It has to get worse before it gets better

I know you are all just waiting with your breath held to hear progress about our basement/storage room project.

Ok, maybe not - but it encourages me to report progress. We have worked every day this week and have really sorted a bunch of toys. We have gotten rid of 2 boxes of toys and have gotten 100s of pieces/parts where they belong. Many boxes are now very organized. Unfortunately, I looked at a stack of boxes today and thought, "I don't have 4 Halloween boxes....what could be in the non-Halloween boxes?" Well unsorted toys of course. These are actually boxes that weren't sorted during the last great toy-sort, because I ran out of time.....so who knows what we will find in there. The kids have enjoyed this "treasure hunt" of sorts, because they have found toys that have been packed away for ages.

As I look at a toy - to determine its final resting place - I decide, "am I glad to see this?", or do I think "not that again, that toy is always in a million pieces scattered around the house". If it is one of those things that just seems to scatter and doesn't bring joy - it is gone! yeah! I wish I could get rid of more, but we have so many great things that I just can't deprive Anna the fun of growing into some of them. I decided that organization is the next best thing to purging. I also decided that we are not getting any more toys - EVER....ok, not really but we are really going to be choosy about birthday and Christmas gifts!

Funny story - We have two totes with puzzles. (one has mostly little kid puzzles and one has bigger kid puzzles).....we really like puzzles. Anyway, I took puzzle box #2 off the shelf today and realized that we had a Giant USA Floor Puzzle in the it. Since I knew the kids had recently put together the exact same puzzle, I was shocked to know we own 2 of the same thing. Now, I think I must have realized this in the past because both Ohios were in one box and that could only happen if they were out around the same time....actually perhaps I just found Ohio and stuck it in the puzzle box that I thought it belonged in, not realizing we had 2. I know I bought one puzzle at THE consignment sale and believe the other one was a gift from Ken's folks. I only hope the gift came 2nd, because I would really want to kick myself if I bought the same puzzle we already owned. I happily report that both puzzles are now whole and one is in the St. Vincent de Paul box!

Ok - can you tell I have been focusing on this storage room project a bit - perseveration I think they call it! It really is a good thing, since it is the only way this thing will get done. I just made Ken go into the storage room so I could have some oohing and ahhhing over the progress!

Repeat - with helpers this time

Ok - it is time to repeat the "great storage room clean-up". It felt great when it was clean and so we are getting back to that state! I feel better when we get rid of stuff and organizing the stuff we keep. Last time, I did it mostly by myself while the kids were at school. This time I decided to use my four helpers in need of a job.

I am not sure that they are extremely helpful, but most of it is their stuff anyway, so it makes sense to have them participate. (Actually Matthew was very helpful and the help-level decreased a bit with age. Anna did want to help, but she sometimes handed me things and said, "I want to give this away", when it was really something we did not want to give away - like a lid to a plastic tote....but she "sort of" got the idea and clearly could feel the love I showered on the kids when they were willing to give a toy to poor children (via St. Vincent de Paul, etc).)

One thing I really wanted to do is make sure any "toy tote" would close. Our Sweet Street collection did not fit the bill, so I asked Carolyn is she would be willing to get rid of one of the big buildings. She chose the hospital (Christmas gift when she was about 5) and I was so proud (and a bit sad remembering way back when).


Of course Joel does great with praise, so we needed to take a picture of him sharing his toy as well!


Currently the kids are playing a Sweet Streets meet Lego men game. Matthew is the banker and he gives out Monopoly money so that the kids can win prizes.......yeah for imagination and peaceful play.

We will return to the sorting tomorrow. Much was accomplished today!

Before and After.....

