Well, surprise, surprise.  A few people have been asking for an update plus Tim’s been really encouraging me to get back into writing (he knows it’s a way better use of my time than facebook or hulu.com)…so, while I can’t promise to produce anything worth reading, here I am.

Here’s a start on the update:

Tim, our marriage, and I survived outage season (Tim’s busiest few months of work ever)!   No surprise there, right?  Of course we’d survive.  But it’s actually a much bigger accomplishment than it sounds.  He wrapped up  his big project just in time for Christmas, and although our lives aren’t quite back on track schedule-wise, we sure are getting close.  I can’t wait to have him home evenings and weekends again.

Did you know I have a nice new niece?  Her name’s Hannah, she’s the cutest ever, and I’ve seen her twice–once when I flew to Iowa to spend a (November) week with her (and her parents), and once when she (and her parents) flew to Richmond to spend the (Christmas) week with me (and the rest of my family)!  

We had the busiest Christmas season I ever remember.  My whole family came up for the week of Christmas, and we enjoyed seeing some fun sights–including Hannah’s first ever beach experience and the rest of our first-ever oyster harvesting attempt (I would say both were successful, although I think we enjoyed the fresh oysters more than Hannah enjoyed the cold sea-breeze).  Then Tim and I spent New Years (Year’s?  Years’?) week visiting, reading, cooking, and board-gaming with his family in the Shenandoah Valley.  Pop spent a few nights leading up to Christmas in the hospital due to a very mild heart attack.  He’s home and doing much better, for which we are very thankful.   All of his children and many of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren were able to visit at Christmas and into January.  It’s been neat to have our house bursting at the seams for so much of the last few weeks!  Now it feels very quiet and empty (the last of the company left Tuesday and Tim is business-tripping the week away, so it’s just Pop and I holding down the fort until Sunday).

I had an almost-three-week teaching break from my chemistry class, but I’m back at it with a vengeance and celebrated the half-way mark last Monday.  To celebrate, we finished our long and entertaining discussion of the periodic table and jumped right into a rousing perusal of chemical reactions.  My students have been waiting all year for us to get to the chemical reactions part of the class, because the single and sole reason they even signed up for chemistry in the first place was to learn how to blow things up.  So hopefully the small explosions we’ll be able to create satisfy their every expectation.

Of course a million and one other things have happened, are happening, or will happen very soon–but since I can’t get to all of them tonight, I think I’ll hit publish before I think better of it. 

Ta-ta!

Gift Ideas: Creationary

A year or so ago, friends introduced Tim and I to a new “board game”–Creationary.  Much to my dismay (or not), Tim fell instantly in love.

Put very simply, Creationary is Lego Pictionary.  You’re given an object in a category, and you have to draw build it.  A supply of legos (Tim would like me to note that it is a limited supply) is included.

Here’s why it made a good gift for Tim: he has a very soft spot in his heart left over from boyhood (otherwise known as ‘nostalgia’) for Legos–one that he rarely gets to indulge now that he is an all grown up man.  This game gave him just the dignified excuse he needed to climb right back into his little boy shoes.  

Let me invite you to take a peek at how it works, courtesy of a rousing game we played a few weeks back with Nathaniel and Anna.  See if you can guess what we built!

 

Did you get them?  Backhoe, Cow, Crocodile, Dock, Hospital, Gas Pump, Clock Tower, Parthenon (I think), Main Street.

Here’s what I like about the game (that I haven’t already mentioned): It’s a great thing to play with a mixed group of kids and adults of all ages (although Pop declined when we offered to let him in on the action) since cards come in three categories of difficulty.  It’s good for even a very young kid’s creativity and fine motor skills, plus it won’t drive the parent nearly as crazy as oh, say Candyland.

Here’s what I don’t like about the game: the scoring system is really weird.  We scratched the existing instructions when we played and let all the players guess what was being built.  We gave the point to the first correct answerer.  We also let the builder finish his/her item even after it had been guessed, just so we could ooh and ahh over the brilliant execution. 

Overall, though, I think it’s a great game and a creative gift idea.  It sells at Walmart for about $30 (Lego stuff is expensive) as well as online from several venues.  And I imagine you might even be able to make your own if you already have a Lego supply.

