All Works in Progress: December 2007

Why I Love My Husband

Or, rather, why I love him today, since there are lots of other reasons to love him.

Earlier in the week I started pestering him to get me a can of primer. I've detested our upstairs bathroom ever since I painted it it about six years ago. What on earth was I thinking to put royal blue, colorwashed with BLACK in a teeeeeny bathroom with one window?

I know what I was thinking - that the dark colors looked so great in the living and dining room, why not continue the theme? And wouldn't the new white utilities be oh-so striking against blue? They were, I suppose. But for six years I've longed to have a fresh, clean feeling bath rather than an oppressive, dark one.

Dr. D didn't particularly want to do any house projects over the holidays. But he gave in, we primed last night, and today we went and bought our paint.

And what did Dr. D say this morning on the way to the Benjamin Moore store?

"I really think we should paint the ceiling too. It just won't look right if we don't put a fresh coat on the ceiling."

I love how he does everything to absolute perfection! But right now he's waiting for me to go open the wall paint. Before and After pictures coming soon.

A Christmas Treat Parfait

A (potentially) healthy lunch idea! (That's fruit, yogurt, and breakfast cereal.)

Only the Funniest thing I've seen in Ages

This. Oh. My. Word.

And this "sculpture" is funny, too

The Itch

So, it's December. We're past three birthdays (Dr. D, my brother, St. Nick), only Christmas and one birthday left (Fish). I'm moody and hormonal (no, not any reason beyond the usual), and this cycle I'm picking Moving House as my obsession-of-the-month. I'm so desperate for something to change. For eight years we've lived here, in this neighborhood I've always seen as "temporary." We listed the house last summer, but the market was terrible. Only ... it's worse now! And there are several houses (that I shouldn't have been looking at) that seem just oh-so perfect.

Huge melodramatic sigh.

The mud-room-pantry-microwave-area that doesn't lock...

Now I'm wishing we'd left the house on the market. Only had we sold last fall, the house I like best (of the ones I shouldn't even be looking at) wouldn't have been in our price range yet. But given Dr. D's desire to wait until spring to list again, and the lousy market, it seems unlikely that any of the houses I like will still be for sale. Or that ours would ever sell. Oh, bla. Just whining out loud. I'll stop now. Waaaah.

Another December Birthday Boy!

Yesterday was St. Nick's birthday - seven years old!!! We'd had quite the snow storm overnight, and St. Nick was so happy we wouldn't make it to church ... He'd been dreading his class singing to him all week. But, we are not so deterred by five or so inches of snow. We went anyway! But we let the birthday boy sit with us, where he happily doodled throughout the whole service.

We raced home to get everything in the oven for the party - Grandma and Grandpa couldn't stay past 1pm (Grandpa's work), so I didn't have much time. I'd also neglected to decorate the cake! I'd say my rushed attempt at building Candyland in cake form (thanks to Taste of Home for that idea!) went pretty well.

It sure tasted good to most of us (Dr. D doesn't like candy, so he picked it off. Strange man, he is).

The little Candyland man drowning in Chocolate was a special tribute to Grandma, who in turn got that slice for her own. Grandma sure likes her chocolate!

And there had to be gifts. What's birthday without days and days and days of, "Mom, give me a hint! Please!!!" "Ok, it starts with the letter 's'" St. Nick wrote down 's'. "Next letter 'u'" St. Nick wrote that down. Then he wrote down the rest of the letters: RPRISE. "AW, MOM! That's not a HINT!"

Ha! What a delight to see his joy when he Finally got to rip into those packages. The Lego dinosaur is almost completely assembled, by the way. If St. Nick hadn't have his last Camp Roger class today, I'm sure it would be done already. Amazing!

Science Mania

So, St. Nick is making me just the slightest bit crazy today. Yesterday he had the breakthrough that if he finishes ALL his schoolwork before lunch, the rest of the day he can do whatever he wants. I'm not sure why it took him half the year to realize this, but I'm also not sure I said it aloud until yesterday when I had to endure ten minutes of "I don't WANT to do math! I don't WANT TO!!!" (the problems looked hard - they were just set up differently than he's used to seeing them).

Today we cranked from one subject to the next all morning (sort of exhausting to me - I got used to breaks every five minutes), so he can do ... drum roll ... Science! For the rest of the day. In fact, every five minutes (during math, while reading, while I'm checking email) I'd hear, "Mom, can we do science? What will we do for science? Mom? Science?"

I now have two containers of snow on the counter because of this experiment. And I might end up with potatoes soaking in water because of this experiment, though I'm hoping St. Nick forgets because I'd rather not sacrifice a potato for the sake of science, not today anyway.

I can't imagine why it never occurred to me to check online for easy experiments before. But it didn't, until today (the "Mom? Science?" helped). Why, there are zillions of experiments online that I can do with stuff I have sitting around! Here are the best resources I found. I know without any doubt whatsoever that I will become a frequent visitor to these sites. My poor potatoes.

It Came! It Came! It Came!!!!!

My Secret Sister's gift arrived today!!!!

