Coughing, Freezing, Planting, Painting

A long post with lots of words and no pictures.

A few weeks ago Seth was sick.  He sat on the couch for three solid days watching movies (I had no idea that there was enough Pink Panther cartoons to last three days).  He had a violent cough (he threw up several times because he was coughing so hard).  He got better and then then the next week Mark and I started in with the same thing.  Mark stayed home from school Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and the following Monday.  I went into the school to get some homework for him but he just didn't have the energy to do anything.  He just sat on the couch and watched movies (Harry Potter series and  Naruto),  He finally had the energy to go back to school and is doing fine now.  April has been a long month of people being sick in this house.  I buy tissues by the case at Costco and we have been blowing through this last case really fast (ha ha do you get the pun?  We are 'blowing' through them!?!?)  I am finally feeling better (but the boys didn't even realize that I was sick because I didn't have the luxury of sitting on the couch for three solid days, even though I really wanted/needed to).

Mark finally went back to school on Tuesday and I had to check him out of school early for a dermatologist appointment that we had made a while back.  Mark has eczema and it got really bad this winter.  It spread all over his torso, legs and arms.  When he wasn't putting lotion on it regularly, it got really dry, swollen and in some places it cracked open.  A few months ago I asked to see how the rash was doing and I noticed some little bumps (looked like a cross between a pimple and a wart) on the torso/underarm section that hadn't been there before.  I checked the rash a few weeks later and more bumps were there, so I called and made an appointment with a dermatologist.  She is normally booked out a few months, but there was a cancellation a few weeks out, so we took it. 

It turns out that these bumps are not part of the rash but something called mulloscum contagiosm (sounds like a spell from Harry Potter!) It is a skin virus that is contagious and most people have been exposed to them, but aren't aware of it because they usually only get 1 or 2 bumps.  The bumps are benign and don't cause any problems if left untreated and they usually go away on their own in 2 months.  Mark's skin reacted differently to them because of his eczema and the bumps spread.  His will most likely not go away on their own (and if they did it would take 1-2 years) so the doctor determined that it would be best to treat them to get rid of them.  He has to get the bumps burned off with liquid nitrogen.  Because he has so many (around 50) and it is painful to burn them off, he will need to go back every 3 weeks to have as many burned off as he can tolerate until they are gone.  He was quite brave while having them worked on.

I have been working on projects in the yard as my health and the weather have allowed.  The other day I was pulling weeds and it started to snow!  I had to hurry and finish, but my fingers were freezing!  It isn't too often that I have to come in from gardening because I am cold! 

We went to IFA to look at the baby chicks yesterday.  They were so adorable!  Mark tried to talk me into buying a duck.  I wasn't tempted to take any of the animals home, but I really loved the little loppy eared rabbits and the chicks.  We bought a few strawberry plants and I hope to plant them this coming week.  This will be our small start to having a garden. 

I have been working on painting my master bathroom.  We have wanted to paint it ever since we moved in because the color has a lot of pink tones in it (it is a light beige) and I don't care for it.  Since the weather has been rainy and cold, I decided to do some inside work and I bought the paint.  I forgot how much time it takes to paint a bathroom.  There is so much cut-in work to do!  I bought the low-odor paint and it has been so nice!  My house doesn't smell like paint!  I am defiantly happy with this paint!  I have a lot of touch ups to do tomorrow and a bit of work to get some new things done for the bathroom, but hopefully it will come together soon.  I am anxious to use the new towels that my parents gave us for Christmas.  I told myself that I had to wait until I painted to use them and I have waited long enough!  I am so anxious to wrap myself in a new fuzzy towel!

Happenings at My House

We had a St. Patrick's Day party and invited Madeleine over for lunch.  We had a fun little sandwich (similar to these), played a game and played around with our food!  Madeleine stuck the marshmallows onto her glasses for this fine effect!

 

This quilt is for my nephew (due any day now!)  David and Marcy are having a boy and I got this done just in time for the shower.  My camera has been overexposing the pictures, so the colors look weird.  I figured out how to fix that problem, so hopefully I won't have further issues with this!

