The Home Improver

Last night, Caedmon and I began listing aloud all the improvements Derek has made to this house since we moved in last June, because list-making is a fun pastime.  Our youngest was born with this truism etched on his heart.  That, or he's seen me making one bajillion lists over the course of his lifetime and it rubbed off.  The former sounds nicer.

I don't feel bad writing out the list here the way I would if I forced you to listen to my recitation; you're free to skim the list at will and it will likely take you seconds.  If I did this verbally, I would no doubt pause periodically to wander down myriad rabbit trails with side stories and side-side stories.  I am not brief when writing and even less brief when I story-tell aloud.  At least in this format, you have a choice and don't have to find a polite way out of the conversation.

• Tore down kitchen cabinets
• Installed open kitchen shelves
• Hung bucket-things
• Replaced knob and lock on back door
• Installed storm door
• Installed new kitchen lighting
• Installed new basement lighting
• Installing new outdoor shutters (in progress!)
• Installed new front outdoor light
• Installed new living room sconce
• Created built-in bookcases
• Installed new bedroom lighting
• Installed new bedroom closet shelving
• Tore down cabinets in kid's bedroom
• Caulked and insulated around five outdoor windows
• Built storage shelving under stairs
• Built shelving for storage in basement
• Built and installed sliding barn door for kid's room
• Shaved down bathroom door so it would close
• Did scary plumbing stuff
• Installed new coat closet door 

This isn't even going into building a few Ikea storage pieces and aaaallllll the electrical work he's done throughout the house.  This place was a deathtrap, I swear, with its knob and tube wiring and non-grounded outlets and who knows what else.  (Derek does.)  We've also had a few things professionally installed because Husband knows his limits.  As do I.  Our limits for home improvement projects are just very different.  Joanna Gaines, I am not- but if you need book recommendations, I'm your gal!  (Laughs weakly.)

I've been combing through our various before, during, and after photos for some of these projects Derek has accomplished and plan on writing a few posts describing them.  I'll try to avoid excruciating detail, but that's really not something I can realistically promise.  Actually, wait- yes, I can!  Since I was at work while 90% of the labor involved in these things was done, I don't even really know what all went into most of it, just that I would arrive home and a new light fixture would be up, or I could see progress on the bookcases, or whatever.  I will also be sure to tell you the one minor service I provided with each one, often involving paint, in the same way a child will wave their hand in the air and cry, "I halped!"


Also:  we've been in the house just a few days shy of nine months.  It's like all this drilling and sawing and hammering and measuring and on and on is Derek's version of gestation.  He's been gestating DeWalt tools.  Or hang on, I feel like I'm using this metaphor imperfectly- is it the projects that he's been gestating?  Is the book case I'm currently looking at his project baby?  Since he worked alone, was it immaculate conception?  (Did things just get weird?  I think things just got weird.)


Look here:  in the time since I wrote all the previous words early this morning and right now, Derek began and finished another dang project.  He says he loves switching out light fixtures because it's "quick and easy and such a drastic change."  I would call him a liar but he does make it look easy, even with the decrepit wiring in this house that he's slowly bringing into the 21st century.  And so:  behold!  One fewer boob light in this house!

Full disclosure:  this isn't the actual light he took down.  He began this project before I could take a "before" picture, so I walked ten feet to the side and took a picture of another light that will someday be replaced.

Tadaaaaa!  Look how happy he looks.

I wanted to get a picture of the new light fixture without the light bulbs on, but as it turns out when you turn the light off it gets darker in the room and I was too impatient to wait until morning when we had some natural light, so the coloring on this is wonky because I edited the daylights (haha) out of it on my phone.  But... behold!  Our new fixture, wavy glass, Edison bulbs, and all, and Derek's newest product of gestation!

I promise I'll come back with a better term.

Feelings in the Morning, Feelings in the Evening

We told our kids that we were moving about a month ago.  Let me tell you, it was a day.  Actually, it was a weekend because we intentionally told them on a Friday after school so they'd have the whole weekend to process the information.

