Am I Growing?

This morning Little Girl came up to me and asked, "Am I growing?"

Little Girl is the littlest person in our immediate family. She is quite slender, though she's tall for her age. At just less than 4 years old, she's 3', 5.5" (by my measurement 2 minutes ago), and weighs 37 lbs. Compared to other kids her age, she's not small. She has very narrow shoulders and delicate little fingers (I love those little fingers!!). She's quite a bit bigger than her cousin who is 4 months older than her, but Les is a pip-squeak, and always has been.

Little Girl's perception is always going to be tainted by comparing herself to her big sister. Big Girl is big. She's always been big. She was born big, and she has continued to be big. She's over 4', 1" tall and weighs just over 50 lbs. For a 6-year-old, that's BIG. One day, walking to school, we happened to meet up with a little girl from Big Girl's class, Audrey, and walked the rest of the way with her and her big brother and big sister. The brother, a second grader, was quite a bit smaller than my Big Girl, and the sister wasn't all that much bigger, and she's a 5th grader. Although, for the record, my Little Girl is probably bigger than Audrey. Still, my Big Girl is often mistaken for older than she is, just because she's so big. And then when she talks, and uses her vast vocabulary, or reads aloud, it can be falsely confirmed in the mind of whoever is mistaking her for being a couple years older than she is.

Little Girl is growing. She'll probably never catch up with her sister, but she's growing all the same. I think it's funny that she's thinking about it enough to come ask.

Today the song in my head is another Cake ditty, "Italian Leather Sofa."

Mrs. Handy Woman Conquers Kitchen Sink!

As you have probably noticed by the projects I undertake, I am not afraid of doing many things around the house. I like solving problems, practical problems, the solutions to which make my life better. When the drain in my bathroom sink was too slow to be called a drain, however, I was a bit timid to tackle that by myself. After watching my dad do it nearly a year ago, I realized it wasn't the scary task I had imagined. So when the current problem came up, I courageously dove in to get to the bottom of it.

We have lived in our house for about 15 months. During the last few of those months, an odor has been growing in intensity. Hubby and I traced it to the kitchen sink. In the last couple weeks, his solution was to put the drain cap in the sink and leave it there continually. This was quite less than a satisfactory solution in my book. It seemed like that side of the sink was always about an inch deep in standing water. And then pulling the plug out was disgusting and difficult. And it made the smell worse.

Tonight I couldn't take it anymore. I had to get to the bottom of it, if it was the last thing I did (plumbing-wise). (I'm speaking in terms of "tonight" because it's 3:45 AM, and it sure feels like night to me! I'll get to the insomnia part of the story later, I promise.)

I had a sink full of dishes that weren't helping the room to smell any rosier, so I took care of all of that first, while I knew I had a working sink.

After the dishes were done, and Hubby got home from church, it was time to dismantle the underside of the kitchen sink. I thought for sure there had to be a horrid mess in the trap (the bend in the pipe), so I started by taking that off. Surprisingly, it was nearly clean, except for a tiny little mess at one end of the pipe.

The next pipe up from that one was where the garbage disposal met up with the drain. I took that piece off, and it was clean, except for where the garbage disposal pipe met in. Aha, here's the culprit, I thought. (Hubby was watching me take things apart this whole time. He also looked down the drain with the flashlight. He's not very handy.) I was a little afraid of taking that pipe off that connected the garbage disposal to the drain. It looked harder to undo than the rest. It has a metal collar on it with a metal screw, and the rest just have PVC parts that screw on, like a nut (I don't know what things are called). I tried to get that metal screw to turn, but I couldn't. Thankfully Hubby got it loose.

That was the problem. That nasty pipe was all black inside. Imagine an odor somewhere in the neighborhood of what it smells like when you leave your wet clothes in the washer too long, crossed with dirt, crossed with... I don't know what, but something nasty, and that's what it smelled like.

I didn't want to touch it, so I didn't really. I put all the pipes I took off in a big basin with bleach-water and let it sit. My plan was to let it sit overnight, and put everything back together in the morning. I went to bed.

I think I may have slept for a little while, but I couldn't help waking up and being paranoid that someone (I) was going to come downstairs in the morning and turn on the water at the kitchen and make a huge mess before things were put back together. And there was also the fear that once I put everything back together it was going to leak all over the place, because I'd do it wrong.