Potato Soup

I made the BEST Potato Soup for supper last night, yo.

I’ve never made potato soup before in my life, for two of three reasons (you pick):

1. Not enough protein.

2. Too much fat cream.

3. Potatoes are people too.

Yesterday, though, I forgot all about making plans for dinner until about 4:30, at which time nothing sounded good.  You know, of all the amazing work a housewife does, I think the most miraculous has to be the execution of three good tasting, nutritious meals per day.   I had almost decided that since it was just me and Pop, I was going to pack our bags and head to Panera for a bowl of broccoli cheddar soup (everything tastes better when I didn’t cook it).

And then I thought well, why not make my own creamy concoction?

Except we’d eaten all the broccoli in the house the day before and I only had one potato.

Undaunted, I set to work.  Here’s what I came up with:

Potato Soup:
1 lb ground chicken (or turkey or beef)
1 large potato, diced
1 large carrot, diced
1 stick of celery, diced
1/2-1 cup lentils*
1 small onion, sliced
seasoned salt
pepper
pinch of lemon (pepper, juice, or peel)
a beef bullion cube
Cook all of the above in a saucepan on high, stirring often, until hamburger is cooked through.  Add:
5 Tablespoons whole wheat flour
Stir.  Then add:
1 cup water
1 to 2 cups milk (I used 1%)
1 to 2 Tablespoons butter
Stir constantly until soup boils, turn down to low and simmer 15 minutes (minimum).  Just before serving, stir in:
1/2 cup grated cheddar cheese
serves 6.

Whala!  In less than 45 minutes, dinner was served.  It was healthy, it was gumptious, it was low fat, and it was good.  

Just ask Pop.  He had thirds.

*Lentils are a relatively new discovery for me, and I’ve been working them into all kinds of dishes since I learned how good they are for you: “This food is very low in Saturated Fat, Cholesterol and Sodium. It is also a good source of Protein, Iron, Phosphorus and Copper, and a very good source of Dietary Fiber, Folate and Manganese.  Read More http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/legumes-and-legume-products/4338/2#ixzz1a7lbhA68“

 

Laundry Room Fail

Occasionally I’ll get it into my head that I can do anything.

Note to self: NOT.

Here’s the deal: I love my washer and dryer.  They are the stuff.  They were cheap, they fit into a tight space, they’re white, and they work wonders with my laundry every single time: it comes out clean AND dry all in less than an hour.  (I know, I know, it’s a minor miracle.)  In fact, I love them so much that I sing their praises to Tim every laundry day evening (while he tries not to be jealous).  And I felt like they deserved some extra special treatment.

So three months ago, during a particularly busy stretch of work for Tim (one which was supposed to last a week and has morphed into the last nine months), I took it upon myself to carpet the laundry room.  The one with the floor otherwise known by geologist-wannabes as a concretion.  (Unfortunately for this geologist wannabe, real concretions sometimes contain pearls.  Our laundry room floor?  Not so much.)

We already had the carpet (a big scrap of green berber that was left rolled up in the corner of one of the bedrooms), so what did I have to lose?

Nothing.

Note to self: HA.  HA.

First I had to measure.  You know what they say about measuring: with what measure you use twice, cut once.  Or something like that.  Just to be safe, I measured about 7 times.  Don’t ask me why, it just sounded like the perfect number. 

Then I had to draw.  I drew out the laundry room.  I drew out the carpet.  I tried to fit the laundry room into the carpet.  Then I realized it would be just as easy to fit the carpet to the laundry room.  So I did.

The carpet was too long and not wide enough.  So by my calculations, if I cut it in half length wise and stacked the two pieces side by side–I was good to go.

So I made my cuts.  I used a utility knife and followed the weave on the back of the carpet to make sure my cut would come out straight.  Whoever invented weave on the back of carpet was a genius.  Maybe he and the guy who started printing that grid on the back of wrapping paper are brothers, who knows.  But I’d like to shake the man’s hand.

On accident, I cut in half width wise instead of length wise even though I’d measured twice x 3 1/2 so I’d only have to cut once.

I do not want to shake the man’s hand who made up that stupid wrong rule about measuring twice.