I started to make a pillow cover, but I did the math wrong and I have a huge Yoda (it is 26x26) .  I need to figure out what to do with him and get this project finished.  It will probably be a quilt. 

This is my March quilt.  It was done and hanging up BEFORE March 1st!  Whoo hoo!  I have nothing for April.  Madeleine, did you read that?  We need to get working on the quilt for May!  It is too late for April!

For what ever reason, I cannot get this picture to post landscape.  Argh!  Mark was feeding Jane and they looked so cozy together on the couch!

I helped out with a 'non-game activity' for my cousin's baby shower.  We made felt flowers and put them on hair barrettes.  It was fun and we had a good supply to give to the baby! 

Jane loves her sunglasses!

Paul took Jane out on the trampoline for her very first time.  She loved to bounce around and play with Paul.

The weather was beautiful and we enjoyed playing out side

Jane loves to be outside!

Seth and Trevan blowing bubbles.  They were pretending to make snow!  Just two days later they didn't need to pretend though!

We woke up to this beautiful sight Sunday morning.  I told the boys that it would snow because I had just put the winter gear (snow boots, coats, etc) away.  I really didn't intend for my prediction to come true!

I have had to rearrange some of our cupboards to make them safer for Jane to explore.  Today was the first day that she climbed into the cupboard!  She is getting so big!  She has been eating non-stop lately.  Once she got over her cold, she hit a growth spurt and it seems as though she is always hungry.  Her top front right tooth popped through the other day.

We had a fun April Fools day.  I switched the cereal around so that the Cheerios were in the Chex box and the Chex were in the Kix box.  It is fun to see the kids faces when they pour the cereal into the bowl.  Paul has been eating waffles for breakfast, so I knew that the cereal trick wouldn't work on him.  I put frozen hot dog buns in the waffle box (I didn't have hamburger buns) and he got a good laugh out of it.  I rearranged a few things in the kitchen as well.  I exchanged places with the toaster and rice cooker and I switched our silverware drawer with the drawer next to it.  I even fell for my own joke because I wasn't paying attention and out of habit opened the wrong drawer!

I put a sticky note on the bottom of Daniel's computer mouse so that it wouldn't work.  (All he has to do is remove the sticky note!)

For dinner I put green jello in cups and set out a pitcher of green punch.  Mark went to get a drink and he was really confused for a second when the punch didn't come out.  I also made some 'invisible' punch (Kool-aid makes a few flavors that don't have coloring in them) and put it in the water jug.

That was the extent of my little tricks.  I do the cereal one and the mouse one every year.  I like fun little tricks that aren't mean or embarrassing. 

Before the big snowstorm, I had been working in the yard.  We are removing the big bushes that are right in front of the house.  They are overgrown and planted too close to the house for my liking.  We wanted to remove them when we first moved in, so we didn't do much to tame them and now they are monsters.  I have 6 of the 9 stripped down to the main stems.  It hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be.  Digging the base out will be more work, but Daniel has one done already.  This snowstorm has kind of thrown off my schedule though.  Hopefully I will be able to get working on the 'murdering' (as Mark calls it) of the shrubs by the end of the week.

Artwork

This summer we had a few artists come to our door to sell paintings.  Benjamin and Nathaniel are from Israel and they came to America with their art buddies to sell their work.  We bought some paintings a few years ago when their group came around.  Daniel and I have been really impressed with the paintings and the energy of the young artists selling their work.  

They bring in a huge roll of painted canvases from all different artists in the group and show them to us.  If we like it, they pull it aside.  Benjamin showed us a painting and we loved it.  He asked us if we really liked it and after we confirmed that it was one of our favorites, he told us that he painted it!  It was fun to see his excitement at our praise for the work.  We bought this painting and one more big one.  

