This and That…Rather a Ramble.

My sense of smell (and taste) has gradually returned. I am grateful. Trying to cook like that was near impossible. I had to rely on my husband’s taste testing everything for me-a bit difficult when he wasn’t home! I can’t help but wonder if a prolonged lack of those senses wouldn’t dull my cooking in the same way that one who becomes deaf has their speech distorted after a while. The mere mention of such a thought made Hubby cringe.

Otherwise, it has been hectic as ever around here. For some reason since the beginning of the year we all feel as though we have been running like mad. It has much to do with all of the classes that everyone (except poor Sam who gets dragged around to everyone else’s) has been involved in. Alex Karate, Hubby has his art class and I have my Bible class. Plus the volunteer time at school (which I just had the inspiration to combine into one trip up to the school instead of two!) and whatever other errands and business need looked after.

We also had company this past weekend. Really it was wonderful have Hubby’s sister, her husband and their dog Hobbes here for several days. They are undemanding company-coming and going at their own schedule, joining us for some meals, heading out on their own for others. They even didn’t seem to mind being housed in our partially finished basement. That just seemed to go against hospitality, but it also seemed better than the other options. They needed more space than our tiny makeshift bedroom would allow.
It did also give them more privacy which was nice. It was awfully quiet after they left, and my dogs seem a bit lonely without their friend.

Hubby’s been feeling out of sorts lately too. He hopes that getting a bit more organized again will help that. I feel like I just need to put the brakes on for a few days. Hibernate. Not go anywhere. Maybe a good snowstorm is just what I need! Unlikely as the temperatures are heading up not down.

Nieghbor Night is Thursday so I am hoping that will be revitalizing, and this weekend we plan to head to our local art museum for a day so the kids can participate in a craft activity while Hubby wanders and looks for something interesting to sketch. A little fun would be good for us all.

Sense of Smell

You’ve probably heard that you shouldn’t take your sense of smell for granted. I stand behind that. Because of a weird cold I’ve had for a couple of weeks I have had no sense of smell for the last week and no sense of taste. It’s very strange. We put off our valentine’s dinner so that I will actually be able to enjoy it. It has made me pay attention to textures while eating. For example, we had Omaha steakburgers for dinner the other night. I couldn’t taste them, but I certainly appreciated the very tender, almost melt in your mouth texture. On the other hand Cheesy Pepper Soup was unbearable because of the weird little bits of onions and peppers in the creamy base. I don’t usually have a problem with lumps in my food unless that’s not balanced but good flavor I guess.

I was happy this morning when I could get a slight whiff of soap. Must be coming back little by little. I sure hope so.