So at 2:24, I went downstairs to put my sink back together. Before I did that, though, I got out my under-the-sink toothbrush, which has been relegated to the nastiest of cleaning tasks, and cleaned out the nasty pipe. It came clean rather easily after sitting in bleach water for over 4 hours. I got the rest of the pipes sparkling and put them all back together. I got the flashlight under the sink and turned the water on, looking for leaks, and there were NONE! Yippee!! Then I poured the bleach-water down the garbage disposal side of the sink, and ran it with some ice cubes, which is supposed to help clean it out. That all worked too, with no leaks. SUCCESS!!!

The whole house smells like chlorine bleach, which is WAY better than the other odor. But it's still not right, you know?

Then I went back to bed at 2:42. And I haven't been back to sleep since.

Insomnia... ain't it great?

And this whole time laying in bed, I've been hearing, "Let Me Go," by Cake, playing in my head. (If you're not familiar with Guitar Hero, you may get a kick out of this video. Cake hasn't made their own video for this song, or if they have, I couldn't find it on YouTube. The only other one I found was an amateur job, and I didn't want to subject you all to that.)

Scrapbook

I have been a scrapbooker since 2002, before my Big Girl was born. When I was pregnant with her, I started her book. Before she was born, there were already a half-dozen pages in her book: about her dad and me, a family tree page, baby shower pages, etc. When she was a tiny baby, I actually kept up with her book pretty well. She was a doll baby, a good sleeper, and let me spend quite a lot of time on my new hobby. The first 6 months of her life overfilled the 12" x 12" Creative Memories baby book. So there are 2 volumes for Big Girl's first year.

As Big Girl got older, it was harder and harder to keep up with the scrapbooks. I had less time to do it with a toddler to chase, plus there were other things going on in my life that took my attention away from the things I enjoyed.

Along came Little Girl in 2005, and I knew there was no way I'd be able to do for her what I had done for her sister. (To try and make up for that, I made a cross-stitch thing that hangs on her wall, which is something I didn't do for Big Girl.) But I did try my best to keep it up.

During that time I started transitioning to digital scrapbooking, which is much easier in some ways. You can do the work on the computer, and print however many copies you want of the end result with no extra work at all. I made digital books for grandparents as Christmas presents. If I hadn't had all the supplies and books, and paper and such at that point, I'd have gone digital completely at that point.

And then tragedy struck my scrapbooking world.

In November of 2006, my hard drive crashed. The last backup we had was from early December of 2005. I lost pictures of Little Girl's first Christmas, first birthday, first steps, all the funny things she did between the ages of 9 months to 19 months. All gone. I was devastated. It was like our house burned down, but none of the replaceable things were lost.

(We tried everything to recover the data. After sending it off to a company that does data recovery, we were told that they'd have to microscopically extract 1's and 0's to get anything off the plates.)

I was completely demoralized. Why bother making a scrapbook that can never be complete? Why take pictures if they'll get wiped off the hard drive in a moment?

(Since then, we back up both computers to en external hard drive on a monthly basis at the least. We have e-mail reminders set up to help us keep on that schedule.)

In the last 3 years, I have been to about 3 scrapbook nights. Before this past Friday night, I know it had been at least 18 months since I had even seen my scrapbooks. (I'll give myself a little break on this last year - we moved, and I've had lots of other projects on my plate.)

Thankfully, after over 2 years since the tragic event, I got the bug to work on the scrapbooks again. I know in the end I'll be glad to have whatever I can pull together for Little Girl's book, rather than nothing, or a half done book. Since Friday night, I brought my stuff home, and got it all out, and cranked out 14 pages. I finally used up all the pictures I had printed from eons ago.

In Little Girls' book, she's 6 months old. She'll be 4 years old in less than 2 months. And in Big Girl's book, she's nearly 3 years old. She's nearing 6 and a half in real life. I'm not quite to the gap in my pictures yet. I'm really dreading that still, but I know I'll press through it. What's done is done. The past is the past. I am accepting that and moving on.

