Cold Spaghetti

Triangles, leading to Oak Alley Plantation.  Or Louis the Vampire’s home.  Depending on your perspective.

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For more of my photohunt, go here.
For more information about photohunt and links to many more, go here.

I finished an abstract today, ahead of schedule, thus completing one of my recently self-assigned dissertation milestones.  It was an incredible achievement on my part, right up there with my self-inflicted embargo of the Twilight series (I may not read until I’ve finished a draft).  My work ethic — it boggles the mind.

All the work work work please don’t talk to me I’m writing work work laundry laundry make dinner work has made it very difficult to procrastinate, which means that I was unable to plan for a last-minute trip out of town.  We were close to picking up and heading out to a tax-deductible, in-support-of-the-company weekend trip to Houston to go to the Ikea (356 miles away) to binge on cheap Scandavian furniture for the office.  When Paul found out that they had BOTH a supervised children’s play area AND cooked ham with mashed potatoes for $6.99, he was ready to take off this afternoon.  Unfortunately, responsibility found out and came knocking and finger-wagging.  Sure, it’d be NICE to have books up off the floor and all, but the next year’s school fees and summer camp deposits are BOTH due at the end of the month.  And the kids need shoes.

In the spirit of looking for creative ways to pay tuition… I’m I too old to sell my unused lady eggs?  They are very effective.

Will: “What language do they speak in Pensacola?”

Paul: “Floridian.”

Will: “Is that like French?”

Me: “No, Will, it’s a lot like English.  You won’t notice anything different.”

Paul: “Except that they have 18 verbs for ‘dining at a buffet'”.

My lovely Aunt Deb, a photographer, traveler, hard-working, dedicated, all-round sort of lady to admire, came and visited for the past 4 days and we’ve been basking in the glow of it. Besides the fun excuses it gives us to blow off working and go out to yummy lunches, we have had an extra adult in the house to help with kid wrangling. The bonus is that this adult cooks, cleans, and grocery shops without so much as a peep from us– she just sees that something needs to be done and does it! It’s like having a fairy godmother around doing all the things you just can’t bare to think about.

Plus, she’s fun to take pictures with.

The kids adored her and we know this because they actually smile when she pulls out her camera. A very different reaction from what I get.

Between adventures in photography and culinary indulgences, I’ve managed to finish my Schweitzer Poster for tomorrow’s Celebration in Service, AND completed my final report (which isn’t due until May 1st, how’s that for accomplishment?!)

(Please don’t ask how much I’ve written in my dissertation. It may make me cry.)

(Insert baby duck chaser as mood lifter.)

I am trying to finish an abstract in the next few days for conference submission. It was a goal I set a few months ago and after Alejna‘s brilliant balancing act of abstract writing and cross-country travel, I want to be her when I grow up so I’m thinking this is a good start. That’s SORT OF writing for my dissertation, so maybe that means I’m not totally off schedule. 

(Insert inspirational rainbow.)

Here’s where I could use some insight:

This weekend starts Will and Kate’s spring break.  Paul and I have to be back for work mid-week, giving us 4 days open for Quality Family Time.  4 days of it.  Since the kids are out of school, we’ve got them no matter what, so shouldn’t we use the time as best as we can?  (If we stay, no matter what, we’ll work through those days.)  We could leave as early as Friday.

Should we have a family siesta out of town? And, if so, are there suggestions on fun and exciting things to do within 5 hours of New Orleans?

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OH. And we’re working on those Just Posts…. due out on the 10th this month! Because we’re (ahem) nostalgic. 4-1-1 available here.

Kate’s room, as seen last night while the kids were in the tub.  It is now officially Kate’s room.

We moved in furniture from our room and gathered it on one wall. Without the huge bed in the room, it feels cavernous.

The house is feeling strange. Posh, even.   There are no boxes piled in the kids’ “play” area.  Toys are displayed in places where kids can reach them and use them.  Children have separate areas.  There are places for imaginative play.  We are not stepping over drying pieces of wood trim.  Unprotected tools, wires, and other dangerous equipment are limited to a few places.

The canopy was one of Kate’s Christmas presents.  It has flowers and butterflies to decorate and hang at the top… I’ll tackle doing that with her one afternoon when I can pack up my crazies tight in a box and be okay with her going wild on those perfect little flowers…

We never painted Kate’s closet doors.  This is because we keep going back and forth on whether or not we’re going to put my Great-Grandmother’s vanity beside the closet — which would prevent the doors from opening.  If we did this, we were going to hang curtains over the door openings.  I actually have had the curtains since before Kate was born… but we can’t decide whether to actually move the vanity.

