IT'S ABOUT ME, MY BOYS AND A LITTLE CRAFTING THROWN INTO THE MIX!
With this amazing February weather we have been enjoying…in the 70’s…we have started dreaming of getting back into the pool, so Jason and I went out to sit by it the other day.
The water is from all the rain and snow. Unfortunately, it sounds as if it will be all frozen over again by this weekend with a fresh coat of snow. Nature is such a tease!
Today we are wishing a BIG happy Birthday to
Jason’s Grandma Darlene who is 101 years old!!
Happy Birthday to you!!For those of you who have asked about how Jack is doing, thanks! Last week, the flu hit him hard. He got sick on Tuesday night…one moment he was good, then the next time he was sick and I mean sick! (Yuck!!)
(Laying close to the bathroom)
But, the bonus was that Jason was actually home! I think this is the first time he has been home when Jack got the flu, in years…seriously! Anyway, Jack slept all day on Wednesday due to a fever. He was up from 1:30-4:45 in the afternoon and then slept until Thursday morning!
Thursday he laid in bed and watched movies. Such as old Scooby Doo movies that sucked me in too! Who was the real abominable snowman?
Friday he actually got up and about in small bouts, but his fever came back on Friday night…so back to bed and he slept hard!! Saturday morning he woke up and said, “I fell like myslef again!” Phew!!
Right now I think it would be safe to come to our house…everything is sanitized, wiped down, essential oils out and being applied and we have lots of soap for hand-washing!! Thank goodness for warm weather for airing out the house and in my world, opening windows kills all germs!
So this happened…
Yep. We have the stomach flu in our house. Jack got it. The dreaded and hated stomach flu which means throwing up. Yuck. Like Sam said, “No one likes to throw up,” as he was washing his hands for the 100th time (me too!) Yesterday, Jack spent the day in bed sleeping due to a fever. I have washed and disinfected as much as possible.
Cross fingers that it doesn’t spread to anyone else.
This is Jack’s Valentine box. Just in case you were wondering, it’s Chewbacca from Star Wars. Jack had his “Friendship” party on Friday, hence the Valentine’s in the mouth.
I found his Valentine box set up on Saturday morning, like me. My favorite mug and my phone. I just hope that I’m not THAT hairy!
I try (oh do I try) to keep up with the latest technology that the boys are using, but boy is that hard. The latest one I am tackling is Snapchat. Sam showed me (which involved him sharing information in about 47 seconds) and then I suddenly understood how my parents felt when I taught them how to do things on their computers!
So without going on and on about what exactly Snapchat is and does, I will just share you some of my “snaps!”
This is my first Snap from Sam. Yep…it’s just a random quick picture. The “7” in the corner is how many seconds I have until the snap disappears.
There are also different photo things you can do to/with your face. These are Jack’s favorite and I receive many a day.
This is a snap from Sam showing me he is still at his bb game. No words needed, so I guess it is just easier to communicate.
This is me with one of the photo edits. I need a neck lift.
Oops…this isn’t a Snapchat, it’s me Face Timing Jack!! I was downstairs and he was upstairs. The generation of super lazy!
Using Snapchat with my friends allows them to tell me about events that I am not at. Sam had a Basketball game in Mason City this weekend that we were not able to attend, so we kept up with Snaps!!
She also sent me one of Sam playing!
More from Jack…
My sister-in-law and I Snap frequently which is actually a great way to keep in touch! Here she is in Mexico..rubbing it in with each Snap.
Sent a quick “Good Luck” snap to Sam while he was on the basketball bus. got this one back from him. (I actually think this picture is pretty darn cool!)
So basically, Snapchat is a fun way to text other people. What I love about it is that you get pictures, too….another way to document little stories!
Oh dear. I just totally stressed myself out..more pictures to scrapbook! UGH!!
We were at a get together the other night and Jack came up to me,
“Mom, do I have a bloody nose?” And sure enough, he did!
I believe everything is so dry, which caused his bloody nose. Not a bad one, just a trickle out of the nose, which I think Jack thought (just a bit) was cool. Later he told me, “Mom, I will always remember my first bloody nose was on Super Bowl Sunday!”
Jack always looks on the bight side of things!
This weekend we had to clean out our basement and when I say clean out, I mean we moved everything out. Why? Because we are starting project #501, (ugh) finishing the rest of the basement.
Thank goodness over Thanksgiving I had already gone through most everything, so we just needed to move items and boxes out of the basement.
Anyway, I came across a box with all the boys school and sports photos. I decided to lay them all out to double check I actually had a picture for each school year.
Then I got the sniffles. Realizing how fast time passes.
These are Sam’s school pictures…
Three year old and four year old preschool
Kindergarten and First Grade
Second and Third Grade
Fourth and Fifth Grade (year of the shaved head!)
Sixth and Seventh
Eighth Grade and Freshman (He grew up so much in between these years)
Jack’s School Pictures
3 year old and 4 year old preschool (So sweet!!)
Kindergarten and First Grade (love the tie)
Second and Third Grade 
Fourth and Fifth Grade (This one SO shows his personality!!)
Such good memories at all of those ages, but I really can’t believe how fast the time has gone by. Everyone has always told me to enjoy, it will fly. So true.
We moved on to our next remodel phase of our house…the room we refer to as the sun-room. We refer to it as the sun room because it yellow and has the most sun due to the room being all windows. It is also one of our favorite rooms! We love to be out there, but it just needed to be updated to match the rest of the house.
This is one of our most “challenging” areas. Everyone comes through the garage door and dumps their stuff right by the door. As you can see, we have an antique wardrobe, but it doesn’t have any shelves, so everything ends up at the bottom of this closet. The coat stand catches ALL the coats and ends up looking like a mound of coats and fabric.
