Picturation

So you wanna see some pictures from the photo shoot yesterday? I won't show you a ton, just a few faves. Jen did some fine work. We missed Katie, though. I got to use Jen's camera (which brought on a severe case of camera envy).









heehee! I am the only one not looking.

Mike had a LOT of fun goofing off, and since I was manning (or womaning) the camera, I took some pictures of him doing it. Jen was oblivious. Click on the picture for a closer look!

Say Cheese

Today is family-minus-Katie picture day. I'll be sad that Katie isn't there to be in the pictures, but she has to be where she is, all grown up and dealing with grown up things.

Jen (of Hawleyfocus) will be taking the pictures. We've not had a real family portrait type thing in a long time, other than that other time Jen took our pictures in Mom's back/front yard.

Yesterday was a vacant day, one of those few in the year when there is nothing on the calendar and you end up doing whatever you want with no limits. I did have to take Jimmy to work and we upgraded our phones, but that was it. I didn't have to cook for any meal because of leftovers. It was a very relaxing day. I refuse to do the Black Friday thing. I treat the SAVE BIG BUCKS ON DOORBUSTERS sales like I do the lottery: I'll end up not getting what I want no matter what so I might as well not participate. And I don't want to fight the insane crowds (Wal-Mart employee trampled to death?) in the wee hours of the day. No thank you. I'm mostly done with Christmas shopping anyway. Not much to get this year, anyway. Katie, Jimmy, and Paul have very specific (and expensive) wants (one want each) and that leaves just Hayley and Matt.

That's it for today. See you tomorrow. That's the last day of the NaBloPoMo. I might take a break of a day or two after that, we'll see. Posting every day is easy for me, but I could have gone without posting today and tomorrow.

massive T-day picture dump because I have nothing else to post about

Yes, we had a fabulous Thanksgiving. Yes, we missed you if you weren't there.

On to the pictures:
Some of the kids at the kids' table.
Owen has his own kids' table.Jen in the kitchen. I noticed going through my pictures that the two other sisters-in-law managed to avoid the camera (or I missed them). I'll have to do better at Christmas. Marissa and Steph, I WILL get you on camera next time! Oh, I also missed Jim, although you can see his shirt in this picture.
Mike grills some bacon-wrapped pheasant pieces. Yummy!
Mike and Dave laugh at something. I'm usually out of the loop on their funnyisms, but I do like to listen to the stories.
Jake and Mom deal with the root vegetables. Another yummy!
Paul is a good dish dryer after the dinner.
Long after dinner but before any of us were even remotely hungry, we sat around the organ bench and watched Brian Regan's DVD "The Epitome of Hyperbole" on Mom's little portable DVD player. She doesn't have a DVD player with her TV.
Mike shows off his new skillz. Yes, he's knitting. Are you knitting your next jumpsuit?
Jimmy laughs at a Brian Regan joke.
Two little girls look for Black Friday deals.
Dog cousins, Lucy and Lily.

