Sporty things

We've come to the determination that K-'s breaking away from the gene pool was not such a bad thing for her in regards to her athletic ability.

Girlfriend throws herself into any sport that she tries. 

We put her into gymnastics at the Little Gym from the ages of 2 - 5.  She rolled, tumbled, flipped and balanced.  In the end, she qualified for their special "invitation only" gymnastics class.  We didn't do it, because it was only available one day a week-- Wednesdays at 2 PM.  Still, it was a nice feather for her athletic cap.  I kept the invitation so that she knows how well she did.

She has been in swimming from the ages of 4 - 6.  She paddles, floats, strokes and does everything asked of her.  Truly, the child has more of a swimmer or soccer player build.  We bank on either one for her.

And yes.  There is soccer.  Grant you, the child has had no formal training.  Believe me when we saw her on the field for the first time, you could tell.  She ran the wrong way, had trouble dribbling the ball, didn't realize that you could actually be out-of-bounds.  Today, her second day of soccer, she showed great improvement.  I mean, the child isn't going to go out there and be accepted on the Olympic team right now, but she's got some mad skills. 

Hubs did some sports while growing up.  He lovingly refers to himself as the "third string water boy."  He did football, but warmed the bench.  I believe that there was some Little League, too.  As he didn't excel at sports at a younger age, he enjoys lifting weights and running.  He does very well.  In fact, a couple of weeks ago people kept poking him and hugging him.  I told him that they wanted to see if his muscles really are real. 

Then there is me.  I have not a lick of athletic ability whatsoever.  The running thing?  Yup.  I don't do that unless I'm on fire and even then, I hear you aren't supposed to.  Okay, I should retract the not whatsoever part.  The only sport that I was actually any good at was volleyball.  That was the only sport that when teams were chosen in school, people actually picked me before the very last one.  (Being the very last one, often the team would fight because they were stuck with me.) 

Athletic stuff?  It didn't come from us. 

Smiles in my week off:
-  A gorgeous kitchen floor.
-  Appliances plugged back in.
-  Hubs survived the falafel fall out and has decided that as far as dietary experiments go with his digestiveness, he will not repeat that again.  Never mind that I told him that I thought it was a bad idea to begin with.  I admire the attempt, though.
-  The monarch program that we attended on Saturday.  More on that later.
-  The weather was nice enough to walk all week last week.  The temp went from 94 on Tuesday to 70 on Friday.  Talk about a bit of a shift, but I'm happy to hear the songs of the night critters again. 
-  Though the pictures are in my phone, K- won first place with her little plate of cherry tomatoes at her school's Garden Fair.  She grew the plant from seed herself from one of the Lowe's Build and Grow clinics back in May.  When we went to the building clinic this weekend, we told Mr. Mike and he was thrilled.  Miss Patti was the one to oversee the project and he said that he'd pass the good word on. 
-  A fantastic Chinese restaurant up the street that was our source for dinner for a few nights while the kitchen was out of order.
-  The big water main break in town is not on our line, so we're good.  Not that I'm happy that a main broke, but I'm happy that I still have water!

Have a great day!

Floor!

The kitchen has a floor!  In the photo, you can see the wall and cabinet color, too.  I will have doors off and drawers out for a few weeks (I still have to paint those anyhow) because I want everything to fully cure.  No use in doing all that work and have it get all yucky.

The neighbors-- 3 strapping men-- came to help move the appliances back in place.  The stove was hand carried and the refrigerator was carefully rolled and gently dropped into place.  I don't know what we would have done without Don, Glenn and Mike!

This weekend, in all our spare time outside of church, soccer and my Festival Choir practice, plan on starting to lay the slate at the living room door entrance.  We're rolling with full sized tiles and not doing anything fancy, so that will be straightforward.  We're going with a 3' x 5' pad so that on the off chance we do use that door when it is wet out, there will be more than enough for soggy shoes to remain off the Pergo.

So for now, we have a functional kitchen.  Last evening, we had a hot meal of falafel with a side of wheat bulgar and toasted orzo.  It was nice to eat hot food from my own kitchen! 

The foamy tiles?  They serve as our dining area for now.  We each get a square and have an extra for condiments and so forth.  It's not a bad thing! 

It's coming along.  Hubs has now gone back to work and reports that he is much less busy there than at home.  He did an awesome job, though.  I'm excited to get the rest finished and out of the way!  I can't wait to get my house back!

I am so tired, but I'm going to do a quick post before my husband comes back from his 12th trip to the hardware.

Home improvement.  Well, in our case, it is home wrecking then improvement. 