But all was not completely lost, since I could still cover all the visible parts of the laundry room concretion with some clever editing and minimal overlap.

The fourth (and purportedly final) step involved laying the carpet.  I was particularly proud of this accomplishment, since it involved some single handled maneuvering of some rather large furniture.  Oh, and I pulled a tricky trick where the carpet tucked under the laundry room door and met head to head with the tile in the hallway: I folded the carpet under and stomped it flat, so it looked like a real, professional seam.  Shwew.  Go, me.

Enter the happily ever after that wasn’t.

First and foremost, the carpet unbalanced the washing machine.  My beautiful, perfect, quiet, purring machine turned into some sort of raging lunatic every time I pushed her buttons.  Not only was it loud and annoying and cumbersome, but then I read somewhere that the life expectancy of unbalanced washing machines is dramatically reduced compared to their level-headed peers.

If that’s not bad news, I don’t know what is.

Obviously, the carpet had to go.

I procrastinated for a few weeks, but as the time neared for our triannual trip to the dump, I knew I had to act.

So I did.  I enlisted Tim’s help, and together we singlehandedly wrastled that carpet back out from under said heavy furniture, rolled it up, carted it out to the trailer, loaded it up, and drove off into the sunset.

Enter the end of story that wasn’t.

While removing the carpet from underneath the dryer, we (I) accidentally pinched (punctured) the dryer exhaust hose.

Ooops.

So off Tim runs for a new hose, some extra hose clamps, and a bottle of vodka.  (Just kidding about the vodka.)

Alas, alack, the hose clamp doesn’t quite fit the exit pipe.  So back he runs for some sort of pipe re-sizer and more vodka.

At this moment in the saga, something terrible happens: outage season–otherwise known among control engineers as the ‘drop everything and run to work death dance ’–begins at the power plant.  So Tim did just that two weeks ago, and he hasn’t been back since ’s been home just long enough to eat and sleep since.

Well, good wife that I am, yesterday I decide to contract another case of the I-can-do-anythings (my only other symptom being a huge basket of dirty laundry).  So I muscle around that hose, figure out why the clamp doesn’t fit, fit it, tighten it down, and take my trusty-dusty machines for a test drive.

Here’s how that went:

Not well.

So, dear readers, in case you missed it, three months, a big mess, and a few wasted days of work later, we are now right back to where we started (a laundry room with a concrete floor), except that now:

The washer’s still off kilter, despite being back on a level playing field.  I know this because of the loud protestations she made yesterday at even the most simple of tasks.  Oh, she’ll do what I ask her to alright–but not without making herself heard.

The dryer hose leaks steam (at both ends), despite being tightly sealed (at both ends).

And outage season isn’t over for two more months.

In conclusion:

The moral of this story is I am not as amazingly skilled as I’d like to think, so please don’t ask me to do anything even remotely simple for you anytime soon.  And remind me next time I get a case of the I-C-D-A-s to just leave well enough alone, thank you very much.

Oh, yah, and the other moral is I’ll probably be wearing this same shirt for the next month, so don’t get too close. 

Good thing I scored a deal on deodorant last week.

Additional Info About Said New Addition

Willow had an identity crisis over the weekend (i.e. my vet-tech sis came to visit) and has been re-christened Willard (“Willer” for short).

The New Addition

This post is to prove that we are NOT all talk and no bite. 

Because let’s face it, folks.  We do talk about a lot of things that we never actually do.

Like getting a cat.

We’ve been talking about this one for years…yup, ever since we moved from our first little apartment to our first real house almost exactly two years ago (next month).  Buuuuut for one reason (traveling a lot) or another (traveling a lotter), that cat just never materialized.

…until September 9, 2011.

Folks, meet Willow.

Oh, wait.  Wrong one.  Let’s try this again:

Folks, meet my Willow:

She’s cute and curious.  Her mom is a feral kitty living in our pastor’s neighborhood, and out of a litter of 6ish, Willow was the only one to show any interest in being tamed (and boy, is she tame). 

