A Lee in the Woudes

1. Where is your cell phone? clueless
2. Your significant other? praying
3. Your hair? wet
4. Your mother? amazing
5. Your father? patient
6. Your favorite things? sundaes
7. Your dream last night? nonexistent
8. Your favorite drink? coffee
9. Your dream/goal? patience
10. The room you’re in? dining
11. Your church? Catholic
12. Your fear? illness
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
14. Where were you last night? bed
15. What you’re not? patient
16. Muffins? Nancy’s
17. One of your wish list items? garage
18. Where you grew up? Connecticut
19. The last thing you did? paint
20. What are you wearing? shorts
21. Your TV? Off
22. Your pets? None
23. Your computer? Laptop
24. Your life? Busy
25. Your mood? Good
26. Missing someone? Family
27. Your car? Van
28. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
29. Favorite store? Amazon
30. Your summer? Virusful
31. Like (love) someone? Dan
32. Your favorite color? red
33. Last time you laughed? yesterday
34. Last time you cried? Sunday
35. Who will re-post this? Kathy

HT: Kim H.

I really, really, really have been organizing even though if you came to my house… you would think I’ve been mastering the art of piling things as high as they can… with a not so steady hand.

However, progress has definitely been made in the laundry room.  Here’s the “before.”

My dilemmas before the laundry makeover were the following:

• Our laundry room was a half bath/laundry room that we started to “makeover” but never finished.  We removed the toilet and sink.  We put in a utility sink.  But the gigundo mirror and toilet paper holder remained.
• The handy dandy plastic rack while functional was… ugly.
• The handy dandy plastic rack always looked cluttered.
• The utility sink was always full of clothes?!?!?
• I had nowhere to fold clothes… so I had to fold laundry in my living room. HOWEVER, my piles were toppled by a fun toddler learning the concept of gravity over and over again…  before the piles found refuge in a clothes basket.
• And… the clothes basket never seemed to make its way upstairs.  So it was a permanent fixture in the living room that was used for low rim basketball.

So my “After” picture contains some of my solutions!

• We got an old kitchen cabinet (from someone’s kitchen remodel) and installed a base cabinet next to the utility sink… and the upper cabinet above it.  Now my clutter is HIDDEN!!
• Dan found a 30″ piece of plywood that was a bit longer than counter width (24″) and installed that on top… so I have a little bit of extra folding room, but it doesn’t hamper drawer access!
• These Blue Fabric Cubes from Target are AWESOME.  I labelled each one in a different color for the kids.  I fold the clothes and put them right into these baskets.  They are small enough for the boys to carry upstairs.  (This won’t work as well when they are older and have bigger clothes… but they’ll be doing their own laundry then!)
• You can’t see… but the gigundo mirror is gone so I have extra space above the sink to hang HOOKS for the “work clothes!!” 
• The wall cabinets are quite high.. but I’m tall and if you’ll notice there’s a handy step ladder between the sink and the cabinets so we can maximize space.
• I don’t have to have a laundry basket in my living room!!!

Now… the other side with the washer/dryer doesn’t have an “AFTER”… yet.  I’m still organzing all that junk into baskets etc.   But didn’t Dan do a good job with his part??

1. Favorite Summer drink — Ha! I’m very predictable.  Coffee.  Dan even commtented this morning:  “I can’t believe you’re drinking that and it’s almost 90 degrees out.”  Yep. Love it.

2. Worst part of Summer — Thinking summer is going to be restful… 

3. Best part of Summer — Hanging out with Dan and my boys of summer.  Anticipating vacation with family and going to see The Music Man!!

4. Favorite Shopping Experience — I’ll give Mary G that IKEA is awesome… but my favorite shopping experience has to be online.

5. What I’m reading — Oh man… what AREN’T I reading.  Here goes: Montessori, Charlotte Mason, a slew of children’s books, Scott Hahn books… all at different times of the day. (Sorry I don’t have time to be fun and include the links!)  

6. What I’m praying about — Most urgently?  Carol Jones, her mother-in-law, Mrs. Akers, the respose of the soul of many dear friends and relatives, and for sickness to leave my house for the rest of the summer… so I can have MaryG over!!

7. What I’m currently knitting — My brows. 

8. What I’m currently writing — Today? My grocery list.

9. Where my time has been most-focused lately — Scheduling homeschool for this next year and organzing my house.

10. Favorite quote of the day: “When in doubt, throw it out.”

They are having a free give-away for their grand opening!! Just leave a comment here to win (you can also see some of the 80 prizes too).

Tim Drake has been writing about it at www.pope2008.com!!

Yesterday Dan was walking down from his folks house and called to see if we had food to share with some fun cousins…. in a French/German type accent.

Dan: “Ah.. yesss, I was wondering what was on the menu this evening?”
Me: (understanding the reason for the call and chuckling at the accent)  “Uh-oh… I am making tuna over rice… hmm.”
Dan: “Ah-hah, zee budget menu!”
Me: “Well, we can serve watermelon…”

Shortly after the call, the boys, the fun cousins, and the German walked in… and that’s when things became really humorous (well, to me).

