Author - Lorri

Small Changes

I’ve been kind of busy lately, decorating WebKinz Rooms planning and executing end of the school finales in ballet, Girl Scouts and language arts.  Not to mention the potty training, which is going quite well.

I’ve also been working on a variety of little Corners of My Home, changing them from cluttered to functional and pretty.  Before I share the pictures with you, let me tell you about the most important thing I learned when my friend Jen came to help me declutter.  She taught me to pull everything out of a space – everything off a shelf, out of the drawer, dump out the bin or bucket.  You can’t do the job right if you try to leave everything where it is and pick and choose what stays or goes.  This has made a huge difference for me.  Before I might have looked at a space and say, oh here’s two or three things that need to go.  Now, when I see a space cleared out and I have to justify putting each item back, I can really see how much better I can do.  So with this new technique, here are the spaces I’ve been working on lately.

First, my bakers rack.

Top two shelves before:

and after:

Bottom shelves before:

and after:

Crowded medicine cabinet before:

and after.  Everything expired got tossed, duplicates were stored elsewhere unless the current bottle was close to empty.

And Phase 1 of the computer desk, the shelves.  Shelf 1 and 2 before:

and after:

Shelves 3 and 4 before:

and after:

Here is where the emptying out all the shelves at once really helped.  It was easy to look at those shelves and think everything was neat enough and we could always find what we wanted.  But when it was all emptied out on to the desk, I had this stack of software:

Yikes.  I took no prisoners.  I had Philip buy small CD binders on the way home from work while I emptied the jewel cases and boxes.  I pulled out all the inserts stuck them all in one envelope, labeled and stored it.  I wrote key codes right on the CDs with a Sharpie marker.  Every single CD went into one of 4 binders.  There are now 2 program disc binders, one for pictures and one for the children’s programs.  I pulled the children’s school software out of their binder and put it into a jewel case that holds 4 CDs.    So here’s the software situation now.  Every single thing in the above picture is contained in this:

You can see the binders sitting on the shelf in one of the pictures above.  Much, much better.  All those boxes and hard plastic jewel cases got thrown away.  I saved a couple of the softer plastic cases, the ones that don’t crack easily, in case I need to travel with a disc of any kind.   A bunch of the CDs didn’t even belong with the computer and got moved to the stereo.

So there you have it.  Just a little bit of love and time produces a much, much better situation.

Utter-nun Sock

Two year old Bip says “uttern-nun” for “another one”. If he wants two cookies, he’ll ask for a cookie for his “utter-nun hand”. If he can only find one shoe, he’ll say he’s looking for his “utter-nun shoe.” And look, I made an utter-nun sock!

You all cracked me up in the comments about my first sock, by the way.

I used Knitting Pure and Simple’s Beginner Socks with worsted yarn.  This is my second or third attempt at learning to make socks.  I couldn’t figure out what was wrong until I learned a couple of days ago that my first pattern  was full of errors.  I located the corrections easy enough, but that pattern was the only one in the whole book that I had to download 2 whole pages for.  Not good when you’re attempting your first sock.

Honestly, socks are easy.  As long as your pattern is accurate, that is.  Despite my best intentions not to maintain a stash of yarn, I have a nice selection of sock yarns that are calling me.  They are going to have to get in line behind a whole slew of utter-nun knitting projects.  My friends keep getting pregnant and their babies need handknits from yours truly.  It’s a little scary the number of people I know who are having babies.  Something’s in the air here.  Do not read anything into that sentence. I avoid going outside, remember, so I don’t breathe the air.  Besides, I just don’t have time to knit for any more little people.

My Pride and Joy

Says Boo this morning, “I’m getting so good at keeping my underwear clean that I only have to change it on bath nights!”

This is significant because the boy does not shower every day.

Sigh. That explains why his clean underwear is still in the laundry room, waiting to be folded and put away. I guess he didn’t need them.

Almost Famous

I have a friend who works for a major news agency.  Their website was launching a new feature about busy moms and one of their first articles was going to be about traveling with children.  My friend recommended me to the writer since I’m an expert at traveling with children.

Really?  Who knew?

Apparently, I once sent my friend a multi-page treatise on the Lessons Learned While Traveling with Our 3 Month Old Son.  Imagine, me – going on and on about my new-found knowledge.  Shocking, isn’t it?