The cool thing now is that I've gone through the pictures I had printed, so I can either print more pictures and go on as before, or go digital. I think I'm going to do a little of both. Once I finish Big Girl's third year, her books will be digital from then on. I may go digital with Little Girl's books now. I can do some nice things with 8" x 8" books. Hubby would probably rather I go digital. There's no mess...

Last night I finished my last scrapbook page at 12:15 AM, and then I packed everything up and put it all away in the closet, which took another 30-40 minutes. I didn't get to bed until so very late... I'm really paying for it today. At least the work is done and the mess is gone.

The song in my head right now, for no apparent reason, is The Beatles', "Another Girl."

Is anybody out there?

Early on in my blogging life, I knew I had some readers because some of my readers left comments. However, in the last several months, no one has commented, and I really feel like I'm talking to myself out here. While some of my posts are just for me, I'd like to know if there's anyone out there. So for this experiment, please leave me a comment if you read this post. It doesn't have to be much, just let me know you're there. An emoticon would suffice!

THANKS in advance! I appreciate your cooperation.

:-)

My Pawpaw

I've been waiting for this post all week. Today is the second anniversary of Pawpaw's passing. It still makes me very sad to think about him, his life and his death. He left us much too suddenly. He was a farmer, worked hard his whole life. He grew peanuts, corn, hay and raised cattle. I'll never forget the roughness of his hands.

He always said I was his worst granddaughter. I was. I was also his best granddaughter. I have a brother, and my aunt has 2 sons, so among his 4 grandkids, I'm the ONLY granddaughter.

He went to the doctor on January 10th, 2007 and was told there to go straight to the hospital. Of course my Pawpaw didn't do that. He first went to the farm to give instructions to his hired hand, Lewis, and my uncle Wayne, his only son who worked the farm with him. Then he went to Charlie's, a local greasy spoon, to have dinner and talk to people. He didn't tell anyone where he was going later. He never did want to burden anybody with his problems.

He went to the hospital that night, it was a Wednesday. During the night, the first night he was in the hospital, his heart stopped. Had he not gone in when he did, he'd have died that night. The next day, they put in a pacemaker. The following Monday he had quadruple bypass surgery. He came through all the surgeries like a champ. He was doing quite well.

He was still in the hospital, recovering, when he aspirated on some soup (it went down the "wrong pipe" and into his lungs). That happened on a Friday, the week of the bypass surgery. It immediately turned into pneumonia. They intubated him and put him on a respirator. They tried unsuccessfully to extubate several times over the next few days. On the following Tuesday, January 23, his organs failed and he died. From working the farm to dead in 13 days.

In WW II, Pawpaw was a marine. He served at Iwo Jima, and got a Purple Heart. As they landed at Iwo Jima, his transport went to the wrong place on the beach. After he and another guy were out and on their way, storming the beach, the transport pulled back to go the right spot. Pawpaw and his buddy spent the night in a crater, deep in Japanese territory. I think that's when Pawpaw was wounded. He was shot in the shoulder, if I remember correctly. A few days later, when they were going around to all the divisions and squadrons and such to see who was still alive, they called his name and a buddy spoke up, "He's gone," meaning to the hospital ship. The person taking the head count marked him down as dead. The family was issued a death certificate the following September. He used to get it out and show it to us (pictured left). To this day, when I see the numbers of dead and wounded from Iwo Jima, I don't know in which category they counted him. (I'm reading an American history book, and just came across those numbers and had a teary "moment" looking at the numbers of wounded. Only later did I realize that he was counted as dead! Who knows whether they have gone back and revised the numbers...)

One of the lighter moments at Pawpaw's funeral was during one of the eulogies when the speaker said that he had finally "lived up to his press." Everyone knew the Iwo Jima and death certificate story.

I used to write letters to Pawpaw. He'd even write me back sometimes. I wrote one to him in the weeks before he died that he never got to read. I put it in the inside breast pocket of his coat before the casket was closed.

I can't help but ache, I miss him so much. And now, even 2 years later, the grief still feels so fresh.

I am comforted that I know I will see him again in heaven. I know he's there. And I wouldn't want him to leave that to come and be here with me, but somehow I know that if he could, he would because he loved me so much.

"People are friendly, if you just talk to 'em."

My Pawpaw used to say that. He was the friendliest man ever. He'd talk to anybody.

