Noodle

My Poor baby.  

Noodle was really sick for about three days.  She couldn't even keep water down and was getting very thin - even after such a short time of being sick.

I know I don't talk about her much these days, but she is a downright joy to parent. She has the best sense of humor.  She gets decent grades. She picks really nice friends. She's responsible.  I actually think I like this stage of her life the best so far.  I think say that at every stage because it just keeps getting better. Except when she was an infant.  As much as I love babies, Noodle was not an easy baby. 

Anyway, this entry is just for me to look back on someday.  You can stop reading my brag-fest right now :)

So, Noodle was very sick for a few days.  On day three I quietly entered her bedroom to check on her and I knew right away she was better.  She was awake and gave me a weak smile.  I told her how glad I was that she was feeling better and how worried I was about her as I snuggled her and kissed her forehead.

Then she started licking her palms ala Ferris Bueller.  

The little booger.

Skiing

This post is solely for my friend who wants a new photo so she doesn't need to look at Veruca Salt anymore:

I took it with Noodle's cell phone.  It was the last day of ski lessons and all of the instructors wear costumes.  Look in the upper left of the photo....the "fairy" instructor was Noodle's.  Noodle learned how to do the "hockey stop" this year.

I also took another photo of the golf course where they hold the lessons, but Noodle deleted it.  That little booger.  I took it because there was no snow anywhere on the course but on the skiing hill because all of the snow you see in the photo above was made by a machine.  We currently have no snow here in Minnesota.  Which has been very strange for us.  Our city hasn't even had to plow the roads yet this year.  

I have an exciting thing happening....my friend Michelle just bought a house to flip.  It's disgusting.  And she's letting me help pick all of the finishes.  Here's a sneak peak: 

Those drapes are staying.  She doesn't want to throw them out.


Just kidding.

O. M. G.

My sweet Noodle went to a "goth book signing" (her exact words) tonight.

She flew out of the house dressed in black at 5pm and I haven't seen her since.  It's 9pm now.  

Should I be worried?

Do you think she's having a makeover?

What if she comes home looking like this:

 

Christa's Skillz

 My friend Christa recently discovered she's AWESOME with a camera.  She took photos of Noodle for our Holiday card the last 2 years.

If you're in Minnesota, hurry up and book her before you can't afford her anymore.  That's what I'm doing! 

She booked this really cool place in Hastings to take the photos this year.  Some guy has a passion for old buildings.  When he found out some were going to be destroyed, he bought them and moved them to his land and now he's built a city!!  It's super-cool!  Zuddy and I wandered the grounds while Christa snapped photos of my tweenager:

Check out Christa's website

Happy Halloween!

10 Years

My sweet Noodle is ten today.  TEN!  


I can't believe it.  


Something else I can't believe?


The 'reenactment' of the blessed event going on in the next room as I was trying to read blogs this morning.

I heard Lamaze breathing (Zuddy), "pushing" (Zuddy) and wailing (Noodle).


I kid you not.  Hey - I'm just glad I didn't see anything.

Wish you were here.......

Happy Halloween!

Hope you had a good one!

We went 'round and 'round about a costume this year. Noodle always wants some store-bought costume like this one:

As it got closer to Halloween, I finally told her we could think of something a little more zany and original.


I always want her to dress up as a food item.
Because it's all about me.

I especially liked this one from the Food Network website:


She was horrified. She hates the food idea.

Well, how about this one? (I pull this photo out every year. It's from Ladies Home Journal)

I mean come ON!! What's not to love about a fortune cookie on your noggin, huh??

HUH???




So we went here and explored and she finally found one she liked:



It's hard to take a photo of something so shiny, but she was an iPod. With a glowing screen courtesy of many blue glow sticks taped inside her costume. Zuddy was so into it that he did the whole thing. All we had to do was show him a photo.


Later on, our neighbor Jenny came over before going to her Halloween party, dressed up as guess who?

Things.....

