An American Maiden: daily life

Showing posts with label daily life. Show all posts

5 Steps to Using Wood Glue

This is wood glue. Using this glue will cause to boards to stick together. But that isn't all it does.

1. For the longest lasting finger nail polish, use wood glue. One brush per application of glue. Remember your nails will be a bit darker than usual.

2. Turpentine, Goo-Gone, Carburetor Cleaner, Mineral Spirits, Lotion, Nail Polish Remover, Gasoline and Soap will not remove the glue.

3. If wood glue spills, you may proceed to scratch the glue off, but a local pain reliever may be necessary after you scrape off the top layer of skin.

4. When applying wood glue to a project, hold the bottle like it's about to explode.

5. Find someone else to apply the wood glue and before they start, leave for..... Anywhere Else!

Congratulations, you've now learned all you need to know about working with wood glue.

We've been working on a new blog, to catalog our journey of saying "Yes!". Sometimes being without gluten, dairy and processed sugars is a bit difficult. But during this time, we've found and adapted a few recipes that we can have. I Can't Believe It's A Pork-Free Chocolate Cake/Cupcakes is one of them.

End of Summer Break

Summer has gone by in a blur. Lots of Farmer's Markets to go to, although I didn't go. But there was bread to make and bake, tortillas, pretzels, and sometimes something else. By the end of the season, I figured out I could mix up 12 loaves of bread at a time by hand. Definitely saved some time with all the mixing! :-).

This past Sunday, Momma, James and I went to Atlanta for James to get his g-tube out early Monday morning. He was actually Dr. Parker's first surgery for the day. When Dr. P came to tell us James was in recovery, he also said that he'd had to make a bigger cut than usual, because of the gastric-colic fistula he'd had in March 2007. James, he said, would need a stronger antibiotic, but could take it at home. I asked if it would cause diarrhea and he said it would. Dr. P then told us that he could also admit James for an overnight and give him IV antibiotics that wouldn't cause diarrhea. We opted for an overnight. James was a huge apple juice fiend while we were there. On Monday alone, he drank 20 or so 4oz. boxes of apple juice!
I slept with him in the hospital bed, so Momma could rest for the trip home on Tuesday. I seriously think that the nurses and tech turned on ALL the lights everytime they came in. But what surprised me most, was the tech waking me up to ask if I minded changing James' diaper. When he had his ileostomy take-down in June, the nurses and techs would change his cloth diapers without waking us up. And this time, I didn't bring enough diapers since I thought we wouldn't be there that long and he was in pull-ups. He's doing fine now, but has a small diaper rash.

I've been working on my math. With all of James' stuff in the last couple years, we've all fallen behind. I'm 'racing' through my current math book to finish it by my goal of Thanksgiving. I'm enjoying algebra, but sometimes I struggle with algebraic sentences.

I was reading through some old posts on this blog and noticed a post where I said my least favorite task was meal planning. I don't think it was intentional, but I've been doing all the meal planning lately and actually enjoying it. Momma even let me make the shopping list and do the shopping at Dekalb International Farmer's Market on Tuesday. It worked out well that we met a online friend of Momma's on Sunday at the Market and I was able to get prices for my list and work out how much I could get with the money I had. I did end up $1.58 over my budget because I'd forgotten about tax for the bag of rice. Oh well, something to remember for next time :*).

We also enjoyed visits with several families this summer. One family came a couple times... they have two little ones. Zeke is almost 3, but his speech is so much clearer than James'. James loved to play with Zeke and he doted on Lily Beth, their little girl. I think everyone loved having them visit. Becca and Carrie thought it was fun to take Zeke outside and run races up and down the driveway. He's a pretty good runner and kept up to them most of the time.

In October, we took a day trip up to North Georgia to see Nona and Poppa and pick up apples. Momma, Katie, James and I sang most of the way up and Daddy, Owen and Becca worked on math. Carrie decided to read a book!

I also got my hair cut late October. Katie wanted her hair cut and I wanted to get mine cut to send to Locks of Love again... So we cut each others' hair. I didn't realize how much mine would curl after we cut it. We thought it would end up shoulder length. Apparently not.

For my 17th birthday, I was able to do something I've been thinking about since I was 15. Turns out that I could have done it when I was 16, but... I wasn't sure how it all worked and didn't want to call and ask. Momma had to make a trip to Macon and since Katie didn't have to go, she was able to keep everyone else and I was able to donate blood. I was a bit nervous that my hemoglobin would be too low to donate since it has to be 12.5 or higher, but it was fine. I was excited to be able to do it and it went quicker than I thought it would. I did learn that it's a good idea to take some sort of snack because water isn't quite enough. I'm hoping that it will work out so I can donate again in the beginning of December... Anyone want to join me? :*).