My living room consists of an unplugged TV that we had to have the neighbor come help move because I kid you absolutely not, it is 200 pounds. 

I have 28 boxes of Berkshire Cherry Pergo flooring and the multiple other things that you need to go with that like an $18.00 dead blow hammer.  You can't use a rubber mallet, nosiree, you have to use the $18.00 dead blow hammer. 

I have an installation kit that took us three stores to find and funny enough, it doesn't include everything you need to install Pergo.

I have my couch, Poppy's table, the 1897 trunk that my Christmas ornaments live in, a stack of slate tile, a 3' x 5' sheet of cement board to put the slate on.  Oh, and all the goo to go with that.

I have my refrigerator, microwave and oven.  Convenient for TV dinners, yes?

So, in 1/2 of my house, we are down to subfloor.  We wear shoes all the time, which is fine.  Happy news is that I have the cabinets (not the doors or drawers) painted and done.  Sadly, even burnishing the delicate surface blue painters tape removed paint from my wall and it also bled underneath.  I'll do dances with touch-up later. 

If we can just get this Pergo down in the kitchen tonight, we will both be very happy.  Believe me, at this point, our nerves need to see some floor on the floor.

ETA:
We gave up the ship at 10 PM.  My in-law's were kind enough to come scoop up K- and take her for the day.  They returned her at about 6:30 PM bathed, fed and tired.  At that point, we had just started laying the floor.  We hadn't gotten the hang of the flipping, sliding and fitting pieces together.  After they left, we became a little more proficient, but had all kinds of tricky cuts to deal with.  (Door jamb, heat vent, cabinets.)  We got about 1/5 of the floor laid and both of us were so tired that we literally were not seeing straight.  We were also out of light, the table saw was in the driveway (we're classy that way) and we wouldn't use the saw past 10 PM because regardless to how loud the Metallica and Alice in Chains was playing earlier, we do realize that folks and kids have to sleep. 

Speaking of, I need to do a bit of that myself.  Excuse me while I'm non-existent on the blog this week.  If something earth shattering happens, I'll let you know.  In the meantime, we'll be reaching for the milk while sitting on the couch. 

Thanks for the words of encouragement.  A bath also helped my mood a bit.  And that we got some flooring down.  And that my husband was totally kissing my butt because I was the one laying the Pergo and he was my cutting guy.  You know, he's really going to miss me tomorrow. We were working great at that teamwork thing.  :)

Haiku Friday: The kitchen floor

Goodbye yucky floor,

1976 gone,

Off to the tree lawn.

Don't worry, the chocolate brown carpet will be going.  The tile and carpeting are original to the 1976 charm that we're doing our best to ditch here at the ole homestead.

Smiles in my day:
- "Mom, I'm glad that I got my teacher and not another one." :)
- Hubs worked so hard on removing the floor today!
- I'm busy fighting allergies or the beginnings of a cold. It has been on a low hover since Monday. Let's hope that it leaves.
- After 5 times through the laundry, I finally got the soup spot out of K-'s brand new pink polo shirt. I might sound like a crazy laundress, which I'll completely admit to, but the neighbor accidentally got a couple of dots of a tomato based soup on K-'s new shirt and it was the hardest stuff to remove!

Have a wonderful weekend. I'll be taking advantage of the extra length and I'll be back on Tuesday. Be safe!

First day of first grade!

We survived our first day of first grade.  I say we because let's face it, the first many years of school are definitely a closely monitored homework relationship between parent and child.  Okay, it should be.

I wished Mrs. S- a warm morning and a very hot afternoon when we arrived.  She laughed, as her open house letter told us that their class is very warm.  The school is older, so it isn't air conditioned.  I woke at 4:22 AM to the weather report stating that we would have a record breaking day and most likely it would be 95 F.  I admit that I got up, wet a clean washcloth and deposited it in the freezer, figuring that K- could cool herself off at lunch if needed.  Her summer bridge tutor suggested this when she was in Mad Science Camp this past July and it worked wonders.  I was worried that the kid would drop from heat exhaustion.

She didn't and I was obviously a bit more concerned than I needed to be.

When we arrived at school, the desk that she chose with her almighty post-it wasn't the one that she had.  (Seemed a little odd, but the desk she has is probably a better fit.)  K- reports that she likes her teacher, loves having her very own desk that she can put her stuff into and she has her own locker.  (With news reports of people sending their children to school with head lice, it made me feel a bit better to have my child's belongings in her own locker.)  She said, "Mommy, Mrs. S- yelled a lot, but she didn't yell at me."  I think that it probably seemed like Mrs. S- was yelling a lot because she uses a microphone, but K- will get used to it.  I listened to her teach every Thursday morning for about 6 months and I knew that she wasn't one to yell.  I knew that she was firm, but she didn't yell when I was within earshot.  (She didn't know I was there.)