1. Suzy from the Runs is running a marathon in Arizona in a few days. I can't stop thinking about her. And if you haven't already, you should pop by and give her some love. She wants to qualify for the Boston Marathon!!! I'm so impressed by her. She's a mom to 3 kids and a student. Plus, she's super funny. SUPER funny. And I don't even think she tries to be funny.

2. You all know I have a pretty serious problem: Facebook. And here's the problem: My new-old-best-friend Micaela would probably say my problem is that I keep sending her notes on Facebook and stalking her blog.
But that's not it.

Here's what the problem is for me. I'll go to, say...Micaela's friends list. If there's someone there who will let me look at their page? I will look at everything they have on their page. I'll look at their photos, ooh and aah over their kids. Then? I'll look at all their friends. And find someone there who will let me look at their page. Then I'll look at their photos, ooh and aah over their kids. Then? I'll look at their friends!
See? It's a hundred kinds of wrong. I know that. I mean first of all: get a freakin' life, Martha. You don't even know these people. Second? Well, there is no second. I should be painting furniture or stripping that final bit of wallpaper off my kitchen walls. Because:

3. It will be 2 years in March that I started my kitchen project. I've had 3 weeks off and frittered it away. And now I will be working for the next few months. I really need to get this done. The tile work won't be all that expensive. Mrs. Jones told me to get the cheapest tile out there and I think I will do that. Which is killing me because every once in a while I run across a photo where I see a beveled subway tile and I'm totally enamored with it. But that would be silly. In my blog-stalking travels, I've seen an interior designer whose trademark tile job is the herringbone design. Here's an image of the herringbone pattern will look like and a link to her blog:



Do you like that pattern? Do you think it will look okay in my kitchen? I'm going to go with a dark gray grout.



4. Can I tell you about my new-old-best-friend Micaela? Hi Micaela *i'm waving*! She has a blog called Striving Green. I love her blog because I'm always trying to more earth-friendly myself, though I'm not as organized as Micaela. I can't remember when I met Micaela...probably the 7th or 8th grade? We were band geeks together and she was always really funny and smart and cool. We had our 20th High School reunion over the summer - Zuddy and I didn't go, so I totally missed out on seeing her. But that darn Facebook brought us together again. Sigh. Have I mentioned Facebook before? No?
Anyway.
I heart Micaela.

5. The Noodle is really improving in school.
I brought her to work one day on my day off so I could have a colleague speak to her in Spanish and tell me if the she thought Noodle understood what she was saying.
My friend from work is named Livia and she's originally from Peru. She's fluent in English, Spanish and Inca, I think. AND she is THE most amazing cook in the world. Anyway. She took Noodle away into the back storage area to hunt for candy and had a conversation with her in Spanish. Noodle told her (in Spanish) that she only speaks Spanish at school or when she doesn't want her mom and dad to know what she's saying. Ha! Livia seemed really impressed with her Spanish and was just beaming telling us all about their conversation. Isn't that sweet? LIVIA was beaming and so proud of MY kid. So now I'M proud of my kid.
And? I've hired Noodle's BFF's Mom (Colleen) to work with her once a week on her math. Colleen is a teacher and is amazing - she is fluent in Spanish too. We've decided to go this route because Colleen will come to our house once a week to work with her for an hour. And she can teach math in Spanish, too. Which is ideal because, of course, math is taught in Spanish at Gracie's school. I feel really relieved. However, this is going to be expensive and it needs to come out my already inadequate weekly budget. Oh - Colleen tried to tell me not to pay her what Mathnasium charges, but I can't do that. She's a professional and worth every penny.

6. Boy this is getting to be a wordy post. But I've got a lot on my mind. And I'm going to puke it all out right here.

7. My brother Mike made the best turkey dinner for Thanksgiving! I don't think we even got into a fight the whole day! Amazing. Nope - I take that back. I heard him yell at his wife. Go back to last Thanksgiving to see an explanation of our totally functional family dynamics. Here is a photo of the Schmacker making apple pie on Thanksgiving morning:



I love this photo of him. When he concentrates really hard, the tongue comes out. He's done this since he was a baby.

