It's like this...

After finishing the dining room we went straight to work on the living room. We only had two injuries on our work crew the entire five days we slaved. OSHA would be proud of us, though we might get in trouble for using child labor. Only one injury required a visit to the doctor and that was Ashley. When we ripped out the carpeting it had been nailed down to the floor all around the rooms. When the boards were ripped out we had rusty nails on them. They were placed in a box and Ashley cut herself on them. I called the pediatrician to make sure her tetanus was up to date. Of course it wasn't I won't go into the gory details here, but suffice it to say it took three nurses to hold her down for the shot. The other injury was to Lance, same thing with a nail. Nurse Budlet took very good care of him, cleaning and bandaging his wound. And now....on to the slide show of our living room and it's renewal!

Or in other words, when my father leaves we spend five days killing ourselves in this house. And by killing ourselves, I mean we ripped up carpeting in the dining room and living room that had been there since prehistoric times. We painted over dark wood paneling and yellow fuzzy wallpaper. We taped off, we primered, we painted. We discovered interesting flooring under the carpeting which we stripped, cleaned and then applied two coats of wax. We went without sleep---literally. Here's a slide show of just our work on the dining room. I'll do the living room once I've regained my strength. Just in case you missed it in the fast slide show, here's the finished product.

I swear, sometimes I am too stupid and clumsy to live. Case in point. See this? Yeah, that's my right foot. I fell down the stairs yesterday morning as I was trying to get out of the house on time to get to work. BAM and I'm down. Three toes busted and my foot is swollen. I'm hobbling around like a 90 year old woman. Like I said, bubble wrap. Lots and lots of bubble wrap. It's the only thing that will save me.

My life...busy as it was....just got busier. I now have my two youngest removed from public school. Alli is doing an online school and she's appearing to love it. Ash is mine. Mine. Mine. Mine. Did I mention she's all mine? She'd been pleading to be home schooled for some time now and when she discovered that if she was HOME SCHOOLED she wouldn't have to get up so early every morning, well that just did it for her. She's SO not a morning person. There have been bottles of water involved in prying her from her warm snuggy bed on occasion. Honestly, getting her up in the morning is like trying to pry Obama off his money-printing machine. It simply can't be done without a whole lotta muscle involved and blood pressure high enough to cause a stroke. For me, not her. So, now she gets to sleep in, which works out nicely as Daddy works late nights and now he doesn't have to be awakened early every morning. And I get to home school her. It's as thou...

Today, as is our custom on the Sabbath, we loaded what children we could round up and headed to our chapel. I know some think we are odd and even deluded to participate in such activities. We don't. We try to go each and every Sunday, as well as participating in a few church-related activities during the week. No, the reason I cried today has nothing to do with the amount of time we spend at church. I like being there, with other people of faith and the fellowship and spirit that's always there bolsters me and carries me into the week feeling uplifted. But I digress. In the pew, we were sitting with Ashley on the end, then Lance, then Stephanie and Allison then me. Chris had to work so he wasn't with us today. No, the sitting arrangement in our pew didn't make me cry--though I wouldn't have minded sitting next to my husband. Alli and Steph have a sweet habit of cuddling...hugging and leaning on one another. At night we can hear them (they share the room off ...

Today was one of my busiest of the year... Hmm. I take that back. I got home before ten this evening so perhaps it just felt busy. Yesterday I taught class, did several interpreting sessions, went to Children's for Alli's MRI, then went across Lake Washington for another appointment, rushed home and then went back to Children's for another meeting with Ashley's swim team board of directors. I'm getting sucked in just as I did with Wonderland and to be honest it feels wonderful to be involved again in a non-profit that helps disabled youth. I took over the fundraising chair last night so I'm sure I won't lack for things to do. Not that I do. Lack I mean. But I enjoy being busy. After ten or eleven Interpreting appointments today, my brain was fairly well fried. I came home, made dinner then rushed out again to take the girls to Young Women's and Achievement Days at church. We picked up Steph from work on our way home and then I walked our dog. Th...

yes, that's what I've been. I've let a lot of time go past without writing anything here. In my defense, I have been busy and secondly, I've been busy. Did I mention the busy? Our basement has flooded. Flooded again. Then it kept raining so it kept flooding. We've been pumping it out for days. It fills up, we empty it out, lather, wash, flood, repeat. We've been searching online for plans for an Ark. I think that would make a splendid DIY project, don't you? I've been busy taking my Alli out of school and putting her into an online school that she can do from home. Now, before you tell me I'm insane and I'm going to socially stunt my third child thereby creating a defective human being, let me say this to you: And also, she asked to do this, we're not forcing her. In other words--this is HER choice. I think it's a good one for her at this point. Her school is not an environment conducive to kids that actually have values. It...