Today was my day off from Little Girl. I was out running errands, and I took my Chick-fil-a calendar coupon for some free Breakfast Minis in to grab a quick bite in between stops. While I was at the counter, an older gentleman, probably in his 70's, started talking to me. I made some polite conversation until my food came, then I went and sat down at a table to eat my food alone. I sat there thinking about the man, wondering if it would be wise to talk to him more or if I should keep my distance. At one point during my meal, I got up to get napkins, and he noticed me and remarked that I was sitting by myself. I went back to my food. On my way out, I saw him sitting by himself, eating his food. I then sat down and started talking to him. He was very friendly.

The whole time, I kept thinking of my Pawpaw. This Friday it will be two years since he passed away.

The Mystery of "Horton Hears a Who"

Most people know that "Horton Hears a Who" is not a mystery. We had our own mystery surrounding the copy of the famed Dr. Seuss book checked out from the school library by Big Girl.

She checked it out in December, and it was due January 5th.

Ever since Big Girl started Kindergarten, and has had somewhat independent library privileges, I have been nervous about her ability to keep track of, take care of and return library books. I know that at the end of the year, if there are overdue books, we'll be on the hook for the money to replace them. While it may not really be expensive, it's also the principle of taking care of things that concerns me. Big Girl has not really demonstrated conscientiousness in keeping her things protected, put away, etc.

This week an overdue notice came home in Big Girl's take-home folder for "Horton Hears a Who." I scoured the upstairs, looking through Big Girl's room and her vast collection of books. I looked everywhere downstairs, hoping that it slipped behind the couch or something. No luck. I asked Big Girl, and she said she took it back to the library.

What am I to believe?

Thursday, on their way to school, as Hubby walked Big Girl to school, he probed her about the book situation. She continued to say that she returned it to the library. When he asked her where she put it, she said she put it back on the shelf with the other Dr. Seuss books.

Today I had my mother verify her story (it's a teacher work day, and my mom teaches at Big Girl's school). Sure enough, it was there! The book has now been returned in the computer, and we're no longer on the hook for the overdue book!

Now I just need to take Big Girl to the library on Tuesday and show her to use the slot!

In Memoriam

What would I want said about me after I have died? I think I'd want people to remember fun times, funny things I had said, meaningful conversations and love. Mostly love. So that's what I want today's blog entry to be about. Today marks the anniversary of my father-in-law's passing.

He was a dear man, very quiet usually. He had a way of saying things, important things, in a gentle way that still carried weight. He was devoted to his family. His love for his wife, two kids, their spouses and his granddaughters was surpassed only by his love for God.

My most cherished memory of his last days was when we went to visit him in the hospital, and his two sisters were there. They told him I had come (along with Hubby), and he immediately asked me to sing something for him. I sang a hymn to him, I think it was "How Great Thou Art," and his whole countenance changed as he did his best to sing with me. He was not a singer by any means, but he was singing with his whole heart to God, and it was such a sweet thing to witness.

His presence added a steadiness to everything. He is sorely missed.

The Music Box

I'm glad for Little Girl's interest in her music box that she got for Christmas. That's fine with me. What's not so fine is that it plays the main theme from Swan Lake, by Tchaikovsky, and it doesn't play enough of the song for it to resolve. In my head, the next phrase is going, but the dumb music box just plays that little snippet OVER and OVER. Four measures is not enough of a great work like Swan Lake.

So of course, Swan Lake is what's playing in my head. My ears are desperate for the second phrase, the ascending melody... oh, THANK YOU, YOUTUBE!

"I WANT CANDY!!!"

Every now and then, Little Girl comes to me with this request. She's very charming when she wants something. This is the when she bats her eyelashes, and smiles wide, and usually clasps her hands in front of her chest. She is nearly irresistible.

But I have an iron will. I resist. I take these moments of her willingness to do almost anything for candy to send her to the potty. She knows what she can do to get some candy. All it takes is... you know. Do I really have to spell it out?

She hasn't pooped at all (that I know) since Sunday. Considering that it's Friday now, I can't imagine she can hold out much longer. Maybe there will be some candy in her near future after all.

In my head this morning, for no reason I can perceive, is the song, "Wheels," by Cake.

