Anxiety

I'm going with David to the appointment with the lawyer today, so this morning I'm gathering up files, printing off copies of the accident report and burning photos to disc. Feeling lightheaded and nauseated already, so this is probably going to be a long day.

I really like to pretend nothing ever happened. It's much easier to remember only when I can't squash it down, like when I'm the last person in line at a stoplight, or worse, the last person in line in stopped traffic. And just go ahead and hand me the kleenex and look up the number for my 'counselor' if I'm the last person in line in stopped traffic on a bridge... It's been almost two years, and it still very much affects my life. Dammit.

Funky

Feeling kinda funky, not sick really. Just... Funky.

Tomorrow David meets with a lawyer about a possible lawsuit related to the 2007 accident. It would need to be filed before Wednesday if it can even happen. I'm thinking I need to attend this meeting, too, but David was kinda non-committal.

Not sure what's going on with the other guy's insurance. We were supposed to have another offer early last week, and have received no word. They're probably dragging their feet, hoping we won't file a lawsuit and they can offer whatever they want.

Update forthcoming...

I'm not a guy, either.

I think the check-out girls at Kroger this evening thought I was a guy. And possibly a cute guy? If so, should I be flattered? First, I'm pretty sure my $50 worth of groceries didn't need two extra girls to bag them. Second, as I was unloading my cart, they were talking rather loudly in odd, breathy voices between giggles about how very long ago they'd been seventeen (two years for one, three years for the other two). Third.... well, there is no third thing. It was just very odd.

Okay, I was wearing a Cowboy's ball cap over my bad-hair-day short hair, jeans, sneakers, and a hooded sweatshirt jacket. And no makeup. My decidedly diminutive bosom doesn't help, either. But I was wearing one-inch hoop earrings! Do guys wear earrings that big?

I just know they were screeching to each other as soon as I was out of earshot: "OMG! OMG! I totally thought that lady was a guy, didn't you?"

I'm pretty sure I couldn't care less...

I do not have a luggage fixation! I don't think. Do I?

Bookman isn't feeling well this evening, but I suspect it has more to do with the amount of homework he's put off until the last minute than with an actual bug. Gave him some echinacea and some tylenol for his sore throat, and told him to either go to bed (as in turn out the light and sleep) or get back to work. He's back to work.

In other news, apparently someone in Phoenix with a name remarkably similar to mine has a luggage fixation. Here's the story on CNN. I stumbled across the story on a Phoenix news website earlier today while looking at my site stats, which showed that several people arrived at my website by plugging her name into google and yahoo. While I'm glad to have the traffic at my site, I do hope her name doesn't tarnish mine.

And in a bit of totally unrelated news: I need to lay off the aspartame in diet sodas. It's been linked to memory loss, and I kind of scared myself today with a memory-lapse incident. I'll spare you the details, but I seriously thought I might be losing it. I'll blame the aspartame for now, and hope the short-term memory improves!

Autobiographer's Block

I spent much of the day today trying to come up with a short biography for my photography blog. One would think writing about the one person I know best would be relatively easy. But how do you simmer down all the pertinent information about yourself into four or five sentences? I ended up not posting one, but what was I gonna say? "I'm a geek and proud of it, grew up all over the world. I love nearly every sort of artistic pursuit and am even good at a few: photography, graphic design, painting, papercraft. I'm not good at interpretive dance."

Actually, that's not half bad.

NaBloPoMo and tall tales

November is National Blog Posting Month, and I'm going to take a stab at the goal of posting at least once a day for 30 days--on TWO different blogs. Check out the November 1st postings on Shutter Muse for my other NaBloPoMo project :)

My mother asked me today, "What did you do to your neck?" I'd kind of forgotten about it, because I um... sort of... um... injured... my neck at the base of my throat on Friday morning. David says it looks like I clotheslined myself, which is a much better explanation that what actually happened. Can't you see it? Maybe I was chasing after ChiChi to save her from the jaws of a rabid dog that had somehow gotten into our yard, and perhaps was so focused on her that I didn't see the clothesline, but didn't let it stop me. It could be that I hit the clothesline so hard and kept running that it snapped off, leaving a bright red welt on my neck.

