Summer (and Everything Else) is in Full Swing!

The Sheffers have had some action packed days this last month, and there is no sign of it letting up any time soon. Getting a nice long chunk of time to sit and write a post about it is unlikely to happen until at least Thanksgiving after we bring in the goods from the garden and everything is stored for the winter. (My "helper" makes it an even greater challenge as she loves pushing the keys on the laptop almost as much as she enjoys playing in the dirt and mud.) I'm going to attempt a work around for this difficulty though, and we'll see if I can write a coherent post from the kitchen while I work on everything else that needs doing. You'll have to excuse what might be a slightly disjointed post.

Charlie is now in the full swing of his classes for the summer term. The first week or so was pretty rough until we figured out a decent place for him to do his studying and homework. I wish that there was a nicer place for him than the basement at my laundry table, but at least I was able to get the wall by his workspace scraped and painted to make it less dungeon-esque. The mauve paint probably would not have been my first choice, but when you're buying the goof up gallons at $5 for Dutchboy paint, you can be a little more flexible on the colors. 

Drawing board - guess what I'm using the next time I can actually sit!

I am absolutely loving the class projects that Charlie has been doing this term. There is nothing wrong with pieces of metal welded together that he was doing last term. However, they're not as useful around the house as the beautiful cutting board and drawing board that he has made in class. 

Gretl and Elska are really becoming the dynamic duo. I spend a fair bit of my days enjoying their playing or stopping their mischief. Elska is without a doubt the instigator in it all, and while Gretl tries her best to be a good pup, there are times that she just can't resist the charms of her two legged

sister. When she's not being tantalized into trouble, Gretl has really gotten to be a well behaved pup. She generally does a good job of coming, sitting, staying, laying down, heeling, and even not eating food that she hasn't been specifically given by an adult. She has been good about staying in the yard and has been almost completely broken of the whole "jumping up on people" thing. The training has really been starting to pay off, and it has resulted in her spending a lot more time just relaxing out of her crate. At this rate, we might not be too far from being able to put the crate in the basement and have our floor space back! We are still planning to train her to pull a cart and get her certified as a therapy dog. However, with everything else going on, it is hard to add in anything else no matter how much good it would do.

Elska is has been learning so many new things. She can stand up on her own in the middle of the room, walk along furniture and walls, and climb pretty much anything that she can get her foot on. She's grown 2 inches taller since her last doctor's appointment. (Not an ounce heavier, but she's just always on the go and can't eat enough despite constantly eating.) We have also been working with her on sign language, and she's pretty much got "more" down and "please," "milk," and "all done" only need a little prompting for her to remember them. She's gotten over her dislike of the grass and now finds great amusement in pulling grass and weeds and throwing dirt. The amount of joy she has in it totally outweighs the extra work of scrubbing her clean every night.

Mama's garden helper

Finally, the projects that have been keeping hold of much of the daylight hours. The big one, of course, is the garden/yard. I've got a small herb garden that I've been working, and we put in a lot of heirloom tomato plants. We have Mr Stripeys, San Marzanos, Amish Paste Tomatoes, German Queens, Cherokee Purples, and Black Krims - 20 total plants! On top of that, I found 5 volunteer tomato plants yesterday (probably cherry tomatoes) over by the compost pile and transplanted them to a more hospitable space. As of right now, all of the plants have survived my gardening skills. The grapes managed to make it through another winter and continue to be Charlie's pet project in the garden. The pumpkin vines are growing like gangbusters, and we are hoping for a bumper crop to make lots of pies, muffins, and bread this fall. We are also in the middle of raspberry season right now.  To date, I've picked over four and a half pounds of raspberries, and I didn't get out yesterday or today yet. 

All of the garden fun has already been making kitchen work for me. There's plenty of rhubarb in the freezer for Charlie's favorite muffin recipe and a couple of pies, and I made lots of strawberry rhubarb jam. I should really get started on the strawberry raspberry jam, but it's hard to get enough motivation to heat and steam up the kitchen all day. Instead, I've been freezing the raspberries and will probably wait for some cooler days to get the jam made.

Finally, about half of the wallpaper in the kitchen has been removed, and I'm continuing to work on it as time permits. (Ok, when the weather is too miserable to do any of my outdoor projects.) Once it's done and everything is sanded, paint and new back splashes are going up. I could probably rush through and just be done with it, but I really want it done right, so it's going to take a bit longer. If any of you absolutely love removing wallpaper, I'd be happy for the company while it's coming down. 

The Sheffers at the end of the day....

