Parties and priorities

We were sitting quietly, a week ago Friday night, watching "Little House one the Prairie". Bruce was out of town and the girls and I were just relaxing after a busy back-to-school week. We ordered Domino's and were just finishing dinner.

The phone rang and my friend Lisa asked if we were on our way to their birthday party. Oops.

Tacie threw her clothes into a duffle bag and we rushed to Lisa's house. It was a weekend party at their lakehouse.

Talia and I came home a little bummed. Now it was just the two of us.

Saturday I was supposed to take my CPR/First Aid recertification. Mom agreed to babysit and I drove the 35 miles to class. Unfortunately, when I got there, I found out the class was cancelled. They'd called my office to tell me at 4:50 Friday afternoon - after I'd already left. I always leave at 4 when Bruce is out of town so Talia doesn't have to spend so much time in the after school program (ASP).

Suddenly we had some extra time we weren't expecting! We did some shopping. We played games. I prepared for our first Girl Scout meeting on Sunday. Saturday night, Talia came down with a fever and sore throat. Everything was complicated with the absence of both Tacie and Bruce. If either one had been in available, I would have left Talia at home but they were not and I took her to the scout meeting anyway.

The first meeting went well! We have 5 new girls. We lost 3 last year and decided to expand our total to 16 this year. I got the parent's paperwork; they played some games (again I wished Tacie was there to help out). We did some swaps (some watchamacallit affectionately pinned somewhere). We're getting ready to go camping September 9.

Well Talia was no better Monday. I persuaded Mom to babysit for a while so I could get some work done. However, Tuesday and Wednesday Talia continued to have a fever of up to 104. She acted pretty well and ate and drank as usual. Motrin did a good job of bringing the fever down so I did not take her to the doctor. The guideline is "over 104 degrees or longer than 72 hours" to bring a healthy child into the doctor's office. We did need to go, however, on Wednesday, and she had strep throat. We got some antibiotics and she's since made a good recovery. Bruce came home on Thursday so at least then I could return to work. Talia stayed home Friday too.

It was a difficult week because I had some deadlines at work and trouble with my accessing my files from home. Taking care of Talia, though, is my first priority.

Taxes are done!

I finished my taxes! I had a few final days of avoidance but I finally did it. I finished the accounting Sunday night and filed the taxes Monday night electronically at 11:30 pm.

The girls cleaned house all weekend - not the dirty type of cleaning but the de-clutter cleaning in honor of the new school year. Tacie finally unpacked her last box from the move. She was able to get rid of a lot of clutter. There's still a bit to do that got piled in the closet when company came on Sunday but we're almost there. Talia wasn't quite as successful because she really wants someone to help her. She wants to keep all her things on her dresser and there just isn't enough room.

Bruce did an amazing job in the kitchen with all the paper clutter that had suddenly appeared with the start of school. All our counters are now cleared off.

Sunday we celebrated Tacie's 12th birthday. I baked a chocolate torte - she's 12 now and wanted something a little more sophisticated. It had whipped cream between the 4 layers of cake with chocolate ganache on top. Mom, Lynne, Carla, and Riley came over. Bruce and Carla took the kids swimming while I made dinner. We had Mexican food featuring a baked a layered soft taco dish. Tacie received a lot of nice gifts this year for her room.

I am tired now. I now get up 2 hours earlier than I did before school started but I've been going to bed late every night still. I'm looking forward to catching up on my sleep a little bit starting tonight.

Happy Birthday Tacie!!

Today is Tacie's 12th birthday! Happy Birthday Tacie!!!

Yesterday was the first day of school. Tacie is in 7th (2nd year of middle school). Talia is in 2nd grade.

Tacie was pleased her best friend was in her pod. However, she was only in 2 of her classes, Orchestra and Algebra. Tacie did not like ANY of her teachers! Hopefully that will improve.

Talia had a great day! She was excited that she lost one of her teeth at school. Then later was upset and wanted all her baby teeth back. We put her to bed a little earlier last night.

I'll try and get the girls to post about their day themselves.

Getting ready for school tomorrow

Today was the last day of summer vacation this year.

This morning we went to Talia's school to see her teacher, see her room, find her seat, and fill out some forms. Talia's teacher is Ms. Stroud. We were able to pick her. We had been in the "family" group - a situation where the class of children stay together for 3 years and they do activities with two other classes - a kindergarden, first, and second grade class worked together. Unfortunately, the kindergarten and first grade teacher moved to another school this year but we were given the option of still staying with the 2nd grade teacher we did things with last year. The children are mostly the same as in our first grade class. Talia likes Ms. Stroud very much. Talia is happy that all of her closest friends are in her class still. All the little girls who came to her birthday party are in there.