8. Zuddy and I had a date on Tuesday. Zuddy took some vacation from work (which he never does) and we got in the car and drove to the tiny little town of Miesville to have a burger at Kings. If you are from the Twin Cities, you must go. Zuddy's been talking about it for ages. My brother Mike and sister Myrna love it. You MUST GO. They have a gazillion types of burgers there. Zuddy got one topped with corned beef. He also likes the one topped with egg and a hot dog. And the fries! Fries aren't really my thing unless they're very good.
Zuddy knows this and told me to order the seasoned waffle fries with the chive sour cream dipping sauce.
I told him, "Fries aren't really my thing."
He said, "Order the fries."
Those fries are my new thing.

Anyway, after lunch we drove around the small towns around there and looked at all of the houses. Makes me want to live in a small town. We spent hours just driving in a quiet car (no radio) and hanging out. It was great.

I told him to call me sometime and we could do it again **making the phone sign with my hand up to my ear and mouthing, 'call me'**
I think I like him, I don't know.
Next time we go out, I'm totally going to let him kiss me.
Oh gosh - I hope he calls. What if he doesn't? Oh, I'll just die. It's been two days and he hasn't called! Do you think he will? Maybe I should call him?

9. I'm going shopping and out to lunch with Kirst and MJ today. I can't wait.

10. I looked at my resolutions from last year. They were totally the same as this year. The only one I did well on was the reusable bags.

11. I start a new project at work tomorrow. That means no more obsessive blog and Facebook stalking.

Furniture and 3rd Grade Math

Thanks to all of you who commented on the Noodle's math issues...It always helps me to know what others think or have done in a similar situation.

Noodle has a spiral curriculum and Mrs. Fortner nailed it when she said it doesn't teach the facts well. She is still counting on her fingers, didn't know what "place value" meant and didn't know how to regroup in subtraction. We've since worked on the regrouping and found a great video online to teach her place value. A while back we also joined Brain Pop Jr, but we're not getting what we need math-wise from that site.

Here's the other thing: when she's doing her homework at home and gets a problem wrong because she just doesn't understand the concept? I just let her hand it in with the problems solved incorrectly. That way, I figure, the teacher will know what she's having problems with and teach her how to solve them. But you know what her teacher does? She circles the problem and then sends it home for ME to help her with.
Ummm.......hello?? **knock-knock**?? I'm not a freakin' teacher!!!

Anyway.....that's what we're dealing with over here. I think it's slowly getting better, but it's going to be a long year, I think.

Oh my gosh. You know what we did on Saturday? We went to the new American Girl store at the Mall of America. We went in the evening and it was crazy-busy. You could barely move in there. Noodle and her fave cousin Louie could've cared less. They were happy as clams and chatted back and forth the whole time about what they wanted and what they already have, etc...
At dinner they were telling each other (and us) about their doll's personalities and Louie told us that her doll, Julie, "is a very active girl...."
To which my sister Myrna and I laughed like crazy at.
Lou started to laugh like crazy, too and then realized she didn't know what was so darn funny and said, "What did I say?" .... which made us laugh even harder.

Here's a photo of Louie and Noodle:




Also, Louie just turned 9 and I made her a birthday cake shaped like a croc:
I wasn't all that thrilled by the way it turned out, but I was wingin' it, people! I planned to make it all perfect-like out of rolled fondant, but I found the homemade fondant I made wasn't a real good texture to work easily with. I need to take class on working with fondant.


Here's a photo of my Dad with all of the Grand kids..Schmackie, Angel, Noodle and Louie:






Here's a cute one of the Louie and the Noodle:


Okay, on to the furniture......I'm priming my life away, people.

Here's what I'm working on:

• The Hutch
• Noodle's desk
• Chair for the desk
• Noodle's bookshelf
• 2 dining room chairs
• Another bookshelf for Noodle's room.

I'm about half way through the priming.

