Two things I love...around my home.

I've been pretty caught up with blogging this past year and a half.  Not on this blog...on my other blog (the one I do with Keira). Sadly, this blog has been languishing on the sidelines, gasping for breath. In just over 2 weeks, Keira and I will be done with our blog project (whew!). It's been a monumental time and creativity sucker for me - but now that I'm down to three reviews, I can see some light at the end of the tunnel. Time for some artificial respiration.

I ran across a blog post here that made me pull my head up out of the sand and take a closer look at my home. Is my home as good as it can be? No. N. O.  Nope. So here's my plan. I'm going to focus on finding the things that I love about my house, and purging the stuff I don't love. As a plan it might be lacking a little, but it does have the recommendation of being free.  Heck, my visiting teacher suggested that I tote my used books down to Half-Price Books and see how much they'll give me. 

Globes.  I have somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen.
This is my oldest - I love that it's a little slice of history.
Can you say 'Belgium Congo'?

Built-in bookcases. You can just see a corner of my
discard pile teetering on top.

I started off with some purging this morning. I went through my entire set of built-in bookcases, plus the shelves in my grandmother's secretary, plus 1/2 of one bookcase in the office.  If I had to guess, I'd say I have two or three orange boxes worth of discards. It's a start.

Thank you, Keira.

When Keira posted a picture of this month's art project, I knew I wanted it. Nay, had to have it. It was something along the lines of a moral imperative. With a husband whose business is airplanes, I knew he would love it too.

I owe many thanks to Keira for helping me in a major way. At every step I was sure I had ruined it. Sure. I. Had. Ruined. It. I might have quit if it hadn't been for her encouragement
It'll be fine, I promise, it'll be fine (repeated about a million times).

The original instructions from The Cre8tive Outlet were somewhat helpful - but I think it was even more helpful that Keira had actually made one already and I was able to profit from her mistakes. 

Eight feet of awesomeness.

Michelangelo in Training?

3rd grade effort. Has a bit of a post-modern
gritty feel to it.

I'm pretty sure that art is Danny's favorite class. For some kids, it would be because it's an easy A - scribble a few pictures, squish a little clay...it's all subjective anyway. Who's to say what's good art or bad? In spite of that, Danny spends hours and hours on his art projects. Very un -Danny of him.

Sure, he's no Michelangelo yet, but I'm pretty impressed with how far he's come.

More of a neo-classical vibe?

Our Man in....

We've been checking our mail a little more diligently lately...waiting for a large white envelope with a Salt Lake City return address.  It came today.  Drumroll please....

Alex got his mission call!  He's to report to the MTC in Provo on June 8th...then onward to the California Long Beach Mission.  Evidently he'll be learning Spanish (after three years of Japanese).  Here's a useful phrase to get him started:

Mi aerodeslizador está lleno de anguilas

I'll Show You Mine....

Summer 1995
Nathan broke his arm first...then his foot. Did that stop
me from sending him to day camp?  I think not!

Frankly, I don't think the cast and boot slowed him down at all.

So....why am I sharing pictures of Nathan from sixteen years ago?  Kaith called me up this morning with the sad news that along with his broken wrist (from one week ago) he now has broken a bone in his foot.  He sounded pretty sad and pathetic, but I think it cheered him up some to know that his Uncle Nathan did almost exactly the same thing when he was only a year or two older than Kaith is now.

Dear Kaith,
Get well soon, and try not to break anything else.
Love,
Grandma
p.s. make sure your mom or dad take a picture of you!

A little help here?

New Year's at our house is often accompanied by the pitter patter of moving furniture.  This year was no different. I was able to coerce Andrew and Nathan into doing the bulk of the heavy lifting (thank you, boys!).  That's fine and all, but I'm left with all the little stuff - and there's a lot of little stuff. A lot.

We are moving Danny upstairs to what was my office - it's smaller than his old room, but closer to actual living, breathing human beings. Right about now I'm second guessing my decision to relocate all of my office, craft and sewing *ahem* junk. I'd like to be done - not have the Herculean task of sorting through  

To quote Douglas Adams, "Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an hour later armed with a navigable river.

I could really use a small river to help clear out the last of the *ahem* junk from my ex-office.  Anyone?

It's that special time of the year...maybe.

So.  Steve is in Japan for the week.  The good news is that his cell phone works there - so it doesn't cost anything for me to call him.  The bad news?  Umm...figuring out when to call him. Japan is one day ahead, but seven hours earlier.  Let's do the math.  Right now, plus twenty four minus seven (10:20pm[here] + 24) -7 = 3:20pm tomorrow afternoon[there].

My problem?  I was always better at addition than I was at subtraction...and frankly story problems just aren't my favorite thing.  Which is why I called Steve this morning at 8am. (8am[here] + 24) - 7 = 1am tomorrow morning[there].  Sorry hon.