We didn't have the ones framed from the previous year, so we had them stretch and frame all of the canvases that we had.  It is amazing how the frame can make the picture come alive.  The guy who normally does the stretching and framing wasn't available to do the work, so Benjamin came over and did it.  Here are a few pictures of him stretching the frame.  I have been waiting to post a picture of it on our wall, but I don't have the accessories done to my satisfaction below the painting, so I thought that I'd just post what I have because my decorating is just not going to be done anytime soon.   

 

This painting is my favorite of all of the paintings we bought.  It is very serene and calming.  I love the colors and the texture.  The picture doesn't do justice to the painting.  It was really neat to visit with Benjamin while he was here.  It turns out that his last name is Benjamin and I can't remember his first name, but it isn't an easy name for American's to pronounce, so he just goes by his last name.  

Both times this group has come to our door, they are amazed when they hear my name.  The former Prime Minister of Israel's name was Sharon (they pronounce the 'a' with an 'uh' sound so it is Sha-ron, so it's not like Americans would say the name Sharon like share-un) When they say my name they would say the 'er' like 'uh' instead of 'ur' and they would be so excited that my name is like their Prime Ministers!  It makes a wonderful jump start for conversations about politics in Israel!   

Oil Can

My body is sore.  My muscles ache.  Every time I move, I feel like my muscles are squeaking, calling out like the Tin Man for his trusty oil can.  If you haven't guessed by now, I joined the gym and I started exercising again.  My sister-in-law, Wendy, got me a great deal at Gold's Gym.  I have been feeling really down about my body lately, and I needed to start working out.  I had purchased a new DVD (Jillian's 30 Day Shred) but it was collecting dust, still in the wrapper.  I had no motivation to crank it out and I was struggling to find a time to work out without interruptions.  When Wendy called with the awesome deal (under $10 a month) I took it.

I went to a Pilates class on Wednesday night.  It was good, but my muscles were shaking toward the end of the hour.  My stomach muscles were not loving me, but it felt good.  Wendy and I stood in the parking lot and talked to each other for 2 1/2 hours after the workout.  I didn't get home until midnight, but I had a great night.  Daniel called me while I was on the way home to see where I was.  He was a bit worried about me because I was out so late.  (The class started at 8pm, so I told him I would be home around 9:30!)

Friday morning I went to a water aerobics class.  I really like water aerobics.  It really is too bad that I didn't have the gym membership while I was pregnant.  I had a gym membership a few years back and I went to this class 3 times a week.  I really like the instructor.  I am typically the youngest person in the class, but the ladies (and sometimes a few men) are really nice and I enjoy their company.

I am really excited to get back into shape and lose some weight.  It is discouraging to have only one pair of pants that fit (and they have a huge hole in the knee).  The sad thing is that I don't even fit into some of my maternity pants that I wore until I was 7 months pregnant.  I gained a lot of weight in my thighs during the last trimester and I didn't realize it until afterward.   I know that I just had a baby, but that doesn't change the fact that I really don't have any pants that fit.  I felt better about the way I looked two weeks after Jane was born than I do now.  I can't explain it.  Perhaps I was more patient with myself last month than I am right now.  Really, how long can the "I just had a baby" excuse be used? 

Daniel has been very supportive by encouraging me to go to the gym and by holding down the fort during the evening routine so that I can go.  I know that regular exercise helps my mental status a lot.  Right now I need as much help as I can get in that department.  It really is unfortunate that I can come up with so many excuses to not work out.  With time my body won't be so sore, (I really am taking it easy getting into the groove of things) and I will have more energy.  It always seems so strange that I don't want to go because I am so tired, but I feel so energized when I am done.  Daniel is such a wonderful husband. 

Right now our house is rather quiet.  Daniel took the boys to Grand Junction, Colorado to visit with his brother Sam and his family and to help them move into a new place.  I was planning on going, but I started panicking about traveling with a baby.  Just thinking about all of the stuff that we'd need to pack for Jane, and figuring out what food to bring for me was too much.  I stayed home with Jane and made it a girl's only weekend.  I have started cleaning out the garage (something I really needed to do a year ago!) and have made good progress.  It has been too hot to work on it during the day, so I've done a bit here and there in the morning and evening while Jane sleeps.  Daniel most likely won't be able to park in the garage when he gets home, but it will be done in a few days and it will be wonderful to have a clean garage!  It has been such a mess that when I pull into the garage, I feel sad and discouraged (and a bit disgusted with myself that it has gotten to such a state).  That is NOT the way I want to feel when I come home, so I am going to make it feel organized and welcoming.   