Working Without a Net

Bring it fuzzball

Recently, our Little Girl has turned into quite the fearless adventurer. While we knew that this day was coming, we were in no way really prepared for it. Is it even possible to be prepared for it? Do they make safety harnesses and nets in toddler size?

The last couple of weeks, a certain little someone has:

• Learned  how to crawl into the recliner while someone is sitting in it.
• Started standing "no hands" for a second or two.
• Become an expert at switching between furniture supports while cruising around the house.
• Decided to start crawling up a flight of stairs. (She was caught at step number two, and a baby gate put in place to prevent further climbing.)

  

  Exploring the yard

• Climbed on barriers that we had to keep her away from the dog's fan in the living room. Poor Gretl no longer gets the extra fan since we can't keep it out of the Little Girl's reach.
• Wrestle and pin the dog. (And any playmates roughly her size or smaller.) I also caught her today wielding my cooling rack like a folding chair in a WWF match. Poor pup.
• Managed to crawl onto the door of the dishwasher and a living room end table. (We're trying to put a stop to that before she gets big enough to damage the door.)
• Fear of grass has been mostly overcome, and it has resulted in a desire to explore the yard. We are going to be purchasing one of those play area fence things shortly, so she can explore while I work in the garden.

 In addition to her adventurous exploits

A hungry little girl

• Six new teeth popped through in the last two weeks bringing her total to 16.
• This week's favorite toy is a colander that makes an absolutely wretched noise when she scrapes it across the floor.
• It has become more fun to "read" books on her own than to have us read them to her. As I type, she is currently reading a book to Gretl.
• She has become an ever-hungry bottomless pit. It doesn't matter if she's just had something to eat. If we sit down with food, she's at our side begging for demanding whatever we're having. Quaker Oatmeal Squares are pretty much her favorite, but they're nowhere near as yummy as she is convinced that Daddy's Skittles will be if we ever let her have them. She has also started to "blow" on her food to cool it when we do and tries to feed herself with a fork with some success. Her next goal is drinking from a glass, but we're not nearly as close with that one.
• No amount of scolding or redirecting can stop the siren's song of all things tech. Laptops, phones, stereo systems....she just can't resist touching them.
• Everyone she meets gets a high five if they'll play along. She also has started trying to use this as a distraction for us when she's into mischief. 
• Either she's blowing kisses or saying "thank you" in sign language. We can't quite tell yet.
• Snuggling and hugs for everyone! Favorite target remains the dog.

In other news, the car still was stalling after we got the new alternator put into it. We took it back to the shop and asked them to check for loose wires in it and were told that it was fine and they couldn't replicate the problem. The day after we picked it up, we ended up stranded at 11pm in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, the AAA truck that arrived was able to jump it and get us home. We took it into a different shop where they actually checked what we asked.....it turns out, there were a couple of loose wires. Huh. Who would have thought?

Charlie starts school on Monday, so we are off to get the last minute items that he needs. Have a great day!

Double Double Toil and Trouble

Quite the conversation with Grandma

Last weekend there were some family birthdays to celebrate, so we made the trek across state to visit Green Bay while Gretl spent the weekend at the Farm. (It was pretty much providential that she was not with us for the road trip, but more on that later.)

We got together on Friday night for a smaller gathering of Charlie's

Playtime with Grandpa

immediate family, enjoyed a nice dinner, and had some birthday cake. The Little Girl got to have lots of time snuggling Grandma and Grandpa, and she got plenty of time to play with her cousins too. She got to bed a little (ok hours) past her bedtime, but it was completely worth it to have the time with family.

Saturday was a surprise birthday for Charlie's aunt, so we were able to spend time with the extended family. Food, birthday cake, more snuggles for the Little Girl, and a chance to play on fun playground equipment with her cousins = a super fun time for us all. 

After things got wrapped up a bit from the party, we were able to pick up a number of tools and such that we had not been able to get moved 

She loves Great Grandpa!

yet. I still have no idea how Charlie got it all in there. Apparently playing Tetris as a child really did teach important life skills. Who would have ever thought?

Sunday morning we went to Mass with Charlie's folks and then got ready to head for home. The Little Girl decided that life was just too exciting for a nap, so she refused to take one despite all of our efforts to convince her otherwise. (We finally gave up and just loaded the car.)

On the road home, we had the battery light pop on at Oshkosh, so we pulled into Menard's to change it. In the rain. With all of the tools to do it sitting in the garage at home. After six trips into the store to get the right tools, buy the battery, and change a very stinky diaper on the Little Girl, we were ready to get back on the road - soaking wet, but hopeful that we would still be able to make it home by bedtime even with needing to pick up the dog from the Farm. There were still lights on, but we were going to make every effort to get home, so we could get the car looked at when shops opened again on Tuesday.