What. It could totally have happened like that.

Or maybe--MAYBE I was in line at the convenience store when I saw the guy ahead of me pull out a gun! So perhaps I tackled him, making him hit his head on the counter and knocking him out, but the gun discharged and the bullet grazed my neck!

Maybe that one's a little far fetched, but still completely feasible! Right?

Right?

Okay, okay... *sigh* The truth is... I um... I.... I burned my neck baking muffins. Okay? Geez!

I was in a hurry. David was ready to walk out the door, and I was trying to get the muffins out of the oven and flipped onto a plate so he could scoop some up with a paper towel and take them with for breakfast. But my hands were in the wrong position for flipping. So I tried to reposition my hands without losing my grip on the potholders. Which I accomplished successfully. I did NOT lose my grip on the potholders.

I did, however, lose my grip on the pan, and it slid into my neck.

There, are you happy now? Surely I'm not the only person who has ever burned her neck whilst baking muffins.

;)

Happy Last Day of October!

That's the only significance of today, right?

Last night was the yearly Family Fun Night (aka 'Carnival') at Sunshine's school. This is our last year there, so I purposefully didn't take as active a role as I normally would... or that was the plan, anyway. I'd only signed up to do some decorations and to work in the silent auction for an hour.

BUT... then the silent auction coordinator got swine flu. No, I did not volunteer to take it over (aren't you proud of me?). But on Thursday morning when the power went out, I went in to the school a day earlier than planned to get some decorations made and see how else I could help.

Yeeeah. That whole 'no real active role' notion? Overcome by marker fumes, apparently, as I wrote out 60+ bid forms and estimated the value of the donated auction items. Yesterday I did manage to get some decorations made and hung up before diving back into auction stuff. I was at the school from 8:30 am to after 10:00 pm, except for two fairly brief stops at home to potty the dogs.

Needless to say, I was utterly exhausted by the time I got home last night. Stiff and sore from being on my feet for sixteen straight hours, brain-dead, but still very caffeinated. Got into my jammies and drooled on my keyboard while I surfed facebook like a zombie. Couldn't even think about sleep until after midnight.

Was still very tired and creaky at seven this morning, so stayed in my pajamas nearly all day. Does it say anything to how exhausted I was, that around 2:00 pm I noticed for the first time that I'd put my pajama bottoms on backwards last night, and it took another hour or so to work up the energy to do anything about it?

Bookman also wore himself out by spending quite a bit of time inside the dragon mascot outfit. He did a great job, letting kids hug him, giving high-fives, posing for pictures. Inside a mascot outfit, he's free to use those *ahem* amazing dance moves...

On a related note (if I may bore you with just a smidge more auction chatter), I donated a portrait session, 11x14 print, and be-yooo-tiful 11x14 frame to the silent auction. I put a minimum bid of $30 on it because that's how much the whole gift cost me in actual dollars (I got the frame for half price), and if it were to 'sell' for less than that, I'd just as well give the money directly to the PTA. At the right is a picture of my item alongside other auction items.

Get this: TOTAL STRANGERS bid on it. People I do not know! How cool is that? It ended up selling for only $20 less than the total estimated value, which for a PTA silent auction is really good! Most things go for about half their estimated value, so I'm kinda grinning about that. The person who eventually won it is a fellow PTA Board member, which is cool. I'm already familiar with her kiddos, so photographing them will be relatively easy.

Off to watch Year One with the family!

Pazow!

So in addition to getting my new website up and running, I've been working on another project--a collaboration on the illustration of a childrens' book about battling cancer. My friend Guerin did the character sketches, and I'm helping take those sketches from paper to PAZOW! My first transformation was a Chemo Dragon, representative of chemotherapy drugs. The first pic below is Guerin's drawing as he sent it to me (he sent it bigger, of course):



Now here's a small version of my interpretation:
Pretty cool, huh? The book hasn't been submitted to any publisher yet, and won't be until we get most/all the illustrations done, so it'll be a while before you can look for it in your local book store, but it's kinda fun. It's coloring book to the nth power. :)

New website live!