Here is the internet's and several "family experts" general consensus on how to support your kids in an emotionally healthy way when making a big move:

• Keep a positive attitude!  Your kids take their cues from you!  If you are happy then they will be happy!
• But wait, don't be too happy.  Your kids need to know that it's okay to be sad, and they'll see that by watching you.
• But not too sad!
• This event will build a deep-seated sense of empathy and resilience in your children.
• Don't do it.  Just don't move.  It's too hard and your kids will be wrecked forever. 

What I'm saying is the advice I read was, for the most part, somewhat less than helpful, although I still wasn't afraid to read it to Derek in an increasingly panicked voice.  When we did actually break the news, I like to think we hit somewhere in the middle of all that advice, with Derek remaining calm but also reassuring the kids that they were going to feel many different emotions over a long period of time, and that they were all okay.  He told them that it was okay to be mad at him, it was okay to be sad, okay to be excited, or some mixture of all three of those and more.  I mostly just cried, as did Adelaide.  Caedmon was, ahem, demonstrably upset for around three minutes before he calmed right down and started asking questions about Connecticut.  Atticus took it all in stride after we reassured him that there are sports in CT and that yes, we would be bring the Nintendo Switch.  

Since then there has been a lot of talk about feelings.  So so much.  We talk about how we're feeling on this day and on that day, and how we felt when breaking the news to this person and to that person, and how sick we are of feeling so many feelings.  For a while Caedmon reported feeling sick to his stomach most evenings because he had such a mixture of feelings inside him.  It's been super fun.  

Derek and I are grateful that the kids still want to share these feelings with us, however.  I had feared that at least one of the kids would shut themselves away from the family, and while this still may happen at some point, for now they're still being quite open with us.  We try to encourage this by keeping time open (even when we don't feel like it, or maybe especially when we don't feel like it), and by keeping our reactions to their "feelings" statements very even and validating.  I don't blame you for being mad at us, I would be, too.  I feel sad at weird times, too.  I don't like it when people respond to our news in that way, either.  Yes, we will find a soccer team for you to join out there.  No, you are not automatically getting a phone because we are moving.  No, I will not let you audition for American Ninja Warrior Junior because we are moving.  Uuuh, you want to change your name to Casey when we move and have us all call you that from now on?  Huh.  Let me talk to your Dad about that one.

Sometimes our discussions on feelings devolve a bit.

Tomorrow:  selling a house in the age of smart phones, and why it's amazing! and simultaneously bizarre!

Today's Gratitudinals

1.  FaceTime.  Also I need to know what Tina Fey would call FaceTime because her not-so-subtle name for Facebook on the show 30 Rock- "YouFace"- is so perfect that I feel she is the only person for this task.

2.  Being able to be outside without putting on a million layers just so you don't die.

3.  Middle school track meets. No, Daughter is not in track, but we went last night to cheer on her friends, and MY GOODNESS was it fun.  The pressure is relatively low; (although perhaps it felt that way because none of my kids were actually participating) this is so obviously new to 90% of the kids there.  They're just trying to do weird things like jump over poles backwards and leap around in the sand (can you tell I never did track?).  There is a lot of tripping over hurdles, but also a lot of cheering for a bunch of brave girls willing to go outside of their comfort zones, so much so that I almost lost my voice.

4.  Pinch of Yum's Queso Chicken Chili.  Fast, easy, delicious.

5.  The Popcast.  Particularly the "No's" episodes (the No's of weddings, the No's of Halloween, etc) and the Flavor Town episodes.  Hilarious.

Three Reasons... (with gifs!)

... to be happy in September, one of my historically least happy months.  If you don't feel like being happy, though, that's okay too.  Go back to your Fiona Apple album and don't mind me.

• First,  a quick and slightly bossy reminder to you to read The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making because reading a book with beautiful prose and a protagonist named September can help make things better. Or at least appear to be better. Appearances are all that matter, anyway, right?  I'm pretty sure Chomsky said that.  Or Nietzsche, who has a fun name to say but does not appear to have been a fun guy, like, at all.

• This is a book that exists in this world:

This book is so charming, and deals with difficult subject matter with such humor, and I just love it so much.  This is Honeyman's first book, and she has such a deft hand I want to take her, chain her to a word processor, and force her to write a book a year for the next forever, because that's how I express affection.

This is not too much to ask.

