Some updates from around here

Amy and Sarah had their first, open-ended assignment in March. I gave them an outline and let them go to do whatever they chose with the project. Sarah chose ladybugs and Amy chose dalmatians. Below is a picture of them after their presentation to the rest of the family last week.


I just finished up a very satisfying project of my own yesterday. I offered to make a christening gown for the little guy who will be baptised tomorrow at Mass when Theo and two others receive First Holy Communion. When I was thinking about how to customize the gown for this family, I asked them if they had a family bible verse and their anniversary date. Since they plan to use this gown again for the rest of their babies it needed to be gender neutral, and D asked that it not be fru-fru, but rather simple and classic. the fabric is a cotton shirting with a bit of a texture, and washed up beautifully; crisp but not stiff, and soft, but not limp.

I chose their verse from their wedding vows, Song of Songs 2:16 and used it in the body of the gown instead of embroidering it on in words. A tuck requires two threads to make one tuck---man and woman joined as one in marriage, and man and woman joined to make a new life. Across the bottom of the skirt there are two large horizontal tucks (Song of Songs, chapter 2) and on the bodice there are eight tuck son either side of the center (verse 16). I added a tiny bit of blue ribbon to the boy's cap and after Easter will make a girl's bonnet with pink ribbon and a bit of lace so they can use the gown for either. Below is a photo of the set.



When the girls and I were shopping at the Catholic bookstore on Saturday I found this lovely baby pin with a four-way medal for the center of the bodice. I think it turned out to be just the perfect finishing touch!

Warmer by a lot!

It has been beautiful here the last few days. 80's and sunny, and making everyone have spring fever. It is raining tonight and we are supposed to get back into the forties, but I'm not complaining. I hear it's downright frigid in Iowa, so we'll take this without fussing.

They are coming tomorrow to hook up our fireplace and we hope to be able to to use it a few times before it gets too warm. The price went down $200 from last September, so waiting was a good choice. I'm sure glad we weren't filling a fuel tank for heat this winter. The prices would have been terrible!

Everyone seems to be on the tail end of this virus that we've had. It was a fierce one, with very congested noses and chests. It has tapered down from deep, wet coughs with severely running noses to dry, hacking ones, but no one has been up in the night coughing except me now. Last night I slept through--we'll see if it holds.

Better be off to bed, it's 12:21 already. Daylight savings time sure messes me up!

Edited to add: I won't be able to post pictures for a while. The camera is toast. Shutter quit working and we need to research what we want. This time I'm going to have to learn how a new one works; this second model (of the one I lost) had the same issues. Best to be moving on....

We're getting warm

Sarah was sick last night, but woke up feeling better, and I was so grateful for that. She took a bath and just as she was getting finished, the power went out. At 11 am I called and they said it woudl be on in 45 minutes. It was only 63* at 1 pm, so we gave up and left the house to get lunch somewhere warm. We ate at McDonald's then cruised Wal mart for a couple of hours hoping it would be back on when we got home. It was!! We are finally getting warm again. I can't figure out why the power company only seems to have outages when it's under 32* here. Call Iowa and take notes people! Iowejuns seem to have it all under control when it comes to electricity in the winter. Thank heavens it's supposed to be 70* by Friday :~)

Crack Book....errr, i mean Face Book

Ok- I'm hooked on it and now am going to call it Crack Book. It's sor tof like Crackberry, you know?

Thoughts on Face Book

I was goofing around last night and a friend convinced me that Face book was, what did she call it? Oh, yeah, fun. I'm not so sure about that. I can see very quickly that it is a way for people to find me, and by and large, I don't like to be found. Also, it seems like a way to have relationships without having relationships, if you know what I mean. Man, the world gets weirder everyday, and I'm not able to keep up.
What would happen if folks actually sat down and wrote, with a pen and paper, a letter? But that would take time you say, and time is supposedly what we all need more of because we are so busy. I could easily get sucked into the Face book vortex and not come out for hours. How would that save me time? I could write a letter, mail it, and go on with what needs done, like, say, spending time with my husband and kids. I firmly believe that a lot of this "technology" that is touted as "saving time" is actually costing mankind way more than we will ever know in this life.
Climbing down off of my soap box now.....

wheeze free, as of today

Amy is better--finally. We ended up in the ER Friday nightand I have to say, you sure get the top level of triage when you tell them you have a 10 year old who is having trouble breathing. I was impressed with the Sanford ER, much to my surprise. Today, they even called to check on her progress! Like I said, I was impressed.
Theo is beginning to get another cold--he had one just 2 weeks ago. He doesn't feel so bad, but he WILL NOT keep the snot off his upper lip and it makes me crazy!
On another note, we did a fun art project this morning--wax resist on paper--and they want me to post a photo. I will do that soon. I've been having trouble with BLogger and photos. It used to be that it woudl show the actual photo in the text box and I could type captions under each one accordingly. Now it shows the photos in computer language (which is a million and one letters) and usually reverses them from the order I put them in. This forces me to post and then edit about 5 times per post. Dang! I don't have the time or inclination to deal with that kind of fussiness. Hence, the lack of photos lately. Sorry about that. Now, everyone email matt and tell him to figure it out for me so I can resume photo-heavy messages. Thanks!

(Mental) health report

Knitting is therapy. I need knitting time.....I really need it.

Health reports

Amy was put on Orapred (steroids) for 5 days. Sarah has been using her rescue inhaler and I am watching her closely in case she needs the Orapred. We came home from the dr. with ALbuterol ampules (in case we need to use the nebulizer), Albuterol puffers (new ones with counters--but really, they gave us the old style without counters and I will return them), and Orapred. A big bag, but a small price, monetarily. $21.00 is all it takes to really mess up a kid's brain for several days while you heal her lungs. It's an expensive trade-off, I think, but one without other options. A girl's gotta breathe. We thank you for your prayers, and will be on the mend very soon!