Just today Sgt. Dody had put out an announcement on the Loosethreads group, that those on the "Official List" needed to email her immediately. Well, I did but somehow I had a feeling ...

And then the mailman stopped his van right in front of my house! Woo Hoo! This is IT, I thought. I raced to the porch, yelled, "Thank you!" to the mailman, and raced inside with the box. Ooof it was heavy! Did she send me a lead ornament? Books?

I called Dr. D - I had to try his office, his cell (new - I called mostly just for the fun of it), and he called me back right as I was picking up the scissors to open the box without him. "Should I wait for you?" I asked. "No, of course not! It's for you, isn't it?" It was my name on the label, and the name on the return of some woman in a state that sounded like it could possibly be one of the Sisterhood. So, I tore it open.

A little card! How cute! It said, "Enjoy, Rebecca! Thank you and God Bless. *Please leave feedback."

Uh, what? Feedback? I pushed passed the bubble wrap and what do I see? Fifty vintage comic books. Of course! "It's the comic books for Nicholas!!!" I was almost as happy as I'd have been if it really had been from my Secret Sister. St. Nick is a comic book fanatic, but do you know what comic books these days are like? EWWWW! Not for an almost-seven-year-old. A few days ago I'd won a lot of them off eBay.

They will make one little boy VERY happy (once I check them all for content - I am such an overprotective neurotic nutty mom).

I resigned myself to waiting FOREVER for my SS package, and for the mystery to be revealed. Imagine me turning up the Bing Christmas tunes, managing a craft with the kiddos involving glue (I know! How dangerous! More on that later), and sitting down to address a few more Christmas Cards.

What should pull up in front of my house than the UPS truck! Who should come up my walk with a nice li'l box than a UPS guy! What should be in his hand but a Package for ME with the return address "Your SS" in OK!!

It came! It came!

I didn't even consider calling Dr. D this time.

After reading a touching and wonderful letter, with the so funny and endearing line, "I'm writing in my favorite color instead of yours because the yellow was really hard to read and I couldn't find a plaid pen," I brought the package to the dining room and, with two VERY excited little boys, opened it.

You can't imagine how THRILLED my guys were to see that there was something in it for them - and a craft, at that!

A recipe for assembling their ornaments.

Fish trying to knock over the tree while I'm distracted.

What to use.

Some of the goodies.

I was just as thrilled! Anyone who knows me knows that crafts are not my strength. I never would have thought to do a craft like this but it will be WONDERFUL! So easy and fun! I truly thought that was it and was overjoyed. What a perfect SS gift, and something I can share with my dear, dear children!

But there was MORE!!!! I unwrapped a large bundle and found an absolutely gorgeous sterling silver globe with a nativity (something I collect but FORGOT TO MENTION on my SS application!!!!!! HOW did she KNOW?!? Ok, I'll lay off the all caps and exclamations now, but I'm SO PLEASED!!!) Words cannot do this ornament justice.

Isn't it beautiful?!

A huge Thank You to my Secret Sister, Michelle in OK!

Where Does the Time Go?

I have been looking forward to a few hours with just Mud Pie this morning. Dr. D has the boys at the dentist - they left at 8:30. Yet now it is going on 10:30 and I have done none of the Big Things I had planned. Well, strike that, I did move the gifts from last night's shopping-with-my-mom extravaganza into the attic (the locked attic, I might add). But the other Big Things.

What did I do instead? Fixed something for Dr. D, got Mud Pie a chocolate kiss, started Mud Pie on Blue's Clues, put her in her highchair with a coloring book (BC not quite the draw today), got Pie out of her highchair, as she promptly told me, "I have poopy diaper Mommy! Change me!" Changed said diaper, took my shower, got dressed, brought diaper pail downstairs, started laundry and Blue's Clues (again). And now it's two hours from the departure of Dentist boys and I'm typing this post. I should seize my few remaining moments now, shouldn't I? The boys will be home soon!

Not that I'll have warning because someone STOLE OUR CELL PHONE on Thursday, which we didn't realize until Friday (shopping extravaganza), after the thief had used 35 of our precious minutes. Oh well. They'll be stuck with a useless but rather expensive phone now. I'm getting lots of practice loving my enemies this week. Grrrr. (Oh, go ahead and click the "view reviews" button on that link and see if YOU can figure out what the comment on the 1/5 rating means.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

This very day, Dr. D is celebrating his FOURTH DECADE of life!!!! (And I'm sure he's thrilled beyond measure that I've shared it here.)

Now to go bake his cake!!!

Oh, Christmas Tree

Yesterday (before the ICE STORM) we made our traditional visit to Lenderink Tree Farms. Much fun! Probably the most fun we've had since our pre-kid visits. It is so nice to have two of the three largely independent. No frantic, "Stay near us!" as one disappears into the back 40 of the farm (or rather, no worries if they disappear because the oldest is now old enough to come back); no balancing baby and toddler and Christmas tree all at once. That was the year before last when Mud Pie wasn't walking (6 months old), Fish wasn't walking well (reeeely bunchy snowsuit) and my parents were chasing St. Nick through the back 40!