Doing better

We are doing better around Casa McStew. Daniel has some antibiotic and is now eating much better... and DRINKING!! I'm so happy with that. I am now praying for a cessation of this rotten intestinal stuff. He is literally going through 15 diapers a day. And often, he is going through 6-10 pairs of pants too.

But, the color is returning to his cheeks and his eyes look less hollow and that is very good.

It is a beautiful day here in northern IL. We are getting ready to put in a very rudimentary vegetable garden. Basically, it's a pasta sauce garden -- roma tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, garlic and some lovely herbs. I'm excited. We have not been gardeners because Dennis' brother has supplied our needs amply with his garden. But we're taking the plunge and our little mini-plot will be lovely, should it flourish.

And this afternoon, I'm finally getting around to making homemade egg noodles for Tuna Noodle casserole tonight. I'm excited to bust out the Kitchen Aid mixer mom got me a while back and some new attachments.

I may have to take some photos.

Back home

I have returned home from a brief trip to Eureka and my alma mater where we were celebrating Alumni Weekend. "Weekend" is a misnomer. It's actually an afternoon and evening. But I suppose Alumni Weekend sounds better than Alumni 8-hour Event.

I am on the alumni board of my college, so I was sort of required to be there, but I wanted to be there also. Friends of mine, T and his wife, were receiving the Outstanding Young Alumni award. I was happy to see that because I nominated them! T and his wife began a charitable foundation in the name and memory of their daughters who died at birth. Their foundation has been around about three years and has donated about $30,000 to our state Children's Hospital and also to the obstetric unit in their own city. Through tears, T told us the story of the foundation and related it back to the ethos of the college which seems to be, in short, "go from here and do something to make this world a better place." It was a great, moving celebration of how they have lived since college and I was really, really proud of him and really very proud to be his friend.

The day itself was beautiful, too. I stayed at Grammy and Gramps' last night and slept in this morning. As my grandmother said, "A mother needs a night of good sleep away from her children every once in a while." She was right. I truly enjoyed the day. The weather was warm, but breezy and the college was in its most beautiful state -- lilacs and flowers blooming, trees and grass green and lush, red brick buildings stately and welcoming as always. I walked around and visited new features -- a graduation brick pathway -- a labyrinth -- I've not visited. I walked the campus and remembered racing around the tall oaks that used to fill the area when Roo and I were little and spent some time driving around town, seeing many people out and about enjoying the day.

And I felt myself really longing for it all. My hometown is part of me in a way I just can't fill elsewhere. Perhaps it is because generations of my family have lived there. Perhaps it's because I can't let go. Whatever it is -- I feel at home there in a way no place else has fulfilled.

So though I returned home to my family tonight, I feel like I also came back to my regular sojourn. And into it, out of this lovely and renewing weekend, I bring the powerful feeling of being back home.

Narnia

I am so excited to see Prince Caspian when it arrives. I am a big fan of the Narnia books, and I really liked the last movie, and -- I'll admit it -- I was a huge fan of the BBC series on Wonderworks on PBS. I'm ready for Caspian.

And in the meantime, I'm enjoying listening to this set. I just love it. The Magician's Nephew brought me to tears. I highly recommend it for any other Narnia-philes out there.

Mental query to friends/ family -- is it in Eureka that someone has a NARNIA license plate? Or is that here?

Dinner cooked in a convenient kitchen

This weekend, Dennis put some shelves up in the dining room of our house. The parsonage is a typical ranch style. It has a little kitchen and very little storage (and Dennis and I are packrats, which does not help.) Up to this point, we had too much stuff on the counters, but Dennis' shelf installation allowed me to move pretties to the shelves, then we moved the microwave to The Impossible Corner and... voila! We have an entire counter on which to cook!

The lamp is not supposed to be there. It was Dennis' grandmother's lamp and one of the many projects he completed last weekend was re-wiring it and cleaning it up. It's there because it's a great little size for that counter and the cord is long enough to move it out of the way and then move it back to the outlet later.

I'm going to mooooove it because it's obviously a nursery lamp. But isn't it sweet? (We looked on eBay to see if we could find one similar so both kids' would have one. The one we found sold for $75!)I like the way it kind of fits in with the kitty cat cookie jar -- just like Grammy's -- and Annalivia's milk pitcher, which were the whole reason to put up shelves to begin with.