100Things

Hubby keeps reminding me that I haven’t done this yet. Why not? Here goes:
1. I’m half italian (dad’s side) and half polish (mom’s side).
2. When I was growing up I related better to the Italian side because they were more Americanized. Only after I grew up and my grandparents were deceased did I realize how many of my interests I shared with my Polish grandparents.
3. I’m 33 years old.
4. I’m a Virgo. I don’t buy into that much but I am picky about being clean. That’s a “Virgo” thing.
5. My favorite colors are blues, teals, greens. Sapphires fall into that category:-)
6. September is my favorite month because of the clear blue skies and the start of fall.
7. I have a BFA in costume design for theatre from West Virginia University.
8. I met my husband doing summer stock theatre in southern WV. (He came saying he wouldn’t leave pining over some girl in West Virginia. That didn’t work so well. She pined for him too so it worked out.)
9. He willingly followed me to South Carolina so I could go to graduate school for theatre.
10. We worked our tails off for 6 months to make enough money to move back North. Those were the best lessons in money handling *EVER*.
11. No, I have no interest whatsoever of doing community theatre.
12. I do make some pretty cool Halloween costumes for the kids.
13. We have now lived in Ohio for 10 years. It’s definitely home.
14. I have two boys ages 6 and 3.
15. I was terrified of having boys.
16. I am an only child so I had no experience with boys.
17. Now I love having them. There are days when I feel like I’m in a different world. I look at my husband and say “please explain,” but I also love the challenge of bringing boys up in this world that doesn’t seem to appreciate boys much.
18. The only thing I miss about having a girl is having one who would like to learn to cook or sew. I’m teaching Alex a bit of that now, but somehow it’s not the same. Oh, and I sometimes ooh and aww over little dresses.
19. I am 5’0″…on a really good day.
20. I am naturally shy. I only come out of my shell in places where I’m comfortable.
21. People don’t believe number 17. I guess when I get comfortable I’m pretty outgoing or at least I give that impression.
22. I have a natural talent for sewing-both hand work and on a machine.
23. My favorite things to sew are quilts (especially baby quilts) and pretty little things-bags, pillows.
24. I hardly ever sew things for our house. I usually am sewing gifts-Hubby just shakes his head.
25. The two recent and major exceptions to that were the twin size quilts I made for my boys. One is rainbow colors in a pattern I invented. The other has turtles and is a large nine-patch (squares). The boys love them, and I’m pretty proud of them.
26. I have a natural talent in the kitchen.
27. Cooking comes naturally though my mom did a great job imparting the basics to me when I was growing up.
28. I love to bake. Brownies, lemon meringue pies, lemon bread are some of my specialties.
29. I like to give away what I bake. The neighbors like that.
30. The weird thing about my talents is that I can’t verbalize them very well. I can’t tell you why I do somethings, but I just know that they need to be done, and it generally works out. I can’t say why a sauce needs basil, it just does. Or how I know what to do next when I’m sewing something, it just comes like an impression in my mind.
31. I don’t like other people in my kitchen while I cook. I’m awful about that.
32. My husband is sometimes an exception. I can have the kids there if I’m making something and I am in the mindset to have them help me. The biggest exception is my dad. It’s weird, but he’s always the one helping me cook family meals at the holidays. Part of it is he’s learned to leave when I give him “the look” and he doesn’t complain and he comes back when I need him.
33. My parents have been married for 36 years. I am proud of them for that.
34. My younger son looks like my dad. Has more of his laid back personality too.
35. My mom was a stay at home mom with me most of my growing up. I am so glad she was. We didn’t always get along well (probably an understatement), but she’s been there for me. I appreciate that.
36. I love dogs. Cats generally aren’t my thing, but mostly from lack of exposure. I have fallen in love with guinea pigs since we got one for elder son last year. I really want to have a rabbit for a pet.
37. We have raised four dogs for Canine Companions for Independence-an organization that breeds, raises and trains service dogs for disabilities other than blindness.
38. Only one of them graduated as a service dog. Em-e lives in Minnesota now with a boy with MD. She has been a wonderful addition to their family. They send me a Christmas card most years, and it’s my favorite Christmas card to get.
39. Our first release dog was Carla, our Golden retriever. She still lives with us. The other two were placed with other people.
40. Everyone asks “How do you give them up?” Well, you know when you get it that you have to give it up. If they don’t graduate you have first choice to keep them, but for the most part you really would rather them graduate. Getting the call that they have made a match with a person is exhilerating. Getting the call that the dog has been released is devastating.
41. Some of my best friends are people I know through puppyraising.
42. When Sam goes to school full time I want to start raising puppies again. I can’t wait for the phone call that says my puppy has arrived.
43. We have another dog too. Louie is a pound puppy who’s part border collie. He has issues. But we love him and we’re working with him to help him. He’s been with us through our whole marriage since he was a wedding gift from Hubby’s sister who is a veterinarian. (she paid for him…we picked him out. We probably did that backwards.)
44. I love birdwatching. We have bird houses in our backyard-as many as 4 at any given time. They house blue birds and tree swallows. We battle the evil house sparrows. We also have Cooper’s hawks, mocking birds, finches, Eastern Phoebes, juncos, meadowlarks, robins, starlings, good chipping and song sparrows, woodpeckers and a host of other birds that visit us.
45. I would really like to own a good size piece of land someday- a lot as a haven for the animals.
46. I love to snuggle with my husband.
47. I love to snuggle with my kids.
48. I am lucky to have two little boys who love to give me kisses and hugs and I love you’s and little presents to show me they love me.
