Multiplicity and High School

Ever seen the movie Multiplicity - you know, the one with Michael Keaton? Sometimes I wish there was more than one of me! Right now...I am SO wishing I was going to CHA! I read things like on Alannah's Blog and think...gosh, I could be there! I could be working in the AF booth and doing make-n-takes for CI and having a Beach Memories Drink (whatever that is!) tooooo. *sigh*

But I hate leaving my family. It's hard on them, it's hard on me. I miss things when I'm gone...things that don't happen again. And I hate that. I feel completely torn in two...so can there just be another of me so that I can go to CHA and stay home???

On another note...Grant and I went to high school orientation last night. HIGH SCHOOL!!!! I about had a panic attack in the auditorium as I listened to the StuCo president talk about how much he loved his HS years, thinking about Grant being that old. I too was one of the lucky ones who loved HS. I hope Grant is also. I worry about him though...he is eligible for the gifted program and has stacked his schedule with all advanced placement, honors, or accelerated classes. He doesn't have one fluff class. He seems confident he can do it. I need to be confident too. Confident...but I'll still worry.

Clicking and Weeding

My hand is sore. From what, you ask? From moving and clicking my mouse. I kid you not. I've probably clicked that thing 473,312 times in the last 3 days. See...in case you haven't been keeping up on my life, and in case you haven't heard me say (or see me write) about 328 times in the last week, I'm working on the school yearbook. It's all digital. So I sit here in front of my computer clicking and clicking and clicking and...well, you get the idea. I'm pretty much for sure certain that I will never become a digital scrapper. It's painful people!!

The good news...I've finished 26 out of 32 pages. Yay me. I will be taking a break now to work on CHA assignments. Yay!

In other news...the whole family weeded the front yard this morning after church. It's been a tad warm the last couple of weeks for January and the weeds think it's spring and are sprouting like crazy. And I just hated pulling up all those juicy weeds that would have made delicious dinners for the tortoises and throwing them in the trash. But that's another post-hibernation post. (I'm pretty sure I hurt my hand pulling weeds also.) Anyway, Kurt has his own weed-pulling equipment as seen on this layout because he likes to do it. But today when we were out there, all 6 of us, he says "Mom, it's so much funner doing yard work with the whole family instead of just by myself." Awwww. Just wait until it's 115 degrees outside then even he won't think it's fun.

Any little boy can be...Pope?

It just so happens that both Grant and Wyatt are studying Rome in school right now. After school Wyatt began to tell us (Kent, Kurt, and I) about Europe and Rome. Here's how the conversation went after some of Wyatt's information:

Kurt: What's Rome?

Me: It's a city in Italy (K&K took an imaginary trip around the world in school in December, so he knew about Italy). The Pope lives there.

Kurt: What's a pope?

Me: Well, we are Catholic and the Pope, there is only one, is the head of the Catholic Church.

Wyatt: He's like a king.

Me: He's not a king.

Kurt: Oh, so he wears a crown?

Me: He's not a king.

Wyatt: So, can any Catholic boy grow up to be Pope? Could I be Pope?

Side note: Do you remember the TV show Family Affair? In one episode, Jody sang a song called "Any little boy can be President" and this comment by Wyatt reminded me of that.

Me: Well, you'd have to be a priest first. Then a bishop, then a cardinal.

Wyatt: OK.

Me: But you can't be married when you are a priest.

Kurt: You mean, if I become a priest, I won't have to get married?

Me: Yes, that's right.

Kurt: YESSSSSSSSSSSS!!! But wait, would it be boring?

Wyatt: You get to tell people when to sit and stand in church!

Kurt: YESSSSSSSSS!!!

Me: You'd have to help people.

Wyatt: Yeah, you have to help sick people.

Kurt: Uh, then no.

Me: You wouldn't help them like a nurse does, you would just pray for them.

Kurt: Then YESSSSSSSSSSS!

Wyatt: And you would get to read from a book, the Bible.

Kurt: Does it have dinosaurs in it?

Me: No, but it has animals...remember Noah's ark?