• The elastic waist trend is back in women's wear.  I haven't been this comfortable in years!  What a time to be alive!  

Three Things: A Food List (With Parentheticals!)

• We already got our boxes, but they just won't go away.  They're everywhere.

Every grocery store, walking through the neighborhood, everywhere.  You know how you just want to grab whatever it is you forgot for supper and go, but first you have to shuffle past the rickety tables surrounded by pig-tailed entrepreneurs?  It's so bad Derek has dubbed it "the Girl Scout Gauntlet."  We bought our four boxes- so why do I still find I can't make eye contact with them?!

• We've had a snowstorm just about every Saturday this month, and it is MARCH.  We've had snowstorms other days, too, but there's something galling about being snowed in on a Saturday.  I still love snow and generally prefer it over rain, but did I mention?  IT'S MARCH.  

The one good thing about all this winter-masquerading-as-spring nonsense (or would it be spring masquerading as winter?  Whatever, something's not right) is that it is still totally, completely, unarguably soup season.  When it's cold out I will have soup at every dang meal (yes, including breakfast, as the older I get, the more I seem to enjoy eating leftovers for breakfast.  I neither know nor care to know what this means.), and since I'm still the principal chef in this house, this means my family finds themselves spooning soup down their chilled little gullets at least once a week throughout the winterish-fall, winter, and winterish-spring.  Why only once a week?  Well, as it turns out there are four other people in this family, none of whom quite match me in my fervor for soup (soupish fervor?  Ew, never mind.), unless maybe it's our favorite recipe for potato soup (although keep in mind that the recipe I linked to barely feeds our family of five admittedly big eaters).  Even when I'm making vegetable-heavy soups, though, complaining is kept to a minimum by a thousand-yard death stare and a peace offering of homemade bread.  I like this recipe, because it's no-knead, takes five whole minutes to put together the night before, and is crusty on the outside, soft on the inside (which is also the way I like my- ew, never mind).  I added some leftover olive oil and rosemary asiago cheese to this one, and HOLY SAINT HONORÉ (the patron saint of bread bakers, and thank you very much, Catholics, for not leaving out the glutenous among us), DOES IT SMELL AMAZING.

If you're saying to yourself, "Gosh, that looks scrumptious," then you need to get your eyes checked. My food photography skills are three solid steps down from lackluster, but please just trust me when I say that it smells yeasty (in a good way) and cheesy (in a good way) and will help me coerce our children into eating a bowlful of onions, peppers, and corn (PW's corn and cheese chowder recipe, but I omit the bacon and sub milk for half and half 'cause dang, Ree, it can't be good for you to eat bacon every day).

• Whoever is in charge of our district's school lunch menu seems to have given up.  Lunch option #1 for today was "taco in a bag," which our children assure me is school lunch-speak for "walking taco."  I just don't know if I've ever heard a cry for help quite as clear as calling a delicious walking taco "taco in a bag."  I'm worried about the poor soul who dreamt up that name.  Hey, I know!  I'll say a prayer for that person, then completely ignore the book of James and not follow it up with any action.  Take it away, John!

Three Things, with Gifs

• It's mid-January, so I finally feel safe in saying congratulations, friends:  we have survived another season of unnecessary apostrophes!  We can at last turn our gazes to the contents of our mailboxes without fear.  I love Christmas cards and newsletters so much, so I've more or less made peace with the trauma I'm dealt each holiday season as my eyes are repeatedly assaulted with good-intentioned missives from "The Smith's" or "The Jones'."  (IT PAINED ME SO MUCH TO TYPE THAT LAST PHRASE.)  Now we're back to the standard fare of bills, ads, and scams every day!  ...yay? 

Is this helpful?