I have tried lots of different things to cure this problem, but things still end up in piles. Even baskets (the red ones) one for Sam’s winter items and one for Jack’s winter items…yea. No luck. See the hat on the floor…right beside the red bucket.
To help with this issue, we are building an entry way shelfing unit that will be the length of the entire wall. It will be something like the picture below. There will not be drawers across the entire bottom row, but open areas for shoes!! This will be close to the color, but the light brown panel area will be a dark brown that will match the barn door.
Yep, another thing we will be adding is a sliding barn door between this room and the kitchen. It will cut down on the noise travel!
We have tried in other parts of the house to add a barn door, so we are super excited to finally get one! (it will look kind of like this..)
We replaced the black windows and the sliding glass door, with white windows and a grated sliding door.
We noticed that with the new white windows and light gray walls, the outside view is actually what you see and focus on!
The most exciting part for me is the ceiling. The current ceiling is a popcorn texture. Instead of redoing the ceiling, we decided to put up plank boards! It doesn’t photograph easily, but you get the idea. 
The boards are white washed so it shows all the little knots through the stain (love!)
A close up of the boards.
This has all been completed in two weeks even with a few set backs (well of course!) Will post more pictures as things move along! We hope to have it completed in 2-3 weeks and then down to the basement…phase 404!
I have finished a couple “quick reads” the last couple of weeks.
Let me share…
Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
From Amazon:
An award-winning memoir and instant New York Times bestseller that goes far beyond its riveting medical mystery, Brain on Fire is the powerful account of one woman’s struggle to recapture her identity.
When twenty-four-year-old Susannah Cahalan woke up alone in a hospital room, strapped to her bed and unable to move or speak, she had no memory of how she’d gotten there. Days earlier, she had been on the threshold of a new, adult life: at the beginning of her first serious relationship and a promising career at a major New York newspaper. Now she was labeled violent, psychotic, a flight risk. What happened?
In a swift and breathtaking narrative, Susannah tells the astonishing true story of her descent into madness, her family’s inspiring faith in her, and the lifesaving diagnosis that nearly didn’t happen. “A fascinating look at the disease that . . . could have cost this vibrant, vital young woman her life” (People), Brain on Fire is an unforgettable exploration of memory and identity, faith and love, and a profoundly compelling tale of survival and perseverance that is destined to become a classic.
I read this review on Amazon and it sums up exactly what I was thinking:
What makes this book so terrifying is its reality. Witnessing Susannah’s decent into her bizarre illness is effing frightening, but what’s even more disconcerting is that people throughout history have probably suffered from her condition but have been misdiagnosed as autistic, schizophrenic, or even possessed. This type of autoimmune disorder is becoming more identifiable, but much about it still remains a mystery, especially since the broad range of symptoms so resemble mental illness.
Susannah story is amazing, due to how the doctors finally diagnos what was really happening with her brain, that she wasn’t crazy, wasn’t bi-polar, wasn’t a recovering alcoholic. It is also scary due to how she was lucky to have the proper diagnosis while many people are institutionalized due to improper diagnosis, and that it could happen to anyone.
While she was in the throws of the disease, Susannah actually had to piece the story together by doing interviews of the doctors, nurses and people around her because she remembers nothing during that time. The insights and notes that her friends and family share with her during this time, add to the gut wrenching heart break that those who love her endure and to the story itself.
I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
The second book that I finished is called The Girl Before by Rena Olsen
From Good Reads:
In this powerful psychological suspense debut, when a woman’s life is shattered, she is faced with a devastating question: What if everything she thought was normal and good and true . . . wasn’t?
Clara Lawson is torn from her life in an instant. Without warning, her home is invaded by armed men, and she finds herself separated from her beloved husband and daughters. The last thing her husband yells to her is to say nothing.
In chapters that alternate between past and present, the novel slowly unpeels the layers of Clara’s fractured life. We see her growing up, raised with her sisters by the stern Mama and Papa G, becoming a poised and educated young woman, falling desperately in love with the forbidden son of her adoptive parents. We see her now, sequestered in an institution, questioned by men and women who call her a different name—Diana—and who accuse her husband of unspeakable crimes. As recollections of her past collide with new revelations, Clara must question everything she thought she knew, to come to terms with the truth of her history and to summon the strength to navigate her future.
That catches you attention, doesn’t it! Well, it takes about 100 pages to figure out what is going on. You know it’s not good, you know it’s not legal, you think you might have an idea, but I was never 100% sure what was “officially” happening, until they finally told me! Also, in the first 100 pages, Clara does not talk to anyone and that gets old…yep, we understand that you aren’t going to talk…yep, got it…okay, not going to talk.
Also, the chapters flip back and forth from then and now. At times, you need to pay attention to the “then” because it is not told in chronological order, but order of importance to what is happen in the “now” chapters.
After the first 100-140 pages, it gets going, but it is very dark. Some books I just cannot read or stomach, especially when it comes to abduction/cruelty to children, extreme manipulation, degradation, sex trafficking, brain-washing and willful ignorance, and yes, this book does have all that, which was why this book was a tough read at times
Though, I must say that the character in the book, Clara does not understand that these things/act/happenings are not “normal”, due to having grown up in this manner and knowing nothing else (though at times, she does question what is happening around her.) So, what do you do, when you start to realize that such things are not normal, but actually cruel acts and the people enforcing and doing these acts deserve to be punished themselves. So, the book actually takes on a survivor story. Again, just to warn you, it is a dark book, but I would give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Side note: the author lives in Des Moines!