Love At Home

They may be 10 and 12 but they can still make my heart melt when I see things like this. Since they only have each other I hope they always stay this way.

Under Construction

What's the best thing to do when you have a husband who is periodically in town? Allow him to talk you into some remodeling...seriously... Well, we are redoing our powder room. A lot of our house has tile floors and the tiles are starting to separate from the mortar and crack. The powder is probably the worst spot simply because the ratio of broken to unbroken tiles is higher. I also hated that there is only a pedestal sink in there. Where do you hide the TP? Plus it contains most of the remaining wall paper in our house. Seriously, wallpapering a bathroom? Sometimes a bathroom just needs a fresh coat of paint.

I think most of it started because he didn't like the texturing job he did in our bathroom after I painstakingly removed all of the ugly wallpaper in there. So, he took it upon himself to retexture. Then HE picked out the paint and painted most (notice I said most) of the master bath. The paint he picked out, while pretty, turned it into a cave.

So, now I am painting this week while he is gone. We already painted our study, which was one of the few rooms that we haven't touched in the four years we have lived here. It was two dull beige colors, separated by a chair rail. The previous owners seemed to have a love for flat paint, which I personally detest. I repainted the bottom part with the leftovers of this lovely blue color and the top with a cream. It's so much more cheerful. I moved our very small pull out couch in there and then I am going to buy a cheerful yellow slipcover, when we are done with all of the other upgrades.

Moe and her husband 'Jake' (her nickname) are also redoing our third bathroom. I will have to post pictures when she's done. She has some great ideas if she can pull it off.

The Anniversary Vortex

Or why I fear my anniversary. Today TD and I celebrate 15 years of wedded bliss, interspersed with some terrifying and sad activities. However, it would seem that major things happen within two weeks (either way) of our anniversary. Take note:
1st Anniversary- Princess Diana dies...seriously. Not the most cheerful. I am sure she wasn't entirely the reason our cake top tasted gross. Whose idea was that anyway? To freeze dubious cake to begin with?
At year 3, I was hospitalized twice in August for excessive vomiting from carrying Buttercup. Just a harbinger of things to come. At least I managed to get paroled for our anniversary. Not that you feel like celebrating when you are always throwing up.
Year 5? Well, I was starting to feel ill with Fiona again and then September 11th happened. It was the first and only time I thought, I can't believe we are bringing children into this world. I mean, the curse of our anniversary can't be this bad, right?
Year 10 had to have been the worst. I spent our anniversary in the hospital with our sweet 4 year old Princess Fiona. She had just received her diagnosis of T-cell Lymphoblastic Lymphoma. This was kind of like our own 9/11, where it seemed buildings collapsed and the world was going to end. TD spent that evening taking Princess Buttercup to Meet the Teacher, where he was so out of his element he couldn't remember Buttercup's teacher until he ran into one of our friends.

Year 11? We were in the process of trying to get our house sold to move halfway across the country, as well as still dealing with Fiona's chemotherapy regime.
Year 12? The same specter loomed over us as I was in the process of taking Moe to the surgeon to get a lump in her breast removed. This was my first baby and I was fully prepared to help her through what she needed if it came to that. Thank heavens it was benign.
Year 13...Hurricane Ike showed up within two weeks of our anniversary. I mean c'mon!
This was all that really happened to our property, but the several days without power and my first trip to the laundromat was enough excitement. The kids were out of school for several days and TD doesn't to well when it's hot and we don't have an air conditioner.
Year 15, we aren't even in the same state. TD is doing his TDY and I am on full time kid patrol. Here's to hoping that it's the only thing that off about this anniversary. I am holding my breath for the next couple of weeks.

American Girl Doll Store

So, my girls have never really been into this. Sure, they enjoyed Kit Kittredge and a few of the chapter books in the day, but we have never purchased any doll related items. Most likely they knew that Mom was not paying $100 for any doll, ever. But, in the interest of places to go and things to see, we decided to take a gander when we visited downtown Chicago.

We waited until the weekend, so that TD could go. I am adventurous, but I need a better navigator than Buttercup if I am going to attempt downtown Chicago. Not to disparage her help, having her ride shotgun has made things a lot easier, not to mention cut down on the squabbling in the backseat, which is more distracting than anything.

We wandered all over the store and marveled at the cost of things. TD couldn't stop cracking up about the lady pushing the stroller with two dolls in it, while her girls wandered the store. We decided Fiona was #19 while Buttercup was number #39. We also checked out the accessories. Buttercup absolutely loved this little dog, but not it's $20 price tag.

I highly recommend visiting the store if you have girls and end up in downtown Chicago with one very large caveat. Don't do it unless you have undemanding kids or a very open large pocketbook. Some of the parents in that store were getting worked over. Let's see college tuition or a shopping spree at American Girl Doll store....