Ten Things I am Thankful for other than the things I've already mentioned

1. I am thankful for cold weather. People complain about it, but I like it. I like piling on the blankets at night. I would have the windows cracked open a little at night in all temps except the below zeroes, just so I could sleep under 100 pounds of quilts. Yes, I get cold, and I want to warm up when I'm cold, but I don't complain about it. I like cold weather. I hate hot weather. Summer is my least favorite season.
2. I am thankful for photographs. I am surrounded by thousands of them at the moment. Someday I will convert them all to jpeg files so they will be more permanent. I enjoy reliving old times, seeing just how thin I was, seeing how little the kids used to be, remembering old wallpaper or old houses.
3. I am actually thankful for my cats, the little selfish fur factories. They shed, they demand food, they act like they own the place, but I know at night when I need a little cuddle, I can get either one of them to sit on my chest if I pull up my yellow and blue quilt. Usually it will be Servo who jumps up, but Magic has done it before. Anyway, I pet my kitty and although I have to yell at him to get his tail, kitty butt, or head out of my face, I get a certain calmness from petting my kitty (and I get a stuffed up nose and itchy eyes. Can't beat that... and which leads me to my next thankful thing:)
4. I am thankful for doctoring. I am grateful for the knowledge and understanding doctors have of asthma and how to treat it, otherwise, I might not have a Hayley. And for the knowledge and understanding of allergic reactions, pregnancy, head injuries, flu, rashes, broken bones, sprained muscles, crushed fingers, and everything else we have been to the doctor for.
5. I am thankful for hobbies, like reading, knitting, stamping, that make life fun.
6. I am thankful for getting over things. Yes, I can be hurt and offended, but if I give myself a little time, I'll get over it. In the words of a friend of mine, eventually, "it's all good." And I hope people do the same for me. I'm still amazed at the getting-over-it I and a few others did recently. Life is better when a dark area in one's life is made light.
7. I am thankful for soup. I like soup. I have used up many leftover veggies to make soup. Soup is a great blanket for the innards on a cold day. Some notable favorites: split pea, taco, chicken and black bean, minestrone, and the freezer dump soup I make with whatever I find in the ice box.
8. I am grateful for texting/cell phones so that children living far away from me can still seem like they are close by.
9. I am grateful for games. I bond over board games. I love Trivial Pursuit, Boggle, Settlers of Catan, Scrabble, Monopoly, Life, Sorry, Apples to Apples, and even Candyland. I especially love playing with all my kids. Everyone seems to have a good time and the mild trash talk causes much laughter (which I am also thankful for).
10. I am glad for blogging which allows me to have an excuse to write lists of ten things like this.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Getting there

I can't believe it, the Great Room Switch is almost complete!

This morning, I got up at 8 to get the last 75 pounds of trash from the boys' old room. And then I vacuumed until the big yellow Dyson cried UNCLE!

And this is the result.

This is the other corner.They boys still need to get a few things off the walls and then the walls will need a vigorous scrubbing (think "booger board" and dusty old vomit). Then I will paint and fill the room with crafty goodness and food storage items.

And the wine bottles in the shelf unit? Martinelli's sparkling cider. Sort of like the bubbly that redneck Wal-mart ladies card you for. Jen, that is such a fabulously ridiculous story!

The room was put to crafty use almost immediately because I had visitors! Jessie, of Bessie, and Jenni of Hawleyfocus, came for a craft day. Maybe I'll post pictures of our efforts, which were few because we spent too much time gossiping and trading stories and watching Brian Regan and eating chocolate. Jessie, remember our recommendations: Brian Regan, Kathleen Madigan, and Black Adder season 3. And I'll check out Flight of the Conchords. That French song was seriously cool (baguette!).

Mostly pictures from a night of Great Room Switching

One little monkey, jumping on the bed. This is what he does in plain view of his mother. The cheek! The nerve! The disrespect! This is what I get for not caring if he jumps on the bed. He was just excited that the top bunk was temporarily off. That tattered white thing on his bed is his old allergy mattress cover. Time for a new one, I think.

Jim and Paul worked all evening to get the beds (one bunk and one loft) downstairs. It was sweaty work. But they did it and last night, all three boys slept downstairs.

Here is the bunk bed, ready to be slept on. It housed Paul's mattress until Paul's bed was completed.

The mess left behind. The boys used to be so clean and tidy. Matt is a pack rat, though. He's the main cause of the pile. You can see Matt's curio shelf above the poster of the Fish of Minnesota. Matt also likes to tape things onto the walls. We have a lot of cleaning up to do tonight.

This particular travesty of uncleanliness is Jimmy's fault (and kind of Jim's, who brought all these hats home and gave them to the boys). Jimmy shoved all these hats down in the corner and they were left there for a few years to collect dust and house arachnids. I think I need a hazmat suit to deal with this. Nothing less will not stop the heebie-jeebies that I'm sure will consume my thoughts when I take care of this. I'd make Jimmy do it, but he works this evening. Maybe I'll save it for him when he gets home from school and he can clean it up during those few moments when he's actually home.

