A Mural of Massive Proportions

One of my friends was called to be the decorating chairperson for this year's youth conference. It seemed like an easy thing to do, she's very talented and artistic. She decided to do a massive mural. It was 60 feet long by 14 feet tall--a little bigger than the size of a full sized basketball court. It was twenty twin sized flat sheets sewed together in two rows of ten sheets each.

I accepted the invitation to help her paint it. We were going to use rollers and get the big parts done quickly and then put in the detail. Well, the rollers didn't work and we ended up painting every inch by hand--even the part that we originally used the rollers on. It consumed our every waking moment! We dropped off the kids at school and went to paint and then when I got off school at 10pm, we went and painted some more. And when we weren't painting, we were thinking, planning or shopping for it. Totally obsessed with it.

It was great deal of work but it was totally worth it. The picture doesn't do it justice. It was massive and stunning! Totally worth the hours it took get finished. Wow!

My Story

I've dusted off my typing fingers and cleared some of the cobwebs out of my writing talent and started writing again. I try to write 1000 words everyday on this story. So far, so good. I've come to the end of part one and am working on part two. Wade has a good friend, who is now my good friend, who draws and she's been inspiring me to keep going with her drawings of my characters and scenes. It's been so helpful to see my characters in "real life" instead of just in my head. It makes them so much more real and I want to get their story out. This is my favorite picture of the main characters. I hope she doesn't mind me sharing it. Sorry, won't go into it detail about the story here but so far it's nearly 200 pages and only a third of the way through it. Hopefully everyone will be able to read it in print at some point. But I'm not putting any pressure on myself, that's been a blessing when it comes to dealing with my writer's block. If there's no pressure, there's no reason to block. Works so far.

Antonie van Leeuwenhoek

Christopher had to do a fun oral report this year and he decided to do it on the guy who first described invented the microscope and is considered the father of microbiology. It was called Wax Museum. The students memorize their reports and sit or stand on a platform motionless until someone comes along and presses their button. They then come to life and recite their speech.

On the morning of his dress rehearsal, he said, "Mom, where's my costume?" I looked at him dumbfounded and asked, "What costume?" So apparently he had told his dad that he needed a costume and since I've been in school and am gone so much, this was the first I heard of it. Dad, of course, was nowhere to be found that day. So I spent all day shopping and altering a costume for him from a drawing in a Magic School Bus book. It turned out great and only cost $10. Thanks to the cheap foam sheets from the craft store and a pair of pants and a bathrobe from the thrift store that I reconstructed. He looked so cute and got lots of compliments on his costume. It was a great time. He's serious because he was truly getting into his character!

A piercing siren woke us up from our habitual Sunday afternoon nap! I was gathering my writing computer and my manuscript and purse and iPod--you know, the "essentials," when Wade looked outside and then quietly motioned me to take a look. What he saw outside was half the size of the what is in the picture. By the time I got the camera and all, it had grown twofold. I wouldn't be a photographer worth anything if I didn't take the time to risk it all for the sake of getting the picture!

But it was incidental. The power didn't even flicker. We sat downstairs and watched a movie while waiting for the storm to pass. The noise was incredible. It really did sound like the roar of something, like a train or something big like that. And you could hear it over the plink, plink, plink of the penny sized hail. Even downstairs the roar was whistling through the house. And you could tell when it was over because the silence was uncanny.

But like I said, it really wasn't anything. It changed direction and didn't come any closer to us. Hardly any damage, the trees got a haircut and the cars are newly dented but other than that, we were spared any serious damage.

My New Collie!

He he he he he! I got a collie the day after Thanksgiving! I was worried about Anthony's dog allergies but this one is guaranteed to not stir up his allergies. I would have preferred a blue merle but sable is fine. Haven't come up with a name yet but I'm sure it will come soon.

Literal Interpretation

Funny picture for the week. This is Anthony's interpretation of his chore of hanging up his own clothes. Never seen it done that way before.

Mouthfuls of money!

So we found out the week before we were sick that Christopher and Cally need a few thousand dollars of work on their teeth. They have to have $2000 worth of restorative work done on their teeth before we can put $3000 worth of partial braces on their teeth. They each have to have four baby teeth removed to make room for the very large permanent teeth coming in. And when they get to be teenagers, they get a full set of braces to finish the job! Poor Anthony is going to have to have some work done too in a couple of years. The orthodontist actually wishes he had seen the older two earlier and started this earlier. They have a bunch of cavities since their teeth are crooked and touching and that makes the teeth hard to clean and prone to cavities.

I was hoping that they were going to have good teeth since their baby teeth were actually pretty nice. The orthodontist laughed when I told him that and said that that is a good indication that things are going to be not so good when the permanent teeth come in. So we better start saving for Anthony!