Favorite Christmas Movie

Ten points to whoever can guess the house the girls are standing in front of. This house was the setting for one of my favorite family movies. My family would sit down to NBC, Thanksgiving night, every year, and watch Kevin get left Home Alone again. I googled this house and figured out it was minutes from our hotel. The girls love this movie as well and they were excited to see it. It was weird to find it sitting in the middle of a neighborhood, instead of set off somewhere, alone, because it was so special, haha.

We were warned by the website to remember that people actually live here and to be cognizant of that. The girls asked if people lived here. I said sure, and just then a car started driving down the street. I said, " Who knows, that could be them." The girls wondered what we should do and I recommended hauling buns down the street and leaping into the mini van if it was them.

So funny! Check out the sudden tenseness in the girls' faces. I think they were poised for flight! Buttercup much more so than her sister. Fiona is always ready for an adventure.
As we were driving out of the neighborhood we came across the church where Kevin hid in the Nativity Scene. The girls were excited to see a bit of their history in real life. It was made even better by the Slurpees that we were all sucking on. We were shocked when we got to Houston and found out there weren't any Slurpees for miles. It's always fun to be adventurous in new cities.

Times They Are A Changin'

This is a picture of Lake Michigan. The girls and I have been cruising Chicago courtesy of TD's work dime. He has been recommended for and accepted a temporary duty assignment (TDY, gotta love all of his company's acronyms. Let's just say we love his STD and worry about his PMS). Anyway, he is going to be based out of Chicago for a year. He is allowed three flights home a month and has padded the rest of the year's flights with PTO days (personal time off). Ironically, I was pushing for him to accept this new assignment. His current boss was making us all nuts. I know, for a fact, that he was composing texts to TD during the boss's church service. I just wish I knew his wife's number, I would have let her know. But he would come home from work and on the weekends and spend hours on the computer doing work that wasn't his to do. He was cranky and tired all of the time.
Up here, he is now a project manager and spent all of his first day hobnobbing with Senior VPs. He will stay in a fancy hotel with a per diem and room service and a maid (that's not me!)
So, for his first couple of weeks, the girls and I will be using those services and checking out Chicago and wonder if this new fancy job will lead to newer fancier jobs. I love Houston and I love my friends and our house and the fact that Moe lives there now, but it's August and I have spent the last week wearing a sweater and loving it! Of course I am going to have to come and visit TD (they will pay for that too!) in the winter and remember why I was excited to leave places with winter.

The Happiness Project

My reading certainly hasn't slowed down. I love using my Shelfari shelf (as seen to the right) to keep track of the things that I read. Sometimes I request books and realize that I have already read it. Now I have to double check with the shelf to make sure I haven't read it already.
One book I read recently was The Happiness Project by Gretchin Rubin. I am interested in those not quite self help books that help me think about things I might not normally think about. As a stay at home mom, I don't have a lot of things checking my work and keeping me on track, while making sure I don't stagnate as a person. Reading books, especially non fiction books, makes me feel like I am still learning about the world while raising a couple of fun girls.

Anyway, this particular book got me thinking. It also made me feel better about myself. One of the things this author learned to do was letting go of things that we, especially as women, might feel like the world thinks we are losers if we don't do or have. One of the things she learned was to Be Gretchen, or in my case, Be LCM. Living in New York City she fell under the influence of such things as Sex and The City, that were teaching her how she was supposed to feel, act and what to wear. While she was coveting the lifestyle, she came to realize that those sort of things didn't make her happy. She would think to properly Be Gretchen she had to be honest with herself about whether a certain thing would make her happy or not.

For me, I was reading everyone's Facebook statuses talking about standing in line for hours to see the midnight showing of the last Harry Potter. I felt myself getting envious, I am a big Harry Potter fan and I save my movie viewings for really worthwhile things and this is the last HP movie! However, if I was honest with myself, staying up more than half the night in a cramped, full movie theater, isn't my idea of a good time. We have plans to use coupons next Saturday for at least a half price showing in less crowded theaters. That's the sort of thing that makes me happy. I am glad I read this book because whenever I find myself becoming envious of a certain thing or wondering if something would make me happy, I use the Be LCM test. The more honest I am with myself, the happier I can be about the things I do.

Kitties

A long time ago, I mean seriously long ago, I knew I was a cat person. Apparently I got my first cat at the ripe old age of 2. I spent the afternoon with my dad, in the yard. He was doing yardwork, I was leaning at the fence, trying to get the cat, on the other side, to come close enough for me to pet. He went in the house and told my mom, " Go get that kid a cat."

We arrived in Texas with T, but he only lasted a year before he went off and never came back. I think he had used up all of his nine lives during his short life, he was always getting into scrapes.