Hoping everyone enjoyed their summers too.

♥, Hannah

James and I

I was going through pictures tonight and downloading some old pictures off of CD's and came across several old ones and some new ones of James and I. We were all watching some of the videos we'd taken of James and Carrie especially and I couldn't get over how little James was then!

An update on James and what we've been doing

James sitting in a Little Tikes car Tuesday night! He thought it was so fun to drive, but he couldn't understand why, when he turn the steering wheel that the wheels didn't turn that way too!

James' Beads of Courage. Each bead represents part of James' journey with leukemia. Hospital stays, surgeries, pokes, lines, chemo, etc... He also has a Purple Heart which signifies the end of treatment.

Wednesday afternoon, the clowns stopped by. James was starting to get fussy since he wanted to eat. The clowns kept him amused for 45+ minutes and by then, it was time to head to the OR.

This is James yesterday evening... he had been having breakthrough pain earlier and was tired. It didn't prevent him from watching Superman though! I do believe that when James is finally discharged I will have memorized the Superman episodes!

I'm hoping that James will be discharged this Tuesday. But nothing is definite yet and it all depends on James. He get out of bed and went for a ride in a wheelchair down to the library here. But we headed back shortly, since he was getting tired and hurting. James and I snuggled up and slept the rest of the afternoon away. Now he's back to watching Superman all snuggled in his soft green blanket the Child Life Specialist brought by this morning!

♥ Hannah ♥

Pork for dinner

I am not good at coming up with good meal plans... my sister K is far better than me in that regard. However this last week, Momma told me to just pull something out of the freezer for the next day's dinner. K suggested looking through one of her cookbooks, the River Cottage Meat Book, for a recipe. I used a recipe for a lamb roast, swapping out several ingredients and switching pork for lamb. It was a little dry since it stayed in an hour longer than it should have... (consequences of having siblings running the oven while one is gone) But the flavor was delicious and I am hoping to make it again... this time with garlicky mashed potatoes!

Learning to Read

J has mild-moderate hearing loss in one ear and profound hearing loss in his other ear.
Recently we were blessed to receive some Love and Learning dvds and books from another family of a child with Ds. J really enjoys watching his 'school work'

I hope you all enjoy listening to J 'read' and hopefully, we'll be able to add more videos of J reading his other books!

Family Life

B caught reading a book!

K's birthday dinner... just waiting for the salmon. It was an absolutely delicious meal!

And now, I have a 18 year old sister! my goodness, how time flies!

Momma has more pictures of what country children do when they don't have a swing set over on One Big Adventure, plus an update on J's recent trip to Atlanta!

Meet Gusty.... aka Gustavus Adolphus snoozing on the side porch.

The treats after chicken processing... We had two families over who wanted to learn the 'how-to'.

We just did 75 chickens, since all of the 150 weren't big enough for slaughter yet. It made for a quick day. Although, we were all exhausted by the end of the day. J decided to finish up the day with some excitement by cutting his hand on a lounge chair on the porch... Poor baby! It's looking much better now, but we are still keeping it cover and putting antibiotic ointment on it.

So that's what we've been doing around here lately.... Hope you all enjoy the quick visit around the farm!

~Hannah

The Little Man

J really loves to dress up in a suit and tie (the tie is probably the most important, since he thinks it makes him look like Daddy, even though Daddy rarely wears one.) Yesterday, we were looking for an outfit J could wear today to Atlanta for an appointment and J found a tie. We pulled out a suit J was given back in 2007 (he was almost 3 then) and it still fits him, probably because he's gotten taller and slimmed down from all the steroids.

B, C, and I took J outside and got some pictures of him all dressed up with the new camera from Grandpa John and Grandma Nan (Thank you so much!)

I do have some more pictures to post, but they are on the other computer, so they will have to wait for right now! But they are some great pictures of things we've been doing around here!

Hannah

♥♥♥You know........♥♥♥

that you know too much about medical things when you:

restart the little guy on anti-fungal meds without talking with the doctors
have to explain to the home health agency person on the phone that you need a catheter, ileostomy bags, g-tube supplies, and more ostomy clips
miss giving a dose of antibiotic and don't worry about making it up
recognize yeast starting under the ostomy bag

J has been getting too big for the paper diapers and we've wanted to switch to cloth diapers, but couldn't find one that the size charts said would fit him and give that extra leeway we needed for his ileostomy bag. And to tell the truth, I was a bit overwhelmed by all the diaper choices out there. I mean, there are pockets, fitted, contour, covers, inserts, doublers, etc.... and how is one suppose to know what's what?!?! As part of a homeschool project and (kinda of a stress reducer for me) Momma and I have been working on a review and giveaway blog. Through twitter, I've met several moms who cloth diaper their babies, and one mom in particular has been really helpful. A week ago, she sent us a cloth diaper she had for us to use on J. It fit him perfectly, with room to spare. When I first put the diaper on J, he gave this big sign of relief and was so upset when we had to take the diaper off to wash it. The same night the diaper came, Momma and I found a site and ordered him 12 more of the same kind of diapers. They came this Monday and we washed them that night and since Tuesday, J has been in cloth diapers all the time.

