Andrea's excitment

This is us when Ara told us his batteries were dead.

An all orange birthday....

I think she stopped breathing...

She made her birthday shirt...It says "I'm the birthday girl. Finally 14!"

The Dresser

Before

See where Andi etched 'Boys are dumb"
and After. Now all that's left is for Ara to start his wire hiding project.

Happy 14 Andi

Andrea is fourteen today. Wow. And the evening is packed with Cole's game, Andi's open house, and Jake has something with his senior project. She's having a couple girlfriends over on Friday so today is our small family celebration. I am going to try to make cupcakes with a cream cheese chocolate chip filling and moo shoo pork. I may splurge and buy some fried crab rangoons somewhere.

My dresser is finally finished! and in the middle of this ants raided my kitchen. Its absolutely amazing how much I can stuff into a cabinet. So now that that's done, I set up my sewing and stacks of projects back into the dining room, which should be called the hobby lobby or something cool like that. I also started a new crochet project over the weekend. I am halfway done....

the pattern is free at redheart.com I am making it with perfectly plum simply soft eco yarn. Yarn made out of recycled plastic bottles!

Motivated Cheater

Today I am cheating. On Sunday I didn't feel well, and on Monday I woke up with a mild fever. Okay it was only 99. I worked my butt off sanding and staining and sealing Ara's old dresser. It looks great, not as dark as I wanted it, but still a huge improvement. All the nicks and little scratches of character are still preserved. Next I have to tackle the darn knobs. Ugg. In my whirlwind of motivation, I decided that I needed to clean the upstairs carpet. Today I used my fever and may be contagious excuse to call out sick at my volunteer job. yikes. I feel so guilty, but the carpets upstairs are looking almost new. I stopped at Target on my way to rent the Rug Doctor intending to buy one of those handheld steam machine made by Shark...saw it on an infomercial, but I ended up buying a towel bar, toilet paper holder, and Halloween hand towels and rug for the downstairs. Story of my life-impulse purchase. I'm gonna attempt to use a power tool to get the towel bar and toilet paper holder up so I don't have to bug Ara with it. That is if I don't melt into a heap after this wrestling tournament with the carpet machine. I am also in the middle of cleaning out my kitchen. Never hurts to have lots of projects going at once (sarcasm). The thing with deep cleaning the kitchen is that I never want to cook in it later after it's all sparkly and fresh, but everyone still wants to eat.

My Pyramid

Yesterday God must have sensed I was planning on a pajama day and inspired a dear neighbor to call me and invite me walking. Thanks Jackie. In the course of all our jabbering she mentioned a really neat website - http://www.mypyramid.gov/ - I discovered tools (free ~already paid with our tax $$~ from the government! that can help me get healthy. As Jackie said, it's like weight watchers for free.

Bumpy Life

Life is still bumpy in spite of the school routine just starting back up. Next year I will have two high schoolers left, sniffle. It's going by too fast. While in the library last Saturday a book called 20 Teachable Virtues jumped out at me. It's older (1995) but still a good read. Even though my kids are at the age where the compilation of parenting mistakes is obvious - or their rebelling immature selves are just plain annoying, I'm determined not to give up the battle to teach them some thing about life. If I could impart only one virtue on them it would be empathy. The ability try to see and feel what someone else feels is the bedrock of compassionate caring humans.

Dresser Refinish Project is underway. Ara tried to take over. I made the mistake of asking for help and he "helped" while I was out shopping. So sometime when this humidity decides to lift I get to undo his help and salvage the whole thing. My goal was to have it back in the house by the 17 of September, but now I'd rather postpone the deadline because of my nasty perfection habit.

Three boxers and one flannel PJ bottom later, I finally after all these years got my serger out of the box. I LOVE IT. Of course none of the recipients have been as excited as I was about it. I have no idea why I waited so long to try it out. My dining room is now transformed into a sewing room and I have a list of Christmas goodies swimming around in my head. I've got at least 7 different projects lined up BUT I also signed up to volunteer 3 days a week.

grueling interview

the interview was grueling. and I'm glad it is over with. I didn't do horribly but don't feel I made a stunning impression. It was a panel interview and they had a list of questions that were very elaborate. I have to admit it was hard for me to think fast enough to describe my experience in the way the questions were worded. I was prepared for the standard line up of questions like Why should I hire you, Tell me about yourself, What are your weaknesses...but the questions about medicaid billing, third party insurance, and accounts payable threw me for a loop. The original application didn't list the exact job description so I had no idea what I was walking into. I have a feeling this panel was part of the screening process, and that if I made it there will be more interviews ahead. Anyway I am zonked.