Matthew before:
Matthew after:
oh - this might help - DURING:
Today at swimming lessons, Matthew got a classmate's leg in his face and it broke his front tooth and loosened up two bottom teeth. An additional tooth on top needed a bit of "sanding" as it was a bit rough. Luckily his dentist was able to see him the same day! He did well with the whole thing, but was a bit sad to learn that he should never bite anything hard with his front teeth again (think apple)....bummer Hopefully he won't be like my brother - who had his front tooth fixed in childhood only to have the broken part fall off (while playing basketball) the morning of his wedding....I haven't told Matthew that story :) (yes another nice dentist came to the rescue then)

Rainy Day fun

We have had a lot of rain this summer, but most of it has occurred at night. Today we got dumped on night and day. I brought out GEO-TRAX since they haven't been played with in months, I knew the kids would have a few hours of fun. Carolyn added (little people) animals and blocks to her park. Joel also added a Pokemon card to his tracks and Matthew put blocks underneath his tracks to make hills and valleys. (Anna mostly played with the airplane and bothered the other participants :)

The kids also enjoyed looking through their photo albums today. Anna is especially fascinated by pictures of babies that are NOT her! (since her scrapbook has mostly baby pictures so far :)

While they played, I prepped my Virtual Quilting Bee packages, because August is my month to send fabric and receive blocks. Each fabric pack is approximately the same, I just put different fabrics on top, so you could get a feel for the variety. I am asking everyone to produce blocks using any combination of squares and rectangles! I figure by giving a bit of structure, the blocks will go well together....time will tell!

DON'T look at picture until you read explaination

Ok- so July's Virtual Quilting Bee was a challenge. C* asked us all to make a chicken themed block. Unfortunately while searching for ideas on Google, I received NASTY viruses on my computer. Therefore searching for ideas was not going to happen again, lest I infect my second computer. (sidenote: Thankfully my infected computer was repaired to working order, although it isn't "perfect". FYI malwarebytes.org has a software program that found viruses that Norton Antivirus didn't. Also, if you are going to search for viruses (so they can be quarantined), do this in safemode - you "catch" more....to get to safemode on my computer I hit F8 when it was booting up....there, now you know everything I know about computer viruses.....oh and that I HATE THEM and the people who create them)

Anyway, back to the chicken block. I decided to try to make a Chicken Coop, since I thought I could design one myself. Then it hit me, if I could find "chicken fabric", I could put chickens in my coop. In the end I made 4 little chicken coops (you might need to imagine a little), with chickens peaking out. C* sent us the green and black fabric and requested a block with creative colors. Her chicken coop is pink and orange, so I followed right along.

So, if you think my block is rather loud, don't blame me, just doing as I am told!

South Dakota - Sunday

Sunday was all about rock climbing around Sylvan Lake with a little playing on the beach thrown in for good measure. Oh...and packing-up.....did I mention that I never want to camp without Ken? He got up early and was a packing-master!


On our way out of the park we came upon a herd of buffalo on the side of the road. It was so exciting. Not nearly as exciting as the herd that we saw a mile or 2 later, that were ON the road. As we were leaving the 2nd herd we came upon a motorcyclist who was heading directly toward the herd. We were a bit nervous for him.

Unfortunately the buffalo were not the last wild-life we saw that day, because a deer ran into the side of our car south of Sioux City. No one was hurt and the car could still be driven - Thank God (and I did)! I was bummed because I figured we just added a $1000 to our vacation expenditures. Ken called when we got home and found out that when a deer hits you, it is considered a Comprehensive Claim ($100 deductible and no ding on your record), rather than a Collision Claim ($1000 for high-deductible folks like ourselves).

SOOO if you can be safe when a deer hits you, don't swerve and get into a different accident (in a ditch or with another car), because that is considered a collision, my friend.

I felt it was another blessing to save $900! Also, the car dealership doing the repair offered us a free car to use (which isn't part of our insurance package at the moment) because when they called me after being contacted by our insurance company, I indicated that we wanted to use someone else (that we used before). Long story short, they threw in free use of a very new Traverse....cool car!

Late Sunday night, I thought our trip ended on a bad note and even wondered, "what message am I supposed to take from this?". Tuesday (by the time the insurance claim was set in motion), I realized, I was supposed to be reminded of God's blessings.

SO...in a nutshell, GREAT FRIENDS, GREAT VACATION, GREAT FUN, GREAT SCENERY...and the ending wasn't so shabby after all.

