Sunny Friday!

1. It rained for 5 days last week, was sunny on Saturday, and then started raining again Sunday night. Finally the sun came out late on Tuesday and it's been beautiful ever since. Days and days of rain sink my spirit so I am way behind on all my To Do's, especially during a week when Alex turned 7 (on Monday) and my niece Gracie turns 10 today! All we gave Alex were books, although I may still get to the craft store next week and buy him a new notebook and crayons for his artwork. He's taking to reproducing (or attempting to do so) his favorite scenes from favorite books, which keeps him occupied for ages. Happy boy and lots of paper to recycle afterwards.

2. Alex had his regular visit with Dr. Jay on Wednesday to monitor his medications and while we were there, I asked Dr. Jay to look at this strange rash that had recently developed on my stomach. (Like most of my NJ neighbors, anything weird says BEDBUGS in neon lights until refuted!) It's not bedbugs, thankfully, but a strange infection of my hair follicles that requires another fun antibiotic. I made the mistake of taking it yesterday before breakfast (no food allowed with this drug) instead of 2 hours after breakfast and so was weaving around nauseously while trying to put the kids on the bus. Won't make that mistake again.

Sorry, I just had to share this image. My husband sent it to me earlier and it really made me giggle.

3. We're doing double birthday party duty tomorrow. I'm taking Miranda to a party for one of her school friends and Marshall is taking Alex to Gracie's party and to meet their new puppy. I'm carefully not mentioning to Miranda that she's missing out on the puppy, but her party is at Pump It Up, so I don't expect any disappointment from her. I'm also carefully not telling Alex where we are going so as to avoid disappointment on his side. He loves that place, too.

4. The living room remodeling project has started. Marshall and I started moving books and bookcases last night. We have 3 nice, 5 shelf book cases made of solid wood that will be available for sale sometime around Thanksgiving. Marshall is building in custom bookshelves in these two strange nooks in the living room which will be awesome when finished because we never have enough room for books. If you haven't noticed, we are serious book people. As this project continues, the living room will be off-limits to small persons for several weeks, which means all TV watching will be done through the server on various laptops throughout the house. That will certainly be interesting. I give Alex a week--maybe--before he can call up the program he wants through the complicated Sage menus without assistance from me. When he wants to, he learns quickly.

5. I have been able to do some productive stitching this week, so her is a progress picture for you of page 5 almost complete:

I should be able to fill in the rest of the missing dots tonight and move straight on to Page 6!

Another consequence of the living room remodel is that I've had to move my stitching from the easy chair in the living room to our bedroom, actually stitching from bed. It was a little more complicated last night but I'm sure I'll work out a system. And, besides, it's only until Thanksgiving. Or the weekend before, which is when my parents arrive, so that's Marshall's MUST-Finish by date.

6. Because Marshall will be spending all of his free time working on the living room for the foreseeable future, I'm starting to make arrangements for childcare 1-2 times a week so that I can get out and get the things done as well as get a break from the kids on occasion. We realized as we were discussing this latest project that what I was dreading most was the all-mommy-all-the-time burden. This way I shouldn't completely flip out on Marshall when he's halfway through the project because I can't take single parenting anymore, like I have in the past. We can hope.

7. My friend Kimberlee had a great post about her son's birthday this week that I actually responded to thoughtfully and want to share. Read it here. 

Bonus 8.  If you missed my mention of it last week or the week before, my mother's book is now in print!

If you haven't already ordered a copy for yourself, do so now! You can find it available for order here.

And here's Jen.