I've been volunteering/donating my portraiture skills to friends, family, and PTA for the past few years. Finally enough people asked, "Why aren't you making money for this?", that I decided maybe I should give it a try.

For about three years, my web site at staceylking.com has been more of a portfolio of an assortment of skills, among them book covers, graphic design, web design, photography, and flash animation. It had no real purpose, except to show my students when I was teaching a class on web design, or photography, or graphics, or flash. It now has a purpose.

For the past three or four days, I've been brushing up on my Flash skills (it's been a long time since I taught it), and cranking out a new and improved website, this one a home for my portrait photography. Rather than an entire site in a single flash animation, I split it up into separate pages, so the browser buttons work, and individual pages can be bookmarked. And I'm very pleased with the result! Still working on getting pictures into the gallery.

Woop!

Please visit the site and test out the gallery, and send me a note from the contact form, help me find any kinks in the plumbing sooner rather than later.

Woop! Woop!

She's a King-Fisher!

[British accent] Beautiful plumage, eh!?

*ahem*

Friday evening was the much-anticipated wedding of David's sister, Michelle King, to her long-time beau, Cory Fisher. After a few 'What to do with Lucy' glitches on Friday morning, we managed to get on the road to Tulsa by noon-ish. We checked into the hotel by 5:00, relaxed a bit, found the rest of the family down the hall, then got dressed and headed to the chapel.

Now, before we left home, David asked if I had the video camera. I said yes, it's in my camera bag, and of course I take my camera bag pretty much everywhere we go. Didn't give it another thought.

Until we were all standing in the the small vestibule of the chapel minutes before the wedding was to start, and Rosaleen, running through a verbal checklist, ended by pointing to the bag over my shoulder and saying, "And you've got the video camera."

I blinked at her for a moment, processing several things at once: 1) She said 'the' video camera, not 'a' video camera, 2) 'the' video camera is expected to film the ceremony, please, 3) David has never operated the video camera, 4) that means I'll be filming the ceremony, 5) OHMYGOSH I never checked the camera to see if the battery was charged!!!, and 6) it's been more than a month since I last touched it so chances are slim that it will have enough charge to film an entire ceremony.

After a few moments of mental stammering, I blazed into action, finding a corner by a power outlet, tearing into my camera bag, discovering that the camera battery in fact had ZERO juice (!!) and quickly plugging it in to charge for the few scant moments left before the bridal party started lining up.

All worked out in the end. There was a power outlet at the side of the altar area, so I was able to film the entire ceremony. The angles are a little odd sometimes, and the camera spazzes a few times while I plug and unplug it, and without a tripod the entire thing is a bit shaky, but it's a decent record of the event. While they finished taking pictures, I was also able to find an outlet in the reception hall, so I got lots of video of the reception, too.

I was actually relieved to have something meaningful to contribute. I'd been feeling bad that we couldn't get there early to help with flowers or food, as the rest of the family had done. I do wish I'd been prepared to film it (known to charge the battery and bring a tripod), but as crazy as the preparation stuff was, with family coming into town from North Carolina and Great Britain, I can see how it fell through the communication gaps. Besides, family and friends know well that I always bring the cameras. I may leave the rescue asthma meds in the car or at the hotel, but I will definitely have the cameras.

The professional photographer didn't stay for the reception, so between videotaping and dancing and dancing and more dancing, I managed to get some good still photos, too.

To the right is a particularly sweet photo of David and his sister. And yes, that's my goober Sunshine, too. More reception pics if you're interested.

The dancing machine gene must be genetic (but if so, where did we get it, Erin?). As soon as MJ's 'Smooth Criminal' started, the reception video starts bouncing around because I just could not keep my booty from groovin'. The rest of my family soon congregated on the dance floor and proceded to boogie. (By the way, call it heresy, but the Alien Ant Farm version of that song is WAY better than the original.) We tore up the floor, and at the very end of the night, we were the last ones still dancing, along with David's big sis Maggie.

