Happy Birthday to Me

My birthday present from Charlie

Tomorrow night is fancy date night. The Little Girl is not invited, my dress is getting cleaned, Charlie is making reservations, and there will be live music with a promise of some dancing. If tonight's dinner guests assist, I might even convince Charlie to learn some grown up dancing. (Nothing wrong with 8th grade dance slow dancing, but I would love some swing, or latin dance moves too....) 

Buckets of sweet pickles and piles of fresh produce.

I have been spending quite a bit of time in the kitchen lately. It has resulted in a few things. First off, I am going to reread the book Once a Month Cooking and start putting it into practice. Second, we have three batches of sweet pickles sitting on the counter.

Popsicle in Door County

Third, I have really been enjoying the deliciousness that is homemade ice cream. Last week was raspberry (from our garden) chocolate chip, and today I am making chai flavored ice cream.

Earlier this week, Charlie installed a diaper sprayer for me. By random chance, all stinky diapers since then have happened when a certain little girl was wearing a sposie (left over from a weekend out of town at a wedding). However, I am very much looking forward to having it to use. I do not even care if you judge me. I am thrilled to have a little bit of shiny to use.

The Little Girl and I went up to Door County, WI for a couple of days last week. We had a lot of fun camping with Papa, picked up a lot of cherries, and went to a lot of antique stores.

What's in here Mama?

The amazing part? Despite the fact that someone was too excited to nap, she was not really fussy or crying at all. Too tired for her eyes to focus or her fingers to work well enough to pick up an ice cube? Yes. (She sucked them up off the table instead.) She even stayed up extra late, so she could sit on Papa's lap and enjoy the campfire for a while. Charlie, unfortunately, had classes to attend, but he did not complain, and Gretl probably appreciated that she got to stay home in the air conditioning.

After weeks of blockading all of the bookcases to prevent damage to books, I decided to remove all of the grown up books from the lower shelves and let the Little Girl play. Unfortunately, her playing resulted in the little clips holding the shelf getting wiggled enough that a shelf of books came crashing down. Luckily, she had moved on

to causing mischief elsewhere, but it was enough that I decided to make some changes. Almost all of the big people books were boxed up and taken downstairs. (If we want to read a book, I will get it from the library.) Also going downstairs were three of our four bookshelves. Furniture was rearranged, and the new set up makes the whole space much more open. There are a few more things for me to do in the dining room before we are totally finished with moving furniture, but it is pretty much finished in here. I love that it is much more open and less cluttered in the small space. Plus, there is totally room for us to practice some fun dance moves now. Next quest my dear Dread Pirate Roberts? Dance partner. Music to be queued up as soon as he gets home today....

Too Tired for a Decent Title

So much for my nap on the floor...

Summer continues to fly by us, and it seems like I last posted yesterday though the calendar tells me otherwise. 

Gretl is now mostly trained. The only thing that we still need to correct is her recent decision to bark before dawn because she's bored and wants to go sniff the flower beds. We would be fine with it if it was an emergency,

Smell my stinky feet fuzzball!

but stumbling out of the bedroom and trying to not have the Little Girl wake is getting old. One of these days, someone is going to break a toe on the door frame or something..... We are open to suggestions on how to correct this. Please. Someone tell me that you know how to fix this.

King Kong!

The Little Girl is getting to be a lot less little. *sniff* She has learned how to sign milk, more, and please - although at this point she really just sticks with please most of the time since it's pretty effective for getting whatever it is that she wants. While we normally do not cave into the pint sized dictator's demands, she occasionally

No? But this is so fun!

gets a few extra delicious snacks like grapes, corn on the cob, and cheese - her favorites. She also can point to her ears, nose, mouth, eyes, and toes, but her favorite is nose. It's the only one that she tries to say herself.

About two weeks ago, she decided to show off for her Lita and Gigi (my mom and grandma) by taking her first solo steps without the aid of furniture. She continues to show an extreme preference to crawling and scooting though and has only even attempted steps a couple of times since then. 

Charlie aced his math final ensuring that he will get a high enough score in the class to take Math 2 next term and continue in the wood tech program. The Little Girl and I are both proud of

Reading with Gigi

his efforts though we have missed having him around since he spends most afternoons and evenings in his study cave. 

I have continued to work in the garden attempting to overcome my brown thumb. All of the varieties of tomatoes now have fruit on them, but my San Marzano plants are suffering from blossom end rot. The rest of the plants seem fine, and Google seems to think that more water will help with prevention of more fruit going bad. The pumpkins seem to be doing really well - although this is little comfort to me because they were practically volunteers (we just tossed pumpkins in the compost pile, and the seeds sprouted), and I have done nothing to encourage their growth. 

Last but not least, a couple of months ago I got an activity tracker from Aldi. (Basically a Fitbit but at a much lower price.) I figured that it would show how much walking I was doing to get all my chores done around the house since it feels like I'm constantly walking, and I totally expected that I was getting my 10,000 steps daily. However, after looking at the numbers, I discovered that I was often getting much less than half of that number. Facing this reality, I committed to making sure that I get a minimum of 10,000 steps every single day. It has not been easy for me, but I am very proud to say that I have finished 15 days straight. Sometimes not until 11:30pm. Sometimes it took doing 4 miles on the track next door after putting the Little Girl to bed. While it isn't second nature to me yet, at least my muscles are getting used to the extra work and complain less about it. Once I get to 50 days straight (hopefully just before Labor Day weekend), I'm going to get a membership to the Y, so I can change up the exercise routine a bit and take advantage of their free childcare while I work out.

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!