Sleepless Nights

I just could not stay asleep! I woke up around 3am and layed there listening to the world for about 2 hours before throwing in the towel and getting up to make some coffee. Damn. It's going to be a long day.

Mousetrap

Ella plays with this game for HOURS! She loves contraptions of all kinds. I am thinking of getting her an erector set or something similar. We had a big day at the Midwest Renewable Energy Association fair. Ella and I spent most of our time in the "Rainbow's End" Kid activity tent while Ron roamed about and saw a speaker. This is a picture of Ella "weaving" a basket out of yard and cardboard. She seemed to have a nice time, but I was pretty ready to get out of there at 2pm. And Ella had spilled a strawberry banana smoothie on my head around 1pm. I am glad we went, though. There were lots of vendors and displays of windmills, earth builders, bale houses, solar panels. and I think Ron and I could totally manage to live off of the grid. If only we had that magical gift of 30K to get out of debt... Please, money fairies, help us out! I promise will never go into debt again! Ever!
Hmmmm.
I don't feel like cooking dinner tonight.
I am bummed out that my boss' last day is Thursday.
I got to go play with my baby, she usually cheers me up.

The Thursday "YES! It's Summer!" Post

There's just something super yummy about summer food. All the super fresh produce is fantastic. And it makes eating healthy a whole lot more fun. Ella and I have been having a great time making dinners together. She really enjoys helping prepare the fruits and veggies. Her favorite "recipe" is making fruit kabobs: We cut all the fruit into chunks and then she skewers them on to the sticks.
Ron and I have been thinking about taking Ella camping but we just can't figure out when. It seems that every other weekend there is some event we have to attend so that the weekends we are home there are projects that need attention. Like finishing sanding the trim and baseboards in the former Neptune Suite then priming and painting. This Saturday we are taking a family trip to the MREA, then on Sunday Ron will go there solo for a conference thing while Ella and I have play dates with two friends. Janeta is coming over for a while in the afternoon and then Clio is coming after supper for a little slumber party. I really don't think I'll be getting ANY work done on that room.
Last night we went to watch the Wisconsin Beauty Queen Parade (Or maybe it's called the Miss Wisconsin Parade). It was so lame. Ella enjoyed the pretty ladies in their fancy dresses and waved to every single one of them, but it was soooooo boring. Who organizes these things anyway? There was a marching band, but they didn't even play music. It was a parade of the silent. The only noise was from the shriners and their motorcycle antics, which Ella was NOT impressed by. The only thing I found remotely entertaining was when the blood drive bus went past and they had some one in a costume as a DROP OF BLOOD walking down the street handing out flyers about the blood drive date. We didn't get a picture but, believe me, it was funny.
On to my Report To The General: This is a PMS week. I only have 1 more pound to lose this month (7 more days!) to reach my goal. I have a new plan of trying to lose 3-4 pounds a month. Those first three or so months on WW seemed like the pounds were just flying away, but everything has slowed down that I can't expect to lose 2-3 pounds a week anymore. I figure a slow and steady decline is a good way to approach it. I know I am making progress and I don't have to criticize myself for "only" losing .5 pounds some weeks. It's all moving in the right direction, right? I have been getting exercise, too. It feels good to be out doing fun things with Ella. We ride the bike to work everyday. We went flying kites and I was running to get that damn thing in the air... I have not actually run anywhere for any reason in five years! I even went roller skating on my old roller blades from my street hockey league days. I was wobbly, but it was fun and funny! Once I almost wiped out and went "Wooahaooahaa!" with my arms flailing in the air and Ella laughed SOOOOO HARD. She was all "Momma that was funny" and just giggling away. Very worth it.