Something I've learned with cloth diapers is, you can't judge how much they wet the diaper by feeling it, while they are still wearing said diaper. I left J in a cloth diaper for 6 hours and pushed fluids, because I thought "he isn't drinking enough, he's still really dry!"... When I took the diaper off, it was ~~slightly wet~~ soaked!!!

I'm waaayyyy behind on school and today, I asked Momma if I could stop the book I'm currently working on since I'm over 2/3 of the way through and so now I'm working on a placement test to see which book I will/can move too. I love the thrill and tension of math, but it sometime seems that I've already seen that particular problem multiple times before.

Did you know that there are degrees in Graphic Design? I didn't... but I do enjoy some of the benefits that come from graphics, coupled with a well-designed site. I was looking at a program for graphic design that some blog designers use and then I noticed the price tag.......... over $600 dollars for this one software program! Ouch!

We've been doing some cleaning around here and I was told that ~~our~~ my nightstand that K and I share was a (putting it mildly) big mess. So, I spent some time cleaning it out and sorting through our piles. I came across my journal from our trip to Minnesota in 2008 and read through it. Something I had written down was a quote from a friend, 'why use one word when you can use twenty!'. I'm afraid that is rather me. I can go on and on about one particular subject and then change it without a moment of warning. My poor Momma is often the subject of my scattered thoughts.

I'm hoping to post pictures soon, but a little someone who shall remain nameless has dropped the camera once again... there is talk of said person buying a camera of their own so that they don't break any more cameras. I'm thinking about getting a camera to use, but then I look at the prices and my bank account and they suffer large differences in the monetary factor.

A fun bit for you, I learned recently how to make hearts. On the computer for blogger!

here's how it works...
♥
& hearts ; remove the spaces and hit preview and your ♥ will appear. Now I want to learn how to make stars! lol!

and don't write Whala.... write Voila. It's French! ;)

Good night!

Computer Problems

Friday morning, the computer cord died. Since then, we haven't had access to the internet at home. I've rather enjoyed not having the computer, since it's allowing me to catch up on reading. I read 39 Steps by John Buchan. 39 Steps is also an Alfred Hitchcock movie, that I've also watched. I'm of the opinion that the book is better than the movie, but I think that watching the movie helped me understand the book better.
I'm also currently reading Ghost Wars by Steve Coll... It's a very interesting book and it's taking me much longer to read. I'm about half-way through it in two days. It's not about ghosts, but about the CIA, Afghanistan, Osama Bin Laden and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the various guerilla type leaders that the US supported with financial aid and arms. The book covers the time from 1979 to September 10th, 2001. Sometimes, I come across something I don't know about and wish I had the computer to look it up. But with not having the computer, we'll get to go to the library more often.

Today, Momma, J, and I are in Atlanta for several appointments for J. J also got his Beads of Courage today. He has four strands full of beads, telling his journey through leukemia and treatment. It's really impressive and I'm hoping to get pictures up soon. Currently, we are at the hospital library using the computers. J is wandering around in between watching Superman on the TV (naturally it's George Reeves.... since he's the best one :*))....

Since we haven't been on the computer, we've spent more time together and quoted movies scripts and other things we've seen.

C~ (reading from Genesis during devotions) 'and Sarah convinced' and had a baby. She did this twice in a row, saying 'convinced' instead of 'conceived'.

K and I were talking to Momma and Daddy in the kitchen and we were quoting from books, movies and coming up with our own things... when Momma said something about we were making a good case for getting rid of the TV as well. K said 'Spoiled Sport', just like Sylvester in Looney Tunes. It was the perfect imitation and since then, we've said 'spoiled sport' instead of 'party-pooper'.

B and C are enjoying all the new books from the library and B is starting to read books on her own inititive. She read 'Dolphin Adventure: a true story' in one morning and started '39 Steps' last night. C is often found curled up in a chair reading books and then she'll come to Momma, K or myself asking for a new book to read. What have you been reading this week?

Well, I'd better close for now... I have a few more things to check while we have access to the internet. Don't expect anything in the next week, since I'm not sure when we'll go to the library!