Mom and Dad to the Rescue

I went over to my parent’s house last night for dinner.   Mom said that she had a file on her email account with some of the Taylor Times emails.  I looked at it and found only two months worth that I didn’t have.  I silently sulked for a few minutes and then had to accept reality. 

My parents invited the boys to spend the night at their house so that they could spend their ‘off-track time’ together.  The boys were really excited to sleep over.  I hope that things went well. 

Daniel and I thought that we would spend the alone time to celebrate our wedding anniversary that is coming up next week.   It hasn’t quite worked out that way, but the quiet evening was nice.  A quite morning will be nice, too! 

The reason things didn’t work out the way we had planned is because Daniel left his wallet in the van on the middle console while we were in my parent’s house.  When we got out to the van, his wallet was gone.  We searched the van with flashlights, searched the boy’s bags and double checked at home to no avail.  Daniel was really upset, but soon calmed down and we started making phone calls to cancel his credit card, bank card, etc.  He will need to get a new drivers license and all of that fun stuff. 

I went to bed around 11 p.m., but I woke up at 3 a.m.  By 4 I knew that I wasn’t going back to sleep, so I got up.  While I was trying to sleep, I was thinking about the emails that I was able to retrieve from my parent’s yahoo account.  I realized that my parents had saved all of the entries that I only had a paper copy of.  I got onto their account and forwarded all of those emails to myself.  Hurray!  I have a digital copy!  I will still need to retrieve and organize them all, but HURRAY! 

I recalled my dad saying that they had several thousand emails in their ‘inbox’.  I wondered if they had any of the missing emails in their and after sorting through their email account for an hour, I have all of my journal entries!  I feel so blessed to be able to have these precious memories back!  I have the thoughts and events that took place while Seth was a baby and our adventures in Georgia back! 

Thank you, Mom and Dad!  Thank you!

Journals

I have been looking into different companies to print my blog into a book.  I am frustrated with what I have found so far as I want more control over the layout of the pages.  This project started me thinking about the pages that I have written before I started blogging.  I thought that I should print them, too. 

Starting October 2001, I sent out nearly weekly email’s of what had been going on that week to Daniel’s parents to keep them updated on how the boys were growing (Mark was 22 months and Paul was 6 months old).  I used those emails titled “Taylor Times” as my source of journaling. 

I use to write in my journal every night while in high school and college.  But, after a particularly difficult breakup with a boyfriend, I stopped writing for a while.  My journal picks up with having met Daniel and the entries were spotty at best until the last entry titled “I’m getting married tomorrow!” 

Writing in my journal at night didn’t fit into our routine as a married couple, so I let it slide.  After Paul was born, I realized that I needed to journal again, but my wrists hurt so badly when I wrote that I didn’t write.  Typing was easier, so I started the emails.  I figured that if someone was expecting an entry, it would be more likely to happen. 

So, back to this weekend.  I was taking all of the email entries that I had saved on a document and put them all together onto one document.  I am frustrated because I can’t find my back up cd of 2001-2006.   Before we moved to Georgia, I made a paper copy of all of the entries as well as a cd.  I didn’t print out any of the entries from 2005- 06, my computer crashed and I hadn’t made a back up. 

I am going to my parent’s house to see what they have saved on their email account.  Hopefully I can recover some of the entries. 

I have been looking through the print outs, trying to decide what to do with them.  I have several options.  I can put them in page protectors, scan them, or retype them.  I’m not happy with any of the options, but I am very grateful that I have a paper back up of these entries. 

Paul has had fun reading about when he was a baby.  I have had fun reading about life with two young boys and I’ve shed a few tears reading about my journey with postpartum depression.