All in all, it was a beautiful wedding!

Lock down!

It's book fair time, and this year I'm the chairperson again. I love this job. All the cases were delivered today, and we managed to get it mostly set up. Also got a long list of other things accomplished (mostly decorations). But today had a little bonus excitement. :)

Sunshine's school used to sit in the middle of nowhere, nothing but fields surrounding it. Now, however, the area has been built up, and it sits near the intersection of two major roads, and within spitting distance of several pharmacies, grocery stores, gas stations, and.... banks. Today's excitement was thanks to a bank robbery across the street, after which the gunman made a break on foot toward the elementary school. So we were under complete lock-down for a good portion of the day while helicopters searched from the air. ALL doors locked, blinds drawn, lights out, kids silent and away from windows. There were five of us PTA volunteers in the work room, huddling in the dark behind the counter, calling people 'on the outside' to try to get more information.

It's kind of weird to be in a situation like that with other people--it's an opportunity to see how differently people handle the stress of potentially dangerous situations. I totally kept my cool. I was more worried about the Scholastic delivery guy being hijacked while attempting to deliver my book fair (which would have completely screwed up the book fair schedule! *wink*). I also worried just a smidge about Sunshine, and whether or not she was freaking out, but figured she was worrying more about me than about her (which turned out to be the case).

Anyway. The moral of today's story is that small towns are not exempt from big city crime, particularly in more desperate times. Thank goodness the lock-down was the extent of the excitement.

**Edited 9/17 to add photo.

Monday night madness and more

Last night I taught an Introduction to Computer Graphics class. The last time I taught the class it was a four-hour Saturday morning class with no text. Now they've expanded the class to three weeknights, and the text they gave me to use is a 15-year-old TEXTBOOK for a semester-long college course. Now you probably know that 15 years in computer age is longer than the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods combined. And even if the material were current, there's no way we could cover anywhere close to the contents of the text in three nights. So I was scrambling. We were supposed to go until 10:00 pm, but made it to about 8:35 and decided to call it a night.

On the way home, I decided to swing by Fry's electronics to purchase a DVD burner to replace the DVD-ROM which had quit months and months ago. I got there with a few minutes to spare before they closed. Got home a smidge before 10:00.

And... since it was fresh on my brain, I decided to just go ahead and install the dang thing then, rather than waiting until morning. Instead of unhooking everything and bringing my computer tower into the light where I could see it, I crawled under my desk with a screwdriver. Of course just plugging the DVD drive in caused errors in the boot registry, so I spent another 90 minutes troubleshooting. Stuck my finger in the CPU cooling fan (that's when I decided I should find the camp light), bled on my good jeans ('cause I didn't change out of my teaching clothes first), and now have two gashes in my fingertip (which is hindering my typing a bit).

But I got it working (!), and was able to also get Vista repaired using the installation DVD (Vista crashed months ago, too), so I now have access to my Adobe CS3 design suite again! Wooo! I tried to do something creative with it last night, but alas, all my good thinking was used up. By that time it was nearing 2:30 am, so it's also quite possible that I was just dang tired.

This morning I had a date with Sunshine to take her to Justice (I hate that store) to spend some gift cards she'd acquired over the last year or so. I took my DSi and did sudoku puzzles while she shopped and tried on clothes.

Tonight's class was the third night of a four-night Photoshop class. I do try so very hard to be patient, but I confess I get frustrated sometimes. Photoshop is a robust, advanced program. If you have little experience using computers in general (and are unable to find and open a file, for instance) you should probably consider taking a class in computer basics before trying to tackle advanced software. And the people who use computers and can keep up get frustrated and bored while I spend more than half the class time repeatedly bringing the turtles up to speed. There are 16 people in this class--the largest I've ever had for Photoshop. It's tough with that many turtles and snails in one class. But I love the program, and hopefully my enthusiasm masks my impatience.