• We've reached the time of year of Late Starts.  Schools around here will do just about anything to keep from outright canceling (and the parents are guh-RATEFUL) because we don't want to send our kids to school through July.  Enter:  the two-hour delay!  -30 degree wind chill?  Two hour delay!  Slick roads?  Two hour delay!  Blowing snow causing low visibility?  Two hour delay!  We have one today, which is why I am writing this rather than packing endless lunches for our kids (someone remind me to write a post regarding how much I loathe packing school lunches).  I'm not really sure why there is a two hour delay on this particular day; we had a full day last Friday and I'm pretty sure the temp was almost exactly the same as it is this morning- like, to the degree.  Expected temperature of -4 at 8 a.m.?  Check.  Wind chill of -22?  Check.  Lightly snowing?  Check.  This also means I have to sign off social media for extended periods of time as I get unreasonably bitter toward people who live in warmer climates but still complain about the cold.  "Brrr! It's thirty degrees out today!  I searched everywhere and finally found my gloves lololol.  #cold #winter #socold."   Me:  

• A while back I went on a field trip with Caedmon's class to the Science Center of Des Moines.  I'm pretty sure that, in addition to keeping all the children in your group alive, chaperones are supposed to help keep the kids engaged and point out interesting things they might learn.  I would have done that (the latter, I mean, not the former; all my kids made it back alive, thank you very much), but I got distracted by how much these conceptions of dinosaurs on display there

resemble these.

And does that mean this

was actually this?

Something to ponder.

Good, Bad, Good

Things have been good and then they have been bad and then good again.  So... normal life.


Good

We recently headed south for a quick Kansas fix.  Whilst there, we held babies.

We played with the other nieces, too, but they don't hold still long enough for me to take a picture, so here's more baby-holding.

Bad

Monday morning I woke up at 5:30.  It was one of those sleepy, coming-slowly-to-consciousness "Wait, what time is it?" before jolting upright and realizing you didn't hear your alarm or never set it or something, the result being you overslept by nearly an hour and left your friend standing alone in the dark at 5 a.m.  I felt terrible.  She insisted that it was fine, she needed a day off anyway, blah blah blah, lies lies lies to make me feel better.

It was too late to run, so I decided I'd go ahead and get a little work done before rousing the rest of the family.  I went downstairs to make my coffee.  Coffee maker goes on strike, won't dispense a single solitary drop of caffeine-nectar-goodness, and how do I keep breaking coffee makers?  I do not have fancy tastes, or the need of special gadgets or anything.  I use regular-people drip coffee makers (Dear internet people who spend a curious amount of time each day preparing a liquid that ends up tasting about the same as the stuff truckers buy at gas stations:  get a hobby.  Perhaps a high-maintenance tiny dog?), and regular-people coffee (cheapo coffee beans from Aldi that I do, admittedly, grind myself because cockroaches are gross), so why does my coffee maker keep breaking?

Anyway, after learning that I would not be getting any coffee, successfully suppressing the urge to rend my clothing and tearfully ask the universe why bad things happen to good people, I decided that I would move on, and get to working.  I booted up the computer, and there was no internet.  No internet means no work.  So at 5:50 a.m. I gave up on Monday.





Good

Our children are finally old enough that playing games with them doesn't make me want to die (I'm looking at you, Hi-Ho! Cherry-O and your ilk).  We love Qwirkle,

and Quiddler with the older two,

and Atticus will play chess with tiny Darth Vader when Derek isn't home, because Atticus and Derek love chess but I do not, because it is boring.

Bad

Yesterday afternoon Caedmon began screaming and running around even more than usual.  Bees again.  Atticus had those two bee stings last month, Caedmon got two yesterday, and Adelaide claims to have seen a line of bees going in and out of a hole in the ground.  Do bees nest in the ground?  I thought they built their hives up in, um, you know, places that are not holes in the ground.

It turns out neither of our boys are allergic to bees, so today Caedmon is just sporting an extra welt on his forearm and one ear is about 20% larger and weirder looking than the other, but who cares because ears are super weird-looking anyway.  I know this because I spent a solid ten minutes staring at one yesterday, trying to scrape a bee's stinger out of one of those folds of cartilage that make up the outer ear.  The pinna?  See above gif yet again.






Good

Atticus likes to pedal this knife-sharpening contraption that my grandparents have at their house.  You push one of the pedals- the other being currently non-functional- and the stone spins.  Atticus pushes one of the pedals, and Grandpa inevitably whips out a pocket knife to sharpen, and tells us about pedaling the tool as a boy, then as he got older using it to sharpen mower blades, and boy, wasn't that a pain!