It's just so nice to cook dinner in a kitchen that is sort of functional. Seven years into my stay here, it's nice to finally figure this out!

Yikes

I do not have Photoshop for two main reasons. a.) It costs an arm and a leg and, more importantly, b.) I am infinitely capable of being obsessive and letting all else fester as I photoshop hour after hour.
Despite the fact that I don't have Photoshop and I don't have the familial energy to devote to photoshopping pics, I always read Pioneer Woman's Photoshop posts with interest.
Tonight, I went back to a post by the lovely Miz Booshay and decided to see if I could do the same thing in my JASC program I bought for $10 on eBay. Why, yes, I could. Then, for some crazy reason, I decided to read other Photoshop posts and see if I could do the same sort of things addressed in said posts in my cheapo photo editing software.
TURNS OUT -- I CAN!!!

It involves a little translation and some playing around with settings, but oh my goodness, I have an entire arsenal at my fingertips that I did not know I had!!!
Tonight, I played around with this photo.

It's of my lovely girl, but otherwise was pretty boring, I thought, underexposed and taken on an icky day. So I played -- cropped and lightened and texturized and so on and ended up with this.

Which just makes me smile.

And this is just the start. What in the world have I discovered?

Thank You, God, for Spring

I'm on my laptop working on the bulletin on the back porch. Daniel is trying to untangle a hose and Annalivia is pretending to water flowers. We drove up to have a picnic lunch with Daddy today and I had a lovely drive through the country while little ones slept. It's an absolutely glorious day.

I am so, so, SO glad Spring is finally here!

Big day

Today I was supposed to go to my alma mater for an alumni board meeting. I was feeling kind of icky last night and also this morning when I got up to get ready, so I decided to stay home.

It was a good decision to do so. It was an absolutely gorgeous day here -- got up to 63 degrees, I think! And as long as I didn't eat anything, I felt pretty good. Dennis and the kids and I were in the backyard most of the day and worked on it ready for spring and then moved on to the garage which is need of a huge rescue. We made a dent, which is good.

After the outside work, we came inside and everyone took a bath/ shower, and then Dennis and I tackled our hall closet. It's an odd closet between the bathroom and bedrooms that just ends up being junky. I needed a place to store all of my CVS finds, so we cleaned it all up. It's just lovely. Right now the door is open to it and we keep walking by and sighing because it all looks so nice.

We are in the midst of a massive reformation and redistribution of our possessions. What we should have done when Dennis and I got married and conflated our stuff into one ranch style home, we are doing now with lots of kids' stuff thrown in the mix. We have big plans and the garage and hall closet are key to all of them.

I am going to start taking before and after pictures. Hopefully, by the time summer is over, no one will recognize this house!

What happened here?

The entire contents of Annalivia's room and closet dumped on the floor.

Me: Annalivia! What happened here?!?
Annalivia: I was trying to make a mountain!

Toy management

We have too many toys.
I strongly suspect that little elves sneak in here during the night and add more toys to the fracas, but that theory has yet to be proved.
Last night Dennis and I went through the toys and put a TON of them in a plastic bag to be sold at our spring garage sale (which we ARE going to have, darn it!). We got rid of all the cheap plastic toys, some stuffed animals and all of the electronic things, or anything that makes noise by itself.
A while ago, my mom had read somewhere that a family handled their plethora of toys by dividing them up into several containers and each day a new container was brought forth. At the end of the day, the toys were put away.
I personally thought this was brilliant. We have tried putting away some for a month or so, but there is still just too much choice. And while that probably means that we should just get rid of a whole lotta the toys, the kids really DO play with ALL of those that are left after our purging. And, honestly, Dennis and I are suckers because we think the remainder are cool toys!
SO -- anyway, we divided up the remainder, into some bins. We've got wooden toys, puzzles, a shape sorter and a bead game in one. The wooden kitchen range, pots and pans and teaset and food are in another. All of the Little People stuff is in one set of bins. Another has the Thomas trainsets. Another has cars and other "things that go". And the final one has some plastic animals in it. The last bin will eventually hold dress-up stuff, I think. Annalivia has her dolls and some stuffed animals in her bedroom. Daniel has a little box that can be added to at some point when he claims his own toys. And I think I'm going to develop a little box of Waldorf-esque dolls for Annalivia to take in the car and add the wood clackers, etc to it for Daniel.
I'd imagine that this system will have to be tweaked as the kids grow older. Right now, Annalivia plays with all of those things and Daniel plays with whatever Annalivia is playing with. Maybe their choices will differentiate at some point.
But I'm thinking that for now this will work better for us.