Sometimes, I seem to favor discussing the possibilities more than actually doing them. Also, I really like to move furniture around.

Now the thought is that we’re going to move the bookshelf into Will’s room and put the mirror up on the wall for Kate, with hooks along side to hang her hats and masks for dress up.

These wood pieces are from Iquitos.  A butterfly and 2 parrots are missing — they were missing anchors on their backs for hanging.  Another trip to the hardware store and they’ll join the bunch.

I finished this painting the night before Will was born… I never even signed my name!  Kate calls it “Mommy,” which I love.  The angels and moon/stars are Nancy Thomas, compliments of my Mother’s wonderful taste in fun, lively art.  (She worked for Nancy in her studio/store in Yorktown when I was in college.)

Kate has been enthralled with each and every part of the room… I was surprised she stopped for a second to smile at the camera!

The art on the door is from Will — maybe it’s time for Kate to hang up some door art?

I’m trying to think of other ways to display their art around the house… cords hanging on the walls to display pieces like a laundry line?  Other ideas?  It seems like they bring home volumes of paper from school and it just piles up in the kitchen.  With all the space in their rooms, I feel like it should have a place, too, where the kids can be proud of what they have done.  What do other parents do?

“Stand by Me” performed by musicians around the world from SKAT on Vimeo.

We’ve been using Paul’s ‘idle’ hours to move things along on the house.  Each morning, he starts work at 6am and works for several hours on the start-up.  Then around lunchtime, he moves on to working on the house.

Today we worked to finish many of the tasks in Will’s Room.

This included finishing the painting.

As a reminder, “painting” one of our rooms means sanding, washing, fixing, filling, priming, and perhaps doing all of those things two or more times before moving on to actual paint.  Then 1-2 coats of primer on the oil surface and at least 2 coats of paint on the walls and 2-3 on the trim.  Alllll the way up the 12 foot walls and on the ceiling.  Because of the humidity near the ceiling, it takes hours for paint to dry.  So it took the last three days to finish painting walls and trim.

Then Paul moved into baseboards.  Repairing open sections and installing toe molding.  Delicate cuts make it all fit…

Notice that our family room is the sawdust catcher.  We start to get nervous if at least one room in the house doesn’t have sawdust on the floor… it’s just not home without it.

Here’s the big picture.  I still can’t believe the awesomeness of this room.

He’s making a round cut around the edge so that it will mesh in perfectly.

Ta-da!  This also is to give a sense of how small the room is… although it felt huge after the paint was up.

The lights went in over 4 years ago.  Trim kits went in today.

We don’t claim to be speedy.

Ceiling view from the door to the hallway.  It took Paul a lot of research, trial, and error to figure out how to install standard lights and trim kits in old ceilings, where beams are not spaced the same as modern construction.  He actually fashioned special cutting tools and ways of working through the layers of lathe in order to place the lights where we wanted them in the ceiling and have them properly aligned and spaced.

When he was still trying to figure out the particulars, he actually contacted This Old House with specific questions about recessed lights in these types of ceilings.  They never responded.

I figure it’s ’cause Bob Villa has nothin’ on Paul.

See the beige oil paint around the door?  We’re still not sure what to do with the doors.  Dip them and stain them?  Paint the trim?  Paint everything white?

We want to have them repaired and have working hardware (none of our doors actually close) and figure we should go ahead and dip them, too, since it’s usually part of the process.  And it seems a shame to paint them after the beautiful cypress is exposed.  But there is no way we’re stripping the doorways, so would it be strange to just have the doors be natural wood?

Trivial details.

After scraping paint off the window, cleaning the floor, and hanging the curtains, we set up Will’s bed.  The one that has been sitting in our front room in pieces since last September — the kids have had to climb on and around it piled behind our couch for almost a year.  We’d have jacked it up on cinder blocks, but that’s how we store our cars in the front yard.

The bed!

Will currently sleeps in a full-size bed, so we have a mattress for the bottom bunk.  We realized that we wouldn’t be using a box spring… what do we do with a box spring?  Paul wants to put some carpeted plywood above to make a play space on top.  I’m thinking we’ll wait a little longer before anyone goes up… I’m nervous about Kate.

The bookshelves are still full of our work stuff.  All of Will’s clothes are currently in his closet and though he won’t have a dresser, he’ll have plenty of shelf space!