I was making a dish that I had never made. Dan hit it on the nail; I was trying new menus that were budget friendly. I googled “tuna and rice”… and a recipe popped up… but I didn’t have all the ingredients, so I fudged it. And… well, the brown rice that I had made to serve with the creamed tuna… was not as plentiful as I imagined it to be. So instead of a casserole, it looked like:

Annie: (looking into the dish) ”Hmm… oatmeal. My Dad is the only one in my family that likes oatmeal. You guys have it for breakfast a lot though.” (She knows from previous VW vacations).

Because I didn’t see that she looked into MY dinner dish, it took me awhile to figure out that she was referring to my dinner. And then… I was really chuckling inside and nervous about serving it. But John Paul, her sidekick, knew that the dish in front of them was not our oatmeal dish… and set her straight:

JP: “No… I think that’s dinner. It must be a casserole.”

But there were more comments:

Dan: “Ah… memories of Friday night with creamed tuna over toast. They’re… not good ones.”

Toast!! Brilliant!

So to stretch and salvage this soupy mess, I toasted, buttered and quarted LOTS of toast. Served my “cassserole” in little dishes with plates of toast and we had “creamed tuna casserole” Welsh Rarebit style.

And then called everyone to the table.

Bobby I-don’t-try-anything-new started with the “I don’t want that” as soon as he saw it.   So after admonishing the skeptic, I presented the dinner….positively.  I stressed the fun of dipping the tuna with the toast.  I mentioned that you could make your own mini tuna toast sandwich! I also put out the secret weapon — a bowl of shredded cheese — for extra dipping pleasure.

And it worked.  They all loved it. Licked the bowl clean. I had to make more toast.

Dan apologized through his laughter. And… evil man… told Tommy, Annie and Jack to ask Uncle Steve about creamed tuna and tell him how much they liked it. And BTW… he ate three helpings too.

I never never never never in a million years would have thought my casserole dish with that dinner would be empty.

Faith and Family went live!!  In addition to five fun bloggers, F & F has uploaded the magazine to read online as well as print and will upload back issues for subscribers’ benefit soon.

Hmm… I wonder if this means I’ll need three cups of coffee…

While I’m in round three of summer illnesses, I thought I’d post pictures of our St. John the Baptist Bonfire… which we wanted to have near or on his feast day (June 24th)… but had to postpone a week because we were finishing up round one of summer illnesses.  So we had it on July 1st… just before round 2 of summer illnesses started.    Anyway…

Do you know how hard it is for children to KNOW that there are S’more supplies in the cupboard and do you know how hard it is for parents to hear their child beg for a bonfire every night??  So when a beautiful crisp night came and no one was sick… we broke them out of hiding!!! In attendance were some cousins next door and Nahnie, Papa, and Josie. 

It wasn’t the usual HUGE bonfire that VW’s do… just a little one.

Nahnie felt moved to sing… since it was a bonfire.  And since it was a bonfire for St. John the Baptist, she started making her own song for him.  “Oh St. John the Baptist…” she sang… and Bobby finished the song: “… thank you for the marshmallows!”

Did you note our very fancy system of carrying the S’more supplies?

The very old (aka 8 years of age) and the very young (aka 3 years of age) toasted together:

The boys were pretty psyched that Tommy and the ever-popular Margie were there:

BTW — differences in genders are apparent even in marshmallows. The boys were determined to set their marshmallows on fire… while the more refined girls were out to achieve the perfect toasted color — myself included.

Funnny… I bought too much chocolate and not enough graham crackers. So we had to make chocolate and marshmallow sandwiches. At the end, Papa led a rousing “Oh When the Saints Go Marching In” to end the night.

Boy lying on couch with stomach virus to Dad leaving for Sunday Mass: “Can you bring me back a donut?”

…doing “stuff.” But had to post that I loved what Barbara wrote here.

I’ve been reading a lot of Montessori these days… because it helps me be what I’m not: patient. It’s my goal this summer: slow down, be attentive to the child in front of me, recognize their needs, teach them to be independent and… well, you get the idea.

unplugged

Originally uploaded by aleeinthewoudes.

…not the Eric Clapton kind of unplugged where you get to see how good my non-existent acoustical skills are… but the enjoy-life-step-away-from-the computer kind of unplugged.

I’m unplugging for a little while… it’s summer. Summer is about unplugging and refueling. I plan to unplug a lot this summer when I can. And then I’m sure I’ll come back to tell you all about my unplugging activities and share some hysterical photos of the unplugged boys.

Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti Do… came from the breviary for the feast of St. John the Baptist?  From fisheaters:

Another interesting thing about the Feast of St. John: the Breviary’s hymn for this day, Ut queant laxis — the hymn sung or recited during the blessing of the bonfire — is the source of our names of musical notes — Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. The hymn, attributed to Paulus Diaconus (Paul the Deacon, ca. A.D. 720-799), was noted by a monk to rise one note in the diatonic C-Scale with each verse. The syllables sung at each rise in pitch give us the names of our notes (the “Ut” was later changed to “Do” for easier pronunciation):

Ut queant laxis
Resonare fibris
Mira gestorum
Famuli tuorum,
Solve polluti
Labii reatum, Sanc
Te Ioannes
 …”which brings us back to Ut, Ut, Ut, Ut!” (With apologies to Miss Andrews…). The words mean:

So that these your servants may, with all their voice, resound your marvelous exploits, clean the guilt from our stained lips, O Saint John.

And then they posted the music!!! Go learn it!!