So, lo these many years later, I found myself being interviewed over the phone about traveling with children.  The night before, Philip and I had sat down and brainstormed our best tips.  At this point, we have traveled all over the world with our children.  We’ve crossed the International Date Line 4 times with the two older ones, we’ve traveled by car, by train, by airplane.  I’ve been pregnant for a good portion of the trips and we’ve had all sorts of experiences, good and bad.  While we’ve never considered ourselves to be experts, certainly, we do have lots to say about the subject.

I wrote down my main points that I wanted to cover and 10 minutes before I expected the phone call, I sent my children upstairs.  I gave them instructions that on pain of death, they were not to come downstairs.  No screaming, yelling, hitting, biting, or throwing.  Don’t make each other mad.  Don’t touch each other.  Don’t look at each other and don’t even breathe in each other’s space.  For the love of all things holy – don’t bother me during this phone call.

So the phone rings and the interview begins.  I give the correct spelling of my name and brief family history, including travel experience.  I answer the questions intelligently, giving examples and personal anecdotes to illustrate my points.  Thank God I had written my thoughts down because it was hard to concentrate with all the screaming going on upstairs.

The writer was appreciative and enthusiastic over all I had to say.  She told me that the article was due to run on June 2nd.  She said she’d probably call back later in the week after she’d typed up her notes.  She never called me back.

That should have been my first clue that something was up.  Just this morning I remembered that the article should be up on the website by now.  I Googled my name.  Nothing.  I went right to the news agency’s website and found the link to their Busy Moms articles.  I found the story about traveling with a baby or toddler.

If you’re an actor who gets cut out of a movie, it’s called ending up on the cutting room floor.  What do you say when you’re an “expert” that gets left out of an article?  Well, whatever it’s called, that would be me.

The writer decided to go with real experts.  She quoted an author and a director of an internet parenting site, both of whom had shockingly similar advice as I did.   I guess that I, with my four children and thousands of miles of actually flying experience with them, lacked credibility.  Not that I’m bitter, of course.  I’m just saying.

I did get mentioned, though! My entire wealth of travel tips was reduced to 2 sentences about how Pumpkin Girl once threw up all over Philip on one of our flights to Korea.

At least my name was spelled right.

Anxious Days

I hate summer storms. Let’s be perfectly clear about this. I hate them. I know there is a whole group of people out there who love them. They love the way the rain refreshes the earth and breaks up the humidity while the gentle roll of thunder can be heard in the distance. Children grab rain boots and umbrellas and splash in puddles. Mom puts up her feet on the porch and reads a book. Yeah, I like those storms, too, but that’s not what I’m talking about.

I’m talking about severe thunderstorms. The kind that cause watches and warnings to be issued. The kind which are capable of producing strong winds, hail and tornadoes. Tornadoes terrify me. I live in a house with no basement, that is rumored to have no foundation and whose only interior room is a 3 foot by 3 foot bathroom.

The threat of severe weather puts my stomach into knots. I fret and pace and monitor the weather channel. I become crabby and tense. I may even round up shoes, my purse and some blankets and put them in the hallway next to bathroom in case we need to take cover. I try to talk myself back from the edge, telling myself that while our area does get frequent, often daily, severe thunderstorms that may cause some damage, and that tornadoes are possible, they are very rare here. And the one or two that have touched down in the DC Metro area have been small and short. Mostly. In the 5 total years we’ve lived here, we have not once ever gone to an actual tornado warning. But still, I worry.

Our forecast will hold the possibility of thunderstorms almost every day until the mid-Fall. It’s hard for me to relax and make plans to be away from the house, knowing that at any moment the weather is going to go to hell in a hand-basket. Yes, these are anxious days for me. Time to lay in a supply of chocolate.

note: As soon as I finished this blog post, the weather alert on my computer informed me that we are now under a tornado watch until 8 pm.  That’s 7 hours for me to worry about.  Lovely.

Short Break

I’ve got a bad cold that’s sapping all my energy, so I’m taking a blogging break for the next couple of days.  I’ll be back in a bit.

Behold!

And with the yarn came power. She sat down and did knit with the yarn and with needles. The needles were double pointed and they were in number, 4. She knit with the yarn and with the needle and when her time of knitting was brought to an end, she brought forth her first hand knit sock. And it was good.