The teenage boy's equivalent of makeup and hairstyling implements:
Yes, the free weights have somehow moved into the boys' room and situated themselves right in front of the closet door mirrors. Chuckle (despite visions of broken mirror from accidental dumbbell misuse).

Wanna hear a story?

Are you tired of Mattisms yet?

So we were in the van going to church yesterday and from the back of the van, I heard Hayley tell Matt, "Hey, Matt, let's play a game. I'll say one word, then you say another word, and we'll take turns adding words and we'll make up a story. OK? I'll start." So she started: "The"

And Matt paused for a moment, thoughtfully, and replied, "End."

I laughed so hard that I almost drove off the road. Hayley and Jimmy both laughed. We had to explain it to Paul, but once he got it he laughed too.

I am thankful for funny things. Laughter heals. Laughter brings people together. Laughter makes life not boring. I'm thankful for Monty Python, Jerry Seinfeld, Brian Regan, Jim Gaffigan, the movie "Tommy Boy," every episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Rifftrax, pratfalls, doubletakes, the websites I Can Has Cheezburger and Cake Wrecks, and mostly my children. And Jim. Believe it or not, from that quiet exterior has come a few sarcastic remarks (at my expense) that have caused me to ROTFLOL despite being the butt of the joke.

Salon de Shoebox Castle

I cut four heads worth of hair last night. Paul had been pestering me for a haircut the last week or so, and if I was going to go through the trouble of getting out the electric clippers and scissors and make a hairy mess on the floor, I might as well force Matt into getting his hair cut too. And then Hayley said she wanted a trim and some sort of bangish treatment. Then Jimmy chimed in that he could use a cut as well. So that's all done and I don't have to think about kids' haircuts for several months. Although when Katie comes home, she might as for a trim. And I'll probably get Jim's hair then too. I don't cut my own hair, no way.

Today's thankful message: I am thankful for work. (Or "WORK!" Jenni, Jake, Mike, Dave: you know what I mean). I am very grateful for a hardworking husband. He is not worried about his job at the great stagecoach, and pizza delivery seems to suit him just fine as a second job. He hated the great stagecoach the first year (or three) that he was there, but now he is comfortable doing what his job requires and all seems to be well. He has a lot of unused vacation days that he has to take before year's end (he can't roll those days over to next year) so I get him at home 5 extra days in the month of December. I am grateful for Jimmy's job. He complains of being scheduled too much (25 hours a week is a little much), but he doesn't complain about it otherwise. And I think of the things a teenage boy could be doing and then I am glad Jimmy spends as much time at work as he does. I'm grateful for Katie's two jobs that make it possible for her to live on her own and give her experience as a single young lady in charge of her own life. I am grateful for my little fake child situation. Fake child is a pleasant little girl and the parents pay me pretty well for a part time unlicensed daycare provider. I am grateful for work around the house even though all of us complain about it. It is never done, but that is a lesson in itself. I like the feeling of doing a job and sitting back afterward and appreciating the completed task. Without work, no real enjoyment could be appreciated. I like making dinner if only because at the end, there is a homecooked meal on the table. I like mopping the kitchen and dining room if only knowing at the end there will be clean floors. And so I am grateful for work.

Time Travel

I'm writing this post yesterday (thus the time travel. I'm appearing to you on Saturday even though it's Friday where I am) just to tell anyone who is expecting interweb outpourings from my fingers and brain early on a Saturday morning that it ain't gonna happen. I am not at home. Now, all you burglars, don't you come flocking to my house. My big attack cat will claw your eyes out. And the fruit flies leftover from the apple experience are trained to swarm the heads of intruders and irritate your nasal passages and eyeballs.

So I'm posting this now (yesterday but today) just to make sure I get a post in for NaBloPoMo. I still might post later, since I will be home by this (tomorrow) afternoon.