I mentioned that I didn’t journal much when I was engaged.  My friend Larissa, gave me an awesome gift on my 30th birthday.  She took all of the audio tapes that I sent to her while she was serving a mission in Bulgaria and transcribed them so that I had a book of the thoughts that I related to her.   I met and married Daniel while she was on her mission.  I wrote to her a lot and sent her 5 or 6 tapes.  When I had mentioned to her years ago that I wish that I had written in my journal more during that period of time, she graciously (and secretively)   put together the book with all of my thoughts  and opinions of Daniel and marriage that I sent to her on tape and letters.  I had no idea that  I said so much to her!  It was such an awesome gift to receive!

I’m glad that I have been able to keep up with journaling.  It really is therapeutic.  Blogging has been fun because I have had more interaction with my writings.   

Here’s to another decade of digital journaling!  (Please make sure to back up your journals!)

Energy Gauge

For the past few years, laundry day has been Monday. I wash, dry and fold the laundry, then pester the boys for the next day to put their laundry away. Barring any big event going on, I have everything put away by Monday evening.

Since my energy level has been super low lately, I just can't get the laundry done in one day. I have noticed that I can look back at a given week and tell how my energy level was by how long it took me to finish doing the laundry. It has been normal lately for the laundry to be finished by Wednesday night.

Last week I finished laundry on Tuesday afternoon! This week, however, has been a different story. It is Sunday and I still have a load of towels in the dryer that need to be put away. I have a load of my clothes that are in the basket breeding wrinkles as I type. I just washed them yesterday. Thanksgiving kind of took a day away from my schedule, as I spent my energy preparing food (and mucking up the kitchen). (A BIG thanks to Daniel, Paul and Seth for washing all of the big pots and pans by hand. Paul and Seth had a great time- claiming that it was FUN!)

I can tell that I am tired by looking at the mess dirty clothes on my closet floor. Somehow I can't manage to put the dirty clothes in the laundry basket, they just stay where they land when I take them off. When my energy levels are decent, this isn't an issue.

I have looked back over the last several years and I have noticed a trend; when I don't feel well (either physically or mentally) two household chores really suffer- laundry and dishes. When I was experiencing my really bad migraines, I started using paper plates to cut down on the chores (and the noise- paper plates don't bang together loudly!) These are chores that I don't mind doing, but I find to be difficult to tackle sometimes. They are the never-ending chores of any household.

I am officially in my 2nd trimester! I really do feel better than I did during the first trimester. I don't feel nearly as nauseated and gross, but I am still really tired.

Seth keeps asking cute little questions about the baby. Time is a difficult concept for him to understand. He told me that he is going to learn to read so that when the baby is born, he can read books to the baby at bedtime.

The Cutting Edge

Or more appropriately titled: cutting the edge of the lawn

I was sick of the way the yard looked next door (it is vacant) so I took our lawn mower over and started hacking down the weeds. I had just started when Jane, my neighbor, said that if I cut the perimeter, she would bring her riding lawn mower over and do the rest. Thank you Jane! Wow! That was so nice! Having 1/3 acre lots means having too much lawn to mow. I am seriously considering looking into a riding lawn mower because I think that Daniel will be more likely to get the mowing done (and they boys will vie for opportunities to use it, too!)

I haven’t used a lawnmower for a while, and my wrists are not loving me for using one. I think that I really messed something up. God bless Jane for mowing the rest because I don’t think that I would be able to type if I had finished the front yard. It is sore to type, but not painful.

Today someone came to look at the house next door. Her name is Erin. She has two kids ages 5 and 2. She is very interested in the house. We talked for a while outside. Her little girl needed to use the bathroom, and since the water is turned off at the house for sale, they came over to my house. My house wasn’t filthy, but it wasn’t tidy. I just wasn’t expecting company, so the house showed it. I was embarrassed, but I guess that she got a real taste of who she would be living next to!

I’ve been working on my digital scrap booking this week. I took a long break and I am enjoying getting back into it. I plan to get caught up with the boy’s pictures and give them their books for Christmas. Wish me luck!