We Remember…

On this Memorial Day, I am re-posting this piece I wrote about Colonel Brian Allgood, who was killed in Iraq. It was originally posted January 25, 2007.

riderless-horse.jpgWe have been blessedly untouched by the fatalities from the war in Iraq. Yesterday, we found out that someone we knew had been killed in the Blackhawk crash on January 20th. He wasn’t really a friend, not even an acquaintance. Not a co-worker or a neighbor. He was the commander of the hospital in Yongsan, South Korea when our Rebecca died.

While the rest of the hospital gave us the run around, passed the buck and otherwise treated us quite poorly, COL Brian Allgood did the opposite. He invited us to sit down and talk with him personally about all that had happened. He made sure we were kept informed throughout the investigation. He told us to call him if we needed anything. In many ways, he was just doing his job, but in those darkest weeks of our lives, he showed us a compassion that was lacking in the lower levels of the hospital administration. A few months later, when a good friend’s daughter needed emergency surgery and blood transfusions to save her life, COL Allgood was again the voice of calm and comfort. He went out of his way to make sure that things were handled correctly.

Our remaining time in Korea without Becca was a series of struggles with the hospital. We did have to call COL Allgood for help and he immediately fixed the situation. I cannot begin to tell you what that meant to us.  This is not the time to drag up painful memories of broken system.  It is a time to remember the good that one man did and to honor his memory.  Sadly, I don’t know much about him, other that he leaves a wife and a young son. If we had ever seen him again, I knew I wanted to thank him for all that he had done for us in Korea.  I’m sorry I will never have that chance.

Oh joy

Look what we got yesterday.

It goes along with these:

Oh yes, it’s time for the joys of warmer weather – bug bites, skinned knees, 90% humidity and potty training. Try to contain yourself.

It occurred to me at the beginning of the month that we are going to Disneyworld in 6 months. Six short months and wouldn’t it be nice to have no one in diapers! Of course, that means more frequent potty stops and the potential for embarrassing accidents, but I’ll risk it.

Boo wasn’t too hard to potty train. It was also Spring and Summer time and he likes to please. We did get off to a rough start, though. Maybe it was my inexperience as a first time potty trainer. Or it could have been that Boo doesn’t like to do anything unless he knows he’ll succeed, so he was slow to warm to the potty. Plus, our downstairs bathroom was a bit far for a toddler to reach in a hurry. So we set up shop right in the living room. With a little Playhut pop up “room” and a potty chair, it was like having an outhouse in the house. We didn’t have many people over. Boo spent the summer without pants and he figured it out soon enough. We didn’t stress too much and by the time he turned 3 in early Fall, he was done.

Pumpkin Girl was a lot easier, of course. Like the typical little sister, she both admires her big brother and is determined to out do him. She told us she wanted to wear underwear like Boo and we told her she could if she learned to use the potty. A week later she was dry all day and sporting Hello Kitty underwear. She was 2 years and 4 months old.

She reads above grade level, too, the little over achiever.

As for Bip, that remains to be seen. He really, really, really likes his new underwear. His best friend is in underwear almost all day. Our bathroom is very close. However, he is extremely silly and very independent, which could take him far – but in which direction?

So we’ve got all the equipment in place, including a spray bottle of Mrs. Meyers and a cleaning rag for the inevitable accidents (like the one that happened while I was typing), and now we wait and encourage and smile and clean.

Wish us luck!

Baby Hat

I took a break from knitting to finish up a crocheted baby hat.  This is for the same friend that I made the duck bootees for.  Here it is, being modeled by Pumpkin the Doll who is about the size of a 8 or 9 month old baby.

Pumpkin wasn’t cooperating and wouldn’t lean forward so you can get the whole affect.  It’s an aviator cap with a bill that is flipped up and tacked into place.  Oh wait, here’s the book the pattern is in.  Now you can see it better.

That baby on the cover totally sold the book for me!  I made the same hat for Bip a couple of years ago.  It’s a really fast and easy project, took me two nights to finish it, not including the time waiting for a second ball of yarn to arrive in the mail.  I started the second hat with leftovers from the first hat and ran out halfway through.   I just found out that one of my cousin’s is going to have a baby boy, so I think another one of these hats in order.

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