Category: Uncategorized (Page 54 of 201)

Tim decided it was time to consider getting a new work vehicle since he’s doing so much more driving now.  The truck was great when he was working in the field, but now he’s transitioned to doing mostly the bidding so he’s driving all over the cities and his truck didn’t have the best gas mileage.  So, it was out with the truck and in with…

The cube!

Yup.  It’s about as opposite from his truck as you could possibly get.  But in his defense, he didn’t go looking for this vehicle–nor would it have been his first choice (I’m betting!). It turns out the couple (Steve & Sherry)  that used to co-own the business with him has since moved to South Carolina and Steve used to use the cube to do bids back then… and was looking to sell it!  How convenient for us that he was looking to sell it at the same time that Tim was looking to buy a small vehicle.  And it’s so nice to have the piece of mind knowing the previous owner and the vehicle history when buying a used car…

So, now the cube sits in our driveway.  It’s surprisingly spacious.  Although it does feel a bit like a go cart to drive since you’re so low to the ground.  The kids think it’s pretty cool.

• Tim has been working hard on getting all the finishing details of the patio completed.  He’s down to a final (albeit kind of long) to do list of the tasks left.  It’s always exciting when a big project starts to come to a close!  I can tell he’s pretty exhausted these days from trying to balance work and watching the kids and squeeze in working on the patio in any free moments he has.  I’m sure he’ll be THRILLED to have this done.  Hopefully a big push this weekend and that will be it!
• Praise the Lord–my PUPPS (or whatever it was) is gone!!!  The prednisone seems to have knocked it out effectively.  It sure had me wound up, though.  I seemed to have an extra dose of energy and went a bit crazy cleaning and being productive.  I felt like I wanted to thoroughly deep clean every nook and cranny of the house… which of course, is not a wise endeavor when I only have a couple hours before teaching each day.   😀  Needless to say, I’m glad to be done with all of that.  Now I’m just back to my normal self.
• Josiah went on a field trip yesterday with his Preschool class to the Lowry Nature Center.  It was snowing.  Yup.  We dug out the winter hat and mittens before sending him off on the bus.  April sure has had unpredictable weather!  He was beyond excited (and a little nervous he also told me) to ride the bus.  He barely waved goodbye to me, he was so excited.
• 
• After the field trip yesterday, one of Josiah’s teachers came up to tell me how sweet he was… she said as they boarded the bus to come home, he stopped at the bus driver and asked her what her name was.  She replied and then he looked right at her and said, “I think you’re the best bus driver EVER.”
• I ordered a book of pretty piano songs and I’m enjoying playing through it.  They are not particularly hard, but very nice.  I’m always on the lookout of for pretty songs for my students.  Also songs that help work on emoting and “feeling” the line of music.  The book is called “Lyric Moments” by Catherine Rollins.  I ordered the complete collection, so it’s three books combined into one.
• Chloe has started to play with a neighbor girl after school in the yard.  Her name is Lina.  She’s in 5th grade.  They have a good time playing in the backyard and riding bikes.
• We only have one more week of BSF left for the year.  Josiah has had the same teacher the entire time he’s been in BSF (since he was born!) so it will be sad to have to say goodbye to wonderful Ms. Jeanne!

We worked hard on the patio this weekend–I can actually include myself in this, this time, since I DID help!  See, I even have proof!

Tim completely finished off the patio and started on the pergola and installing the screen.  I worked on getting grass seed put down.  Oh and we also put down some sod along the edge of the patio since we figured the water run off would wash away the seeds in that area.  It was a simply perfect weekend to be outside.  Here’s the progress as of yesterday night.   The screen is up and running!  Yippie!!

For those of you wondering, or concerned, or just plain curious… I did call on Friday morning to try and get into the doctor. After explaining my symptoms and how I feel perfectly fine they wanted me to be seen within 24 hours just to rule out anything serious. However after spending an hour on the phone being transferred over and over, it turns out no one had any openings on Friday, so I was told to go to Urgent Care. Which I did when I finished teaching on Friday night.