Moe and I went and found Dukie and Tessa and they have been with us for about 3 years. About four months ago the girls brought Davey to my attention. He seemed to be the cul de sac cat, but apparently he belonged to someone at the further end. They moved in from the country and felt like they couldn't leave him behind. When the girls brought him to our back door, he was scrawny (his ribs were showing) and he seemed to have mange or something. I felt like we couldn't leave him like that, so we started setting out a dish of water and a dish of Meow Mix (or cat crack, as we call it around here). He lasted outside for a couple of months before it hit 100 degrees.

He does wear a fur coat, after all, and I just couldn't let him sit outside. So, I let him in. He's sort of a country cousin kind of cat. He wandered around our house, purring, for the first two hours he was here. He mostly laid on the tile near the back door for the first several days. His arms, legs and tail seem shorter than our cats'. His head is much broader and his eyes are bigger. I am not sure what kind of cat he. His owner came by to make sure he wasn't annoying us, that's how we learned he was a barn cat. She tried to take him back home but he bit her. I guess he's figured out this is a house made for cats and he wanted to stay. I had to laugh though. I had some of the young women over from church and all three cats were circled in the dining room. It was after 3pm and that is special treat time. I told them I am about half a cat away from crazy cat lady.

But, the way I figure, one cat per about 900 square feet isn't that bad, right? My kitties are giving him a wide berth and he seems to be content with laying on the cool tile or the wii room couch. I think he's just happy to have a regular supply of food and a cool place to hang out. What can I say? I am a sucker for cute, fuzzy little faces.

Okay!

This is for Kelly. (Who I hope to see down here in Texas, visiting, sometime in the next year or so!)

What have we been up to? Buttercup finished her second and last year at her Intermediate school and will be headed to Jr High in August. Can you believe it? She has spent the last year or so with a lot of metal in her mouth to correct her massive overbite. She is doing really well with it and she no longer looks like the daughter of Dracula. I told her next time she feels like someone is teasing her about it, tell them she is only half vampire. (My skin is a little bit darker down here than it was in Oregon.)

She has also been having monthly movie nights. It started when she got her first bad metal put in her mouth. Google a Herbst device and you will get an idea about this medieval torture device. Anyway, I told her that we would invite her friends over to eat something soft, like ice cream, and then watch a movie. It started out as a sort of pity party, but now we just have fun. Sometimes a little too much fun I think. They watched The Day After Tomorrow, but I think it was more inspired by earlier viewings of The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. It's a good thing Fiona is such a good sport.

Moe got married!! How exciting, huh?
We all went back to Oregon to be part of it. My part included making 200 cupcakes, which turned out pretty lovely, if I do say so myself.

I wish I could have gotten a picture of the final product. We put sugar daisies on top and sprinkle large blue sugar crystals over them. They were beautiful...and tasty!



The best news of all after that was they moved down to Texas! Moe is back here to hang out with me and go back to work at TD's office. I need to come up with a good name for him. He's getting used to being an uncle to two wild girls (among many others, but mine are training him) and he's doing a pretty good job of it.


Fiona is fabulous, as always. We are coming up on the fifth anniversary of her diagnosis next month. I can't believe it was five years ago, it seems like such a long time and yet her life continues to be defined by her experiences. We have one last trip to the actual oncologist this summer and then, after that, we will be kicked downstairs to the long term survivor's clinic.

Here's a pic of my little mini me. She is as happy and cheerful as ever. I get sad when I contemplate her getting to be a snarky teenager. She promises me that it will never happen, but I am preparing myself for the inevitable.

She had a rough year this past school year because she didn't have the best homeroom teacher. She was an older lady who seemed better suited to teaching older kids because she really scared Fiona with her gruff manner and screechy voice. Her teacher missed a lot of school, as well, which is tough in a major testing year. I was on top of it for 4th grade, though, because I already wrote a letter to the principal asking for some consideration when choosing next year's teacher.

TD continues to be run ragged at work. The light at the end of the tunnel is that he has just about completed his MBA and that should free up some of his time at home to be off the computer.

And me? I am up to my same old tricks. I was home room mom for Buttercup, both 5th and 6th grade, and I volunteered in her library during her library time each week. I was excited that I found a way to spend time at her school doing something I like to do.

My health problems seem to be the same. I ended up seeing an endocrinologist (something I should've done a long time ago) when I was diagnosed with high cholesterol. One thing I found out was that my good cholesterol was so high it was pushing up my overall number. Then I gave up my beloved Cracklin' Oat Bran and took some fish oil and dropped my numbers 22 points in a month. Not too shabby.

I am an assistant librarian at church and was co camp director. TD wanted me to hang out with Buttercup, as it was her first year. (Did I mention I was now the mother of a YW? cuh-razy!) It was a ton of fun and I wouldn't mind helping out again next year. Hopefully next year I won't be feeding everyone every meal, phew!

Well, that was a basic sketch. I will try and post something regularly!