Waiting for the tow truck

It was not to be. We made it to Coloma (about halfway), had dinner, got back in the car and made it a mile down the road before the power steering went out and the whole electrical system went crazy on us. I managed to get to the side of the road to call AAA for a tow (and offered a prayer of thanks that we had decided to keep the Plus membership that covers a 100 mile tow - we were about 90 miles from home!). They went about trying to find someone to do the tow, and we ended up calling the local police for assistance since we were not in a very safe location. (The side of the road, cresting a hill, on a curve, in the rain. Definitely not ideal.) The found someone 20 miles away to do the tow for us, and Charlie was able to get the car to start again and make it the 100 yards down the road to a safer place to wait. Our new buddy Tom loaded the car up and drove us the rest of the way home even stopping once for the half hour that we needed to feed the hungry and overtired Little Girl who had finally had enough. We finally made it home about 11pm after more than double the normal amount of time for the trip. ("Double" the time, "Toil"ing in the rain, and just a spot of car "Trouble"...I'm trying to keep upbeat about the whole thing.) The repair shops are all closed today for Memorial Day (as they should be), so we will not know for sure what caused the problem until at least tomorrow. We are currently praying for it to be a loose wire or fuse, and we all have a good laugh about it. (The suspicion, however, is that the alternator is toast. Please let it be a fuse!)

Since it would be really easy to get upset and negative about it, it would probably be good to make a list of the things to be thankful for about the weekend:

• We got to spend time with family enjoying their company and having conversations about new ideas and constant learning. This alone makes it a good weekend.
  
• Even though the car crapped out on the side of the road, no one got hurt. 
• We had renewed our AAA membership on Friday before we left town, so the 90+ miles on the tow did not have any additional out of pocket cost for us.
• The Little Girl was a total trooper throughout it all. We only had one real meltdown and that was when she was hungry, tired, and in a strange, noisy, diesel truck.
• Tom (the tow truck driver) was an incredibly nice guy who made the ride home as enjoyable as it could have possibly been given the circumstances.
• My dad was willing and able to watch the Gretl, and she got to play out at the Farm for the weekend. He also was willing to bring her back home since our car was out of service, and lent us a vehicle to use until ours is working again.
  

What We Did While We Weren't Here

This morning I realized how long it had been since I posted here. A quick review of what has happened at Chez Sheffer these last weeks makes the reasons for that much more clear. We have been getting a lot of good stuff done around here.

To start, someone is now able to really start playing on the equipment at the play place in the mall, and we stop there whenever we are at the mall which is at least once a week. For a kid who does not yet walk, she sure can climb. I have been working really hard at allowing her to explore and have some 'ventures on her own. It is rather nerve wracking to say the least. Her protective daddy just might have a panic attack the first time that he takes her to play there. She is a little daredevil. 

Speaking of daredevils - she and I went to the Cities for a weekend, and a certain little someone decided that lots of exploration was in order. She managed to fall on her face and tried to put her front teeth through her lip. (After unsuccessful attempts to hold ice on her bleeding lip, we went with a couple of small bites of ice cream that were like magic. I am a little surprised that she did not do it again in order to get more ice cream.) There was also an attempt to bring home souvenir slivers in her toes, but her buddy took them out. She thought that the process of removal was way more interesting than how they got in there in the first place. No fussing at all while they got pulled thanks to Josh's way with kids and gentle touch. What a guy!

I found a rock for you Papa.

We have been making lots of trips out to the Farm over the last couple of weeks. The little girl may be wary of touching the grass, but she has still been having a great time riding in the wheelbarrow and playing on her mat while we work in the gardens in addition to getting to "hike" through the woods. There have been reports of toads and garter snakes in the area that she will probably start finding in the near future. I am really not a fan of either of those, so she will need to be finding someone else to play with those and teach her which ones are not to be touched. I can almost see my hair getting more gray at an exponential rate.

Dandelion Jelly!

The other day I was going through food storage (both in cold storage and the freezers) to figure out what we have and what we will need to try to stock from this year's garden, and I discovered a couple of pails of strawberries and rhubarb that I had frozen last summer with plans to make jam over the winter when heating the whole house up with the stove wouldn't be a big deal. Oops. At least it was still early enough in spring that I had cool days and near frosty nights that I could get all of it made and canned. I also made a couple of batches of dandelion jelly with dandelions that we had picked out at the Farm. It sure was nice to start replenishing our jam and jelly supply since we were getting dangerously low. This year, I am tracking how much I make, so we can start to gauge how much we will need to have to get through the winter - we eat a lot of PB&Js around here, and homemade jam is absolutely delicious on homemade yogurt.

