"Hard Life"

I missed posting for Breakfast at Emily's this week.

I'm so sorry.

I've been busy getting settled in an adorable little house on the river.
This house belongs to some good friends of ours and they are kindly letting us "break it in" for them. It's been in the process of some much needed upgrades and it's almost done. As I type, Erik is finishing plumbing the bathroom sink.

It's an adventure.

And it's really hard to complain when this is the view:

The kids are in bed, and I have a moment to myself to breathe and pause...

Yes, we're right next to the river, no there is not a fence yet to keep the kids from falling in...and so it's definitely interesting right now trying to contain and keep them entertained inside but hopefully this weekend the fence will at least be started.

I am so in love with this little house right now, it's open, bright and cheery. We've moved important stuff over here from our house, like beds, our table and chairs, a couch, the computer, a few dishes, stuff to make cookies...

Hopefully in the next few days we'll be a little more "temporarily settled" and I'll post some more; I have so much to share. That is if I remember by the time I sit down to type.

Breakfast at Emily's

Apple Pie for Breakfast over at Cowgirl Clippings.

Pie is a breakfast food at my house...you know you want to come visit.

But you'll have to wait on that one, I still don't get to live at my house.

An Update

Oh my.

It's been a month.

A crazy month.

If you haven't been filled in, let me fill.

It ended up that Ivan did indeed have strep throat. We took him to the local clinic for an appointment 'cause he still wasn't feeling real well and he tested positive for strep throat but the doctor was concerned that maybe he did have meningitis and sent us back to the ER 'cause they could test him right there. So back we went. He did not have meningitis but we got a prescription for antibiotics and stopped at Fred Meyer to fill said prescription. We gave him a dose in the parking lot and drove home. The next day I went to give Ivan his next dose only to discover that I had left the antibiotics, which were suppose to be kept in the fridge, in the van for over 24 hours. Oops. I called the doctor at the local clinic, who had me call the ER to get a hold of the the doctor who prescribed it, who had me call the pharmacy at Fred Meyer because they were busy. The pharmacy said that most likely the antibiotics were no longer effective and called the ER to see if they would send over a new prescription. They did and I drove to Tillamook once more to pay for and pick up another prescription.
Ivan finished his doses with no more mishaps and is now well and taking probiotics.

So.

Then this last weekend we headed to McMinnville for a family get together with Erik's family. We got there Friday night and Saturday morning at about 8am I got a call from our neighbor across the street. She noticed that there was water leaking out of our house and running down our foundation and it sounded like there was an off kilter washing machine going inside. She woke up Pastor John next door and they got the water shut off. Pastor John then broke into our house to survey the damage, we called our home owners insurance and Erik and his brothers and dad took off for our house.

We had hooked a diaper sprayer to our toilet's water supply, which is a handy little device that sprays the "messes" off cloth diapers into the toilet, and the nozzle failed, spraying water around our bathroom, flooding 1/2 our house for about 18-20 hours.

At this point in time carpets, linoleum, laminate floors and some drywall have been removed. Fans and dehumidifiers have been running and things are getting dried out. ServicePro responded quickly and have been amazing to work with in getting all that taken care of.

Restoration comes next and we're not sure entirely at this point what that entails and what that means.

The only thing I know right now is that my house is unlivable until further notice. So we spent a few nights camping in our friend's yard and we are now taking a short visit with my parents.

Forced vacation. But I like it.

And I'm doing okay. God provides. I have yet to feel entirely overwhelmed and I'm just waiting to see what happens next, knowing that somehow it will all be okay in the end.

God is good.

Psalm 104:33
I will sing praise to the Lord all my life. I will sing praise to my God as long as I live.

No matter what.

Breakfast at Emily's

French Bread recipe.

Cowgirl Clippings.

Yummy.Need I say more?

Hannah's Reaction

Hannah finally got to see her room makeover. I sneaked in first with my camera and then called her when I was ready.

She walked in:
She gazed at her surroundings with a look of awe:I asked her what she thought and she whispered, " I love it all so much."
And I smiled and said, "I'm glad."And then there is a gratuitous shot of Mod (and her second mama, the neighbor girl who follows her around) making faces for the camera. Oh yeah, she knows what a camera is.


She'd already taken a nap in there. She wasn't that impressed.

Makeover!

Today was makeover day.

Room makeover to be exact.

