Let's get caught up in reverse order, Memento-style.
First (or would that be last?) we wrapped up tee-ball tonight. The snacks won out in Karl's inner battle and he participated in the last two games. And by "participated" I mean batted off the tee when his team was up to bat, and picked grass on the sidelines when his team was in the field. ("The field part is boring" and "The ball never comes to me") (It does, he just doesn't notice!)
But anyway, Karl's participation was enough to warrant a snack and a trophy because this is Stuart Smalley tee-ball, after all!
Hey, at least I thought I might get a nice picture of him on the grass . . .
. . .Give me a "C"! Give me an "I"! Give me a "S"! Give me a "D"! What's that spell? CISD! What's that mean? Camera Induced Smile Disorder!
Let's go back some more . . .
We started the day at Hippotherapy. It has nothing to do with hippos. Go figure! It's actually horseback riding therapy. It was Karl's second week and boy does he love riding Buddy.
It's hard to get good pictures because Emma and I have to wait in the observation room, and the glass in the observation room hasn't been cleaned since . . . oh wait, it's never been cleaned.
Vinny: And what is this brown stuff on the windows?
Ernie: Dirt.
There wasn't any dirt (well maybe just a little) on the van windows as we drove away from the farm, though, so Emma could clearly see a pretty white horse grazing in the pasture.
Emma: Hey, there's a white horse!
Karl (looks, but apparently doesn't see the horse and decides to fake it): There's a large white horse galloping through the field over there.
Me: Karl, that horse is not galloping - it's eating.
Karl: I stand corrected.
Yes, that's how he speaks. Always.
Last Thursday my mom drove down and we went to tour a local castle. I didn't know we had a local castle, but you learn something new every day. Especially from mom, who just seems to know things. The kids found the opening informational DVD followed by a lecture from our elderly tour guide to be less-than-scintillating, but as we finally walked with the group up to the castle they started to get interested.
Karl: My research indicates that this castle has 56 rooms.
Actually Karl did no research whatsoever, unless the game he was playing on mom's cell phone happened to be called "Interesting Facts About Hometown Hidden Castles" but somehow I doubt it.
Which brings me to my current crisis . . . my son is a bit of a liar.
I mean, he doesn't mean to lie. He just loves to spout off facts and although his brain is rather encyclopedic in nature he certainly doesn't have hard fast knowledge on every subject possible, and in those cases his imagination takes over.
Only he doesn't warn his audience that he's hypothesizing. He just states his own made-up facts. And I'm worried that he's going to get a reputation if I don't teach him the difference.
Pathological lying is soooo 1985.
The garage sale went well. We got rid of a lot of furniture, including our dining room table, chairs, china cabinet and sofa table. The dining room is Sparse Chic at the moment. But this is good, because we want more contemporary style table. The one we sold was purchased ten years ago and had a really country feel to it - solid knotty pine with knobby legs, etc. It just wasn't gelling with our new slightly-funky-contemporary living room furniture.
Which brings me, finally, to the thing that's been keeping me so busy that I haven't been even passable, let alone decent, with my blog updates.
I'm going to remodel my kitchen!
I've been interviewing contractors and researching cabinets, appliances and countertops for a couple of weeks now. I did the design myself, of course, because although the engineering degree was relatively unnecessary for my previous career in road construction, it has been a godsend for scrapbooking and home improvement projects. I designed my office last summer and had a blast, so now I've set my sights on the kitchen, which needs an overhaul.
So when the first contractor came last week and I presented three potential designs, all CAD-drafted with cabinet designations and elevations and stuff, the estimator was understandably shocked. But also impressed.
And he offered me a job!
How cool is that?! It wasn't like a "true" offer - like "come work for us starting on Tuesday and we'll pay you X amount of money", but it was a semi-serious offer of "hey, you should be designing kitchens and if you ever want to do it - let me know"
It's tempting, that's for sure. I really, really enjoyed designing my office and kitchen.
But I'm going to stick with teaching scrapbooking classes for a while. I'll be teaching in Portland, Oregon at A Joy Forever on August 5th and at Scrapbook Cupboard near Boston August 22-24th. I'd love to meet some of you crazy cats!
More kitchen updates to come, but dang - I'm sleepy!
TPBQOTD ("Sheesh! I never worked for so little. Except once, and that was a very noble cause." "This is noble, sir. His wife is crippled. Children on the brink of starvation . . ." "Are you a rotten liar.")