Three Things

• First of all, brace yourself, because this is indeed what passes for excitement in our house:  Caedmon found a quarter lacking a mint mark.  I KNOW, RIGHT?  Our youngest is just a tad obsessive about looking for those marks as soon as a quarter finds its way into his hot little hands, always on the hunt for that elusive "P."  Around here we have way more "D" quarters- that is, quarters from the Denver mint- than P, I assume because we are closer to Denver than Philadelphia, although perhaps Denver also makes more quarters than Philadelphia?  I really don't know.  Anyway, Caedmon was given a quarter that was stamped with the year 1965, but with no mint mark.  A quick google search led Derek to educate us all on how from some year to another year (I don't remember) too many people were collecting coins and something about something else, the result being they stopped putting mint marks on coins for a short time to stop people being so crazy.  *Waves wand* May this be the least intelligible paragraph you read today.

• Adelaide has been losing teeth.  A lot of teeth.  As in, all her molars on the bottom left side have fallen out within days of each other.  Naturally, this leads to me finding teeth in random places throughout the house.

I'm not that worried about the fact that she's lost seven teeth in six months-  none of our kids got their first teeth until well after their first birthday, so they tend to be late losers- but I'm still glad she's due for a visit to the dentist in a month, just so he can assure me that she doesn't have some obscure mouth disease, then turn right around and devastate me with impending orthodontia news.  Dentists are good at that, you know.

• If you've been itching for a good memoir, pick this one up:

If you like to experience the entire gamut of human emotion in one sitting, this is the book for you.  It is so funny, and so entertaining, even while being about cancer and fear and doctors who really need to work on their bedside manner.  Maybe don't read it in a public place, unless crying in front of strangers is your thing, in which case I'll just say stick some extra Kleenex in your pocket.  It's a good one.

Four Things

• No one coddles our youngest like his big sister.  Derek and I tell him to settle down, or shake it off, or any of the other things you say when your child is crying more for attention's sake than anything else, then along comes Adelaide, who picks him up and gives him the sympathy his cruel parents insist on depriving him of.  Never mind that it's blatantly clear he is getting too big for such things.

• Common Household Mom recently wondered how the Iowa corn crop is doing this year.

From what many native Iowans have insisted upon telling me every year since we moved here, corn should be "knee-high by the fourth of July."  (Note:  Never have I met a people group who enjoy talking about corn as much Iowans.  After writing the following, I must accept that I am now one of them.)  As you can see above- where I pulled the car over on the way to the library to get this picture as photo evidence for CHM- it is significantly above knee-high.  As of about a week ago, the conversations I overheard from area farmers were positive; they were pleased with their corn and soybean crops this year, although they did mention how dry it had been.  It's rained several inches in the past week, so hopefully that has helped.  We've also had a pretty cool summer thus far- Atticus has his arms wrapped around him in the photo above, as sixty degrees was a little chilly for his t-shirt-and-shorts attire.  From a cranky gardener's standpoint (that would be mine, always), my vegetable garden is not producing this year.  My tomato plants are tiny, my pumpkin plants are tiny, my pepper plants are tiny.  The lettuce has done really really well, no doubt due to the cool weather, and I got more strawberries than ever in early June, but that's about it.  

• This is our library's Overdue Fines chair.  

Kidding.  A representative from a local science center gave a presentation at our library, and at the end anyone who had always dreamed of sitting on a chair whose seat is made up of sharp nails- pointy side up, of course- could give it a go.  The point of the whole thing (pun INTENDED) was... um... something about pressure per cubic whatever... or something- and look, I was busy helping other people during the presentation and couldn't really listen, so lay off, okay?  Anyway, it was not the most comfortable chair I've ever rested upon, but it was still better than those restaurant booths that have a weird piece of trim that protrudes from the back and hits you right at the neck (or mid-back for Derek).  

• And now, a gratuitous photo of one of my nieces.

Four Things

• If you are on Instagram, consider giving Merriam-Webster a follow.  Yes, as in the dictionary.  They post a Word of the Day that puts most of those desk calendars and toilet paper to shame.  Here's a recent one I'm still thinking about:

Can you imagine using this in a sentence around people?  "I don't know what it is about tulips, man- I just grok them."  They'd think you were crazy, throwing random nonsense syllables into what was a normal conversation.  

