Sunday 20 April 2014

A long two weeks

 1.  It's been kind of a miserable two weeks.  Sorry to be such a downer on Easter.  Ah well, here's hoping the next two will be better.

2.  I've been really busy, with appointments, kindergarten registration, Isabel had tests to get into the TWI Spanish program, and stuff like that--I REALLY don't like being busy.  And next week Isabel and Sebastian start swimming lessons in the early afternoon.  Hopefully Nicolas handles his nap schedule being postponed okay.

3.  Our computer died.  I took it to the Apple store and they cleaned up something and that helped for one day and then it died again.  It was making weird chirping noises, and we couldn't access the desktop, it froze and basically was useless.  Luckily--or through Leo's prayers for my sanity more like it--it lasted long enough for me to prepare my sewing handouts for that week's class.  They take a surprising amount of work to prepare, because I try to be as concise as possible when explaining something, but still make it completely clear what the steps are.  Anyway, it lasted just that long and died to a non-usable state.  Leo took it back to the Mac store and they reinstalled our whole system.  ONLY in the process of this happening we also discovered that our external hard drive that we had our Time Machine backups on was corrupted and completely unusable as well.  So we have NONE of our programs--Adobe suite (I CAN'T LIVE without you!), Microsoft office suite, Mac Pages, ITunes, IPhoto and the whole Mac suite are all gone.  Because I learned my lesson last year, I still have all my files, pictures, videos, family history etc, because that is backed up on still another external hard drive.  However, we'll probably need to buy Disk Warrior or something similar to check through all those files, to make sure none of them are corrupted.  I think we've just being passing the same corrupted files to our computer each time it dies when we reload our stuff.  Anyway, we bought another external hard drive and sent it to my parents so they can do a Time Machine backup of their computer and then they'll mail it to us so we can get all the programs I can't live without back.  :)  That's happy at least.
 4.  Leo is my hero!   He got my automatic ruffler on my sewing machine to work.  Seriously, I finished 2 hours worth of ruffles in about 10 minutes!  Amazing!  It took me almost an hour and half just to pin the ruffles on the skirt.  That's how many ruffles I'm talking about.

5.  Despite all the time saved with the ruffles, I did not finish the girls' Easter dresses in time for Easter.  They are now officially Spring dresses.
6. The main reason I didn't finish the dresses is because of this little man.  Nicolas had a low fever on Wednesday, which is usually my day to finish hand sewing things.  I sew and chat with my friends while the kids play at playgroup at the park in the morning for 2-3 hours.  And then I sew while the kids play at the park during Elena's soccer practice in the evening.  I usually can get a lot done.  However, all I did this past Wednesday was hold Nicolas the. entire. time.  Poor boy.  I wouldn't normally have cared at all except I did want to finish the dresses for Easter.  Anyway, Thursday was pretty much the same with me holding Nicolas 24/7.  Literally 24/7.  Then on Friday his mouth broke out in sores all over and he's hungry and tries to eat but he can barely manage bread.  It's sooooo sad.  I think he has Hand, Foot and Mouth disease.  We've been giving him bread and milk and pedialyte frozen pops, and while I've been able to finish the dresses during his naps to the point where Isabel's only needs buttonholes and Elena's needs some--well, a LOT--of hand sewing, I haven't been able to work on them at all when he's awake.  Right now, I'm typing this during his nap while the rest of the family is at church.  
7.  I did make Easter cupcakes for FHE on Monday.  Megan--you inspired me!!!  We took some to our neighbors too.

8.  Friday the kids decorated Easter eggs, but I forgot to take pictures.  Last year I remember their interest only lasted 20 minutes and I spent another 30 minutes decorating them.  This year was much different, the kids spent quite a while dying them.  Only I had bought some decorations last year after Easter that I quickly regretted as it involved me applying the decorations instead of them because they were too difficult and fiddley.  Oh well.  They had fun.

9.  Ana went to her first stake dance on Friday night.  She said she had fun.  That's all she told me.

10.  Saturday morning we went to a pancake breakfast and Easter egg hunt at the church.  The YW were doing it as their fundraiser for girls' camp.  They also had a silent auction and bake sale.  Ana made a little girl's apron for the auction.  I wish I would have a got a picture of it, it was really cute.  She also made a cake for the bake sale.  My little kids were enthusiastic about meeting the Easter bunny before and after they met her (one of the YW) but not at all during.  Hee. Hee.  They went cautiously up to take a picture only after a lot of encouragement.  And we practically missed the Easter Egg hunt!  Note to self, 15 minutes late is too late when it comes to an Easter Egg hunt.

11.  Leo finished the gallery shelves and they are up on the wall!  I really like them, although the wood is much darker than the rest of the wood in the room.  I think the day I stained them it was too hot and humid and I used a stain that had the stain and polyacrylic finish in one and it just gooped up instead of spreading thinly.  If I could have got a thinner coat (I did in some places) the wood would have matched much better.  I'll never buy the stain and finish in one again, I just think it works and looks so much nicer when you do the steps separately and you have so much more control over how much stain you're using.  Also, kids blowing dandelion seeds around recently stained wood does nothing for your finish.  Trust me, I know.  And it's worth it to buy expensive brushes instead of the $1 ones, because trying to pick out bristles doesn't help the finish look nice either.  Anyway, they're done and up on the wall and despite the problems of staining and restaining them, I like them a lot!

12. Isabel's been sick too, but with a cough and fever, no mouth sores yet.  I really hope none of my other kids get sick.

13. The nice weather of Houston is officially over.  Yesterday I went out to water my flowers, (my roses and poppies are blooming!  I love it!)  and I was bitten 7 times by mosquitos.  Eight months till we're mosquito free again.  :(

14.  Okay, I couldn't end at thirteen on such an unhappy note.  In good news, Leo heard from a company he would really like to work for and is now in the application process for a job in Denver!  Yeah!  We thought it was Evans, CO first, which would have been nicer, but still Denver is much, much closer to family, which is why we want to move anyway.        :)

2 comments:

Kayli said...

Poor Lando :(
Poor computer :(
Hope everyone gets well!

Lindsay Ann Rasmussen said...

Jack had hand foot mouth what..2 hers ago? MISERABLE!! And then I think he got another strain of it this year, but not near as bad…Hope lando gets better soon!