Trampolines and day-glo fiberglass

It's because of Facebook. It's so much easier to type in a one- or two-sentence status update than to come here and actually compose lots of sentences and put them together for a blog entry. That's why this blog (and my other blogs) are so pitifully out of date. *nodding*

When we first moved into this house, we inherited a big trampoline from my then brother-in-law (okay, we actually purchased it from his brother, but only for some ridiculously crazy price like $35 or somesuch). Before we even put it together, we went out and purchased an enclosure for it, so no one could accidentally bounce off of it and break something. Yet somehow my Sunshine has now sustained two broken bones on it.

On April 15th, she was jumping on the trampoline with a friend who lives nearby, and I guess they had asked David to sit on the trampoline so they could 'bounce' him, wherein the bouncee sits in the middle and the bouncer(s) jump around him/her to see how high off the mat they can make the seated person fly. Apparently Sunshine accidently jumped on David, rather than the mat, and rolled her ankle. Sunshine and Friend both said they heard a pop, so I took her for x-rays the next day. Her doctor thought it looked like a sprain, but said someone else would look at the films just to make sure. So we hooked her up with lots of ace-wrap and some crutches, and she went back to school.

On Monday afternoon, the doctor's nurse called to tell me that the radiologist looked at the films and saw nothing to worry about. But the ankle was still swelling (even worse than it had initially) and it was still very sore. On Tuesday afternoon, the nurse called again to to say that an orthopedist had taken another look at the films and thought she might have a non-displaced fracture. She said she'd make an appointment with pediatric orthopedics at Cooks and call me back with details.

So yesterday morning was our orthopedics appointment. He confirmed that her tibia is fractured just below the growth plate, which is sort of unusual. Growth-plate fractures heal pretty quickly because that's the part of the bone that is already generating more bone (for growing!). This one is going to take about six weeks to heal, and she has to be in a real non-removable cast for at least four of the six. He'll reassess on May 22 and see if she can wear a 'boot' for the remainder.

A very small fracture right above her ankle. And she needs a toe-to-knee cast. Needless to say she is not happy about it at all. Preteen drama queen that she sometimes is, yesterday was the worst day of her life, and she's sure she didn't do anything to deserve this fate. She got so stressed out that she got a mini-migraine and stayed home from school all day.

Please pray for a return of a bright positive attitude!

(Yes, it's a very nice bright shade of orange. Color not accurately reproduced here--on my monitor anyway.)

The good news is that she can walk on it. They gave her a little black shoe to put over the cast. And even though she loathes the cast, she's finding it a lot easier to get around. She also gets out of PE for the rest of the year (which is good), but will be a spectator at Field Day (which is bad).

She's especially worried that this will make us miss Baby Beaver. So Erin, can you send me BB's email address so we can request that she hold off until after May 22nd?
;-)

Erin, this is for you: My baby book

My dear neurotic pregnant sister has this notion that second and subsequent babies never get the attention that the first child got. So it is my understanding that she has decided NOT to do baby books or scrapbooks even for the first child, because she might not be able to do the same thing for a second baby, if a second child is indeed in God's plan. When she was here for Christmas, she mentioned my baby book, and how it was so much more detailed than hers. I laughed, but could not remember where I'd put my baby book to show her. Well, today I found it. Took a photo of every page spread so she could see. Here's the cover and the first few page spreads:


So far, so good. All this stuff was probably filled out when the book was purchased, at the shower, and in the hospital. It looks like there was once a copy of my birth certificate there, but it is now gone.
Okay, here the info starts to peter out. The cause is not that another baby was born, but that keeping up with a baby book, no matter how many other kids you have, becomes less of a priority, and THAT'S OKAY.
There's only one date recorded for my first. Mom went in after the fact and put in approximate ages. Aack! My first word isn't recorded!!!
Must have had a good long nap when I was 4 months old when my baby book was out...
Hmmm....
Okay, this is kind of interesting. My first birthday is recorded in one ink. The REST are recorded in another ink. Mom recorded 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th birthdays AFTER my 6th birthday, which, incidentally, was after Erin (baby #3) was born. She probably pulled out Julie's and my baby books when she was working on Erin's. (And in fact, most of my 'Firsts' recorded up there are in the same ink, so mom filled in a LOT of my baby book after Erin was born.)
Hmmm.....
Ehhhh.....
Yeeeaaah.
That's all. It's not complete by any means, but I am so glad to have it.
Erin, how does this compare to your baby book?