Post #309 In which I nearly pay $70 for a penny

I dissected a piano today, a real live one too. And I didn't screw it up. At a loss for linking the blog post title with my first sentence of the entry? Read on for the explanation...

The setting:
I am at the dinner table, eating soup. Hayley is at the piano, practicing.

The problem:
Hayley says, "I want to tell you something." Side note: When Hayley says she wants to tell me something, it means she can't actually tell me. She either beats around the bush with words that don't fit together, or she points. She did neither in this case. She poked at high A on the piano. High A did not give, nor did it make a sound. Earlier in the day, I practiced my songs on the piano and high A worked just fine (too bad my fingers don't work very well). But now, I poked at high A and it was jammed.

The discovery process:
Like many of the human race, I am a curious person. When something doesn't work, I want to know why (unless it's a car. Then I just want to throw money at the car and tell it to stop acting up). My first reaction was that I would need to call the piano tuner--her card is in my piano bench. I wondered how much she'd charge? Probably about the same as a tuning up. $70. But then curiousity stood next to me and said, "What would happen if you tried to solve the problem yourself? At least try to have a look. You know you want to take it apart..." I have seen my piano tuner take off the front of the piano and fiddle with the strings. I figured I have two hands, I can take off some of the piano panels and with any luck, I'll get to the bottom of the jammed key problem myself. Not knowing exactly how far I could take apart the piano without having it fall apart into pieces that I couldn't put back together, I started with the front panel.

Backstory:
This piano belonged to my grandmother. It was the heart of her home, in my eyes. The house had two hearts, though, my grandpa tended the garden, which was the other heart--the outside heart. Grandma taught lessons at the piano and very rarely let me play it. On top of the piano was a table runner. On that was a picture of my Uncle Bill in his Air Force uniform. There was also a little aqua blue calendar dial that my grandma kept up to date. There were other pictures as well, but the faces are lost in the fog of long-time-ago. I longed to play that piano, but I was somehow counted unworthy. When grandma moved to the nursing home, the piano went to my cousin and his family. When my cousin moved out of state, my mother called me with excitement in her voice. "Your cousin is moving and wants to get rid of grandma's piano. He wants to keep it in the family. Do you want it??" She was almost demanding that I take it. I did want it. Jim and I cleared a space for it in our townhouse basement and we took the piano in. And when we moved to this house, we hired piano movers to move the piano. Coincidentally, the company was called Ruth Piano and Organ Movers or something like that. Ruth was my grandma's name. I love my piano. I get it tuned regularly and I have been told by both tuners who have come to look at it that it is a fine instrument in very good shape.

The fix:
I took off the front panel. That wasn't enough. I couldn't get at the obstruction. I took off the keyboard cover. The key still wouldn't lift up enough to get at the problem. With a screwdriver, I took off a wooden bar that lay across all the keys just behind the back of the black keys. That worked. I lifted high A up as far as it would go and saw the reason for the jam: a penny. I removed the penny and high A thanked me in her squeaky high A voice.

And unlike all the king's horses and all the king's men with Humpty Dumpty, I put my piano together again.

This is what the piano looks like with its guts showing.
Two pieces I took off.
Another piece--the wooden bar--I took off with the screwdriver.
Ghostly fingers playing the piano after I performed the penny-ectomy and before I sewed the piano back up.
More musical innards.I don't know how the penny got jammed where it did. I can only assume fake child was involved somehow. Those slots between keys are awfully tempting to put things into. But all is well, and I will not dwell on the crime shrouded in mystery.

Oh, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY to a Concerned Citizen, who won't see this because he's on a hunting trip. Probably while wearing a jumpsuit. And a monocle.

Electric Booger-loo

Reason #21 for the exasperated look on my face:
Hayley mentioned during dishwashing time last night that she wanted to hurry up so she could go back to Matt's experiment. I asked what he was doing. She tried to explain, but the words got all tangled up in her mouth. From the kitchen, I saw Matt in a semi-dark living room; he was rubbing his face on the couch.
"What are you doing?" I asked, perplexed.
"Hey mom! Guess what! When I rub my face on the couch really fast, lightning comes out of my nose!"