Chicken Pot Pie and the Big Lie

Last night for dinner I quickly threw together a Chicken Pot Pie. The girls both like it, and it's easy to throw together when I fail to plan ahead, as I did yesterday. When Big Girl was little, she used to call it, "chicken pie pie," so it will forever be one of those special things to Hubby and me.

To literally spice things up just a little, I tossed in some Italian herbs along with the cream of chicken soup, canned chicken and frozen vegetables before topping it with the bisquick crust and tossing it into the oven. It adds a nice flavor.

Big Girl doesn't really care for the herbs, so I made a little section of the dish that didn't have any and marked it with a toothpick.

When dinner was served, the girls, Hubby and I dived in to the chicken pie pie. Both girls finished their servings quickly (which is quite remarkable for Little Girl, the slowest eater I've ever witnessed) and requested seconds. Hubby gladly served the seconds to both of them. After just a moment, Big Girl started to wander away from the table, claiming to be full. To give her a chance to be honest, Hubby asked her if she was really full, or if she just didn't want to eat the part with the herbs. She said she was full, and was excused from the table.

Little Girl continued eating. When LG finished, she asked for a banana, and we happily gave her one.

Upon hearing the talk of bananas from the other room, Big Girl came running, asking for a banana. Hubby asked her again if she was full, as she had said earlier, and she now claimed she wasn't. We don't often call such seemingly innocent little inconsistencies to the carpet, but this time, since he had made a point of letting her come clean earlier, he dug in. When she realized she was cornered, she had a visceral reaction. She melted into a pool of tears right there on the chair. That quickly changed into her yelling at him "I'm really mad at you right now," in a very disrespectful and ugly tone of voice. We don't let that sort of thing go, not ever. He even asked her at that point, "Are you being disrespectful to me?" She said, "YES!" At that point she was sent upstairs to her room.

A little while later, maybe 5 minutes or so, Hubby went up to her room to have a little talk with her. He asked her, "Why did you cry when I caught you lying to me?" Her answer broke his heart: "I was afraid you wouldn't love me anymore." He had a loving, reassuring talk with her about unconditional love, and sin. It was an important talk that needed to happen. All that led right up to bed time, and I came in and reinforced the concept of unconditional love just before prayers and bed.

Hubby and I talked about it after the girls had gone to bed, and we think Big Girl has been playing us with little inconsistencies like this for a while. She has such a sweet demeanor that it's easy behavior to overlook. We both hope this experience will lead to more opportunities for bigger talks, all building her understanding of Jesus and the sacrifice he made for her sin. Hubby was convinced that she saw her sin in this instance, maybe for the first time. That's a big first step. One has to be convinced of one's depravity in order to seek a savior.

The song in my head is "Love Songs," by Fleming & John, my favorite band of all time. It's one of the 2 songs that are "our songs". Hearing it always brings back memories of sitting in my college dorm room after spending time with my then future husband, missing him like crazy, being convinced that he loved me even though he hadn't yet told me so. *Sigh* Ah... memories!

Post-Christmas Project Day

December 26th was project day.

Before:
After:

What you don't see in the "after" picture is the surround sound wires that went to the sub woofer and rear speakers under the carpet and around the room. The drapes I made now have a function besides adding much needed color to that side of the room. See below:I got a light fixture for Christmas which I picked out online. It was installed that day too. I wish I had a picture of the old one just so the new one could be appreciated that much more. It was so horrible that we managed to never get a picture of it. Here's the new one which now hangs beautifully over the table that ate my summer: While the work was being done by my dad, brother and husband (TV installation and light fixture), my mother, sister-in-law, grandmother and I all went to the outlet mall and did some shopping. Hubby and I did the surround sound installation after everyone else left. I got a blister on my thumb working the fishtape under the carpet. It was a very satisfying day, as if any day full of projects could be anything but satisfying for me.

Happy Holidays, etc...

Whoa...

I'm still catching my breath from the busiest 2 "vacation" weeks I've had maybe ever, or at least in recent memory.

We had a great Christmas, and got to see lots of family we don't always get to see. On the 22nd and 23rd, we traveled to West Texas to see Hubby's side of the family and do "Fincher Christmas". We do a gift exchange, drawing numbers from a hat, and then stealing and what-not, like white elephant, only good stuff, with a $10 limit. There are usually flashlights, and tools among other things. This year the gift I brought was stolen a couple times. That means I did good!