Almost Summer

I woke up in a grand mood this morning. Not sure why... Could be that we had a very pleasant weekend, or that there was nothing pressing on my to do list. I rode Ella into day care on the bike and she was pleased as punch. She picked out a pretty sun dress this morning and I put a flower "hair pretty" in her hair, so she was raring to go. It's been nice and sunny and warm.
This week is a little odd at work. My boss is out for the week and so my main goal is to finish the library directory. It's tedious and a little boring, but whenever I look at the clock it's like an hour has gone by! So the morning in moving along. I am a little concerned about something... We are going to have a new director and I have no idea who it will be. We had five candidates here last week for interviews and Open Forums. How are they going to get someone hired by June 30? They wont. And my boss will be gone. I'll be Directorless! So until I get a new boss I am going to keep whittling away at all the little projects that have been needing attention for the last two years here. Boring, but educational for me. I am going to miss Liz a whole Big Bunch. She's a great boss and a super Director.
Break Time is over... Back to data entry. *sigh*
(Good thing I am still in such a lovely mood)

Report to the General

General de Cline: Ma'am, I am holding steady at my low point. I consider this a great achievement due to all of our extracurricular activities these past three weeks. Eli's wedding had such delicious food, we had lots of yummy beer, last weekend we had fajitas and pizza and grilled out and had more beer... It's a good thing I am still down there. I kind of thought I would see a couple of pounds creeping back! But Wednesday and yesterday I was very good. So. No losses, but a big sigh of relief! How are you? How about Chris?

What We Did This Weekend

My parents, brother, and nephew came up on Thursday night and we proceeded to spend the next 5 days making the biggest mess EVER in my house!
The back stair way had some wall repairs that needed finishing so that got drywall patched and sanded. The stair treads were sanded to get all the old paint drips from previous sloppy painters.
That horrible blue "Neptune suite" was a huge mess! First all the wall paper was stripped (Thanks to Karl Loewnstien's steamer!) There was a supper sagging lathe and plaster wall that was cut out and replaced with drywall. Then everything was patched, sanded, patched, sanded, and well, sanded again!

I still need to clean it all up, put up some corner trim, and prime the shit out of it. Then I am going to see where all the little spots show up that still need a tad more fixin' and sandin', then prime it all again before painting it and calling the room DONE! I may just decided to hang some textured paintable wall paper. I hate to put up more paper in this house... I may go with some of that textured paint to hide the little (and big) flaws in the walls.

Check out the new shed!

After building it in the yard for two days we moved it to the side of the house. It took some fence moving and maneuvering, but we got it in there nice and snug. It is so very nice to NOT carry the lawn mower up and down to the basement! And we can put our gardening tools in there, the bikes, the wagon! I wish we had a garage, but this solves a lot of yard storage issues. And it was only about $220 instead of thousands. Here are all the builders from left to right, top to bottom: My mom, me, Ron, Ella, Ben.

Oh, and my mother spent a ton of time and energy weeding the back yard and working in the garden. She split some hastas, moved some flowers and strawberries, weeded the play area... and weeding between the paving stones on the patio. Phew!

The other thing we did this weekend was eat a lot of food. I guess I just did not realize how much is consumed over five days by four grown men, two women and a wee little angel. I think all my emergency supplies are gone. Those guys, Brother and Nephew, were like mice rummaging through the pantry! But these mice new how to use a can opener! I think my replacement grocery costs will be MUCH LESS than hiring a contractor, so I wont bitch too terribly much about that. And we probably needed to use it and re-stock soon anyway.

Oh, the other super great thing about this weekend is that my sister sent up a bed frame and two dressers! And they all match! Seems she just did not want them any more. They are only 8(?) years old and in pretty good shape. And I had two dressers on my wish list! Ella's is falling apart and mine is on it's last leg... That saves me a trip to the goodwill! Ron's little buddy Justin said he will give us a mattress, too! I love free furniture. I love free labor. I love my family and friends for all their hard work and generosity. Thanks to everyone!

What a fun week...

Ella's day care is closed this week so she has been with me at work. It's been fun. A little exhausting at times, but fun. Today we got home and went roller skating around the block, then had popsicles, then played in the hose in the back yard. Ella wanted to post some pictures on her blog, so here's a link. http://sparklepockets.blogspot.com/ She has not posted for a long time! Hopefully she'll start doing it more often.

more pic from the wedding

Ella and Greta, E in purple and Greta is John's niece, having some fun. They had fun all weekend together. Ella had her first sleep-over party in the RV with Greta! And, when Mom and Dad went down to George's, Ella fell asleep for the first time at someone else's house! Greta's Grandparent's! Jim and Sandy Bucher are so awesome!. (We picked her up and took he home, of course, because I'm not as ready for sleep-overs as Ella).

Ella just being her beautiful self. Sorry my hair got in the way...

Ron and Eli

John and Judy