The Magic of an Ordinary Day

300

Wow, this is my 300th post.  I started this blog two years ago as a way to stay in touch with my family, and I have to say that I enjoy it.  I'm not as diligent as I would like to be, but life gets in the way sometimes.

So what has been making me happy these days??  Well, this little muchkin, of course...

There always is time for a little tickle monster!

Besides Hannah asking to go to school on Saturday night -- a big deal -- I've been working on a few things.  My birthday was last week, and Dwayne, Hannah and I went out for sushi.  Man, I love sushi!  It was Hannah's first sushi experience, and although she didn't want to eat the fish, she ate rice, yakatori chicken and loved the fact that she had a small dish just for her "dippy."   I had two small bottles of hot sake so everyone was happy.

Besides that, I have been working really hard on getting my Etsy shop up and running.  I've been just adding bits at a time, working on my store policies and hope to put merchandise in there either tonight or tomorrow.  And lots of the hard work is in photographing and describing my stuff not necessarily making it.  I've started a separate blog for my business, Watermelon Mountain Creations. 

It's all in bits and pieces now, but check back in a week and everything should be in place.  I'm very excited about my new venture!

thanks, Mom

the flowers you sent me are gorgeous!!!

popcorn, plumbing and everyday life

We've just been working and working at home.

Hannah is getting better every day in preschool, and I was greeted by big smiles from her teachers yesterday and reports that she is coming out of her shell and joining in more activities, and playing with a little boy named Evan.  Well, Evan is really cute so I can see that she has good taste!  She always comes home from school, has a huge lunch and naps.  She hasn't napped regularly in months.  Probably all that great stimulation at school is tuckering her out.

Here she is yesterday...she fell asleep watching cartoons after having her afternoon snack.  She was so funny, she hung on to that box of popcorn for almost the whole nap!

Our other issue is our plumbing and water heater.  Another "what were they thinking????!!!!" previous homeowner moment when black gunk came out of our faucets and we realized we probably needed to drain and clean the hot water heater (which also hasn't been functioning well since the black gunk incident).  Apparently when you live in an area with very high mineral content in your well, you need to drain and clean the hot water tank and the heating element in there on a yearly basis.  Like how you have to clean your coffee maker.  Only with 40 gallons of water.

The "what the hell" moment came when we realized that, although the previous owners had replaced the water heater not long ago, the put it in the basement, where there are no drains.  So now for us to do the yearly maintenance, we will have to shlepp 40 gallons of water up the stairs in buckets to drain that tank.  Why didn't they put it in the utility room where the washer and dryer are?  They plumbed that tank wrong anyway when they installed it -- which we discovered last winter and spent about $500 to get it right -- so why not just do it right, and put it in a spot where it is easily accessible?  Aaaarghhhhhhh!!!

So that's what we'll be doing this afternoon after Dwayne gets up from sleeping.  It sounds like so much fun, doesn't it? 

some favorites

Here's some of my all-time favorite photos -- most are from before I was blogging so they may be new to a lot of you!

changes

Things are changing here, most of them for the better, some of them not.

• the weather is completely fall-like now.  It's like on September 1st someone hit a switch and --BAM! -- it's fall.
• Hannah has overcome a lot of changes with going out on her own twice a week for preschool.  She's improving and growing emotionally every day.  If fact, this morning when Dwayne dropped her off she didn't cry at all.  I think this makes everyone feel better!
• After we refinanced our house to have all our adoption money in the bank, we committed ourselves to a plan that will have us completely debt free (except for our mortgage) in five years. So anything extra we want or need --- the latest was new energy efficient windows for the house --- will be paid in cash.  So that means more shifts for both of us.
• The referral process in Vietnam has slowed down quite a bit, much to our disappointment.  They are curently running at 10  months to a year for referrals.  Uhggg. 
• Our house has changed, too.  Appreciated quite a bit from when we bought it (after some big time improvements we made).  And that's not in the crazy inflated market of a few years ago, this is real appreciation.  We were happy to know that we are putting our money into the right places. 
• I have been enjoying working again, thanks to a move to the PACU (recovery room).
• I am working on getting an Etsy business up and running.  I'd like to have enough inventory to start selling in October.  For now I'm working on my jewelery pieces, but would like to add handcrafted soap and possibly some paper crafts.  We'll see where it takes me...
• The politeness factor in our home has gone up, which I credit the preschool for.  We've always tried very hard to be a please and thank you sort of house, but now I notice Hannah is always saying "thank you."

camera shy no more

I just wanted to put up this little photo storyboard from today.  I was trying to photograph a project I was doing, and she kept saying "take a picture of me, Mamma!!"

A far cry from her past camera shy-ness. 