At any rate, a new development this year is that 100 book challenge is strictly what the child reads only.  Last year, it was what the child read and what the parent read to them.  Each quarter has a reading goal of 100 steps (15 minutes per step) per child.  That figures out to 6 lines being completed each week.  That's doable and though my husband is thinking that people will be fudging that a bit, when the child is accessed for reading ability, the teacher will be able to tell who was being truthful and who wasn't.

We did walk to school today.  Hubs was able to cruise with us.  K- was up at 6:45 AM.  I have to tell you, that child's feet hit the floor and she was off!  We would love to keep that momentum.  Of course, she rode her trusty hobby horse unicorn, Sparkle, to school.  It was nice to see the smirks and waves from the folks going down the road, on their way to work. 

With that, I'm tired.  My post is disjointed because I had a rather long day. 

Smiles in my day:
-  K- doing so well on her very first day of first grade.  :)

Have a great day!

Wordless Wednesday: The volunteer

A volunteer Rose of Sharon.  A gift from the birds.  The neighbor across the street has the same one, so the seed didn't need to travel that far.  Still, quite a nice delight!

Smiles in my day:

-  Having breakfast with my mama this morning before work. I had intended to visit after work, but Hubs' car repair list lengthened and to take a break, he decided to take his dad to see The Expendables. 

-  Being able to purchase the last 4 Madame Alexander Happy Meal girl toys for K-.  They do sell the toys minus the meals, which is great.  Hubs' family has collected Madame Alexander dolls since my sister-in-law was very young.  They have started K- a collection and each time the MA dolls reappear at McD's, we all work hard to get a full set for each girl.  It's almost like winning the lottery!

-  Doing a trial run on that 6:45 AM bit has been helpful.  Hopefully, it will be helpful for tomorrow. 

Have a great day!

Tales from the Trenches: Elementary Open House

I admit, I was kind of nervous to meet K-'s new teacher.  She had been the 1st grade teacher that I requested for her.  She seems strict, but is a creative teacher.  Her classroom is bright, cheery and very orderly.  (Mrs. H-'s was, too.)  But then, I heard that people either love her or hate her.  I was nervous about the first impression that I would give to her. I can be a little spazy, especially if I'm nervous.

Y'all, she is lovely. 

We popped in as a family to meet her.  She shook all of our hands, passed out the papers and allowed the children to choose where they would like to sit.  They were given a post-it note and allowed to put it on any available desk.  Of course, being the dork parents we are, we encouraged her to sit in the front and Hubs encouraged the seat on the end so that she had room.  ;)

After the crowds died down and my responsibilities as one of the PTA Membership people, I stepped back in to talk to Mrs. S- on my own.  I told her that I wanted to let her know of K-'s reflux.  I warned her that sometimes she knows and sometimes it just hits her.  I told her that she will be able to tell her if she is sick or if it is a reflux thing.  She thanked me for telling her, but she didn't seem freaked out by it. 

I told her that I had signed up as head room parent.  I basically ended up doing the head room parent stuff last year anyhow, so this year will be no different.  I wanted to let her know who to grab if/when she needs.

I feel good. 

When I came home after the festival of "We'd love to have you join," I read over the class papers that Mrs S- sent home.

Y'all, she runs a VERY tight ship. 

I knew that and that was part of the reason we requested her.  We went over the class rules with K- so that she knows what Mrs. S- expects.  I can tell you that one of the children from K-'s class last year is in her class this year.  He will be having a very difficult time adhering to Mrs. S-'s standards.  K- even brought that up.  I told her that perhaps D- will have different behavior this year.  (This was the child who would just get up, walk about the room and decide to do or not to do any particular task given.)  K- was not disciplined once last year and having gone over what is expected of her, ever the child eager to please those in authority, she'll do just fine. 

Hubs' comment in walking about the room was, "Quite a change from last year, huh?"  (Remember my heart attack?)  Big, bright, beautiful, spacious and an environment that encourages learning. 

My heart is happy and ready to start first grade.  I'm thrilled to say that K- feels the same. 

Smiles in my day:
-  Mom came home Sunday afternoon and is doing well.  She's taking it day-by-day and I have a breakfast date for her in the AM.
-  Hubs got his car fixed, despite the heat rising into the 90's.  (We have no garage.)  I can't imagine how much money he saved us.  Believe me, I've thanked him profusely.

Have a great day!