The final fortnight of February

It's almost over! Today is the last day of February!

In celebration of surviving this month, I'm leaving a link to a little gem right here for you to peruse or not, your choice. It was recommended by a friend. Thanks, Bryan! I claim no credit for the video, lyrics, anything. 

It's over, it's over, it's over!

And the roofing guy is here, setting up his scaffolding. Onto the next adventure!

Spring fever

I keep hearing Michael Franks singing in my head about, "April is not the cruelest month..." but my brain keeps changing it to "Feb-ru-ary's the cruelest month..."

How can it not be spring yet? I have been drinking kegs of coffee and tons of tea and yes, the light is changing, but we still have a month of winter to go! Grrrrr! Mommee, I know you believe March is the longest, but I adamantly maintain that this ridiculous month is never-ending! It just c.r.a.w.l.s. past......... and then backs up to run you over again. 

Since returning to school from Christmas break on January 9th, the kids have had two delays which stayed delays and seven snow days. Damon has had eight, because last Wednesday the big kids went but the younger kids had to stay home due to worsening conditions. I think there's been a total of two weeks in which the kids have had school all day, every day, and one of those weeks Carrie stayed home sick for a day. Am I complaining? I think I'm complaining.

Last Monday, they had scheduled no school for Presidents' Day, the fireplace guys were here working every day of the week, and we all had karate. Tuesday, they went to school and Carrie had karate and staff training that evening. Wednesday was the day only the big kids had school, but everyone had karate that night. Thursday I was getting my IV meds during the late morning and early afternoon and Liam had a band concert that evening. Friday, blessedly everyone had school (including me, as I'm back to having first graders read to me in the hallway of the elementary school for my third year running) but Carrie didn't go because she and Dada headed off to winter camp for the weekend. I had a meeting in the afternoon, and had the boys by myself all weekend. We watched "Father Goose" on Saturday and went to church yesterday. We hardly saw Dada at all last week because he was helping lead some training at work. Saturday, I washed the walls, wiped down the furniture, then vacuumed and mopped the "library" to get rid of the stone dust which was covering everything. Damon especially loves having that room mostly open and empty because he can slide across the hardwood floor, not in his socks as his sister does, but whole body slides. Mopping was a matter of survival if he wasn't to repollinate the entire house with stone dust.

The fact that I wrote, "thank you that Feb is almost over" twice in my journaling today is telling. Zita left for two weeks in India, Janet is spending all month long in Arizona, some people went to winter camp, another friend left last week for Arizona also... clearly it is time to either go stir crazy or get out of Dodge.

So what am I doing? Perusing seeds. That's right. I realized I'm already behind schedule and am picking out garden and flower seeds. I'm also picking up sticks and limbs that are down after our ridiculous winds the last two days. Bosley keeps eyeing them as I set them by the fireplace, and I keep reminding him to not even think about it. Thankfully our power stayed on throughout and our spiffy new fireplace is working well. I don't think I can even call it spiffy as it is way fancier than that; I like it even more than I expected to! I can't wait to get the holes drilled for the curtain rods to go back up, move furniture where it belongs, and call it good. 

Usually when I'm busy I feel like time passes faster. Last week I felt like a single parent and the time just did not get the memo that it was supposed to speed up. Where is that groundhog? Someone get a message to him that spring, not summer, had better hurry it up before some of us end up on the news!

Winter weirdness

Zita's Cheeky Beaky must be part ostrich...

He's doing math facts. Doesn't everyone do them this way?

Bosley is sleeping. Don't you sleep with your head between the wall and the couch, too?

Apparently everyone is taking lessons from the weather. Here's hoping things settle down!

Icy snippet

I took these with my phone yesterday on my way home from taking the Care Bear to work, hoping I could get them onto here quickly - or at least more quickly than it'll take to upload the multitudes I took on the real camera. Aunt Chris, especially, make sure you click on them to see them bigger. The busted icicles that had fallen from the trees looked like so much broken glass, and it was probably just as dazzling in the sunlight. I was very thankful for my sunglasses!

Those of you not in areas experiencing ice and power outages and ridiculous wind, good for you. Shush. ;)

A mom's morning musings

It really is 5:54 in the morning. I'm not crazy, nor have I taken to getting up this early to exercise or be mindful or any other of legitimate beginnings.

I'm up and blogging because desperate times call for desperate measures. In other words, school has been cancelled again.

We started the week yesterday with a two hour delay which morphed into a cancellation. Otherwise known as Calamity Day 6, yesterday pushed us firmly into the days of, as one of Carrie's high school friends quipped, "bags of blizzards". 