Sometimes I look at her and I think...when did you get so grown up?!  She is so fun now.  Yesterday while we watched the Packer game she spent the day glued to Dwayne, and would jump up and down saying "yeahhhhh!!"  when he did.  She's such a funny conversationalist, and was so excited yesterday when we were putting a puzzle together..."I know what, Mamma!  Let's take turns!"  Ah, the preschool.  She's learning already.

Preschool.  Apparently she cried/whimpered for about two hours the first time she went alone.  It was down to 30 minutes the second time, and when I picked her up the third time she was busy putting her stickers on her chart and just said "oh...hi, Mamma" and continued her sticking of stickers.  She still does the "don't go" thing when I drop her off, but I just have to peel her off my leg and go.  And I'm proud that I haven't cried. 

I'm getting excited to have a baby again, but I am enjoying Hannah so much lately!!  Maybe it's that the chaos is over.  Maybe it's that I'm getting a little time to myself, to run errands or just be in a quiet house.  Maybe it's that she's less demanding in some areas (yet more demanding in different areas).  Maybe it's that she is so in love with Dwayne lately, and I love seeing them together.  But it's been really beautiful lately, and I'm very thankful. 

Photo day

Here are some pictures from Dwaynes' 40th birthday party.  He knew we were having a party...he didn't know that my Mom was coming for the week or that his parents drove up from Tucson for the event.  As Malcolm said, it was a "drive by" trip, but we had fun anyway!

enough of the drama, already

Okay, I'm ready for a non-eventful week with my family.

My Mom was here last week and we all just hung out, ate out a lot, and enjoyed being together. 

She got Dwayne a selection of Green Bay Packer attire for his birthday.  Here's Hannah kissing her "Cheesehead Papa" (her new nickname for him--too funny!)  They are so cute together.

She also enjoyed having her Grandma visiting.  One of their favorite things to do is to swing in the hammock and talk...

I have the morning off --- Hannah is in preschool until noon --- and I'm hoping to get my Scrapmuse kit today so I can start on my September projects.  Dwayne went to the gym this morning after work and the house is completely quiet.  I know I should be more productive with this time, but I am just savoring it this morning.

A voice in the dark

Dwayne and I were getting ready for bed last night (it was a little over midnight) and we heard Kirby barking like wild.  Usually if there's coyotes around all the dogs in the neighborhood are barking, but it was just Kirby.  I saw car lights and  heard a voice, so we went outside just to check things out, thinking some teenagers had pulled onto our dark, rural road to drink beer or something. 

What we found at the end of  our driveway was a smashed up car with the airbag deployed and the hood and driver's side window smashed in and a disoriented young man.  The young man didn't remember the accident and he seemed a little spacey.  We had him pull the car into our driveway (it had been stopped in the middle of the road) and come in.  I called the Sheriff's department and gave him a glass of water.  Just a quick check showed no injuries, but his mental status was a little odd.  He had called his parents and Dwayne gave them directions to our house.

Well, the sheriff's department sent two deputies, an ambulance and a fire truck.  They checked him out, tried to determine where the accident took place so they could look for it and make sure no one else was hurt.  The kid's heart rate and blood pressure was high, and it turns out he's on meds for anxiety and schizophrenia, (which could explain the weird, flat affect he had) but the EMT's decided to transport him to the ER just in case--he could have had a head injury, and his complete lack of memory about the accident was concerning. 

The man's parent's got here and we told them to just leave the car here and they could tow it after the Holiday weekend was over (less $$) and we exchanged numbers.  Apparently the parents have had some trouble with this young man before, and my heart just went out to them.  You just never know what your kid is going do, or be, or be affected with no matter how good a parent you are.

The kind of funny thing last night was that one of the Deputies was a guy I had taken care of in the Recovery Room a few weeks ago. He's obviously doing better than last time I saw him, and he stayed and chatted for awhile after everything was over.  It's always nice to have a friend in the Sheriff's department.

Talk about strange. The other deputy who went to look for the "scene" radioed that he had found it (while we were talking to the other one) and it was a high embankment with some pinon trees that had been taken out.  Why this kid ended up in our driveway, a few miles away while we were awake late on a Sunday night and able to help...well, who knows. 

I have to admit that I am a cynic about some things.  But I do have this Pollyanna belief that if I am good to people, and help when I can that someday -- when it is myself or my daughter on that dark road --someone will be there to help me.  That life evens itself out. Karma, whatever. 

Sometimes when I've been at work and some really sick person comes in and there was a weird  twist of fate that saves his life---the bystander CPR being done by a paramedic or nurse, a choice not to drive himself to the hospital but have his wife do it, whatever it is---we will say "he doesn't know it, but today was his lucky day."   It's something nurses do when they've seen a lot of people having very, very bad days. 

I went out this morning and looked at this kid's car.  Yesterday was his lucky day.   

ETA: the young man's Mom just called me... he's okay (no head injury) and they are just going to get the car towed to a junkyard tomorrow.   I'm glad he's okay.