At Fincher Christmas this year was the newest member of the family, the nearly 4 month old son of Hubby's cousin. I got to do lots of holding, and even got to give him a bottle! He was so snugly and warm, and he just melted into me. As I have more of these opportunities to hold other people's tiny babies, and the further away I get from having my own (my youngest is nearing 4 years old), the more at peace I am with knowing that head of baby fluff I get to kiss and nuzzle will be passed back to other parents who get to wake up at all hours and tend to the crying while I get to sleep all night with my big kids tucked soundly in their beds. I know it's a trade off, and I'm happy with my part at this point. Considering how baby crazy I was before having my kids, this is a big deal that I seem to be immune to baby fever.

Then Christmas Eve we spent at my mother-in-law's house with Hubby's sister and her family, Grandmom (my mother-in-law's mother), Linda (sister-in-law's mother-in-law), and Harriet (Linda's mother). Besides Hubby and my sis-in-law's husband (who was rather sick that day), it was a complete estrogen fest. It was our first Christmas since my father-in-law passed away last January. Last year we had Christmas in the little apartment, and he was in the hospital, so we took turns going to the hospital to see him. That was the first time we realized how bad off he really was. It was the first time we really thought he was going to die. Thinking back on that is very hard, and sad. This Christmas we had a big meal, and had a fun time. Hubby and I had to get back for the Christmas Eve services at our church, of which there were 2. He played bass, and I sang a couple of songs with 2 different trios. My mother- and sister-in-law came to the second service and brought all 4 of the granddaughters with them. At the end of the service, Pastor had us gather with our families and have a prayer together. It was then that all 3 of us ladies (Hubby was on stage playing his bass) shed tears over the obvious absense of the patriarch. It was the right time and place to honor his memory, and acknowledge our loss together. I know we all miss him separately, and not a day goes by that we don't think of him, but we don't do that all together very much. It was cathardic.

Christmas Day, the four of us had our little family Christmas together. We read the Christmas story from Luke, and opened presents. It was nice. The girls were thrilled with their gifts. We don't do Santa Claus for the sake of our very literal-minded Big Girl, and all the presents are marked "From: Mom & Dad," which is how it really is anyway. If we want her to believe us when we tell her about Jesus, then we don't want to sour our credibility with the Santa Claus stuff. In the grand scheme, Santa isn't worth it. My husband was devastated when he learned the truth, and we don't want to do that to her. I think she still believes a little bit, but when we talk about it, I always make sure to tell her that Santa is pretend. I have also told her to keep that a secret from her friends at school, but we'll see if she can do that. They all have to learn the truth eventually anyway. I don't think it would enter Big Girl's imagination to go telling her school friends, at least not for a few years anyway. She's just not wired that way.

After we got ourselves dressed, we went to my mom and dad's house, where my brother was anxiously waiting for us. He got his wife a very nice camera, and had it delivered to our house. He was so anxious to have us come over, I thought he and his wife had an announcement of the next generation variety. But it was just that he was anxious to have his wife open her present (which I wrapped). They've been married a few months shy of 2 years, and I think the baby bug is hitting them. Anyway, we had a good time doing the Christmas thing with them, my parents, and both my grandmothers. Dad's mother was here from Iowa, where she's lived for the last 11 years. In that time we haven't seen her much. Mom's mom was here because she's had some health problems in the last month, and she's been staying in town with Mom and Mom's sister alternately. The last time my grandmothers were both in the same place was at my Pawpaw's funeral, and before that was when I got married. It doesn't happen much, and hasn't happened but a few times in my lifetime. My mom's mom is a very unhealthy individual, to put it lightly. She definitely has a hoarding disorder, and depression, and has been that way ever since my mother can remember. Considering what a drag it could have been that she was joining us for Christmas, it really was rather pleasant. She didn't dominate every conversation, and she let us all be, which was very unusual.

The girls both got scooters for Christmas from my parents, which were assembled that afternoon, and ridden around the driveway. It was lots of fun watching the girls, and my sis-in-law had fun playing with her new camera. It was also good to catch up with her, since she and my brother now live out of state, and we hadn't seen them since last Christmas.

I have so much more to say about the last couple weeks, but I'll save more for another post. This one is long enough.