For those of you who are out of practice because your kids are grown and gone or for those of you who live in reasonable climes, we get five free Calamity Days before we have to start making up the work we're missing. Consider them days of grace: "We know we're in Ohio, we know there's gonna be snow/freezing rain/yuck from above, here's 5 days of grace to deal with whatever cometh from the skies and lands, whereupon making things slippery on country roads and therefore unsafe, thus, by the power invested in me, I sayeth unto you, 'eh heh, good luck, everyone needs a reminder why you didn't want to just home school in the first place. Appreciate your teachers when the kids return to school.' "

We're out of days of grace. We used three in a row, was it just last week? I can't even remember now. I know they started the week and got Monday and Tuesday in although there may have been a delay on one of those days. Then our poor superintendent called to say, "we will be closed Wednesday, Thursday, and we'll have a two hour delay on Friday." If you're a kid, you've just won the lottery. Well, conditions hadn't improved enough on Friday to send anybody anywhere and the wind chill was pretty ridiculous, so they closed that day as well. Some of you have horrified looks on your faces because it already dawned on you that, "she said Friday- that means then a weekend- those kids were home for five days when it was too awful to go anywhere or to boot them outside or ...yeeeeeesh!"

Which brings us to Blizzard Bags.

Suddenly the kids don't feel like they've won the lottery anymore. Now they have to log in and check each of their classes to see what assignments are posted. As computers don't always want to talk to printers or vice versa, there are often tantrums about getting the required end results to the correct teacher: what can be submitted online? What needs printed out? 

Tangent: there is at least one Great Horned Owl hooting outside this morning. I suppose he's getting ready for bed. I have no idea where he/she/it goes to stay dry where it's freezing raining, but it's nice to know life is going on as scheduled for others.

Anyway, the thing about Blizzard Bags is that they are assigned but not due for two full weeks. I'm envisioning the conflicting emotions across your faces. Some of you lit up with delight, thinking, "yay! Two weeks to get a day's worth of work done? That's great!" Others of you are inwardly groaning because you're realizing, "oh no- what they could have done in class and had over with in one day could potentially hang over their head for two whole weeks if they procrastinate and they'll never remember what they were even doing!" Ding ding ding, we have a winner!

Once we hit Blizzard Bags, it is a never ending flurry (ha ha) of papers playing hide and seek and "whose packet is this?" and "where is your packet?" and "egads, where IS my packet?!" in varying degrees of panic, tantrums, and meltdowns. 

So that answers part of the question as to why in the world I'm blogging before six in the morning. It's two-fold. One, I was in the middle of a dream when the phone rang to reveal a superintendent who sounded unusually chipper about having to cancel school. Historically he's sounded more resigned and apologetic. Perhaps today by cutting straight to the chase and eliminating the delay aspect he decided he could go back to bed, who knows? If so, he's earned it. He and our director of transportation start driving around the county at about 4:30 in the morning to see what kind of shape the roads are actually in. God bless them both. They deserve to go back to bed! 

My body, who knew what to do, hopped back into bed as soon as it got off the phone, but my brain realized, "wait, I was dreaming! What was I dreaming about? Was it this? Was it this? Was it this?" and began hopping down the bunny trail of everything it hadn't put away last night. Some part of my brain yammered, "no, no, hush, sleep, let it go!" Sadly, it was overruled by the white rabbit who then realized the second reason I had to get up and blog right now:

I won't be able to get a word in edgewise on the computer once the kids start today's Blizzard Bags! 

The big kids did most of theirs online yesterday and Dada kindly printed Damon's out while he was still at work. Since there was no school and therefore no buses to wait for, I took all the kids up to karate at once, dumped Carrie off so she could start working, and took the boys to the library with me where Liam could read and Damon could tackle his Blizzard Bag before the boys' class began. He made it through two subjects in half an hour, not bad considering one of them required writing which he despises. So we have half of his to do from yesterday and now we will have another whole packet to do today. This is on top of a research project he is doing about which I play a card from "The Gods Must be Crazy" and mutter, "I don't want to talk about it."

It's almost 6:30 and it's still really dark. We are supposed to have ridiculous wind of 30-50 mph as well as anything that comes from the sky, so it should be a great day for naps, snuggling down into the covers and listening to the wind whooshing around. The wind really does whoosh in Ohio, and thankfully we are not face to face with prairie; our home was built by thoughtful planners who preserved lots of the trees on the property and there are additional stands of woods on the properties around us. They help break some of the wind. Right now it's coming from the East (Mordor, ha ha) and it's at only about 15 mph. Now instead of the owl I hear sirens. I hope nobody ends up being blown like a tiddlywink off the icy roads and into the icy ditches. Not good. 