I'd be finished with everything if my evil friend Sandy hadn't made me join facebook. I joined it a month and a half ago and didn't do anything with it until last week.....now I'm hooked and I'm stalking everyone I can think of. Even complete strangers. It's sick and wrong. And I'm staying off today.

I am.

What? I AM! I mean it!

Seriously.

Well...maybe I'll let myself log on one more time........but only after I finish all of my work today.

Or maybe during a break. Yeah. At lunch. A lunch break.
Or maybe?
Maybe I'll have a nice healthy mid-morning snack and check then?

Black It Is!!!

You've got it! I'm obeying and painting the hutch black!
And I've to tell you all: I'm particularly happy because my Mom gave me the leftover black paint from her bookcase project. Woo Hoo! Free paint!

But I have a problem: I don't know if I can distress this monster. Here's why:

Do you see where that drill is sitting? The counter top there? It's a lovely mid-70's laminate. Oh yes it IS, girlfriends! How in the heck to I distress that?
I would think it's already distressed enough, knowing how ugly it is. Ha.

Okay, so I took all of the doors and hardware off yesterday and scrubbed it down with TSP. But I didn't get it primed.

Because I had to take a nap, that's why.
Don't hate. Sleep is important.
I'll prime today - I promise.

In other news, we had the Noodle's conferences last night.
It wasn't pretty.
We were told about her struggles with math (which we know about) and her struggles with reading in Spanish and English.
And how she needs to hurry up and learn this stuff because it's only going to get harder in the 4th grade.
I was shuffling through the papers and noticed her scores are exactly in the median of her class. I mentioned this and then the teacher then conceded that this problem is happening all over the 3rd grade.
FOR THE LOVE OF GOD. How can I fix this? I mean, last year she tested into the gifted and talented program and this year she's in the "needs extra help" program! How the heck does that happen?
She gets home at 4:30 and there's just enough time to do homework, eat dinner and read a little before bed.
I don't know what to think. I'm so upset. I looked into a math tutoring facility and it was expensive (over $200 a month), but I'm thinking we should go for it. I don't want her behind in the the 3rd grade, for Pete's sake!
Mrs. Fortner? Internets? What do I do?? HELP!

I'll tell you what I DID do: I ate my feelings.

They were delicious.

Turns out my feelings taste an awful lot like Ben & Jerry's Half-Baked Ice Cream.

We've got the Pox...

.....over here on Elizabeth Hill.

Just the Noodle, mind you. But she's got them in her throat, in her ears, on her toungue - yikes.

Guess what else? She's starting Violin lessons at school. She's so excited. Today was her first lesson - and of course she missed it, but one of the the Moms called to tell me that her first assignment is to name her violin. Right now "Jane" and "Sarah" are in the running. I don't mean to leave you all hanging, but I'll let you know when a decision has been made. In the meantime, I'm lobbying for "Tina Fey".

What? I like Tina Fey. She's funny!

Amy, I have that house tour waiting in the wings for you. There are a few choice photos I couldn't copy for some reason, so I'm going to try again tomorrow.

One more thing: I watched a show last night:

And I'm not embarassed to say that I watched it solely for the fabulous eye candy that is Simon Baker.

Oh yes I did.

When it came on? Zuddy gave me the 'eye-roll with a half back twist'. For those of you who don't know what that is? Its when your husband throws his head back and slightly to the side while rolling his eyes in exasperation at your bad TV viewing habits.

And then? He calls you on the fact that you could care less about the content of the show you're about to watch by suggesting you turn down the sound and play some nice John Mayer while you watch the moving picture show.

Gol-ly I love that Zuddy. He always comes up with the best ideas!

The State Of Things Around Here: Part Deux

First of all (and most important), we have a third grader. Feast your eyes on her gap-toothed smile, people:

This third grader has never been happier to go back to school.

You know why?

New clothes, that's why.

You know why else?

Her "BFF" is not only in her class? And not only sitting at the same table in the same class? But she is now on the same bus and the same bus stop. Oh yes she is, people.

