New Holes = New Windows=Slightly Nervous

Next Tuesday we have hired people to come and cut two large holes in the concrete foundation of our house. I'm very much looking forward to the end result of having some windows in the basement for some natural light. Though I am a bit apprehensive about having some people come, cut two large holes to the outside and then packing up their things and leaving. It will then be up to "us" to fill those holes with something that first of all doesn't leak and then secondly looks presentable.

Todd's going for this on his own! I very much admire him for taking on the challenge but just for the record I am a little nervous. Maybe it's not just nervousness - it may be a lot more selfishness because these projects rarely take the time that is allotted - usually at least twice the time and more than a couple of trips to the hardware store. So while he is doing things to make our house that much better, I will have to find things for the boys to do outside of the playroom (because that's where the windows are going). It's not that I don't want to spend that time with the boys (oh and Tuesday is my work day), it's that I want to be the controlling person that I am and be in the middle of the excitement of the new windows as well.

The day after the holes are cut is the 4th of July and I really don't want to have to go to our planned festivities with the boys by myself - more selfishness. If Todd is still working on the big wholes at that time, I'm sure that he'll be pretty frustrated that it's not going as planned. Then we are supposed to be heading out of town on Friday to celebrate our friends wedding as well as hanging out with our friends in Iowa City. That's probably where my confidence is the most shaken - three days after we cut huge holes in our basement, we are going to pack up and leave town for three days. Will our holes be ready for us to leave them all on their own?

I'll keep you posted on the progress...I do have to be thankful that this time that my husband is cutting holes in our house he doesn't have to be on a ladder filling in the gap. He'll be able to do this one with his feet firmly on the ground - at least on the outside! (He put skylights in our Kansas City house.)

For the details - the plan is to fill the holes (each 4x2) with glass block windows that Todd is going to build after the holes are cut. The windows will be completely above ground so we don't have to create wells for them. Final little tidbit - my parents, who have been the great teachers and supporters of house projects, are on vacation in Canada this week!

Life without TV

We have never been really huge TV watchers, but we have now spent the last 6 weeks without watching TV at our house. Yesterday when I was on my run (10 miles and lots of time to think), I was thinking about life without that crazy noise box! What made me start thinking about this is that I ran by "Check Into Cash" and realized that we don't see any of those crazy commercials for check cashing places where you get a high interest car title loan to go on vacation!

I like TV and have been reluctant in the past to go without it. As we considered our options in this place of no free TV reception going without right now has definitely seemed like the right thing to do. I think that the boys have spent more time with their toys and making up their own play more instead of having someone else come up with the stories. We have read more books together because we don't sit down and watch some TV instead. We don't plan anything around a TV show. The boys have no idea of what new toys they want because they haven't been exposed to commercials. (Birthdays may be more fun with surprises instead of disappointment of what they didn't get.) They are willing to go outside and figure out what they can play instead of having the entertainment come to them. Todd and I have been playing cards together - we have been trying new games. We all got bikes and we are checking out the local bike trails. All of these have been really great.

I don't see this as a long term commitment to no TV - we miss sports (even me), including golf and football season will be starting in few months. I am pretty oblivious to anything beyond our neighborhood as far as news and I'm starting to realize that I need to know more about what's going on in the world. I completely missed the whole incident with the girl (Kelsey Smith) who was abducted from Target and murdered in Kansas City - I feel pretty bad about that because she went to our church in Kansas City. A daily news cast from the radio would cure that just as well as having a TV!

It's been good to know that we can easily live without TV. Even when we have some TV reception, I know that we don't have to have it on all of the time! We know that we can keep ourselves busy with all of the other things that we have around - I even know how to play Canasta now! Maybe this will become a summer tradition of getting rid of cable for the summer...

New Family Fun

Now that we are down to one vehicle, we became a 4 bike family! Last night we did our first official family of four bike ride together! We had a really good time riding on the local bike path together called the "Acorn Trail". We won't be taking off from our house in really long time for the family bike ride but the trail is a short drive away and it's flat. For some reason the boys really like to use the coaster brakes on their bikes in the middle of the path - I got a lot of practice riding on my lowest gear.

Grandma and Grandpa gave the boys bikes at Easter and they haven't seemed too interested in them unfortunately. It's been a parenting test to not push too much! They have liked their "Big Wheels" much more than the two wheeled bikes even with training wheels. When dad came home with his bike they both got theirs out so we decided to go ahead an get one for me as well. Need to capitalize on those moments when they are interested!

We really believe that we got a good deal on our bikes - though we aren't much for knowing the prices and brands of bike shop bikes. One of the local bike shops was foreclosed upon and the other bike shop bought a lot of their bikes and selling them about 50% of retail. We ended up only spending about the equivalent of a month's worth of insurance, maintenance and taxes from the VW. Can't complain about that.