But before naps, Blizzard Bags. Besides, Carrie won't get up until at least ten, so that gives Liam first shot at getting his work done...

In other news, today will be Day 54 of Tamoxifen and so far, so good. This is the med I'll be on for about 10 years. The echo test I had for my heart last week because I have been taking Herceptin for nine months now yielded good results; everything looks fine with my heart, so thank you to those of you who had prayed over that aspect of treatment. Overall, I am doing really, really well, and I know much of it is because I have a big God and a fabulous Tribe. Thank you for being part of it. 

If you'd like something to pray about, you could pray against cabin fever. Tempers tend to get short when you're denied access to friends and regular routines and are stuck with people that you love but don't necessarily want to be with every minute of every day. Pray for our #FirstWorldProblems like our wifi behaving so the kids can get their responsibilities done in a timely (as in the day they are assigned and not the two weeks later version) manner. Pray that we don't lose power. Pray that we are kind to each other and have some fun together and remember that it's not all just work. Pray they don't fight over the computer. 

Pray for them to go back to school tomorrow!

There. A whole blog post in just under an hour and without coffee, even. Wonders never cease. Have an amazing day!

One month later

These photos were taken a month to the day after my last radiation treatment but got lost in the holiday shuffle otherwise known as Christmas-New Year's-wedding anniversary-and my birthday that goes on around here. I'm still "tan" but have excellent range of motion, am all done peeling, am still using lotion/oil once or twice a day, and have had my follow up appointment with my radiation team. I got hugged and exclaimed over and they declared me doing "really, really well" and that they'll see me again in six months. 

You can see under my armpit the corner of where the bolus covered and between my spine and shoulder blade still has the patch of "tan" from being radiated from below. The armpit part still gets itchy every so often but overall everything has healed really well. I feel like it's fading more from the top down but I can't really tell if that's just how the light hits it or if it's a "true fact" as we say around here. 

My port fared really well. I'm to get that removed sometime in May. I'll be using it into April for the Herceptin and Perjeta IV rounds. I have another echo scheduled this week for my heart, because Herceptin can affect hearts in not good ways. My previous two echoes were both fine, however, and thank you, God. Once the IV rounds are done, the port can come out, and then I'll start a drug that is six pills a day taken at once, in addition to the Tamoxifen that I take every morning now. I'll be on that new med for one year, or at least that's how it stands now. Tamoxifen will be part of my routine for the next decade. Today was Day 44 and so far, so good. 

Hair is coming in, too, but until the darn Ohio wind decides to give it a rest I'm in all my hats and scarves and wraps anyway. I am excited about heading back into school to volunteer with first graders again! Here's hoping Mother Nature settles down just a bit so that everyone can go to school and to work and run errands and do their thing!

Fireplace 101

There's a meme circling around Facebook about "30 days has September, April, June, and November", yadda yadda yadda, "except January which has 937." Naturally January in Ohio is freezing at best. So, whaddaya do when one finds a two inch crack in the back wall of your fireplace? You call the fireplace experts and cross your fingers that it can be welded.

Then they politely snigger at you and inform you that no fireplace company worth their salt would weld that as it would be unsafe and that you need to replace the entire thing. 

Hello, 2019, here is our checkbook...

This is the official Before photo. Stone hearth, brick fireplace, framed photograph Dada took of me while on our honeymoon in Jamaica. Seafoam green walls. Striped curtains and curtain rods already removed because... you guessed it. #FarmhouseProject.

Yeah, all that needed to come down. 

For those of you wondering what #FarmhouseProject means, let me give you a for instance. Once Upon A Time, not quite two decades ago, a certain family had members moving back east from out west. Said movers would be living in the family farmhouse on the old homestead, essentially, and the family up the hill thought the farmhouse could use a screen door. What should have been a straightforward project turned into a humungous mess and way more work than originally thought as it was discovered that the threshold wasn't in the best of shape and, oh dear, the wood under that isn't either, and oh my, neither are the railroad ties under that, and...

"Um, what's with the six foot deep hole outside the back door?"

"We tried to put on a screen door..."

(We did eventually get the darn screen door affixed. And the hole filled. After the last of the coal from the old coal furnace was tossed out of the basement. And after discovering that not all cement blocks are the same size. True story. And a new furnace later. But anyway, back to the fireplace story.)

So the guys set up their tarp to minimize the dust flying everywhere from the fireplace demo. All the brick needed to be removed and the firebox itself had to come out. 

It works! The stone we selected to replace the brick isn't in yet, but the fireplace is functional and we're allowed to use it. Good thing too, as the Deep Freeze set in and the kids had no school for three days. Grandmama noted that the lowest temp we had with windchill was -37F. So glad we had the fireplace fixed and that it could help out the poor furnace! 