Love the Book Fair and classic Van Halen

No, those two things aren't necessarily related (though a classic rock-themed book fair would be, ah, TOTALLY righteous). I spent the day at the school, volunteering in the book fair for student previews. I'm exhausted, sitting here zoning, playing Van Halen's '1984' album on Rhapsody.

I love the book fair. My only real memory of book fair as a kid was the night when I was in 2nd or 3rd grade in Alaska, it was some sort of family night and the book fair was going on, and Julie (who was probably four at the time) pulled the fire alarm at the school. We left quickly (as I remember it, anyway) without spending any money at the book fair. Now I'm lucky if I get out of there with less than $100 worth of books.

Two years ago I was the book fair chairperson, and I had such a good time planning and decorating for the fair. For the Medieval theme, we made castle and dragon decorations to go around the school. For the rainforest theme, we transformed the library into a wild jungle with a CD playing jungle sounds in the background. Next year, when I hand over my President stuff, I get to do book fair again. This year someone else is running it, and I'm just helping out because I don't think there's very much that could keep me away from a book fair. It's magnetic.

Sunshine sat down beside me, telling me about her day, and mentioned that one of her friends was named after a Van Halen song. So of course I had to open Rhapsody and find the song. And then I had to go ahead and listen to more songs...

Right now we're headed out to Peter Piper Pizza for a school fundraiser night. I'm going to be so beat by the time we get home. Will have no choice but to vegetate in front of Earl.

By the way, lost five and a half pounds this week. :-)

Trim time

That's it. No more procrastinating. Today I am reforming my eating and exercise habits. I could use the excuse that I've gained sympathy weight, being that my sister is pregnant, but she lives three states away, so that one doesn't really fly. The truth is that I've been unbelievably lazy in my exercise and downright stupid with my eating. I've gained about 15 pounds over the winter, and am 20 pounds heavier than I want to be.

About five years ago, I found myself in a similar predicament, so I did a good bit of research, consulted a good friend who is a personal trainer, and put together an daily nutrition/exercise plan that's easy (not TOO much sweat!), just requires some discipline. I stuck with it and lost the weight in about three months. I was five years younger then, but I'm hoping it will work for me again. My goal is to get back down to my ideal weight by July, then just eat sensibly and exercise regularly. So this morning I dug out my aerobic step, my nutrition plan, and my hand weights (poor dusty things!), and got moving.

I'm posting here as a means to keep myself accountable. I won't bore you with the nitty-gritty details, but I will post a progress report once a week.

Here's one of my breakfast recipes (actually pretty good! I toss in about a tablespoon of dried fruit, too)

POWER OATMEAL

1 packet plain instant oatmeal
½ cup skim milk
½ scoop flavored protein powder or protein drink mix
1 packet Splenda

Prepare oatmeal with skim milk. Add protein powder and Splenda. Stir.

Oatmeal with milk: 140 calories, 1.5 g. fat, 24 g. carbs, 8 g. protein
Protein powder: 57 calories, 1 g. fat, 2 g. carbs, 10 g. protein
TOTAL: 197 calories, 2.5 g. fat. 26 g. carbs, 18 g. protein

Wish me luck!

Facebooked

Sunshine is having a friend spend the night tonight, and this afternoon while I was taking them to Hobby Lobby, David was home industriously setting up a Facebook profile. When I got home I was more than a little astonished since I am the computer/Internet geek and I'm supposed to do all that stuff first and advise. I hadn't yet done that, my logic being that I don't need both a MySpace and a Facebook page. Never mind that I've not even looked at my MySpace page in about a year.

So of course I had to create a Facebook profile, too. *rolling my eyes* So far, I do like it a lot more than MySpace...