We also had another new family fun event that is unique to home schooling - it's called "Box Day". It's when the box of home school curriculum arrives and you get to open it up and take a look at what you'll be learning for the next year. Our box arrived and we sorted through all of the books yesterday. Andrew is definitely excited about all of the books that he's going to get to read in the next year and has gone through quite a few already. He's ready to get started...and so am I. (John Lewis is as well...they are both dying to get started with the Cuisinaire Rods that came with the math program.) My plan is to start right after the 4th of July for just a little bit everyday.

Random Science Experiments

Dying Queen Anne's Lace is one of those experiments that I remember doing (or at least talking about) as a kid and so we decided to try it when my nieces were here to visit. There is a ton of this flower growing wild around so may as well give it a try...

We did four different containers - yellow, green, red and purple food coloring. The purple food coloring was a combination of the other three colors! The yellow and green have a pretty good color after many days. The purple ones just look sick and red didn't really do much at all.

Evaluation of the science experiment - moderately successful for an adult. Mildly successful for young kids because it took WAY too long for the minimal effect for them. With older kids who can "observe" every 8 hours , it would be more interesting

If you have ever thought about doing this, go for it, but make sure that your expectations are appropriate. Dying the water was the coolest thing for our troupe (which was my boys, my nieces and the neighbors.) That part of course made me the craziest - one of the girls had red food coloring from head to toe somehow.

For those of you who may have never heard of this practice - Queen Anne's Lace is a white wild flower that will draw up food coloring through the stem from the water that it is sitting in and change the color of the flower. A cheap little experiment that demonstrates how water gets to the top of a plant and why you don't water a plant on the top but at the base instead! (Hey, God waters from the top, He can get away with though.)

Our next science experiment (not from any set curriculum as you can see) is observing the turtle that is living in one of the flower beds. We have seen him multiple days and yesterday he was seen buried under some mulch and out and about snacking on a couple of my flowers :(

Good-bye VW

Good-bye Passat - you have been a great car and I'll miss you! It's time to go where there will be someone to take care of you if you ever are a little under the weather. I know that aunt kimmy and uncle james will be good to you - they have a good track record of taking good care of other cars. They will be able to find someone who can help you when you are feeling so well.

You were there to safely bring home the new babies from the hospital each time they arrived. You were there to warm our buns and backsides when it was old outside; And you did extra duty your last winter with us in this regard in Iowa! You were trustworthy to take on a trip where ever we decided to go and hold oh so much stuff in the trunk! Your speakers were always there to play "Alphabet of Nations" one more time or intrigue us with an NPR story. Your blue dash board lights were always so cool to look at. You were just a great car and I can't thank you enough.

Sorry for the abuse that you endured while in our care: the fire hydrant; the curb near Hy-Vee in West Des Moines; the fence next door; and way too many pieces of cereal and french fries on the inside. You endured us all and always got us where we needed to go.

We appreciate the 100K plus miles that you served us with and will leave with very fond memories. Enjoy Texas in your retirement years. I hope that all of those SUV's keep off your bumper. Good-bye!

What kind of sandwhich?

I don't even know if Dagwood would be this brave with his sandwiches. John Lewis has been experimenting with sandwiches lately and surprisingly eating what he creates without much fuss from me! I had to share what his sandwich was for lunch today because I thought it a particularly strange combination:

2 pieces of whole wheat bread
left over sausage patty (cold)
green beans (left-over and cold)
sliced tomato
egg salad

He ate the entire thing - every last crumb of the bread. He definitely got the food mixture gene that his dad has and his mom doesn't! And in true fashion of my boys, he ate multiple pieces of tomato, celery and broccoli as well to round out his well balanced meal. (This one is a real kid because he asked for a piece of candy for desert. Andrew just wanted to go outside and play. He'll ask for an apple later.)

Is Yard Work Cross-Training?

I finished week 1 of the 10 week training schedule for a half marathon in August. I did 6 miles mostly in the rain yesterday to complete week 1. Not too bad, but of course know that week 1 is the easiest!

The training regiment that my cousin and I picked out has us running three times in the week - one interval training (speed work), a paced run (longer run pushing to go faster) and a long run on the weekend. We are supposed to "cross-train" on off days. Not sure what that will look like for me but probably yard work will be it.

Just in case you were curious, it is VERY hilly around here. Not just little bumps, but good hills in every direction. Yesterday I found one of the bike trails in town after running two miles of hills to get there. From our house I can go about 3/4 mile downhill most of the way, but that generally means that I have to run back up that gradual hill on the way back and that's not usually what I want to do.

One of the great things about running here is that I can get out in the country really quickly and not have to run in town all of the time. I'm sure that I'll be seeing a lot of rural Rolla area as I increase my mileage over the summer.