South Dakota - Saturday

Saturday was all about hiking and fishing then getting in out of the rain. Except for the rain, the weather was beautiful. (I say that because it was 95 degrees here today in Iowa and the weather was mild and comfortable during our entire trip to South Dakota. Maybe even a bit chilly the 2nd night....we put Anna and Carolyn in the RV w/ our friends and the boys and I shared our tent. Our friend's tent suffered a bit of water damage, so it was abandoned.)

Ok, I guess if I really think about it, we did have a bit of hail too. It wasn't bad at the camp site, but when we headed to Custer (City) for church, it looked like it had snowed on the side of the mountain and in part of the street. I still preferred the weather to 95 degree heat.

I know the next 2 pictures have "tiny" people, but how could I cut out the beautiful scenery? I think when I print 4X6, it will be fine. I would print the photos bigger, but have about 100 I want to put in albumn, so will have to show restraint.

FYI: I forgot to mention yesterday that we met my college roommate and her family at Sylvan Lake in Custer State Park. They are fun to be around and live in Rapid City.


When I was young, I would have been horrified by a fish dangling on a hook. Not so for my kids:

South Dakota - Friday

(Thursday night we drove to Deadwood S.D.)

After waking up Friday morning....
We went to Lead's Blackhill Mining Museum - loved it

We got a great tour of a fabricated mine (complete w/ dummmy-miners and all the old equipment). Our tour guide (who also is in the panning for gold picture) was fantastic and had great mining jokes...guess you had to be there.
Anna's favorite thing in all of our site-seeing were these little chairs at the museum. She kept saying, "After I ____ (fill in the blank several times) I am going to go back to the little chairs".

Here are the older kids panning for gold. It was great because the museum "stacked the deck" by giving you a prepared baggie full of sand to pan. There were many flakes of gold in each baggie, so you had a souvenier as well as a fun experience.

Mount Rushmore - awesome
In case you went to Mt. Rushmore as a kid, you must know it has changed....no they haven't added a president, but they did add a great walking path, so you can walk around the base of the mountain - fantastic. I did zoom a bit, but check out how close George seems.

During our entire trip, we met so many nice people. This picture was taken by one such person

Here are the boys in front of one of the artists renditions of Mt. Rushmore. The boys took the 600 steps to go to the artist's studio. The girls and I turned around, since it didn't seem very stroller friendly. Wish I had seen it, the pictures make it look wonderful.

This part of the post could be called: Why I will never camp without Ken. He set up the tent, started the fire, made dinner...you get the picture. If you are going to camp, bring and Eagle Scout!
Here is Anna gathering pine-cones for kindling:

Joel went for the bigger guns:

South Dakota - Thursday

We drove to Mitchell, South Dakota on Wednesday, July 7th. We didn't do much "vacationy", except drive and go out to eat at a Whiskey Creek restaurant. It was a challenge to just get everything in the car without it going "boing" (very very full)! We enjoyed going to a nice dinner, since we don't do that much when in town.

On Thursday we went to the Little House on the Prairie Homestead. It was well worth the added driving. The kids got to ride miniature horses, drive a horse-drawn wagon, make a rope, corn-cob doll and old fashion toy. We got to see how they lived in the late 1800s. There was an old school, a sod-house, a shanty and the first "real" house (might have been a replica) that the Ingels lived in after arriving in South Dakota. FYI, they moved to the city in winter because the weather was so bad.





We also visited a pre-historic Indian site in Mitchell. It was a bit of a disappointment for me, because we arrived at 5:00 and there wasn't anyone but the gift-shop worker to tell us about the archaeological dig that they were doing. As you can see, I took very few pictures, but it was cool to see the dig. I just wish it could have been enhanced by a guide! (The kids favorite part was digging for bones/clay pots in the sand box. They each received an arrow-head after the dig.)