I'd post a photo of this wonderful girl, but I need to ask her equally wonderful Mommy first. And her Mommy? Is MY new BFF! Ha haaaaa! She is the coolest lady ever. I'll have to do a post about her, but I don't know how to convey to you Internets how flippin' FUNNY she is. She makes me wet my pants.

Okay. Now go look at the photo of the Noodle again. That's right. Just scroll up a little.

Do you notice the purple hair? As a reward for quitting her little thumb-sucking habit? She got some purple hair extensions. She's been wanting them forever.

In other news......Zuddy and I have kissed and made-up.

It always helps when I'm working. Outside the home for people who pay me in US dollars.

I was lucky enough to have another job come up just in the nick of time. It's an 8-day-a-month ongoing gig. So that's good news.

But let's be honest: if someone would just pay me for what I do around the house (in US dollars....or-better yet- some nice Euros, since the value of the US dollar is junk right now.), we wouldn't be having these little money issues.
And that's a large part of our problem.

And you know what happens when you have a problem? Stress happens and other (related) problems pop up. That's what happens.

I could go on and on. But -really........who wants to hear about that? Probably not you.

And I don't want you internets to think that I'm a miserable little girl, because I'm not.

I'm actually really happy.

But then, maybe the fact that I'm really happy and still have moments where I feel like I'm not always achieving my goals and realizing my dreams? Maybe that's a good thing to share! Is it? Or is it just whining and complaining?

Then, as I write this, I'm thinking about the title of my blog and the little statement underneath it: "Join me in my never-ending quest to feather my nest".

Uhhhhh. There really isn't a whole lot of nest-feathering going on here, is there? No. There's not.

Well, there is....but it's mostly undocumented and involves this: Because something inside of me wants to clean this time of the year. The nights are getting chilly, the days are just clear and beautiful and sunny.

Man. I just love Autumn.

So I'm starting with the Noodle's bedroom. I took off all of her bedding (She has a different duvet and bedskirt for summer) and put on her winter bedskirt. Then I took everything off the floor and piled it all on her bed and chair:

Then I swept. I moved all of the furniture and cleaned underneath everything.

I'm a good, old-fashioned type of cleaner-girl. Down on my hands and knees, scrub-scrub-scrubbing.

As you know, soon the Noodle will have some different furniture (see the last post) soon. We're getting rid of the dresser, desk and chair you're seeing in the above photos. I'm going to start sanding the new stuff today.

Anyway...I also wiped down all of the baseboards, doors, ceiling fan and furniture. Today I will wash the windows.

Noodle has a very small bedroom. I think it's 9x8 or something like that. It's Crazy-small.

Eventually we will move her into the larger bedroom which is now the office/playroom, but I can't see doing that yet. She still has too many toys. My goal right now is to paint all of that furniture in the basement and get it in her current room. Then we will get her a full-size mattress for a cute Jenny Lind style headboard and footboard I have for her.

But here's the plan for now: get rid of that desk in the photo below:

Get rid of the mirror and chair in the photo below:

And replace it with a white-painted bookcase with three drawers - just like that one at my Mom's place that I painted black - remember that?

Here it is! I need to update you on that project. These bookcases at my Mom's place are finished and filled and accessorized...they look great!

Here is her current dresser...it will be replaced with the desk and chair in the previous post. I want to do a pretty bulletin board or shelving above it. I'll probably end up with the shelving. She needs more storage.

I'm going to swing the bed around so that the headboard is below those plates. And then replace the plates with a pretty bulletin board.

After all of these furniture updates, I will finish the KITCHEN. Then we are going to do a little closet makeover for the Noodle.

That's the plan. What do you think?

The State Of Things Around Here......

Oh, internets.
It's not pretty. Not pretty at all.

Where do I begin, huh?
Hmmmmm..........how about the kitchen?

I have a large obstacle in the finishing of the kitchen.

It's called, "bad walls".

Here, have a look:

When I took the wallpaper down? A bunch of old "patchwork" came with it. So what do I do, just skim-coat it and prime it? Or will I have this problem when I decide to change the wallpaper again?