Kurt: Oh yeah, but what about dinosaurs?

Kent (who has been listening intently the whole time): Why aren't there dinosaurs in the Bible?

Oy...never mind...

Look what we got today!

No more "Mom, can you open the door?" or "Mom, can you shut the door?" Today, we got our sliding doors replaced with french doors. (I didn't quite get the before-picture, so I got a during-picture with the doors off.) I LOVE them!! Our sliding door had become a nightmare...I could never find a window covering I liked. We had gone from a curtain, to verticals, to mini blinds, and back to a curtain. All of which I had hated. And then it was so hard to slide, that Kent and Kurt couldn't do it by themselves. So now, I'm happy. Lots of new things happening at our house in the coming month or so...

Update on scraproom: I've gone through all the white trash bags, boxes, drawer units, et al and gotten everything up on the shelves. Still LOTS of organizing to do, but I'll have to put that off until the end of January. I'm yearbook chairman for the elementary school and I have to get 32 pages done before January 23 - good thing it's all digital! Plus do all my CHA assignments. So the further organization will have to wait. To redeem myself from my huge mess you all saw, I'll post a photo of the room so far in a few days.

It's a Mess!!!

Last Friday I got a "bee in my bonnet" - (ooh, don't I feel old!) to re-configure my scraproom. We got a new wall unit in the family room and now there was this 92" unit/bookcase available. I was drooling over it. First of all, I get nostalgic about inanimate objects all the time and this particular unit/bookcase was one that I bought when I built my first house 18 years ago, so I was kind of attached to it. Besides, it would make some awesome storage in my scraproom/office!

Now, in order to do this, it would take a major effort. I mean M-A-J-O-R effort. I had to take down a countertop that was on top of 4 chests of drawers, then remove those chests, plus take apart a huge desk that was in three parts, move the computer, etc., etc. Everything in the room had to be moved. My husband was against it........but I decided to do it anyway.

I won't go into all the specifics, but I did want to show the first step in this process...the mess I made. You can see how the scraproom was before in my photo album to the right. Looks pretty good, huh? Well, it wasn't working out. The countertop had become a catch-all for anything and everything and the drawers in the chests were not organizationally functional for scrapbook supplies...in other words, they were just too big.

Here are some photos of how it looked after I took everything apart and made a big mess of the room. And this actually looks pretty good. It's hard to capture utter chaos and disaster on "film." Heh. Anyway, I'm making progress and will make another post with "the rest of the story" after I'm done organizing. Let's just say, I'm a glutton when it comes to scrapbook supplies...it's really almost sinful. And not fun-sinful, but gluttonous-sinful.

My Sister, the Artist

I don't consider myself an artist. I have an accouting degree for goodness sakes! Yes, after my 15 years as a computer analyst, I did take up a creative venture, but an artist? No, not me. Now, my sister Tricia, she is an artist. She is also married to an artist. They both have more creativity in their pinkie fingernails than I do, or ever will have in my whole body and my whole life.

Today I want to just show you what she has been doing lately...found-object art. She collects junk and turns it into art. I have been on walks with her where we picked up junk along the way and she has been known to crawl into dumpsters at construction sites looking for metal and other bits and pieces. Tricia can find just about anything and see it with a totally different eye from most people and that is what makes her a great artist. Recently she has been making angels for a non-profit organization to sell and raise money for their children's program. Here's one of them and if you are interested in seeing more, go here Spiva Center for the Arts. This isn't a sales pitch because they are selling about as quickly as she can make them.

I know!

I haven't updated my blog in too long. Well, it's the holidays, don'tcha know? Anyway...just a quick one...Christmas was good, been spending time with the family and just hanging out. Oh, I tore apart my scraproom on Friday so stayed tuned for that saga and photos. It might take me a month to get it back in order! You really don't even want to know how bad it is right now. I do want to do a post about New Year's resolutions or getting organized or something, so that will be coming also. For now, I'll just leave you with my annual 4-boys-in-front-of-tree-after-Christmas-Eve-Mass photo.