"

Tour of Home - the final post

I have been "showing off" my house as I have completed each room (ok that was in 2009, but stick with me). Although I did show my office in July of 2009, it really wasn't complete because there were still boxes tucked behind the printer and the book shelves were a mess. Well, I have been finishing the office this summer (I KNOW I KNOW) and completed it yesterday. Initially I was searching for my birth certificate (I KNOW I KNOW), which was found. This week I was prepping for a visit from my boss. She is driving from Iowa City back to Omaha and is stopping by to give me my latest project. It is wonderful that she is saving me a trip to Omaha, a bit scary to have to clean for my boss!

Ta dah!


(FYI, the boxes on the shelves contain DVDs for current projects and are and occupational hazard.)

And my goal is to keep it this way. Although it might seem lofty, if there is a room that I should be able to keep clean, it is this one! I absolutely LOVE it. Wish me luck!

St. Paul's letter to the Romans

Right before we left for vacation, two friends posted the same letter from Saint Paul (to the Phillipians). Anyway, it was a beautiful letter talking about concentrating on the good in life and it was just what I needed when I was stressed-out trying to get ready to go on a 5 day trip.

I was cleaning my desk today (boss is coming) and found a "note to self" that included the words Romans 12. (not sure why I wrote it down, probably just wanted to look it up some day after it was mentioned by someone else) I Googled it (despite Googling a virus earlier today) and loved what I read and decided to share it. I did leave off the last couple verses that talk about "heaping coal" on the heads of your enemies by doing nice things for them. I decided it wasn't really in the spirit of good that the rest of the letter implied. I thought it related more to the period of time it was written. So here is the rest of the letter.

1 I urge you, then, brothers, remembering the mercies of God, to offer
your bodies as a living sacrifice, dedicated and acceptable to God;
that is the kind of worship for you, as sensible people.
2 Do not model your behaviour on the contemporary world, but let the
renewing of your minds transform you, so that you may discern for
yourselves what is the will of God -- what is good and acceptable and
mature.
3 And through the grace that I have been given, I say this to every
one of you: never pride yourself on being better than you really are,
but think of yourself dispassionately, recognising that God has given
to each one his measure of faith.
4 Just as each of us has various parts in one body, and the parts do
not all have the same function:
5 in the same way, all of us, though there are so many of us, make up
one body in Christ, and as different parts we are all joined to one
another.
6 Then since the gifts that we have differ according to the grace that
was given to each of us: if it is a gift of prophecy, we should
prophesy as much as our faith tells us;
7 if it is a gift of practical service, let us devote ourselves to
serving; if it is teaching, to teaching;
8 if it is encouraging, to encouraging. When you give, you should give
generously from the heart; if you are put in charge, you must be
conscientious; if you do works of mercy, let it be because you enjoy
doing them.
9 Let love be without any pretence. Avoid what is evil; stick to what is good.
10 In brotherly love let your feelings of deep affection for one
another come to expression and regard others as more important than
yourself.
11 In the service of the Lord, work not halfheartedly but with
conscientiousness and an eager spirit.
12 Be joyful in hope, persevere in hardship; keep praying regularly;
13 share with any of God's holy people who are in need; look for
opportunities to be hospitable.
14 Bless your persecutors; never curse them, bless them.
15 Rejoice with others when they rejoice, and be sad with those in sorrow.
16 Give the same consideration to all others alike. Pay no regard to
social standing, but meet humble people on their own terms. Do not
congratulate yourself on your own wisdom.
17 Never pay back evil with evil, but bear in mind the ideals that all
regard with respect.
18 As much as possible, and to the utmost of your ability, be at peace
with everyone.

http://www.catholic.org/bible/book.php?id=52

School Art Fest-Carolyn

Our children's school participates in Artsonia.com Basically, what this means is that much of their art is photographed and put on a web-site for you to view and you can purchase items depicting the art-work. For me, that means instant digital images of their work, so that I can print and save pictures of their art. I actually didn't think of this until the year end, when I had a stack of art-work that we really wanted to remember without keeping the huge stack. Viola! (I also am printing pictures of the work for their albums.) This must be a major job for their art teacher. I must thank him next time I see him!