Dada saw a slab of stone he felt would be perfect as a mantel. The stone supplier initially balked as the slab was too thick to cut safely, but upon reconsidering and refiguring they managed to slice it just right. It is every bit as heavy as it looks, but unbelievably it cooperated and was placed completely level on the first try. Even the guys doing it couldn't believe it. After examining it from every angle and distance, they proclaimed their amazement and informed me, "if there's ever a tornado, just hold on to the mantel cuz it ain't going anywhere!"

 I'd decided to paint the room while it was torn apart and almost everything was out of it. Of COURSE there would be no school! Good thing Grandmama was here to keep the kids in line while I was on the stepladder...

The stone should be in sometime in the next few weeks. Then a mason and the other guys will come back and install it all. Choosing it was a harder decision than I thought it would be. The floor in the "library" is walnut, taken from the first few trees to be felled on the property originally. It's absolutely gorgeous and I didn't want anything to overshadow it. I felt a lighter stone would be more complimentary while Dada fell in love with dark stones with veins running through them. We settled on an 85/15 compromise and once that all starts up I'll be sure to document that process. I can't wait to see the whole room when it's all finished! Stay tuned.

By the numbers- a top 20 countdown

I'm not quite sure how it can be Groundhog Day of 2019 already. Wasn't it just New Year's? How can a month be gone so quickly? I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that we celebrated our twentieth wedding anniversary. 

Yes, you read that correctly. Twenty years he's put up with me. 

Some of you were there when we got married at 3:33 pm on January 9, 1999. Some of you weren't even born yet. Some of you couldn't make it because of the horrendous weather and the turnpike being closed. Some of you are aware that even our wedding cake didn't make it. Some of you didn't notice because Grandma Barb whipped up a cake during our reception so we'd have something to cut and Aunt Lainie and Uncle Gary bought other cakes from Giant Eagle that didn't have writing all over them so there would be cake to eat. 

I was mulling over numbers and thought it'd be fun to play a numbers game:

20 for the years we've been married

19th of April, 1997 when we officially began dating

18th of October, 1997 was when he proposed (bear in mind         we met in 1994 and worked together every summer)

17 is for the number of IV rounds I'll have undergone to complete breast cancer treatment: six with the chemo drugs Taxotere and Carbo, all of them with Herceptin and Perjeta

16 for the foreign countries Dada has traveled to for his job

15 is the age of our eldest child. How did that happen?

14 is how many of us belong in the "communication skills of a large bowl of mashed potatoes" clan: Uncles Kelly, Rob, and Dada, Aunts Becky, Jana, and I, and the cousins: Carrie, Liam, Lizzie, Zach, Damon, Neva, Noah, and Rosalina. 

13 is the age of our middle child; we currently have two teenagers.

12 for the dozen peach roses I sent to him, not realizing they would be delivered on April Fool's Day of 1997. No mixed signals there...

11 as in "on a scale of one to ten, YOU are an eleven" from Disney's "Aladdin"; it's a compliment which still cracks us up.

10 year anniversary had us leaving the kids with the grandparents while we went camping in Hawaii. We used his bazillions of airfare miles he'd racked up to get there and back.

9 places we've lived together. We've moved a bit.

8 is the age of our youngest. Obviously he didn't get left with the grandparents when we were in Hawaii. Also how many hours it took to drive from Woodsy House to The Last Resort when moving from PA to IL with a tiny Miss Carrie. 

7 is the number of Dada's birthday buddies, which includes Muggin, our sister in law. It's also how many schools our kids have collectively attended.

6 "real" or paying jobs we've held together

5 islands we've visited: Jamaica, Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Put-in-Bay. Also the number of cars we've had. And roughly how many hours it takes to drive from Ohio State to Penn State.

4 years of Christian church camp together on staff as well as four people each who stood with us on both sides of the aisle during our wedding.

3 blissful weeks spent together camping in Hawaii. "Lost" is right; "we have to go back!"

2 vehicles to haul us back east across the country after he was laid off from his first job out of college; while bittersweet it was probably a blessing in disguise. Also the number of dogs we've owned.

1 tiny surprise pumpkin proposal that started it all! 

Anniversary dinner at home with Moscato D'Asti, woohoo: 

And our anniversary present to each other was new pots and pans. Never mind that the traditional gift for 20 years is china. We'd already been blessed with beautiful china from my grandparents who had worked at Shenango China back in the day. However, our nonstick pans have taken a terrible beating and are not nonstick anymore, so new pots and pans it is. We bought them before we knew about the fireplace needing replaced, so I guess happy anniversary to us all around: 

Pancakes were the perfect way to break them in. Come on over and we'll make you some, too!