This is not my area of expertise, people.

Here's another spot. Zuddy will need to patch this one up before I can do any tiling:

It's going to be a cold day in Hell before that happens, because Zuddy and I had a big argument last night.

The argument was basically about how he works 10 hours a day and I how I stay home and eat bon-bons. Which, quite honestly, happens sometimes (the bon-bon eating, that is). So I think I'm on my own with the patching of the walls and I'm at a total loss.

Then? I have a bunch of furniture to paint:

The multi-materialed hutch. It's made out of wood, laminate and plastic.

Good times, people. GOOD. TIMES:

I'm going to paint it an Oatmeal color. Maybe I'll age it, maybe I won't.

Then? We have the chair and desk for the Noodle's room:

I love that needlepoint seat on the chair. These will all be painted white.

Then, here's one of the drawers that go with the bookcase I got from my Mom. The bookcase and the drawers (heh.) are going to be white, too.

And my toes. See 'em? Totally neat and tidy.

At least part of me and my bon-bon-eating self is looking tidy.

Now.

All I want to do is vent about how hard being married and raising a little girl-person can be.

And about how much of yourself you "give up".

And about how I have dreams too, but I feel like I need to be here to raise my little girl-person.

And about how I can't follow my dreams from 9-3 during the school year and take the summers off from working on my dreams.

But I'm not going to do that right now. I'll wait until it's not so fresh. Heh.

Things.............

1. Oh friends.....it's been a week, I tell ya! A rough week.

And that's all I'm gonna say.

2. No worries - nothing serious, but I'm glad I'm here at home, catching up on blogs today.

3. My sweet little Noodle is getting sassy. It's high time school starts. BUH-bye Noodle! Summer's over, sister.

4. My dear friend Kim had a healthy, beautiful baby girl. Wanna see her?

Boy. That sure makes me want another baby! Doesn't it make you feel the same way? Too bad I'm 38 and my eggs are most likely junk.








4. Noodle has been using the camera lately, so I find a lot of shots like this one when I download my photos:



5. I worked at the Minnesota Garlic Festival with MJ. We helped with cooking demonstrations from local chefs. My niece Allison worked with us and it was hot and muggy out.
I hate hot and muggy.
And there's one thing I hate more than hot and muggy: people who want a sample of the food we were giving out but don't feel compelled to STAND IN THE FREAKING LINE LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE AND WAIT THEIR EVER LOVIN' TURN.

6. Here's something I love: When the very same people who won't wait in line for samples? When those people say something really stupid in front of a large crowd and MJ (who was the moderator during the cooking demonstrations) looks at them and gives them her "WTF blink". Let me explain: MJ listens intently to the dumb/insulting/ridiculous drivel that comes out of said person's pie-hole. She then:

• Pauses
• Quickly inhales
• Smiles
• Blinks rapidly several times in a row.

It's classic.

7. I also love my niece, Allison. She just turned 21 and she cracks me up. I've been spending some time with her lately and it's been great.

8. I just finished watching the 3rd season of Weeds on DVD. Oh, man. Does anyone out there watch this show???? That Nancy Botwin sure knows how to get herself in a pickle. Season 3 is the best so far. Rent it, people.

And don't watch it if there's a child within a 3 mile radius of your television.

And, no, I'm not a pot-head.

I've never even touched a drug in my life and I still like the show.

9. I love air conditioning. Sweet, sweet air conditioning.

10. I've been thinking about redecorating the office/playroom. If any of you out there in blogland are my friends? You will remind me about my unfinished kitchen, primed-but-not-painted-garage, 6 chairs in the basement in need of painting and/or reupholstering AND the desk, hutch and bookcase also waiting to be painted.

God help me.

Brownie the Bunny

Sunday Morning our neighbor Pam found a little somethin'-somethin'.........






Apparently, Pam wasn't the first one to find him.

Somebody else got to him first: The face of evil

He was a little shaken up, but we loved him up and fed him some formula:

Sadly, he didn't make it.

Rest In Peace, Brownie.