This, of course, means I'm going to try using it at the library today.

• If you happen to be at the national school nurse conference in San Diego next month, I recommend going to this session:

Why, yes, that is my mom presenting it, because who else has favorite pediatric infectious diseases?  Or refers to themselves as a "former 'Germ Wench'"?  I can promise the whole thing will be a hoot, and am currently taking bets on how many times she mentions hand-washing.  

Pre-test:  Who can tell me three things that are wrong with this combatant's hand-washing technique?  I am not even kidding, and I promise my sisters know.

• One Friday of every month, our library hosts a little thing called Soup and Sound, where the library staff makes a meal and a person or group comes in and performs.  Over the past year I've heard a presentation by the Iowa Honey Bee Queen, a contingent from our high school speech team came in, and last month, a local hammered dulcimer player shared his talents.  I pulled Adelaide out of school to attend, much to her delight.

I believe she enjoyed listening to Mr. Greenlaw play, and it was so generous of him to let everyone fiddle around with the instrument, but if I'm being honest, the carrot cake was probably her favorite part. 

• Derek's won a bunch more awards for his work over the past few months, but one is a doozy:

He won a Telly!  What's a Telly, you ask?  It's a big ol' honking international competition with thousands and thousands of entries and only the best win the good stuff.  I did not take that from their website.  

I believe I've shared his winning video before, but just in case, here it is again (and before you say, "Resource Recovery Plant?  No, thanks," well, this is actually interesting and will make you question what your own community does with their trash):

Congratulations, husband!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S.  What do you think the past tense of "grok" is?  "Grokked"?  And why isn't it "grock"?  I can't think of any other English verb or noun that ends in "k" rather than "ck."  Mock, shock, lock, hock, chock, dock, why can't I let this go, knock, pock, sock... 

Three Things

• Last weekend our little library hosted an Easter egg hunt.  The weather was beautiful, the Easter bunny creepy.

I was a little surprised when Atticus told me that yes, he did want his picture taken with the Easter bunny- but he waited until Caedmon was there to get in the picture, too.  No sense in getting that close to something so obviously inbred without the support of your brother, right?

• When I want to impart a message to our children, I might say something like, "Come here, guys!" or "Children, I have some important information I wish to impart!" or "STOP TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER AND GET IN HERE!"  When Derek has something to say, he will sometimes say, "Kids, take a knee."

Sports-inspired parenting

• I've been looking for solutions to my current problem:  I don't have a whole lot of time to read right now.  Of course I can eek out a few minutes here and there, but when I'm trying to plow through a tome of a novel, I really prefer bigger chunks of time, for mental continuity and so I don't have to keep flipping back, repeatedly asking, "Now who is Sophie, again?"  

One solution:  Read young adult and juvenile fiction.  It's quick, yet you can still find just as many high-quality books as in the adult genres.

This book is a few years old now, but my gosh, is it good.  I recommend this one if:  Someone in your life has dyslexia, if you've ever felt different or left out or not good enough, if you have children, or if you yourself were once a child.  Click on the link for a proper synopsis.

I know I just recommended a slew of picture books in a recent post, but this one, this one you have to find.  It is clever.  It is hilarious.  The writing is so good, and the illustrations so perfect for the text, you'll read it over and over again, to a kid or maybe just to yourself.  

The end.

Three Things

• I feel like I've had pretty mediocre luck with books lately.  I was thoroughly fooled by all the amazing blurbs on the cover of the The Rising ("I couldn't be more excited about this book," and "A classic in the making," etc, said by several well-known, decent authors) and picked it up.  Well.  Talk about bleh.  Thankfully I then found The Universe Versus Alex Woods by Gavin Extence.  

The problem is I'm having trouble putting to words why I liked it so much.  I didn't agree with much of anything the author had to say (via his characters) on a philosophical or existential level, and given the nature of the plot, there's a lot of both in there.  I really did enjoy the characters, though, from the protagonist who is hit by a meteorite as a child (and no, this novel does not fall within the fantasy genre) to the crusty, cranky widower with a penchant for Vonnegut.  I guess it's the same with some friends:  You have completely different viewpoints, to the extent that you sometimes look at each other and say, "It is so surprising to me that we are friends," but hey, you like the person.  Just as I like this book.  (Man alive, just when I think my book reviews couldn't get any more meandering and circuitous, I find a new way to do anything but get to the point.)  And here, a barely related image that I nevertheless find amusing.