From 2-3, we visited Tacie's school. This is Tacie's second year of middle school - 7th grade. The school is divided into 3 wings for the three grades. The three grades rarely see each other even having their own common room where they have their lunch. Then each grade is divided into 3 pods each taught by a pod team.

Tacie was most excited that her best friend is still in her pod this year. We met all of Tacie's teachers. We especially liked meeting her new advanced content teachers for math (Algebra) , social studies (mid-east and asia), and science (life sciences). The other subjects Tacie will take are Language Arts and Orchestra. There will be one period for a rotating class of either PE, health, home ec, or other elective. There is a new period for an alternating class of either math literacy or reading literacy. There are 7 periods in a day. There are 45 days in a term. There are 4 terms in a school year.

After visiting the schools, the girls came home and Bruce took them to the neighborhood pool. They spent the rest of the evening relaxing and getting their things ready for tomorrow. They're going to wear their new outfits that Grandpa and Grandma Pat bought for them in Wisconsin.

Everyone went to bed early tonight as school starts very early in the morning.

Harry Potter and Avoiding Tax Forms

In my continuing avoidance of doing accounting and 2004 taxes, I read the latest Harry Potter book this weekend! We got the book July 16 but I let Tacie read it first. She finished it while in Wisconsin.

I have a problem with reading. When I read a well written book, I become so consumed with it that other responsibilities in my life are completely ignored. I find it difficult to sleep, or even talk to people. Because I know this about myself, I will refrain from starting a book when I have something else that needs to be done.

Well, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince certainly is enthralling! I thoroughly enjoyed it and am looking forward to a time when I can read it again. I won't give away the plot but I will say that Tacie and I had some very different opinions about the ending of this book. We'll have to wait until the seventh book to see who is right.

We did spend some time putting reflective film on our palladium window this weekend. We needed to get that done before finishing up the painting. I want to get the ladder out of my foyer before Tacie's birthday party Sunday.

Back to tax form avoidance. It has been suggested that I just hire someone. However, it isn't the taxes that I am so reluctant to do. They're complex but not that difficult since the forms change little from year to year. What is tedious is doing the business accounting for our internet business and rental house. I enter invoices during the year to keep the inventory straight. However, I do not like to enter in all the other receipts during the year. I have a giant pile of receipts that need to be categorized and entered. Then there are all the expenses that don't have receipts. I have to go through Quicken to get the rest. I can't really hire someone to do that. I'd hate to spend all our profit on something I just don't care to do. So I typically file for an extension every April and put it off until August. I do get a lot of unpleasant tasks accomplished in avoiding doing taxes! Then I have a busy week getting it all done on time.

Tonight, my goal is to get the first half of 2004 expenses all entered in the computer.

Home and getting ready for school

Tacie made it home safely on Monday. Dad was able to take her all the way onto the plane in Milwaukee. Bruce was waiting at the gate for her here in Atlanta. On the plane she got to sit in the front passenger seat next to a lady pilot. The stewardess and pilot both talked to her and made her feel comfortable on the flight.

Tacie and Charlie have been getting reacquainted although we need to take him back to obedience training class. No one is more pleased than Talia to have her sister home. Bruce has taken the girls to Six Flags today! They just rode the new roller coaster. They want to get to White Water (a water park) too before school starts a week from today.

Although we have to return to school August 10, I like the school schedule we have. We still have just 180 days of school/year. The girls get a whole week off at Thanksgiving and 2 weeks off for the Christmas break. They'll get a spring break in April and school ends May 26. The school board even considered an extra week off in February and finishing out the school year June 2; I would have liked that even better. We would love to have a winter vacation to go skiing and snowboarding. We prefer not to take the girls out of school for vacation.

Speaking of school boards. Cobb county tried to purchase laptops for every teacher in the county and every child in middle and high school to use. They made a deal to get them for $235 each. They are trying to bridge the technical divide that occurs with some families being able to afford computers and others not. Tacie was very excited. Unfortunately, some busybodies decided to bring a suit against the county and now just teachers are getting the computers. There had been a special 1% sales tax in the county for school improvements and to "upgrade school computers" and the judge decided that it didn't mean laptops. I think it was a little fuzzy. Now the county has to pay the court costs of over $100,000. That would have paid for a lot of computers! Who profited from this? Not the children, certainly.

