Mr. Inventor

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It's just the day after Christmas and it hasn't slowed down Holland. He was out inventing early this morning. My mom came by for breakfast (Egypt invited her) and snapped these pictures of him. I don't even know where he got that hand truck. Do we even own a hand truck? Mom said that she asked what the extension cord was for. He said it was his brake. He tied it to a tree.

Seriously. Discovery Channel hasn't found us yet? Forget balloon boy. Forget the White House crashers. Come find us. We're honest. We're hardworking. We don't try to fool the media. I need a budget for his experiments. He just came downstairs and showed me a boat he made for Egypt's little horses. I gave him a glue gun and some craft sticks for Christmas and he's built a bird house for gramma and now this boat.

Thank You Shriners

I took Egypt to her Shriners appointment last week. Super Hero had the day off (I really need to find another way to say that. He was home, unpaid....). So he stayed home with Holland while I drove up to OHSU. I've been up there so many times, you'd think it would be no big deal. Have you SEEN this place? It's huge. It should have its own zip code. I had directions for where to turn into the parking structure. They are actually not part of OHSU and if you park on their property, big trouble. I missed the parking garage the first time. It didn't even look like it was somewhere you could turn. The garage itself was something to behold. My van isn't long and obnoxious, but I could barely make the turns and there were cars parked alongside the ramp the way up.

But we were on time and filled out some more paperwork and waited with our beeper to be called. Everyone was so nice and after being seen by the pediatric rheumatologist, physical therapist and occupational therapist, they said anytime we need any services to just call! They didn't think she needed another injection at this point and to just watch for any stiffness or sore joints. The physical therapist gave us some pencil grips to help her hold her pencil correctly. And some ideas for exercises at home.

We're so thankful that God has given us access to these services for free until she's an adult.

Mmmm, Bread

If Holland hadn't stolen my camera, I could have taken a picture of the beautiful loaves of bread I've been slaving over for the past two days. Slaving, as in watching them rise, transferring to a clean bowl, putting in the refrigerator, letting rise again, kneading a bit, putting in two bread pans and baking. Whew. And they tasted pretty darn good to boot!

I bought this great book recommended by a friend. Her husband is a cooking fool (well, she is too, looking at all her Facebook status updates) and he's always making bread. I bought it on Amazon. It's called Crust and Crumb: Master Formulas for Serious Bread Bakers. The title alone should have scared the socks off me. I'm not a serious bread baker. I'm not even a serious baker. But I'm a serious eater, so I figured that I qualified in some way to buy this book. I read through some of the techniques in the front of the book, just to familiarize myself with the vocabulary. I had experience with bread making before - and not just throwing flour and yeast and water in a bread machine and flipping a switch. I actually learned to hand knead. Doesn't seem a like a big deal, but when your Kitchen Aid mixer starts to levitate on your counter, you'd better know how to knead or you'll be buying a new machine. I think it actually growled at me.

The recipe calls for a starter. Not too hard. A little hand kneading and throw it in a bowl for 5 hours. Then I even got to refrigerate it and forget about it until today. I realized that I should have cooked the brown rice before taking the starter out of the fridge to come to room temp. Oh well. Make a mental note of that for next time. The recipe calls for two different types of starters. My friend recommended doubling the recipe and using all of the same starter. Good thing. I think one starter is enough for a novice. The only thing I wasn't completely familiar with was testing to make sure the dough was ready for the final rise. There's a technique called a "windowpane" test. To make sure that the dough is the right consistency. If you've over-kneaded the dough, there's no way to add water or flour to fix it. Luckily, I never reached the point of no return - which the author recommends you throwing it out if you've achieved this feat. It actually stretched the right way. I even gave a bit to the kids to play with. They were fascinated by it. Punching it, kneading it, rolling it and Holland even snuck a bite.

The house smelled wonderful. Romania thought I was cooking pizza. Nah. That was probably just the provolone chicken I was baking while they were playing racquetball with Super Hero. My, my. What's with all this cooking and baking? I'll analyze that after I eat some more of the homemade almond roca sitting in my kitchen. Talk about cooking skills. Try bringing butter and brown sugar to a hard crack without a candy thermometer. Now that's some skills. Thanks, gramma for all those lessons on Little Grandma's Christmas suckers or I'd have no idea what that even meant.