At Urgent care the doctor was stumped. She doesn’t think it’s PUPPS. But she doesn’t really know what else it is. But it also, doesn’t appear to be anything really bad (like measles). So… she prescribed me some Prednisone and we’ll see what happens.

And I’m happy to say I do think it’s getting better. Although I accidentally spend too much time outside in the sun this weekend and I got a little sunburned, so now my arms hurt from that too! Haha! I’ll keep you posted.

Well, somehow or other, I seem to have PUPPS again.  Strange, eh?

And let’s just lay this out right away:  NO, I’m not pregnant.  Yes I’m sure.  Yes, I’m very, VERY sure.

So, the question begs… how in the world am I getting it again?  And the answer is, I have no idea.  But let me tell you, it’s no fun.  It’s spreading just like before.  So far it’s been creeping down my arms, legs, chest, neck, shoulders and feet (interestingly not on my midsection this time).  It’s not nearly as bad as it was when I was pregnant, but it’s still waking me up at night and I’ve had to pull out my Sarna lotion again.  Luckily I still had a few pills left from when I was pregnant to take at night to help me sleep.

The only thing I can figure is that it is somehow working its way out of my system now that I’m not pregnant anymore.  You know, releasing the pregnancy hormone.  Or something like that.  I just don’t know.  And unfortunately, it’s so rare that most people we talk to don’t really know much about it.  We’ve decided it it stays much longer I’ll have to go in and be seen.  I’ve had it for about 3 weeks now but it’s only started to get bad in the past week or so.

It would make me feel better if I know it was resurfacing and then would work it’s way out of my system and be gone.  But I don’t know if that’s what happening.  What if it’s just going to keep redeveloping?  Yikes!

Here’s the before…

And today!

Chloe was invited to Kailynn’s Birthday party over the weekend and she had a Harry Potter theme–she even got to go dressed as her favorite character!   Of course, Chloe thought it would fun to be Hermoine but, alas, we had NONE of the parts of the costume… Nothing.  Ugh.

Enter Goodwill.

I was on a mission to find usable pieces of clothing that were close to the costume and didn’t cost an arm and a leg… oh and I only had 15 min to do it and Chloe wasn’t with me, so I had to guess on sizes.  All that said, I’m quite proud of how it all turned out.  In fact she might just have to use the costume again for Halloween since it came together so nicely.  Hah!

Here was the inspiration picture…

Yup, pretty close if you ask me.  And she can use all the pieces again separately (well, except the boys will probably use the clip on tie rather than her…)

And the party was a smashing success, of course.  She came home full of stories and goodies and smiles.  Josiah was quite bummed that he didn’t get to dress up as Harry Potter, so he declared that his next Birthday party was going to be a Harry Potter theme.   But you should also know that he has also asked to have a Lego party and a police party and a Batman party and a Unikitty party and an Angry Bird party… so it really depends on the day you ask him!  Ha!  I’m at the point now where I say–“ok, Josiah.  You just keep that in mind and we’ll decide when it gets closer.”  I expect him to change his mind about 10 more times before his party actually gets here!

We had a lovely Easter weekend here.  Some of the highlights included:

• Taking the kids (minus Levi) to an Egg Hunt with the Bakers (Madison did NOT like this adventure.  At. All. But the older kids had fun.)
• Going to seek Wicked at the Orpheum!  And we even stopped to get ice cream cones afterwards to complete our awesome date.
• The big kids and I went to see Jen sing in a choir on Easter morning at her church
• Grandma Patsy came down to help watch the kids and enjoy some Easter fun!
• Tim worked a ton on the patio (he’s getting so close! Pictures this week  for Wordless Wednesday!)
• The kids had their own little Easter egg hunt with Auntie Jen while we were on our date

Here are a few pictures (courtesy of Jen!)