Will’s class works on a reward system where kids are given points for good behavior at the end of each day.  When the kids have earned 10 of these points, they are awarded a BIG “Bon” Point and are allowed to select a “Creature” card: a little picture of an animal on cardstock with their name, the date, and the animal’s name in French written on the back.  Somewhere in the craziness of last fall, Paul and I tied rewards at home to the school’s rewards… Will gets to pick dinner on the nights he brings home a Big Bon Point.  While he’s surprised us once or twice with requests for pot roast and/or macaroni and cheese, almost always the request is for a cheeseburger.

A few weeks ago, we decided to enjoy the beautiful spring weather and make an afternoon of the cheeseburger Bon Point.  We walked up to the Streetcar, rode down to Camilla Grill, ate our counter-service burgers, caught the Streetcar back down St. Charles Avenue and walked home.

A very New Orleans family outing.

Even though we can see it coming from a mile away (well, almost), I still get nervous about someone getting hit by the streetcar.  We end up holding the kids too tightly for way too long, dropping quarters in sweaty hands and grasping at falling bags because we were too anxious.  Silly, silly.

Windows open!

The kids are quiet and serene on the streetcar… once they settle into a seat.

The “wedding cake” house, nestled in the live oaks.  There was scaffolding up all around it for almost a year to paint it — the job simply took that long to get right.

Walking home, the kids had a lot more energy.

And did more exploring.

Kate LOVES to smell flowers.  Only, she doesn’t quite have the whole “smell” thing down.  She sort of snorts on them.  (Bummer for the unsuspecting plant when her nose needs a proper tissue-holding blow.)

Whoa!  A bee!

See the monkeys in the tree?

Kate was pretty independent on the walk back.

Enough, Mom.

Uh-ho.

No, she’s not running at Paul because she wants picked up (as if).  Kate is no more.  THAT is a MONSTER.

Incoming!  It’s a MONSTER!

This is the last picture I took, because Paul and Will were promptly eaten immediately following this snapshot.

And they tasted mighty good with those Camilla burgers in their tummies.  Just ask Kate… errr… The Monster…

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For more of my photohunt, go here.
For more information about photohunt and links to many more, go here.

Nurse 1: “How old are you?”

Will: “I’m 5. I’m not old enough to drive. My PapPap says I have to be 16 and then I can drive his truck.”

Nurse 2: (smiling) “Oh, okay. Mom, is Will allergic to anything you know of?”

Me: “Nope, nothing.”

Will: “Except poop.”

Nurses 1 & 2: “What?”

Will: “I’m allergic to poop.”

Pause. Nurses look confused.

Me: “Do you mean your sister’s diapers?”

Will: “Yeah, I’m allergic to Kate’s stinky poops.”

Nurse 1: “You’re allergic to your sisters diapers?”

Will: “Yeah. Sometimes they stink even badder than my Daddy’s toots.”

Nurse 2: “Well, I’ll write it down then. It sounds serious.”

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This is why the top of every informational piece of paper in my son’s medical chart, RIGHT at the top under “known allergies,” it reads POOP. (Someone in the surgical ward added “per patient,” just to clarify.)

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When we reached him in the recovery area, he was shoveling in heaps of crushed up grape Popsicle. Every member of the medical team addressed Paul and I as we entered, “That’s your son? He is HILARIOUS.” Will glanced up from the cup of Popsicle with glassy, dreamy eyes, just long enough to ask when he was going to get his tubes in. I noticed the bloody tissue coming out of his left ear. The one the doctor said held a thick, dull, gray membrane — very different from the perfect shiny membrane in his right. As I came close to ask how he was, explain that it was all done, he reached around the back of his head with his unfettered hand, the one not strapped to a board connected to an IV, to poke in that ear.

“Mommy, my ear hurts.”

He looked up at me with a woozy face, cheeks sort of blotchy and eyes not awake. Out of nowhere, cauliflower sprouts burst in my own ears, filling my brain with white fuzz. It came fast. I had no choice. I sat right down, on the spot, quickly getting my head between my knees. That’s right, I nearly lost it right there. And again, several times, in the short stay unit. It’s 4 hours later and I’m still woozy just writing about it. In this situation, I do not have the constitution to handle my children’s medical needs. Quality parent, me.

Just in case I missed how pathetic I was, our nurse found me a Raggedy Ann sticker to go with Will’s SUPERHERO badge. “It’s ’cause your Mom was so raggedy,” the nurse tells Will.

“Yeah. I have to take a lot of good care of her,” answers Will.