We've been discussing dividing the boys and girls for awhile now and a few weeks ago moved Hannah and Marilyn into the room formerly known as "the guest room". But it's still technically been "the guest room" and Hannah and Mod have just been sleeping there at night.

Seriously, it looked like this:

I've been packing up knickknacks and stuff that we don't use all that much to make my house look more spacious if ever anyone would show interest in coming to look at it and buy it and I've been stacking them in that bedroom. There was also the full size guest bed. Add a crib, a chair, a hope chest and other random things and it left little room to be "the girl's room".
It was more like the catch all room.

But no longer!
Now it is the girl room.
Hannah still hasn't seen it.

She and I have been watching home decorating shows on hulu for awhile now and the other day she asked if I could surprise her with her new room like they do on the shows.

You bet I can!

It actually made my life easier...'cause as much as love that my children want to help...it was nice to just be able to do it and get it done.

We've been prepping for this day for weeks.I found a twin bed frame at Cart'm for $8. And I sawed on it and sanded on it and painted it. I found the perfect knobs for it at my neighbor's garage sale for $1 and a friend gave me a trundle frame so that when we do have guests we can shift kids around and still have plenty of sleeping space. I ordered a couple mattresses off overstock.com and those came yesterday.

Today, by design, Hannah went to play with her friend Daisy and I got to work. It actually didn't take that long because of all the prep work I've put in. Of course, the rest of my house is in disarray so I won't show you pictures of that.

But with out further ado, The Girl's Room:

Breakfast at Emily's

The Berry Muffin recipe I received from my friend Cathi a few years ago is over on Cowgirl Clippings today. You should check it out and make them, they are so very yummy.

Hair

Aunt Beth is here and she brought her scissors.

Yay for haircuts! (Those kind of scissors).

I needed a trim but once Hannah heard that Aunt Beth was going to cut my hair she wanted all her hairs cut too.

"I want it short, like by my chin but curving under, I want it curving under, like by my chin."
Aunt Beth almost couldn't control her laughter when Hannah had repeated this phrase for the hundredth time in a row.
But she made it through and now it's short and oh so adorable.

Though all Hannah did when I asked for a smile was make faces.

Fog

I've decided I really love fog.
Some may think of it as a wet blanket of dreariness but not me.
So it's probably a good thing I live where I do. I get to experience the fog a lot.
Or maybe it's the memories I have associated with fog.
Last year sitting on my front porch I watched the fog roll in around the cellphone tower across the way and it was sitting there reflecting that I found myself at peace; comfortable in my own skin.
In high school not long after I was elected editor of the first school newspaper in so-many-odd years my friend Evan and I took cameras one early morning and captured the fog streaming over Ebey's Prairie and bluff. One of the photos that I took ended up as our first cover. I've got a copy somewhere, or my mom does but alas I have none to share this morning.
And now to add to the memories there is this morning.
Last night Ivan was complaining of a very stiff neck as we were getting him ready for bed. He couldn't look to the right or the left or move it up and down without it hurting. So we put him to bed but checked on him periodically until we went to bed, then sat down at the computer and Googled "4 year old with stiff neck". Maybe we should stop doing that. Everything we read said, better call a doctor or go to the ER, it could be meningitis, especially if there are other symptoms. Ivan woke us up at 3:30am with other symptoms, he was complaining of a tummy ache and he had a fever. Thank the Lord that my sister Beth is here, so I woke her up and let her know that she was in charge and that we would hopefully be back soon, then we packed Ivan up and drove down to the Tillamook Hospital. We were only there for about an hour and it is not meningitis, strep throat or a UTI, it's probably just viral. They gave him a little Tylenol and he was starting to feel better when we left. I've never dealt with a babe with a very stiff neck and so I'm glad we went even though it ended up to be just a for a very expensive dose of Tylenol. My boy is fine.
This is where the fog comes in. I rode in the back with Ivan, who was able to rest his head on my shoulder and sleep all the way home and I was at peace and the sky was lightening but there was fog. Not enough to hem you in with no visibility but just enough that it wrapped itself around the hills and made just a few of the trees stand out dark against it in crisp detail while 'causing the mist to blur others.
I knew just enough for my present circumstances but not all. I could see just enough to be at peace but I could not see all. Our heavenly Father kind of works like that with us sometimes.
And to me the fog is an awesome reminder of that.