Something's Missin'

Somethin's missin' alright. How about my digital camera, half a dozen rechargeable batteries, two night light chargers, and the phone cord. I have no idea what he did with this stuff. The other day, Holland opened a brand new package of No. 2 pencils and used packing tape and some printer paper to make a sail boat for his bath. It's hard not to be irritated. Sure. To you it's probably "fun" and "inventive". To me, it's just annoying to find projects assembled all over the house that use items that I need or destroy things that are still working. My house has become a science lab. Where's Bill Nye the Science Guy when you need him? Why isn't the Discovery Channel knocking on my door to document this? Maybe someday we'll harness his power for the greater good of mankind.

I'm So Flexible

That title makes me want to laugh out loud. This is just life now: Be flexible or go crazy. Super Hero's hours have been cut at work. We are finally feeling the effects of the bad economy. Just when you hear that things are picking up, his company is taking a hit. He lost 3 days of work last week and two this week. So I'm flexible. I work around him. Which isn't all that easy when you're trying to homeschool, clean house, do laundry, cook dinner, drive and drop off kids, deal with doctor appointments. I was hoping he'd see how busy I am and give me some slack. He has helped, but sometimes (and moms everywhere know this), it's more work to have them home, even if you think you'll get some help. It's too much 'splainin' (in the words of Ricky Ricardo).

Yesterday Super Hero took Holland to his OT appointment. That was such a big help, because it gave me time to work on sewing projects for this bazaar I'm doing tomorrow at Romania's school. But when they got home, I had to pop him back in the car, get Egypt, get schoolwork together, drive to my sister's, drop off Egypt, pick up my nephews, drive to their charter school for fencing and Holland's speech class. Then work on school work in a noisy room with a bunch of teenagers playing guitar. Then take my nephews home, come back home with Egypt and Holland for lunch and more homeschooling. Which, I have to say, is pretty much a lost cause after all that. Talk about being flexible. I was getting ready to do more school with Holland when Super Hero, who had been perusing Craigslist found some free stuff. Of course Holland wanted to tag along. (That's actually what's fun about homeschooling - being able to do things at a moment's notice). They drove up to Kelso, WA in hopes of getting a table and 4 chairs, a snowboard, snowboots, a new bike, a new tv and some other things. Of course, it being free, I didn't get my hopes up. So when they came home around dinner and Holland bounds in the house "look what we got!" I was ready for some big ticket item. It was a digital TV antenna. "Just like grandma's!". Seriously. That's what thrilled him. Oh. And a big bag of potting soil. Yup. Not kidding. They drove to Kelso from Oregon City for a tv antenna and a bag of potting soil. But it got them out of the house, let me do more sewing and spend some time with Egypt before retrieving Romania from the bus stop.

So, while we're on the topic of flexibility, here we are on Wednesday and I feel like we've done no school at all this week. I know that's not true, but sometimes it feels like we move at the speed of a snail going backwards. Super Hero had a dentist appointment this morning. So he offered to take Romania to the bus (third time this week!!). I didn't even shower until 10.30. Woohoo! And Holland didn't get out of bed until 9.45. We had a leisurely morning of spelling games online, reading and mopping the floor. This idea is all Holland. He decided (my inner skeptic came up with this) that it would be a lovely idea to mop the floor for mom. How do you discourage a 10 year-old that wants to mop your kitchen floor? "Oh shoot, honey. Don't mop the floor, we need to do school". This is his way of getting out of work.

And now that it's 12.30, I'd better eat lunch and get him back to work. Mariel of Redwall is waiting.

Good Report from the Rheumatologist

I took Egypt to see the rheumatologist on Thursday. It had only been a month since her last appointment, but we thought she might need another injection after only three months. We've been going to the physical therapist once a month and it seems to have helped stave off the need for another injection. There is no change in her range of motion for her knee and the thumb and jaw look the same too. That's such good news. I wasn't looking forward to taking her in again.

Next week is a full schedule - including going back to the orthotist. I misplaced Egypt's insert for her shoe. The problem is we keep switching it depending on which shoes or boots she wears. It's probably somewhere lost in a basket of clean laundry. But instead of trying to find the proverbial needle, I'm just going to have another one made. Too bad that insurance views this as a cosmetic thing or I'd get 3 or 4 of them.

Now I'm off to madly sew for a few hours. Super Hero took all three kids to the health club. Every Sunday there is a free racquetball class that the boys have been taking and love it. Then Egypt will swim with daddy and I'll get some more work done for Thursday's bazaar at school. Yesterday I got 10 child aprons sewn and 1 adult.