Today is Little People day. So far it's been a big hit.

UPDATE! CLEAN-UP IS A BREEZE!! TWO MINUTES. LITERALLY!! HURRAH!!

Deluxe dinner...sorta

Tonight, I tried to create a fabulous dinner for us, but it was one of those that just didn't quite...get there. Ever have those?

It fell short on almost every level....

• The chicken-fried steak with beef I found on mark-down yesterday wasn't really tender like it should be.
• The gravy wasn't very smooth and there wasn't enough of it. (Gravy scarcity is difficult for a McClure girl to handle. I may have cried.)
• The mashed potatoes were really good, but not very hot.
• The crust on the homemade apple pie was lovely on the outside, but turned to mush on the bottom.
• I forgot the green beans.

I will have to say -- the canned corn was delicious. It's hard to screw that up, though.

Don't you hate it when you try and ALMOST get there? Bugs the heck out of me.

Godsends

Right now, Annalivia is playing with our family friend, 14-year old, K. K is here to spend the night and then will go to church with us in the morning. I am SO grateful that she is here and is able to entertain Annalivia while I finish stuff tonight.

My mother-in-law just headed home after having dinner with us tonight. She came over when I had to visit a parishioner in the hospital. Tomorrow she is going to watch the kids while I am at my choir rehearsal and Evensong and then she's coming over on Monday to stay with them while I'm at the doctor's office. Then on Tuesday, she's going to go with us to the Quad Cities and on Wednesday, she's going to watch them during a church service.

Thursday she's going to Wisconsin for a much-needed break.

During this time that Dennis has been gone, it has amazed me how much help I've received from other people. His mom has been available at the drop of a hat; my grandparents entertained us in their basement after an impromptu visit. My sister and mom provided diversions when we got out of the car after our trip south, or before getting back into the car to head north. Friends have watched Annalivia and Daniel run around while I was cleaning up a church dinner and church members have stepped in to lend a hand so I wouldn't have to do so.

We are so blessed. I find every day to be filled with unexpected gratitude for others.

It leads me to pray I never again go through one of those pitiful phases of life wherein I think no one cares about me or the perceived challenges of my life.

The evidence to the contrary is just overwhelming.

A proper tea...ish

Annalivia has been wanting to have another tea party for a while, so today after Daniel went down for his nap, we had a proper tea party. Sort of. We had table linen and a lovely embroidered runner, teacups and an actual teapot and creamer jug. And we had hats.

What we did NOT have was a proper appreciation for tea.

I promise -- we did have a nice time...

The looming departure

So I've not mentioned it here because it may be stupid, but someone in our family is getting ready to go to Russia pretty soon.

It's not me.

This weekend, we are preparing ourselves: Doing important things like airing out the mattress -- well, our version, anyway, which involves opening all the windows in a bedroom and shutting the door; And we're doing lots of laundry; And cooking lots of stuff; And making lists; And making sure bills are paid and that there are detailed written instructions about what to do in case Chechnyan separatists ruin the trip. That sort of thing...

AND, and, and!!! Dennis and I are going on a date tonight!! By ourselves!! (I'm kind of excited -- can you tell?)

There are definite advantages to preparing for absence. One becomes acutely aware of presence.

And that sure is a good thing.

On the less festive side of things...

Daniel has pneumonia. Right now, I think he's doing ok. He got an antibiotic shot yesterday and he's getting breathing treatments through a nebulizer and oral steroids and antibiotic. We go back tomorrow to see if he is better.

This illness came on SO quickly!! He had a runny nose on Saturday morning and then yesterday, I could tell he wasn't breathing right and we got him in to see the doctor. In the meantime, he had all of the typical cold treatment -- warm bath, Vicks on a kleenex in his pajamas, a steamy bedroom with the help of the vaporiser. But the pneumonia set in, anyway. And he also has two ear infections. Poor kiddo.