Oh, the wonders of static electricity. He could totally be a super hero. Naso-Static Boy! He fights e-vil with boogers of SHOCKING power!

And then Reason #22 for the exasperated look on my face:
After I barked at Matt to get over here and help dry dishes and stop asking me questions like "What if the heaviest thing in the world was a man this tall?" (holding his hand four inches above the floor), Matt turned to Hayley and said, "Hey Hayley, when Mom yelled at me, her face looked like THIS!" And he mocked me with some underbite-ish troll face. And they both laughed.

With a screech of blog tires on internet asphalt, I change direction from electric snot and mockery to band concert. Here is Paul with his French horn.This concert was the 9th grade indoor marching band concert so none of the kids were allowed to sit, except for the clarinetist who was on crutches. I couldn't hear Paul, but he looked like he was playing.

And speaking of screeching tires, here is a picture of Jimmy driving. No license yet, but Jim is going to take Jimmy to try again tomorrow.

This is most likely the sappiest post you'll ever see on the Shoebox Castle.

Happy 20th anniversary to Jim and me!

I love being married. I love being married to Jim. I haven't tried being married to anyone else, although I did get unofficially engaged to someone else (before Jim, not after). Jim makes married life pretty easy. He does not have a temper (and doesn't want one. I've said I'd get him one for Christmas, but he wanted Aunt Roady instead), he does dishes, he lets me watch innumerable hours of Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes. He holds my hand. He'd rather be with me than his drinking buddies (uh, no brainer. He doesn't have any drinking buddies. Again, I asked him if he wanted some, but he said no). Californian born and bred, he doesn't mind Minnesota; I even think he likes it here. He let me have the number of kids I wanted even though it was two more than he wanted (he does like those 2 extra ones, though, thank goodness). He also let me name one of them after a movie actress (ten points if you know which child that is and who the actress she is named after is).

Our favorite time of the day is nighttime, when the kids have abandoned the basement (it used to be when the kids were all in bed, but these days, Jimmy stays up pretty late doing homework) and it's just the two of us sitting on the couch together. He calls me often during the day, even more so now that he is busy with two jobs.

I'm glad we chose to spend the rest of our lives together, Jim. Thanks for never verbally considering splitting up. You're my best friend, a great father, and much much more, which I won't mention here.

So is everyone ready for a trip back in time? And I will try to refrain from making snarky comments or self-belittling judgments.

The happy couple about 20 minutes into their marriage.
A couple of hours later, Jim reconsiders. What did he get himself into? (I said I'd try, not succeed, to refrain from making snarky comments...)Thankfully he has learned to put up with my family's inability to treat anything seriously.

Jim and most of his siblings. We missed you, Michelle!

And I must give a big ol' THANK YOU to Jim (my husband's father) and Cindy for doing the reception. I was no help at all, unfortunately. I had no idea what to do, how to do it, and what looked nice. And I was not even in the same state until the day before the wedding. But Cindy was very generous with time and ideas and she was very kind to me.
My seesters and me.
This was taken at the reception at my mom's house. Mom is doing a great job of hiding her anger at me in this picture. She was NOT PLEASED that I came home from a CA trip with a ring on my finger. She lectured me for the rest of the summer. But she likes Jim, and I think she liked him from the moment she met him. To be fair, I didn't ever tell her that Jim and I were going out, so when I sprung my CA trip to visit Jim on her, she was probably blindsided. And yes, I would be angry at Katie if she ever did the same thing. But you've got to admit, I made a good decision (to get married to Jim. Not telling Mom that we were dating wasn't a good decision). Thanks for the MN reception, Mom.

I would post a picture of Jim and me today, but I just woke up, have no makeup on, my hair is a mess, and Jim is in Chicago. He'll be back tonight.

Kisses, Jim!