.   The whole space is covered with layers of drywall dust from the attempted repair of the walls, which if you remember from this post, makes me shudder just thinking about it.

Ho Ho Ho.

The tree is in the corner of the living room, just waiting.  I add around 2,300 lights to it every year, so for my sanity, I need to have all my ducks in a row before I attempt the process.  Currently, the ducks are waddling aimlessly through the drywall dust.  The kids keep asking “Mommy?  Why aren’t there any lights on the tree?  Is it because the potty is in the hallway?

Why yes, kids.  Yes it is.

This would totally be funny if it was happening to someone else.

Until next time, when I regain my sanity…
C.

Some great news!

Helmar Adhesives has officially announced their 2009 Design Team, and guess who’s on the list?

• Tracy Weinzapfel Burgos, Design Team Coordinator
• Jenna Franklin
• Amber Hillman
• Laura Achilles
• Carla Schauer
• Tish Treadaway
• Jennifer Beason
• Marci Knecht
• Beth Root
• Becky Teichmiller

Well, all of these talented ladies are on the list, but see right there in the middle?  Me!  I can’t wait to start!

I do quite a number of different crafty things, and never know where the mojo fairy is going to take me.  Whether I’m covering something with paper, attaching paper to other paper, or sticking several non-paper products together, I always need adhesive.  And Helmar has some great adhesives, so I am truly excited to work with them.   They also have some products I’ve never used before, which means some crafty experimentation happening soon!

I hope everyone had a fantastic Thanksgiving weekend!  We were out of town visiting family.  Though we have seen everyone since Easter, we haven’t been able to travel to our hometown because of various scheduling conflicts, travel, and illness.  There is something about watching your children playing with your old toys (you know, the unsafe ones that can be swallowed) in your old house that is comforting and just plain fun.  I’m so glad we were able to go.

Have a great day!

Until next time…
C

Feeling grateful

Just a quick note to express my gratitude to quite a few people today.  I thought they deserved a bit of public recognition for helping me out lately.

First, my inlaws have been such a great help.  They dropped everything to help out when I was in the hospital, which is no small task, since they live hours away.  They would have come back again in a heartbeat if I needed them.  I have been blessed to have fantastic inlaws.  No complaints here, I couldn’t have asked for a better family to marry into!

Second, I have a wonderful support network of friends and neighbors who have graciously volunteered to bring us dinner over the last week after my inlaws went back to their own home.  It is amazingly helpful for me to not have to worry about shopping/cooking, since my energy levels are hovering around the zero mark.  Thank you, thank you all, for taking the time to care for my family in addition to your own.  Know that we appreciate each and every bite!

Next, someone who has been extraordinarly generous in answering some medical questions for me, even though I contacted her out of the clear blue sky after a google search.  Weirdly enough, we belong to the same mother’s group, but she was coming in as I started to attend less, and our paths never crossed.   Giant thanks to you Kim, if you catch this.

And last, but definitely not least, my husband, who has borne the brunt of all this crud, and who has pretty much had to be both dad and mom for the last 3.5 weeks, and who will likely have more of my work to take on as I cough and hack my way back to the healthy world.  And he hasn’t complained very much either.    He’s a good one.  Thanks hon.

While I’m hoping to get back to the crafty blogging soon, I didn’t make a darn thing in September to show you.  Not one.  Perhaps to break up the thoroughly exciting posts about sickness, I’ll pull something from my crafty project files to post for you tomorrow.   A post with an actual photo?  Egads!   You’ll think you’re in the wrong place!

Until next time…
C.

Sickness: By the numbers

In the last 14 days since the onset of the headache, the very first inkling of the trouble to come, this is how it has shaken down:

14 days of headache
4 days nausea
3 days fever, chills, and host of other things no one wants to read about
1 trip to Urgent Care Clinic
1 diagnosis possible meningitis
1trip to ER
3 minutes in waiting room (possible communicable disease gets you right in!)
3 IV attempts before successful start and 2 bags fluid
1 spinal tap proving neg. for meningitis
1 clear head CT scan
1 probable kidney infection, 3 prescriptions given, release.

2 days later, worse not better
1 trip to PCP on Friday, who arranged immediately
1 admission to hospital for dehydration and unknown illness
3L fluids given in 3hrs, 2 more L by morning.
3 separate antibiotics to treat whatever-it-is

1 ekg
1 chest x-ray
90 minutes with head in cage in claustrophobic MRI tube for scans of head and back
2 additional chest x-rays
3 valium/day
3 antibiotics/day
1 IV falls out, 3 attempts needed to find new vein

24 hours without power as Hurricane Ike whipped through Ohio.  Luckily hospitals get power back first.

0 causes for original headache found
3 chest x-rays positive for pneumonia, antibiotics cut to 2 targeted
1 nightly belly injection of blood thinners
2 daily blood draws for testing

1 neurologist consult Wed. lasting 90 seconds
1 diagnosis bonus headache from spinal tap in ER
1 blood patch performed to close hole leaking spinal fluid
9 hours lying horizontal only to keep patch intact.
36 hours later, headache is manageable.

After 7 full days in hospital, finally released on Friday.  26 total sticks with needle into severely needle-phobic blogger.

And did I mention the day I checked into the hospital, my dad had quadruple bypass surgery?  He’s doing great, thank goodness, and actually beat me out of the hospital!

Yep, it’s been a real doozy around here, I’m only just getting to start going through e-mail, so if you’re waiting for a response from me, I’m doing the best I can.  The good news is I feel like I’ve been hit by a small truck now, rather than a freight train!

Big thanks to everyone for all their well-wishes and prayers!

Until next time…
C.