More yard work today for my cross-training and starting on the intervals again soon this week. It will be 4 800 meter runs...ouch!

The colorful view

What a blessing to have so much color in the yard! The previous owners spent a lot of time and energy into making this a beautiful yard. These are some of the flowers that were blooming the other morning. My hope is that I can keep it up at least a little bit and enjoy it now as well as next year too. I am amazed at how much I enjoy messing around in the yard and the garden. I remember crying when I had to work in the garden when I was at home and being frustated when having to help can and freeze different crops. Now, I can't imagine not having some flowers and some garden around since I have a yard! It's still a lot of work, but really amazing the little things that God gave in His creation for us to enjoy.

Yesterday we bought an outdoor fire place and had to put it to the test with some roasted hot dogs. We didn't have enough sense to buy stuff for s'mores when we were buying the "campfire" (as the boys call it) but JL had somehow convinced me to buy hotdogs at the store the night before. I never buy hot dogs, I'm not sure why I let him do that but it was great foresight on his part and not another run to the grocery store! I even attempted to make potato salad. I don't think that I have ever made potato salad since I was at home because I thought the stuff at the store was better. But I had some potatoes sitting around and still trying to avoid that extra trip to the grocery store! It was also the first official harvest from the garden with fresh chives and parsley which made the day more special. The potato salad turned out OK, nothing wonderful and not something that I'm ready to pass on as a recipe. Helen our neighbor joined us for our hotdog roast - it was a good thing because we needed her to provide the sticks. We only moved plastic hangers and not any metal ones!

No other great insight this morning. I'm not sure when I'm going to do my 6 mile run this weekend. I'm in the first week of a 10 week training for a 1/2 marathon in August. I'm sure that I'll be adding lots of info here about that as the workouts get tougher! If anyone has some suggestions on inspiring podcasts, let me know because I get bored listening to music when I run. One last picture of my little water boy!

Background on my we moved...

Some friends who I sent the blog to didn't know the details of why we moved to Rolla and what we are going to do here so I thought I would give some background.

Todd is enrolled at the University of Missouri - Rolla and starts summer school the middle of June and he'll be full-time in the fall. He has about two years of school work to finish a second bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering. He's been taking one class at a time for the past 5 years in preparation for his junior year. Todd has always wanted to do his last two years of the degree together - which made a lot of sense to me. We finally arrived at the time where he was ready for his junior year so to Rolla we go. This is a great school for engineering in a great small town which all equals more affordable for the family and a great degree! www.umr.edu if you want to know more - the name of the school will be changing in January to Missouri University of Science and Technology.

When we went to Iowa (July of 2006), our default plan was to spend about a year there and then come to Rolla. We were open to that changing but after our time there we didn't have any compelling reason for us not to pursue Todd finishing this degree. If you have ever spent much time around Todd, most of you know that he is an engineer, he just didn't have a degree to be able to get a job doing that. He doesn't want a job that requires him to sit in a cube all day everyday. Civil engineering seems like it will provide that type of opportunity versus mechanical or electrical which both interest him as well.

Our year in Iowa City was really good. I loved being able to spend more time with the boys. Todd was right, that I did want to spend some more time with the boys before they got too big. Cerner offered me a part-time position so I have been working two days a week since the middle of August. The two days a week was a great amount of work - enough for me to feel like I'm keeping my finger in the professional world, but yet spending the majority of my time with the boys.

For now, I will continue to work 16 hours a week. In the current position that I have I will no longer have a job at the end of the year. There are some other opportunities out there that I may be able to take advantage of but I would have to do some travel. Right now we are about two hours from the St. Louis airport so I would be driving there to fly out...

Another huge decision in the last year is about Andrew's schooling. I am pretty sure that we are going to home school starting as soon as next month. He's been reading now for almost two years and reads really quite well. We know that he reads everything because of the questions that he asks...like today he asked me who's 28th anniversary it was? We had to ask him where he read that - and it was on my shirt for a run that I did. Based on what I have observed in the kindergarten's he will be bored. The kindergarten teachers have to get all of the kids to the same place, but because he reads well, he knows the letters, sounds, numbers and he's read a ton of what is typically learned in kindergarten. I didn't really think that it was a real option for me but I've done a lot of reading online and we're going to go for it. We will have to find somewhere for the boys to go for the hours that I will be working but we can do everything in a few days that we need to. I'm going to stick mostly with kindergarten type material (with 3rd grade readers) so that John Lewis can pretty much be involved as well, JL's not quite ready to read yet, but he's getting there. I don't want to start Andrew too far ahead of JL so I have to be doing all different subjects for both of them.

I think that about summarizes it for now...thanks for reading!