While we were at the doc yesterday, I had them check Annalivia out. She has one ear infection. I'm hoping that explains away some of her recent squirrliness.

All of the above meant that Annalivia had a very pre-fab birthday dinner yesterday. We stopped at Kroger and got a rotisserie chicken, bread and some frozen veggie mixes as well as a Pepperidge Farm cake and some strawberries. It was so nice to have dinner mostly made. Dennis' mom came by and we were actually able to have a pretty nice celebration despite a very hectic and trying day of a sick, fussy little guy, office visits and lab work and delayed prescriptions and sleet and snow.

Today, we are staying in. I've got the chicken from last night in a pot on the stove and we're having chicken noodle soup tonight. It smells wonderful and warm in here. Daniel and I are still in pajamas. Annalivia is in ballet gear. Again.

It's a good day.

Afternoon scene

If you were here at our house at this moment, you would see toys all over the place. Annalivia is doing ballet moves to Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy and telling me periodically to "Just feel the music and you'll be fine." Daniel is also dancing -- walking in big circles and laughing and Annalivia and I are laughing with him. And I am wearing Annalivia's styrofoam princess crown and working on Valentine gifts, thinking that a more charmed life cannot be found.

Plastic junk

I have been inspired. Various bloggers have been addressing "disposable thinking" lately. It is a philosophy that has far-reaching effects and can even influence such mundane things as how we present a daily meal to our family. I've been moved to start chipping away at the iceberg in my own mentality and try to begin creating beauty where possible.

So -- today we began phase one with a transition away from cheap plastic junk to glass and various ceramic-type storage stuff. We rounded up all of our plastic storage containers and cheap mixing bowls and will donate them to Goodwill. We replaced them with glass containers. I have a feeling it will be harder to misplace the lid to a glass container. That's my hope, at least.

We also bought a bunch of canisters and mason jars for dry goods. I'm trying to get my pantry a little more organized rather than having half-filled bags of flour and sugar and such all over my cabinet. If I need to cook more, I really need to be able to do it pleasantly.

I think this project will take me into tomorrow, also. But hopefully, I'll emerge with less cluttered cabinets and a cleaner counter. We'll see...

Blizzard

We're supposed to have a blizzard this afternoon.

A BLIZZARD!!!

I take it back. I hate snow.

The day I ruined dinner... again

Last night I ruined dinner. I was making beef and noodles which is a perfect meal for cold weather like we've had. I had a great chuck roast in the pressure cooker. It had cooked for about an hour and smelled just amazingly wonderful. Dennis came home and I released the pressure on the cooker, opened it up and saw a perfectly cooked roast...
on top of a melted plastic pad that butchers stick in the bottom of a styrofoam meat tray.
I really hate to throw away food, but I especially hate to throw away food when it would have been perfectly fine had I not screwed it up.
Ugh.
Tonight I'll have to try to redeem myself.

Recipe: They aren't lyin' -- Best Banana Muffins ever

On Sunday, in the midst of getting to church with potluck food and taking breakfast to eat there and getting home about 10 minutes before Dennis had to leave and go to class, we left a few bananas in the car, where they froze solid.

Because the kiddos and I are trying to be at the church office at least three days a week, I knew we'd need to-go food today, so I made the frozen bananas into muffins following a recipe I found online titled, "Best Banana Muffins." I did not expect them to be fabulous because of their simplicity, but, oh my goodness, are they good! Good enough, in fact, to record for posterity's sake.

Banana Muffins
3 lg. bananas
3/4 c. sugar
2 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1/3 c. melted butter
1 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1 1/4-1 1/2 c. whole wheat flour
Mash bananas; add sugar and slightly beaten egg, then melted butter. Add soda, baking powder, salt and flour. Mix and spoon into greased muffin cups (it does not rise very much) and bake at 375 degrees for 20 minutes. Yields 1 dozen (or so -- mine also made 7 mini-muffins).

The crawling tube

One of the Christmas presents from us to the kids was this nylon crawling tube.
I got it on clearance at Target for $7 at the end of the summer last year. I was worried it might be a waste of money.But, it has proved to be a great gift. The kids love playing in it.

They crawl through one side.

And back again.