We had a really hard time naming her (at least, we think it’s a ‘her’).  She came with the name Clark (the explorer, i.e. Lewis and Clark), which we liked, but not for a girl.  We tried and tossed Sacagawea, Engine, Layne, and I can’t remember what else.  Then we hit on the name Willow–like a Pussy Willow (soft, grey, punny). 

(For those of you who’ve never seen a Pussy Willow here’s an example ((from Pinterest))…)

Pinterest

Willow is about 10 weeks old as of this writing.  She lives in our garage almost full time, with brief stints into the house to play with her favorite thing of all time: a ball of yarn.  She is an implacable purrer and she litter box trained herself without any help from her friends (us).  Go, Willow!  When we have kids, can you teach them that trick?!

She is very frisky, especially when dealing with anything that moves (with the exception of spiders ((awww, she takes after me!))).  Oh, and she thinks she is super, super sneaky, too.  I humor her as much as I can, since she returns the favor by keeping Pop and me company while Tim business-trips.

I love that she can spend hours playing with almost anything: balled up newspaper, pens, yarn, bicycle spokes, paper bag handles, and people.  Her favorite place to spend extended periods of time is a big pile of porch swing cushions.  Her second favorite perch is the garage windowsill.

So that’s how we came to cross CAT off of our bucket list.  Next in line: CHICKEN, followed by DOG, MILK GOAT, and ELEPHANT (still talking Tim into that one).

Guest Room #2 Redo

La Casa de Carr is 4BR/2.5BA.  Bedroom #1 belongs to me, and Tim if he’s nice.  Bedroom #2 is Pop’s.  And until very recently, the third room was for guests and the fourth room was for junk (and guests, if they weren’t nice).  I’d long since painted Bedrooms #1 and #2–but #3 and #4 were way down on my priority list.  Until very recently–when I realized we’d be hosting 3 couples and a baby (niece? nephew? niece?  nephew?) for Christmas.  Oooooh, yikes.

All that to say, I got my game on and tackled the junk room (i.e. #4, i.e. guest room #2). 

The obvious first step was to transfer all the junk from the junk room to the guest room (sort?  organize?  THROW AWAY?!?!?!  you’ve got to be kidding).

Second on the list: texturing the ceiling (to hide the cracks/bumps).  I used a rectangular kitchen sponge which I dipped into a bucket of drywall joint compound and then twisted onto the ceiling with a deft flick of the wrist (while standing on an upside down five-gallon bucket, of course ((which incidentally, is exactly where I was standing and what I was doing when we had our recent earthquake))).

Third (after spackling nail holes and sanding the walls smooth): a coat of paint on the ceiling followed closely by one on the walls–so that they would finally be the same color (I chose gray)!

Fourth came the furnishings.  We already had a bedroom set that originally belonged to my great grandparents, but no mattress.  On Labor Day weekend (hello, sales!), I dragged Tim mattress shopping.  Three stores later, we settled on a great mattress for a great price (you know, I could love being a paid mattress shopper.  All you have to do is sleep).  Whala!  We were in business just in time for our next round of company (phew!).

The rest of the pics:

This rocker is from my parents.  Eventually, I’d love to re-upholster it…but that’s definitely another project for another day. 

We picked up both these prints of Colonial Williamsburg at a garage sale last weekend, and they seemed appropriate for our new digs.  Maybe instead of referring to her as “Guest Room #2″, we’ll have to rechristen her “The Virginia”.

This copper pot with Delft handles is a dutch antique from my dutch and antique experts: Uncle Burton and Aunt Jessie.  I hope it’s okay that I turned it into a trash can. 

Here’s the vanity part of Great Grandma Toeset’s furniture.

Oooh, guests, look!  You’ll even get your own closet!

The moral of the story:

come visit!

Oh, yes, one last thing: the before/after shots.