Greeking it up

Ah, the deliciousness of homemade yogurt. I have been experimenting a bit to decide what will work best for us. Regular or Greek yogurt? A big tub or individual sized containers? How much of it do we really eat besides "a lot of it"? Which of the homemade jams and jellies go well with the yogurt and which ones do not? In the upcoming days, I will also be experimenting with different recipes for homemade granola as the current one ("crush crunchy granola bar") is not really the route that I prefer to go.

For those not from around here, right now we are in the heart of rhubarb season. As such, I have spent a large percentage of my waking hours the last five days devoted to making sure that we take full advantage of the season. It is really astounding how much time it has taken to harvest, clean, and prep 15 pounds of rhubarb (so far). We have had muffins and pie this week, and I have a bunch measured and frozen for later. There is just something fantastic about being able to make a favorite rhubarb comfort food outside of when it is normally ripe - a summer treat in the heart of winter. It just makes me smile. 

Last but certainly not least, we have been prepping the garden for planting. There has been a lot of weed pulling and compost spreading happening to get the bed ready for the tomatoes and peppers that will be planted next week. I will be taking the day off from working on rhubarb to see what can get accomplished today between catching up on all of the chores that did not get done the last couple of days while I diced rhubarb. It will be nice to not be spending all day leaning over a cutting board.

So, there is the short version of what we have been doing for the last few weeks while our digital life was limited. I will try to do a bit better in the coming weeks. We do have a lot to do though, so it may or may not happen.

Major Project Days

February

February

A couple of months ago, I shared a couple of pictures of the little girl's bedroom. It was my intention to work on getting the room to look like a child's bedroom/playroom instead of a storage mess that happened to have a crib in it. As anyone with functioning eyeballs can see, it was a mess. The really bad part is that this was AFTER I had been working on cleaning for a while. Now, I would like to be able to say that I got it all squared away that day and that it looked fantastic after just that day; that would be a lie. If anything, in the two and a half months since then, the room had gotten a whole lot worse. I was feeling really guilty about not having a nice place for the little girl. I just never had that extra push to get me into action. Then, two things happened to change that. My dad dropped off the mattress and box spring that he said that he'd give us, and a wonderful friend gave us a toddler bed.

Day 2

Here we were with nice things and no place to put them. It was the extra push that I needed to get to work. 

 

Part of the reason why I had not made much progress on the bedroom was that there were so many things that needed to be done outside of the room for anything to happen. There was organizing the items in the attic to make more space, hanging the guitars and banjo to clear items from under the bed, organizing the linen closet to make room for items currently stored in the bedroom..... The list continues for what seems like forever.

Day 2

With the requisite kick in the pants, work began. I knew that there was a fair bit of stuff under that twin bed, so I set to work getting it all new homes. Guitars have now been hung nicely in our room, a box of stuffed animals and decorations was unpacked, and the lettering for the Bible quote has now been put on the wall in the living room. I also moved more boxes in the attic than I'd like to admit are even stored up there in order to make room for the beds that needed a home up there. Despite having finals this week and needing to make sure that he was in a good position to do well on them, Charlie pitched in for his fair share. Together we took apart the twin bed in the bedroom and took the frame, two mattresses, two box springs, and a few other large items to the attic for storage. The rest of the bedroom was going to be a one person job, so Charlie went to work on his own projects with the car, trailer, and garage on top of any studying that he needed to do. (The bedroom is not that big, and with how much clutter was in there, there was not enough room for both of us.) 

Day 3

A certain little girl served in her customary supervisory capacity for the lion's share of the three days of work. She clearly wanted to make sure that her room looked good when it was done. I was really impressed with her level of patience while she played quietly in her crib for hours on end.

Day 3

There is obviously still more work to be done. That pile of stuff by the closet needs a new home, and there are still more boxes in the closet in need of sorting. At the same time, I do feel a lot better about the overall condition of the room. At least it looks like a bedroom now.

It wasn't all work and no play these last couple of days. We did get to the library for Little Movers Storytime this morning. Somebody really likes the chance to see all sorts of new people. I like the fact that there aren't a lot of kids smaller than her, so she's not likely to accidentally tip them like she has been known to do. She is, for right now at least, pretty good at sharing toys with the other kids and just loves the toys and books that they scatter around the room after the story is finished.