Chores

Since we've been home, we've been catching up on our chores. We've cleaned up Talia's room, and the playroom. We did laundry. We've been washing the crystals from our chandelier to finally get that put up in the dining room. I took down the "happy birthday Talia poster". We're putting away the camping gear. I opened and shredded a ton of mail. I made banana bread. Talia won't stop eating it.

Talia hasn't been watching TV because her mom wouldn't let her.

We got the photos off the camera today and this is a particularly good one of the girls in their new school outfits from Grandpa and Grandma Pat.

Talia's also been taking pictures of Dasher.



I'm sure Tacie is glad to be missing the chores. We will be happy when she comes home tomorrow because we miss her (especially Talia). We have to quickly plan her birthday party and get ready for school to start next week, August 10.

Home to Atlanta

We decided we needed another day to "chill" in Madison. This meant that we had to make the drive home in one day rather than two but we thought it would be worth it to be able to spend an extra day with my father and Pat. I have to be back at work on Thursday.

Yesterday (Tuesday) we hung out, shopped for some back-to-school clothes for the girls, picked up some cheese curds, and had lunch at the very nice "Blue Plate Diner" in the Atwood neighborhood of Madison.

Talia and I left Madison this morning at 6:15 and arrived at our home this evening 14 hours later. Today we drove 869 miles. I can't stress enough how listening to books while driving made the hours disappear. Bruce had dinner waiting for us when we got home. Charlie (the dog), and Dasher (the cat) were very excited to see us too!

To recap, we were gone 10 nights. We traveled 3345 miles through 10 states: Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky, Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Iowa, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Wisconsin. We filled the gas tank 10 times and averaged 23.3 miles/gallon in our 1998 Toyota Sienna minivan. The final odometer reading: 139634.

We visited 6 sites where Laura Ingalls Wilder lived. We camped 5 nights, stayed in hotels 2 nights, and with Dad and Pat 3 nights. We listened to 4 novels (mostly Laura Ingalls Wilder) plus 3 hours of biography about Laura Ingalls Wilder and 6 "Junie B Jones" children's books. As we drove along, we saw cars from 32 different states!

It has been a great vacation!

Madison

We arrived safely last night in Madison, Wisconsin.

We had a busy day yesterday. We started out in Owtonna, Minnesota. We drove along the winding roads to Burr Oak, Iowa where the Ingalls family lived for a time and ran a small hotel. This is not in any of the books but is the only place where Laura lived as a child that is still standing in the original spot. It was a nice little museum and the tour guide told the story of the Ingalls family and their travels.




From Burr Oak, we drove along the Mississippi River to Pepin, Wisconsin. We arrived in Pepin just as the museum was closing but the very nice lady there allowed us to come in and buy a few souvenirs. After that we drove out to the Little House in the Big Woods. It has been recreated in the spot where the Ingalls family lived in a log cabin and where Laura was born. It is empty and is unattended so had no specific closing time. Corn fields had been planted over the site until recent years.


The proposed schedule was to spend the night in Wisconsin and drive to Madison today. Instead we decided to drive on through last night to sleep in a real bed. This morning Grandpa and Grandma Pat made Irish soda bread with homemade preserves. It's fun being treated for a change!

I'm going back to the last few days to add photos to Mom's posts.

Kansas - Day 3, Little House on the Prairie

Thank you, Mom, for updating our blog this week! We've travelled over 1100 miles so far. I have added a few photos from the previous days to Mom's posts.

Tonight we are north of Kansas City, MO in a motel. We started looking for a campground a little early this evening but didn't find anything so finally stopped at this place at 7:00. We wanted to dry out anyway so this is a good place to do so. We have an indoor pool and wireless Internet access!

This morning we woke up in MO damp and with a partially deflated air mattress. The campground we stayed in last night had a great pool and playground. It had an electrical outlet at our site for our fan. However, it had a one particular feature we didn't care for: it was right next to a railroad crossing! Every hour or so, a locomotive would come thundering along and blast us right out of sleep! A few other factors also kept us awake last night - thunder and lightening, airplanes, and cars driving by (the tent site was right by the road) as well as an uncomfortable mattress.

We got up when the rain stopped and packed it all up to get out by 8:30. We bought a new mattress on the way out of town and headed to Kansas. We started out on an interstate but spent most of the trip on highway 166.