49. I am the luckiest woman in the world to have my Hubby be mine. He is the most amazing husband and father and has taught me so much about loving and relating. He had a tough childhood in some respects, but it has helped to shape him into everything I could ever dream of in a Husband. I could do 100 things I love about himJ
50. I think I do a pretty fair job of taking care of him too.
51. I am a newly renewed Christian.
52. I have the “joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart…”
53. I hate clutter. I am good at cleaning our house. I am not good at keeping up with the clutter.
54. I am a focused, organized person. I would like to be more focused and organized.
55. I am low maintenance. I don’t spend a lot of time or energy on my appearances.
56. I used to dye my hair. Red. Until I realized it was plenty red already. I won’t dye it again because it’s such a pain and destroyed my hair. I don’t even mind my gray hairs.
57. I love Marjolein Bastin, the artist who does Hallmark’s Nature’s Sketchbook line.
58. I would love to learn to paint and draw like that. Maybe someday I will, but I’m not ready to invest in that yet.
59. Every New Year’s Eve Hubby and I make our list of goals for the new year. We post them on the refrigerator to guide us through the year.
60. One thing I’d really like to do is to swim with dolphins. I used to have incredibly vivid dreams about doing this when I was a child.
61. I also want to take a driving course. A really good one where they teach you how to handle the car professionally.
62. I was born in Pittsburgh.
63. I’m so excited the Steeler’s finally one their 5th Super Bowl!!!! I had a blast watching that football game!
64. If I could spend a ridiculous amount of money on something frivolous it would be a really good embroidery machine, and all the thread, design cards and supplies I’d need to go with it.
65. I need a new engagement ring. My diamond fell out of it in October. It was my grandmother’s which is kind of sad, but I still have my husband and the wedding band so I’m over it. And I guess I just have to get a new one for our 10th anniversary
66. My favorite furniture stores are Amish wood furniture stores. Most of the hard furniture in our house came from them.
67. I love to go to Ohio’s Amish country. It’s really beautiful, the food’s really good and it’s a fun place to shop. (Since Hubby gets to eat he doesn’t mind going with me.)
68. I worked as a payment systems analyst for an electronice bill pay company.
69. I specialized in telephone companies and used to be able to identify the location of any area code and if it was a new one, what the original area code was., and who the service providers were. I was scary.
70. I don’t remember any of it now especially since everything has been bought and changed in the last 6 years when I quit to stay home with my firstborn.
71. Staying home with my kids has been the best decision I’ve ever made.
72. Hubby knows that I’m having a rough week when I say I want to find a job. He’ll take a day off to give me a break. That helps a lot.
73. I helped organize our neighbor ladies’ night get-togethers. Best thing ever.
74. I still am surprised at how every one else loves that too. I thought I was the only one who was in need of more companionship.
75. I am a very visual person.
76. I don’t’ use my ears very well. I hear better when I can see the speaker’s face
77. I’ve considered home-schooling my boys.
78. I have taught them a lot at home.
79. That’s causing problems because now in kindergarten Alex is ahead and they just want us to wait until they catch up to him. He’s bored. I don’t want to wait that long.
80. Part of me doesn’t want to home school because I like the break I get of sending him off to school. I also see the social benenfits of sending him there.
81. I had a miscarriage before I had my boys.
82. It was a hideous experience for me at the time, and I wish I would have handled it more gracefully.
83. It was my lesson in bad things being a blessing. Because of my experience I was able to help comfort at least 3 other women that it happened to.
84. Another lesson Hubby and I have learned together is that when we are trying to do something and we find ourselves running into closed doors (figuratively) it’s time to stop and take a different course. When God closes a door he opens a window and the view is always better from the window.
85. I’ve lived in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio.
86. I’ve visited Canada, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia and Florida.
87. I grew up in some superstitious family members. I had to learn as an adult to really think about some of those ingrained beliefs and throw off the ones that seemed random and unnecessary. It was a momentous realization for me.
88. I enjoy reading. I read very fast, and I have just learned that if I don’t read a book in a short amount of time it is likely that I will not finish it.
89. Favorite rereads are Anne of Green Gables, Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, Winter Solstice and other books by Rosamunde Pilcher and the Mitfor series by Jan Karon..
90. I keep really detailed baby books on my boys. They are going to be able to write very accurate autobiographies of their early years because of them.
91. I hate losing things. I get sick when I lose something important,and I will hunt down to the best of my ability even a small lost thing. I can make a list of the things I’ve lost from years ago.
92. Nicknames I’ve had: Jenny Rebecca (mom), sunshine (mom), kitten(dad), rugrat(dad), kneecap (high school), bunnifer (husband)
93. I like stationery. I am saddened that no one writes paper letters anymore.
94. My mother says I don’t have a sentimental bone in my body because she tries to give me things from my childhood (or hers) that I don’t remember much less have an emotional attachment to. I have some things I keep as momentos, but I try not to be obsessive about them.
95. I collect tea. Like different kinds of tea bags. I have a whole basket full of different kinds of tea on my counter. My current favorite brand is Tazo. They make good chai.
96. I love the smell of lavender. I love gardenias and lilies. Roses aren’t my favorite unless my husband gives them to me.
97. My son Alex, 6, loves to give me presents-he’ll ask to buy me flowers to the farmer’s market or make me a little present when I don’t feel well.
98. I love Lumpy, the little heffalump, from Pooh’s Heffalump Movie.
99. I love Bailey’s Irish cream.
100. I’m good at math and numbers. I can do simple math quickly in my head.