I love IKEA!

So we got our tax refund, and with it, we're working on bedroom makeovers for the family. It's slower going than we'd hoped, but we're getting there. It's a good bit of work to do three bedrooms at a time. Note to self: Next time, do one room at a time.

David and I needed a new bed, so I shopped around online. I confess that I didn't check out a whole lot of places, because I already knew what I wanted, but I did browse Sam's Club online and the sites of a few local furniture stores, looking for a nice king-size bedframe and high-impact foam mattress (the kind that absorbs motion, so you can jump on one side and the glass of wine on the other doesn't spill). In the low-middle range at Sam's, it was $1300 for frame and mattress, not including a box spring or bed base! Say WHAT?

I didn't panic though. When we were in Orlando this summer, I made a couple of trips to the IKEA there, and saw a bed that I absolutely loved--frame, bedlinens and all. Very simple but colorful, clean lines, wood, and WIDE. I even took a picture of it. Check it out:
So after investigating other options, we headed to IKEA and bought the stuff to recreate that bed. Including sheets, summer comforter, pillows, duvet, foam mattress, adjustable-tension bed base, and frame, it cost less than $750! (!!!!!!) AND, they're running a promotion wherein you receive an IKEA gift card for purchasing Sultan-brand bed stuff (mattress and bed base), so I got $100 off my next purchase (which was a small fold-out couch for Bookman's room).

The bed was a little fiddly to assemble--I'm sure part of the reason IKEA furniture is priced low is because nothing is pre-assembled. The simple bed frame had a remarkably large number of parts, and we opted for European-style bowed wooden slats in place of a box spring, which came in a box as 90 slats (45 for each side) and the rubber and fabric bits to complete the two sides. Took us 2-1/2 hours, but we got it finished last night and slept on the fabulous foam mattress. LOVE IT! It is a little low (the legs of the bed are only about 3" tall, so the top of the mattress is just 15" off the floor), but it's comfy!

Alright, probably ought to get back to work on bedrooms...
Have a wonderful Wednesday!

Friday morning fanfare

For some reason, getting Sunshine out the door this morning was almost as bad as getting her out the door on a Monday morning. Two things were in her favor: 1) it is not my week to drive, so she had about eight extra minutes, and 2) her brother is STILL home sick today (upper respiratory infection), so she didn't have to compete with him for the sink to do her hair or brush her teeth. Yet at the two-minute warning, she was still rushing around in shoeless feet with unbrushed teeth and hair, looking for a different shirt. *sigh*

Her lateness was due in small part to a Lucy escapade this morning. After I went in to wake Sunshine up, Lucy stayed in DD's room, a reasonably normal occurrence. When I went in to check on them a few minutes later, Lucy sat down by the dresser and looked up at me with guilty eyes. I looked around and saw nothing out of the ordinary, didn't think much of it, and prodded Sunshine again. Later, I noticed that Lucy had a used kleenex stuck to her butt. On closer inspection, I saw that there was fresh glue holding it there. Puzzled, I made my way back to Sunshine's room, finding the complete cap to an Elmer's glue bottle in the hallway. And there, on the floor by the dresser, was a puddle of white glue squished out in the rough shape of a border collie's rear end. I suspect she sat in it to hide it from me.

I groaned/laughed/cried, then decided to clean up the carpet first and let Lucy outside. She's now back inside, with an assortment of leaves and sticks literally glued to her backside. Suppose I ought to add 'Give Gluebutt a bath' to the list of stuff I need to do today. *another sigh*

Happy Friday!, and I do hope your morning was reasonably glue-free.

Taxes filed? Check!

I am so proud of myself! It's barely February and I have already filed our taxes! Whooo! That's what I did this morning. My last W2 arrived yesterday, and I was reasonably organized this past year, so I already had everything assembled, ready to punch numbers into the handy dandy software (I've got people!).

So now it's 10:30 am, and I have a couple of free hours to... ugh.. do laundry. *sigh* Maybe I'll go volunteer at the school instead...