The Little House on the Prairie is a very out of the way spot. The Ingalls lived here a year when it was Indian Territory but had to leave when the government told white settlers they could not stay. The only thing that is there from when the Ingalls lived there in 1870 is a well that Pa and Mr. Scott dug. Laura gives a detailed description of how Pa built the log cabin from scratch in the book and volunteers have recrfeated the little house. There's also a farmhouse and barn that were built in the 1880s by another family, an old schoolhouse, and post office moved from elsewhere. The girls liked the log cabin but didn't care for the bees buzzing around it. We liked the little shop in the farmhouse. We were especially excited to buy the dolls prairie dresses with matching bonnets.

I also bought two little tin cups with a penny and a stick of candy in each one. These are the gifts that Laura and Mary Ingalls received for Christmas the year they were out on the priarie and a blizzard kept Santa from coming. A neighbor, Mr. Edwards, walked to Independence to get the gifts for the girls. Laura and Mary had only ever shared a cup until that Christmas. When we see these cups it helps us to be thankful for all the riches we have.

The prairie farmhouse was small but cozy. It held 2 beds, a table and rocking chair that Pa made for Ma. Pa Ingalls was an amazing man to have done all this himself. He could build a house and furnish it. He could dig a well, plant a field of wheat, and play the fiddle too. By the way, a highlight of our visit to Mansfield yesterday was seeing Pa's fiddle. It is played once a year and we heard a recording of it as well. The fiddle was very special in Laura's books. Seeing it was like seeing a character come to life. We were touched.

We're on our way north now to De Smet, South Dakota. We'll spend most of our day tomorrow on I29. I expect to spend 2 days to get there. I'll either call in or write an update tomorrow evening.

Tacie's home from camp

We drove to the camp this morning to get Tacie. My mother went with us. The girls put on a horse show for the parents and we got to enjoy what she'd been working on. They did a quadrille (like a drill team with horses). They also did a number of relay races (boot race, water race, izzy dizzy race).

We left mid-day and had the unfortunate experience to run into some road construction on the Interstate. It turned a 90 minute drive into a 3 hour drive. It could have been frustrating but we just spent the time enjoying each other's company. Tacie told us about her camp. We told her what had been happening. She didn't receive our letter although she did receive the box they were in and all the other things in the box. We didn't receive her 4 letters until all at once today! She taught us some of the camp songs. We commented on interesting license plates.

Tomorrow we start our long drive on the Laura Ingalls Wilder trail. Just about everything is ready. The laundry is done. We packed all our clothes. We set up the tent and blew up the air mattress to be sure it all still worked. We have all our books on CD. We have some DVDs for the girls to watch on my laptop computer. Tomorrow is my birthday so we'll go when I wake up.

We're all very happy to be together again for today; we'll definitely miss Bruce next week.

Photos of Tacie at Camp

We haven't had a letter from Tacie but I was able to see some photos of her on the camp web site from yesterday.

Mildew

Bruce left town this morning for Chicago. Talia got to spend the day with Nannie (thanks Mom). I think they both had a good time playing and hanging out together all day long. It's been a pretty hectic day. On my lunch hour I bought another big fan to blow on the carpet but it is starting to smell of mildew down there now. I also got Tacie a care package shipped off to her camp.

This evening I stopped at Home Depot and Lowes looking for something to put on the carpet to kill mildew. They sold me some enzyme based pet deoderizer. Now it smells slightly sweet over the mildew smell. We'll see how it is tomorrow. I've been vacuuming the carpet in the basement with the carpet cleaner.

I spoke to the insurance company and there is no coverage for flood damage.

Next comes hurricane Emily.

Hurricane Dennis flooding

Although we have a lot to be thankful for not being in the eye of Dennis, we did have a bit of a flood last night. Our basement had an inch of water in it this morning - from rainwater runoff. Our nextdoor neighbor's yard had standing water. The playground and tennis courts down the street were flooded to about 2' deep. The road outside our subdivision was impassable in one direction due to Ward Creek overflowing.

Bruce went to our old house to see how things were and there was apparently no power all day long. Nickajack Creek behind the house overflowed its banks and past the 100 year floodplain. It came all the way up past the gazebo.

We spent all day running the carpet cleaner over the carpet in the basement to suck all the water out. I had to go into the office for a few hours but came back and vacuumed up gallon after gallon of water. I don't yet know how successful we have been. There is already somewhat of a musty smell. We have fans and the dehumidifier running. We haven't called the insurance company yet and we'd like to avoid replacing all the carpet down there. Two rooms are finished, one of them my office. The rest of the basement has old carpet without pad and not tacked down.

Talia and I took a break to take Charlie to his obedience training. This is our third class. He's pretty good when you have a treat in your hand but is easily distracted. Then we came home and I vacuumed some more.

Does anyone have any experience with drying out carpet? Is it possible to do without mold growing?

Home Improvement Projects

Saturday we spent time on a number of projects around the house. I am in the process of painting our 2-story foyer. When we moved in, most of the rooms were a light green color - kitchen, living room, foyer, one bedroom, playroom, 2 basement rooms. We've been here nearly a year now and I have repainted about half the rooms in the house. I'd like to get rid of all that color. I've been dreading the foyer because if the ceiling height, almost 20'. I'm painting it a neutral putty color and hopefully it won't have to be done again for many many years.

While I'm up there, I'm putting window tinting film on the palladian window to reduce the afternoon heat; our house faces west. I'll also dust the big brass chandelier and replace a bulb that burned out months ago. I sure don't want to get back up on that ladder anytime soon once I'm done.

We are also getting ready to hang the crystal chandelier in the dining room. Talia took all of the crystals off and spread them on newspaper. Then she sprayed them with glass cleaner. Bruce will hang it and she can put the crystals all back on - if we can remember where they all go! While Talia was busy with the chandelier, Tacie has been packing for camp.

Last weekend we spent 2 full days working on Mom's house. We sheetrocked her stairwell into the basement. There is a finished room down there but the stairwell itself had been left open. For Mother's Day, I told Mom she could choose any home improvement project she wanted as her gift and this is what she chose. I couldn't seem to talk her out of it.

Bruce put in studs and built up a landing. I did most of the sheetrocking. Ugh. What a miserable job. That stuff is so fragile and heavy and difficult to work with. The stairwell was especially tricky because the studs didn't line up and very little was actually level. The house is 40 years old. Ken came at the end and did the taping and bedding. It actually looks pretty good now! After Ken comes back and finishes it up, I'll paint and it'll be beautiful. Bruce also drilled a hole for the dehumidifier hose in the basement and is going to install a motion detector security light in Mom's car port.

We are such good Home Depot and Lowe's customers.

Road Trip Route

Proposed Route

July 16-17 - Atlanta – Mansfield 668 miles

July 18 explore Mansfield

July 19 Mansfield – Independence 200 miles

Explore prairie site

July 20 Independence - De Smet - 614 miles

July 21 explore De Smet

July 22 explore De Smet

De Smet to Walnut Grove – 111 miles

July 23 explore Walnut Grove see pageant

July 24 Walnut Grove to Burr Oak – 236 miles

Explore Burr Oak

Burr Oak to Pepin – 95 miles

Explore Pepin

July 25 Pepin to Madison – 200 miles

Visit with Dad and Pat

July 26 visit with Dad and Pat

July 27 head home – 850 miles

Summer Road Trip

We're planning a trip to Wisconsin to visit my father and thought we'd make it into a literary and historical trip to see the homes of Laura Ingalls Wilder. I'm still working out the details but the sites we'd like to visit are:

Pepin, Wisconsin
Walnut Grove, Minnesota
Burr Oak, Iowa
De Smet, South Dakota
Independence, Kansas
Mansfield, Missouri

We've been reading the LIW books aloud for several months. We're on the third one, "On the Banks of Plum Creek" which takes place outside Walnut Grove. Of course, Tacie and I have read them before. Talia is hearing them for the first time and is as excited as we are.

One thing I'm trying to coordinate is that we want to see a pageant at one or more of the sites. There are special events in Walnut Grove, De Smet, and Mansfield in July to celebrate LIW's life.

Bruce would rather stay home and get caught up on some repair work to our old house. We plan to camp along the way. Tacie will stay in Wisconsin for a while after Talia and I leave to spend some time with Dad and Pat. We'd hoped to bring Charlie (our new dog) but if we go into a restaurant or museum there's no place for Charlie to wait for us. It is too hot to leave him in the car.

We plan to leave in the next week or so, after the 16th when Tacie gets home from horse camp.

A Beginning

This is the beginning of our family blog. I've given it the title of "How Does Your Garden Grow?" after the children's rhyme:

Mary Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.

I think of our family as a garden that we tend.