Harbingers of Spring

The robins are back. Well, they have been for a while now. But they are happy birds today. High today is supposed to be 60 degrees, and it’s drizzling. They are having quite a feast of worms.

And my first baby iris (iris reticulata) is blooming bright yellow in the front beds. They are so cute and colorful for this time of year. I planted probably 100 4 years ago. They’ve multiplied again and again so I will have delightful clumps of hundreds of them. The handful of yellow ones will blooms first and then the purple ones will come. I cut some and put them in teeny vases that were once salt and pepper shakers (lids removed). I’ll get pictures.

Yeah spring!

Princess Quilt Photo

This was one of the big projects I was glad to finish early this year. It’s a queen size Disney Princess Quilt that I made for a friend of Alex’s upon her mom’s request. Her party was this weekend and she was so surprised and thrilled by the quilt. The moms in attendance ooh-ed and aah-ed over it-made me feel good, but mostly I was thrilled to see the surprise on the little girl’s face.
Sorry the picture’s not better.

The two fabrics weren’t really intended to go together (meaning the squares around the outside and the larger panel in th middle. But they were close. And since the recipient’s favorite colors are pink, purple and “sparkle” I dressed it up a bit by painting with sparkly glitter glue all around the smaller squares to match the sparkles that already came on the big panel.

Baptisms and Bible Readings.

A couple of weeks ago my husband was baptized (immersed) as part of joining the church we’ve been attending since late last spring. I had been baptized as a teenager, but I had strayed a bit and so as a recommitment to God and also as a commitment to my husband I was baptized again with him. It was a beautiful (and a bit chilly) experience. And I have been walking around ever since with a renewed joy.

I also signed up for a Wednesday night class that our pastor is teaching called “Getting to know the New Testament.” It’s been perfect timing (like there’s any other kind when you are talking about God’s timing.) It’s 13 weeks talking about where the NT came from, who wrote the different books, why they were written, to whom the letters were written and we’re also taking a look at some maps that show where people were when these things happened. I like getting the history…it really does help to make the Bible come alive. The best part about the class is that I have been working my tail off to keep up with the reading. If we’re talking about Acts I read Acts. When we talked about John I read the Gospel of John, 1st John and I didn’t get to finish 2nd and 3rd John, but it worked out because they are very short so we read them in class! I failed to read Romans for this past Wednesday, but truthfully I have a block abut Romans from a bad preacher from my teen years. After a little more background on Romans I am now tackling that as well as next week’s assingment.

I don’t know how much of the Bible I read before this, but for me this speed reading through it has been the way to go. I have tried other methods to get through it, but I always lost momentum. And I have learned so much more going through it so fast because so much repeats itself (especially in the gospels) and when it’s told a different way or given a slightly different context or just through repetition I seem to be understanding it more. And I’m so excited to get to the rest of it.

Crazy Week

Eric seems to be giving me a bit of grief over my lack of posting so I’ll tell you all about my crazy week!
I knew it was going to be a bit crazy because somehow my volunteer schedule at Alex’s school had made it so that I was volunteering both days this week-usually it’s Tuesdays one week in the art room and Thursdays for his homeroom teacher the next week. Not so. Which should not have been that big of a deal except that his Valentine’s day party is today so I am now going to be there all three of his school days and they won’t let me hitch a ride on his bus.

And that was also not so bad because it was spread out over the course of three days. Here was the kicker. On Tuesday when I got to the school I noticed I hadn’t grabbed my cell phone. This is usually not a big deal, but, of course, you never forget the thing when you don’t need it. Anyway, we cut papers, matted artwork and chatted with the art teacher. And then we drove straight home. Get in the door and the landline phone rings. It’s the, sigh, school nurse. Alex had had his fourth bloody nose of the day and could I please come get him. Well, at least our coats and shoes weren’t off yet, and Sam is a trooper about being shuffled around. Get up to the school and explain how I had just been there and it turns out her first phone call (during the third bloody nose) was to me while I was still in the school!!!! Somehow it’s just ironic that no one saw me who put two and two together and Alex didn’t think to tell them I was there. When the nursed asked him he said he knew I was there.

We gathered up his stuff and came home and I was grateful to have frozen pierogies and kielbasa in the freezer-something quick and easy to whip up.

Now I’m off to fix breakfast and the Valentine’s craft project for today’s party.