• Speaking of books, we can't get enough of these:  

Pardon the shoddy photography; I am, as ever, a poor photographer.  This is one of the Usborne Shine-a-Light books, a series that includes such titles as Secrets of the Rainforest, On the Space Station, and the above, The Human Body.  They take children through the subject matter by showing them pretty if rather standard illustrations,

but then have the reader shine a flashlight- or hold the page up to a light- and discover what's beneath the surface.

The reverse side of the page includes an explanation.  It is awesome.

• The internet is constantly providing me with things that remind me of Derek.  I helpfully send these on to him immediately after viewing.  I am sure he appreciates this 100% of the time.

Comic by Poorly Drawn Lines

Two Things and a Book Review

Well.  It would appear that our laptop has a virus.  This has made it impossible to access the internet from that device, which I need to get onto Blogger, where I do all my bloggy things.  Which as resulted in the lack of recent posts.  Derek suggested I type my posts out on the word processor on the (EVIL INFECTED) laptop, save it to a thumb drive, then publish it at the library.  The man is clearly a technical genius.  (Why did this not occur to me, you ask?  Because I am excellent at wailing in anguish when things like this go wrong, but problem solving, well... it's not exactly my forte.  If you need me to point something out in the fridge that NO ONE ELSE CAN SEE WITH THEIR FUNCTIONING EYEBALLS, HOWEVER, I'm your girl.)  Oh, except there is nary a thumb drive to be found in our house, so I typed this out on laptop, took a picture of it with my phone, and am now transcribing it into Blogger at the library.  Now that is dedication to blogging (happy, Mark?).

Because I can't use my beloved gifs on these pecked-out-on-the-word-processor posts, I guess I'll have to fall back on my old stand-by:  The List.

• We drove down for a whirlwind visit to Kansas last weekend.  Included in this visit were:  The holding of babies, the baptism of babies, golfing, and visiting the church I grew up in.  Highlights included all those babies and being so lovingly embraced by the church that helped raise me, to the extent that I had old ladies talking to me through bathroom stalls even after I had closed and locked the door and was taking care of my business.  I think it's safe to say that Evelyn and I are now very close.  (But don't tell her I called her Evelyn.  She is the type that will tell you her life story as you pee but be offended if you address her by her first name.  I know this because, again, very close.)

•  Our children are all still alive.  (Pumping my fist victoriously in the air, as these days they often seem to live their lives as if they're engaged in some sort of familial version of the Hunger Games.)  Why do boys seem to so enjoy throwing each other to the ground when they see one another?  This morning my normal "Separate!" edict wasn't enough; I had to instruct them not to so much as make eye contact with the other, lest it be construed as an act of aggression.  Then Caedmon stumbled down a couple stairs and Atticus rushed to his side to help him up.  SOMEONE HELP ME UNDERSTAND THIS.  Not to worry, though, we have Adelaide who is always happy to lend advice to those in need, which means I find myself frequently replying, "Daughter.  I appreciate your concern, but I do not need your help parenting.  So long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, good-bye."  Then she points out that she has read more parenting books than I have.  Which is true.

•  This book?

It is good.  The kind of good where I lost time to it.  The author is a reporter who began having mild but rather random symptoms one week, which rapidly progressed to the point that she had descended into full-blown madness (her words).  They- and by "they" I mean a whole team of doctors and specialists- couldn't figure out what was wrong with her.  Nervous breakdown?  Schizophrenia?  Alcoholism?  (Yeah, you're not going to like the doctor who gave that last diagnosis.)  If you're a self-aware hypochondriac, maybe give this one a pass, but if you like medical mysteries that move quickly, induce empathy, and have (spoiler alert) a happy ending, check this one out.  I included the link below, something I would usually embed up there in the paragraph, but library computers don't allow the copying and pasting of hyperlinks.  *groans-wails-gnashes teeth-admits how spoiled I am*

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/brain-on-fire-susannah-cahalan/1110918640?ean=9781451621389