Without further ado, here is Carolyn's work. (Joel and Matthew may have to wait until after vacation...to be honest, I took this moment to post Carolyn's because I was waiting for pictures to upload to Snapfish :)

Happy Fourth of July

We celebrated the Fourth of July a bit early this year by attending Yankee Doodle Pops on the State Capital lawn in Des Moines on July 2nd. The symphony played patriotic music and after dark there were fireworks. We actually could see 2 displays because there were fireworks after the Iowa Cub's game, and the stadium was close enough to see their fireworks. (Ken also took the big kids to fireworks on July 3rd, but Anna and I skipped those.)

Of course the best part of the evening was getting together with friends. This is the S* family, who has a boy close to Matthew in age, a girl close to Carolyn in age and a boy about 18 months older than Anna. Ken went to Kindergarten with B., and then met again in Boy Scouts and at the University of Iowa. This couple is among our group of friends who attend a U of I football game most years. They are frequent fliers on the blog.


Here are Anna and A. They played hide and seek together around the statue of Abe Lincoln. VERY CUTE, then A* shared his "glow sticks" with Anna. Too bad the days of arranged marriages are over.....kidding of course.



Here is the Beautiful State Capitol (I almost called it the "Old Capitol", but that is in Iowa City where I went to college):


Here is the view toward the symphony, before and after dark:



The best thing that was performed by the symphony was a song that honored each of the parts of the U.S. Military. All current and former members of the military and their family were asked to stand when their area was mentioned/their song was played. Add that to the great music (Stars and Stripes forever a personal favorite) and I felt very patriotic. Of course on the actual 4th of July we didn't do much to celebrate except attend church. (you know - freedom of religion and all :)

BUSIEST WEEK OF THE SUMMER

We were hopping this week, and although it wasn't well planned, we were prepared. (What happened was that I signed Joel and Carolyn up for "Art Camp" for this week, thinking we had nothing else....then Matthew indicated he would rather do science camp than band camp and this was the only week it was offered.) This is really the only "camp" the kids have all summer (not including Boy Scout Camp).

Art Camp was run by the kid's art teacher from school. That means we just had to walk up to school to attend. This was especially good, since one of our baby-sitters had to walk the kids to camp 3 days of the week so I could get Matthew to camp.

Carolyn and her art (I won't show the handful of clothes that were enhanced by paint...better outfit planning for art camp next year.)

Joel's art (surprisingly, I didn't notice any paint on his clothes...interesting since he basically wears Matthew's hand-me-downs in the summer, so really nothing could be ruined (I mean enhanced) anyway))

Matthew attended "Toying with Technology" camp at Iowa State. (It sounds far away, but it is really as close as going to University of Evansville or USI (University of Southern Indiana) from Newburgh, because we live North East of Des Moines and Ames is just up the road.) Almost all of the week was spent programming Lego robots, called NXT....whatever - he really loved it and enjoyed that it was "hands-on". It wasn't what I was expecting, but a success anyway.

I could do a post on the next item alone, but since we are leaving on vacation tomorrow, I will make it brief. My cousin is a professor at Iowa State and happens to have an office in the same building as Matthew's class. On Wednesday he gave us a tour of the VERY cool Aerospace labs in the building. The kids got to climb in an airplane, air tunnel and tornado simulator.

We were able to take advantage of the trips to Iowa State by meeting with my niece, Liz, who goes to school there. After making the trip 8 times this week, I really wondered why we hadn't visited her earlier. It is just a zip up I35 and you are there. The little boy you don't recognize is one of the boys who Liz baby-sits this summer. The other little boy was resting in his stroller with me. What a lucky little boys they are to have Liz as their nanny.

Carolyn also had her last day of "cheer". This was more like her spring/summer sport than "camp", since she didn't do soccer or baseball, like the boys.


Whew - my house really demonstrated what a busy week we had, because it was a mess by Friday. Luckily we decided to work at cleaning it before we leave on vacation, so we put the kids to work at picking up their stuff and it has recovered. Hopefully this will be fun memory of the summer for the kids.