Just for the record...yes, it was less than 40 degrees this morning. Yes, she is barefoot. This is not a hill that I'm willing to die on right now. If she wants to go barefoot, I'll just wrap her feet in a blanket and call it a day.

Have a wonderful week!

Boogie Baby

Last Sunday morning, as we were halfway out the door and loading a cute little munchkin to go to church, my key wouldn't work in the deadbolt. Charlie tried his. We tried the backup keys. That lock was just not going to work. It might not have been so bad, but we didn't have keys to any of the other locks. There is nothing quite like something making you late for church to remind you why you need to be there.

Monday's project? Change the hardware, so we actually have matching keys. (The garage door still need to be redone, but I lost momentum after changing two doorknobs and two deadbolts. I'll get to it eventually.) It will be very nice to be able to have more options - like leaving the porch door unlocked when one of us will be coming home in the dark or inclement weather, so we can dig for keys on a dry and lit porch. 

Monday we also had an epic meltdown from a certain little girl. She decided that she did not want to sit up on her own but would rather just lay there crying. (Unless I left the room for some reason which would result in her stopping and spinning on her back to get a good view of when I returned.) This ultimately went on for over an hour. It was not fun for either of us. If there was an easier way to teach kids to assess and fix their problems instead of waiting for someone to come rescue them, I would totally be on board. She ended up none the worse for wear and was begging for delicious food from Mama's plate just a short time later.

The rest of the week got a little difficult for everyone due to a LOT of teeth working their way in at once. Our poor little munchkin has had a nose that's either been running like a faucet, or, more recently, stuffed and congested until it's miserable. Her lungs have luckily stayed clear, and we're hoping for relief to be in sight soon.

In other news, lots of work got done in the yard, and some progress was made in the efforts to transform the second bedroom from a storage place where the little girl sleeps to an actual bedroom where she can play. There's a lot more to do, but we are making steady progress every day.

My Shadow

We have had some busy days around here. 

Because of all the rain last week, we were stuck inside for a good chunk of the time. This gave a certain little girl and I plenty of time to take the DVDs that Charlie and I had downsized and put them for sale online. We still have a lot of them left, but we do have a little less cluttering the house and a few extra bucks in the budget. Not too shabby for a fairly small effort.

When the weather finally cleared up, I was able to get outside and do some yard work. There is still plenty to do, but one of the gardens is starting to look like a garden, and I have gotten some progress on the lawn as well. With all the rain that we had, I am expecting that we may have to mow the lawn as soon as this weekend. Normally, I would not be so thrilled about this. However, we could really use the grass clippings for the garden, so I am a little more receptive to it this year.

I spent how long to only get this done?

The little girl is becoming less little every single day. She has gotten to be incredibly skilled at standing whenever she wants and walking along furniture. She is still not so sure about sitting back down though. Normally, she starts screaming and crying as her poor little legs wobble and are about to give out. We try really hard to not laugh at her for it. It's really hard sometimes. She also went to her very first ever Little Mover's Storytime at the library. She was quite the little social butterfly scooting herself around the circle and meeting all sorts of new people - the librarians think that she's adorable. I'm just glad that they don't look scandalized when she starts screeching in excitement at the top of her lungs. She really likes the library.

Daddy, do you have grapes?

She's also become quite the little beggar when it comes to dinner times. No matter how recently she has just eaten, she wants to eat whatever we happen to have on our plate. On the bright side (for me anyway), Daddy's plate is way more interesting than Mama's on most days. It does make it really interesting for him when he's trying to quick eat lunch before heading to school. 

Gretl has taken a few giant steps backward in her training the last few days. While she has been behaving pretty well inside, she has decided that the rules don't apply to her outside. As a result, she is now wearing the training collar all day - we don't want to take any chances with cars.

We have now are on day 6 of a noisy cricket. Miss Fluffypie needs to eat that stupid thing. Luckily, we can't hear it in the bedrooms, but it's pretty annoying throughout the day. She's got to get hungry soon, right? Right?

Charlie has been making plans on what he's going to do with the trailer frame that we bought and starting doing some of the welding for it. Right now, it's basically an axle, a couple of wheels, and enough of a frame to attach it to a hitch. By the time that he's done with it, we're going to have a really nice trailer. The welding courses are paying off even before he's finished them!

We are getting set for another busy week here at Chez Sheffer. At least we make sure to never be so busy that we can't sit down for some snuggles and a book.