Extraterrestrial

What I’ve been doing since I dropped off the planet:

1. Nannying: for two or three families 3-4 days a week for most of the summer.  All done now that it’s (almost) fall!
2. Traveling: we did a lot of quick summer weekend trips (8) to visit various family members and friends while we had the time (before Tim starts his crazy fall hours) and inclination.
3. Canning and freezing: blueberries, strawberries, peaches, green beans, asparagus, applesauce, blackberries and tomatoes.  Yum.  All three freezers ar juuuuuuust about full.
4. Cleaning and cooking: when am I not?!
5. Sulking: which above all else is why I haven’t been blogging, because who really wants to read sulks, anyway?
6. Redecorating: Guestroom #2 has been remade, and I love it.  Now onto Guestroom #1, which is currently in progress (I was supposed to finish it this week, but I made applesauce and read Pirate Hunters instead).
7. Exercising: I started on the Couch to 5K program in July, but then ditched it to run with Tim 3 mornings a week instead (he’s not big on the whole run-walk-run-walk thing).  We’ve kept it up fairly consistently since then.  He’s been gone the last two weeks, so I’ve been riding Pop’s indoor bicycle instead (I don’t like running by myself, what can I say).  My goal is to boost my mood, feel fit, and lose 5 pounds, in that order.  So far, I’m not sure it’s working.  Buuuuuuuuuut there’s always next week! 
8. Scheming: see point 4 above.
9. Spoiling my kitten: um, yah, for Tim’s birthday he got me a cat.  Love how that worked.
10. Teaching: I’m back into the school year by two weeks, and it’s going stunningly.  Way better than last year (even though last year wasn’t bad) because I know what I’m doing.  So fun.

Tune back in for more details on almost all of the above!

 

Three Ways To Save A Life in 5 minutes or less

Here are a few things you can do right now from where you sit in your comfortable computer chair that have the potential to make a life-saving difference:

1. Sign the petition to revoke the medical license of late-term abortionist LeRoy Carhart, who is currently practicing in Germantown, Maryland.  Dr. Carhart falsified information on his application to practice in Maryland (for which he is under investigation by the Maryland Board of Physicians); he is under criminal investigation in the state of Nebraska for activities related to his previous abortion clinic, including the death of one of his 19-year-0ld patients; and he is aborting healthy infants up to the 9th month of pregnancy (if you dare, look up “partial birth abortion” on wikipedia.  Most people would be enraged to have such a procedure done on a cat, let alone a human!).  Encourage the Maryland Board of Physicians to hold him accountable for his actions!  Carhart’s Maryland clinic is located near where Tim’s brother and his wife live, and as part of our visit with them last weekend we attended the opening rally for Summer of Mercy 2.0, a week-long campaign (prayer, fasting, and peaceful protesting) going on right now in Germantown for the right to life for these children.  If you live in the area, I encourage you to look up the schedule for the remaining events and attend as many as you can.  No matter where you live, sign the petition and pray that God will bring an end to such practices!

2. ”Like” ShowHope on facebook.  If you have a facebook account, sign in and search for “Show Hope”, a non-profit organization founded by Steven Curtis (contemporary Christian musician) and Marybeth (author of Choosing to See) Chapman to help raise funds for Christian adoptions.  Here’s why it’s important to “like” them ASAP, in the words of their own website: We need 6000 more likes in the next 6 days! Help us reach our goal of 80,000 likes and Show Hope will receive a total of $70,000 in donations from three anonymous donors. Please share this page! http://facebook.com/ShowHope .  So basically just by clicking a button, you’ll be donating $1 to support adoption!  How easy can it get?!  (Oh, and while you’re at it, share the page with your facebook friends.)

3. And of course, in all, pray that God would be working true life–salvation–in the hearts of all involved: abortionists, victims, orphans, families.  After all, of how much more value is life that doesn’t end with the grave!

A Very Special Thank You

I’m so excited to share with you what I’m about to post.  It’s a big first for me–my foray into filming!  We shot this little video in Pennsylvania last weekend when Tim and I visited my brother Ben and his wife, Maria. 

We would like to dedicate our movie-making venture to Uncle Gary and Aunt Cathy.  Thanks, thanks, thanks, thanks!  from your two favorite nieces and your two most tolerable nephews.  As you can see, your efforts on our behalf were much appreciated. 

A preparatory note: please adjust the volume of your computer and your media player to LOUD before playing.  The conversation is a little hard to catch in places.

 

p.s.: in case you missed it, that beautiful beach was courtesy of Presque Isle State Park, Erie, PA.  What a great way to beat the scorching, humid heat!

p.p.s: if you want the direct link to the video on youtube, here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlpSrFYJGFk