Water runs dry

So I have all the kids, who would be in school and are in the country, at home with me today. Seth is sick and Pamela is out for - wait for it - a water main break! They closed the school (and evacuated it in panic mode) for a water main break. (I can hear all my Ghana friends LTAO, right now.) When they called me to tell me that I had to come get her yesterday because the school had no water, my response was "The school in Ghana didn't have water for 9 months out of the year and they never closed the school." They made me take her home anyway.

Now the funniest thing about this is that the water main break that affected the school, also affected my house and making Pamela leave the school just meant coming to a house with no water. The management of our housing complex was nice enough to put a tank in the neighborhood park for us to go fill containers from (which they made sure to point out was not potable - LOL!).

Pamela, being the comedianne that she is, insisted on walking through the neighborhood like this:

Toby made it through surgery and is doing quite well now. Dylan sent me an email saying "I don't mean to alarm you but your sick child has been replaced by a child that feels great and doesn't need sleep." So we're very happy and I thank you all again for your thoughts and prayers!

The Art of Noise

Thanks for your enthusiasm in sending Pamela some ATCs! She will really enjoy this. School, unfortunately, doesn't prepare you for the art world...I suppose math, science and language arts are pretty important:-P. But in remembering my own school days, I was always looking for the right answer and not so much what I thought about things. I'm learning that now, and art really helps with that. Again, I had art teachers who wanted the perfect work of art, not necessarily something that conveyed feeling, but that looked right.

Last night, I stayed up too late taking Pamela around and showing her our prints of paintings. My favorite artist is Marc Chagall. We have "I and the Village" hanging over Pamela's piano. I asked her "how does this make you feel?" and she was stumped. I said, you don't know how it makes you feel? So we worked on that. And that's the thing. It's all about how it makes you feel and not whether it's right or wrong. Math has right and wrong answers and there are rules to grammar and science, but to teach creative thinking...I think that's art (and philosophy, but I hate philosophy because I can't seem to take a stand on anything anyway, and philosophy just makes me more confused).

Here's the most recent ATC I made for Pamela. She wants to know why I keep using these girls. I just like them, plus they're in B&W so I can use my watercolor pencils and my new blender pen to give them some color, which I love doing. I was not happy about the way the glitter stuck all over the place on this card, but Pamela likes it.

We're all about the art in our house now. I see the difference in Seth's paintings and drawing from Pamela's when she was his age and I know a lot of it is my fault. What's funny is that for most things, Seth wants them perfect (i.e. he'd rather be naked than just a tiny bit dirty or wet, if the lego figures don't look exactly like the box he won't play with them) but when it comes to art, he goes wild. Here's a couple examples:

This one is currently on our easel. I guess it's a work in progress.This one was one he did at school. I love the use of color and the fact that he covers the whole page.

This is longer than I had intended, so I guess I'll cut off now:). I walked 5.25 miles yesterday! My motivation is lagging right now (I'm worried about Toby, I'll have to talk about that tomorrow) but I only read my textbooks while on the treadmill so I have to get on the treadmill:)

Won't you take me to Funkytown?

We're going to see Alvin and the Chipmunks on Sunday* and in honor of that Pamela bought the entire album on iTunes. Now, every day on the way to school Seth insists on listening to "Funkytown" by Alvin and the Chipmunks. It gets a little stuck in my head:). I'm sure it will soon surpass Jingle Bells (which finally made it to our #1 played!) on the top 25.



Here's an ATC that I made for Pamela:

Amy had a great suggestion that everyone could make her some to hang in her locker. She would LOVE that! If you're reading this and you want to make an ATC for Pamela, please send me a comment and I'll send you my mailing address to mail it to (and Pamela and I will make an ATC for you, they are trading cards:).

My ticker wasn't working last night, but when my friend was here and the kids were on break last week, I walked a total of 3 miles - in a week. That's sort of no where close to my 33 miles that I need to be doing a week. But this week I have walked 8 miles (which is still short of my goal but better!).

*While we have movie theaters here (which is AWESOME!) the kids movies are dubbed in Polish (adult movies - wait that doesn't sound right, how about non-kid movies? - are usually shown in the original language with Polish subtitles - unless the original language is Polish;). Sometimes the English speaking schools or embassies will arrange a special showing with no dubbing. That's how we know we're going on Sunday:).

Hang me up to dry

I've spent a good portion of the morning scanning in money from all over the world, per yesterday's collage post. About halfway through, I started feeling like a counterfitter, then toward the end I started wondering if it's illegal to scan money into your own computer. Since I'm putting this out in cyberspace, I may know very soon:).

I managed to do another card for the Deck of Me challenge last night when I was bathing the boys. This one was what junk you need to get rid of and we had to use junk mail as our embellishments:

I cheated (unintentionally) because I used a piece of ephemera on the front of the card in addition to junk mail. I didn't realize it until I had finished the card.

Pamela is loving these cards (ATC sized) and has asked me to make her several to hang in her locker. I told her I would work on those as soon as I am caught up on the Deck of Me.

Toby is scheduled for surgery on Thursday and will then have to stay for at least a week to be monitored. Thank you all for your prayers and good wishes!

It's surprisingly quiet in my house with only 3 children. Dylan and I have discussed that before and it amazing how you can take away 1 (ANY one) and the house seems SO much quieter. Seth is missing Toby a bit, and we're trying to transition Blaise to a big boy bed, so when I came to check on them last night this is what I found:

Things I learned on the sleeper train to Germany (from Dylan)

Got this funny email from Dylan. He's on his way to Germany with Toby (hopefully he will have surgery and return better, but we don't know yet). Because my initial post today was not particularly funny, I thought I would share Dylan's perspective again:

-Three-year-old boys can sleep 7 hours on a sleeper train without any problems

- I am not a three-year-old boy.

- Airlines and Rail Services all get their pillows from the same place.

-You REALLY do not want to share a sleeping compartment with a stranger. In theory you could fit three but Toby was claustrophobic the minute he got in the "middle" bunk. I could not fit my head in this bunk (seriously).

-You will develop a deep sense of paranoia that you are missing your stop. My paranoia kept me from sleeping, and when I did sleep, I dreamed about missing my stop - which caused me to wake up again.

- I am no longer 16 and cannot jump onto the top bunk with one short hop... I need to use the ladder like any other old person.

-Do not place your three-year-old on the top bunk, you'll just end up sleeping even less and eventually (after that third or fourth abrupt stop) you're going to trade places anyway because your wife will kill you if you injure your son while taking him to the hospital.

-European train conductors are more paranoid than I am. The lady was very nice when she took my tickets ( first time they have ever taken my tickets, I got them back in the morning so it was as if she was just holding them for me) and gave me a three minute lecture (all in Polish of course) about how I need to lock both the chain and the deadbolt of my door... Then the paranoia goes up as I imagine the gangs that must rove through these cars that will knock down the door with a chain and tie up everyone inside, but who will steer clear of those who use the chain and the dead bolt. The doors are paper thin, why don't the just cut through with a plastic knife from the galley if they really want in?

- 15 starts and stops at various stations across Poland and Germany will not wake a sleeping three-year-old; the mere thought of cracking open the window so I can see the stop so we don't miss it will however get him right out of bed.

-Having your kid dressed in pajamas at 11:30 at night is adorable - same kid dressed in the same pajamas in a train station at 1:00 the following afternoon is apparently child neglect.

-The free water they serve in "first class" is soda water, this is important to know because when you take that first drink expecting flat water, you may inadvertently think someone is trying to poison you.

-8 minutes is not nearly enough time to learn the German S-Bahn rail system, even though the people who sell the tickets seem to think it is.

-If you sit in First Class on the German trains with one kid who is semi-quiet, apparently no one will ever question you.

(Scroll down for today's post from Kylie:).

A Place in the Sun

I have only a few things for you today. First, here's my week 5 Deck of Me (we're on week 8, but I'm way behind).:This one was advice to yourself at 18. My advice (on the back, not shown) was "Don't worry these are nowhere near the best years of your life" which is a line from the Brad Paisley song "Letter to me". I thought that was the best advice to give a teenager.

Through Crafted By Us, I learned of this collage image group on Flickr. When I was a teenager, I LOVED making collages. It's only been recently that I learned that this is a whole art form, so now this has taken over my life;).

Also, over the weekend, I ran into a friend at the park (we had gorgeous weather this weekend, it's springtime!) and she asked about our trip back in December. I told her that I need to show her my scrapbook of it and she said "You scrapbook? I've been wanting to learn how. I bought lots of paper and glue and albums but I never did them!" So, at least until she never actually calls, I have a local scrapbooking friend (did I mention that she asked me yesterday about my trip in December? I doubt we'll actually be getting together to scrapbook).

And, I rode the motorcycle for the first time (in my skirt, got a lot of neighborhood stares for that one). It was actually quite fun, but I get freaked out at going 30mph.

They're fixing my roof today so I'm stuck at home. I thought roofs were supposed to last longer than 5 years (and I didn't know there was anything wrong with it).

Welcome giant freaks!

So I have some blog business to attend to today. First, EONS ago, Amy gave me this:

And because I am a slacker of gigantic proportions, I never posted it. But I appreciate it (and I’m posting it now), so thanks Amy!

I’d like to award:

RobinDiane – I just like her

Jenny The Bloggess – She just cracks me up and makes me feel inferior:)

Lisa ScrappyCatz – Her projects are so pretty

And if you’re reading my blog (and you also have a blog) you are also awarded. I just love new readers too!

And my other little funny thing for today. Pamela went to turn on the light in her bedroom. As she flipped the switch, there was a flash and a “pow”, something shot across the room and the power went out upstairs. She went to see what had shot out and it was this:

Yes, that’s right, the LIGHT BULB shot across the room. I don’t think that has ever happened to me in my 33 years of life (in all fairness, I don't remember those early years, it could have happened then). Step aside Serbia, Poland is still dangerous!