Chicago Trip

In June I traveled to Chicago to see friends Matt and Amanda and their 6 mo. old Ava.  Here are the highlights!

I took the train out...

First view of Chicago

 Meeting Miss Ava for the first time!

 We toured Millenium Gardens

 And walked down to the Navy Pier

Then took the water taxi down to the Field Museum

 Where we saw Genghis Khan and Dinosaurs!

 And an Irish Elk...

Hanging out at their home, playing the piano during tummy-time

Visit to the Botanical Gardens!

One morning we made peanut butter banana french toast, a recipe from Pinterest and they were awesome!

 Helping cook

 Finished products

 Hanging out in her swing!

I had a great time hanging out with them and getting to meet Ava!  Hopefully I'll get to see them again soon!  From Chicago, I took a flight to NYC to see some family.

Losing Fluffy (1995-2012)

We had to put our 17 year old cat Fluffy down today as she's in complete kidney failure.  She's had a great life, we got her and Chocolate in 1995 and have had so much fun.

She liked watching the mouse on the screen, sometimes jumping up to catch it!

 We always snuggled together in bed on the weekends, she used to crawl down to the foot of the bed and would attack my toes.

 Her favorite spot to get scratched was right under her neck on the white patch, guaranteed to get a purr.

 "Forget the book, pay attention to me!"

 She would sit up on her post observing the activity in the family room and kitchen

 Any warm body was a perfect place to take a nap

 She was a fan of boxes, and wanted to come back to JMU with me

 She even warmed up to Gma as she got older (Fluffy, not Gma)

 When she was little she was scared of going outside, but eventually she began going outside more, stalking bugs in the garden and sitting among the flowers

 Lap cat, err, arm cat?

 With Fluffy on her post

 Playing with her worm toy, Christmas 2011

Found a warm spot on Alex, now getting scratched and loving it

Watching TV with Alex

Sleeping on her last day, she was having trouble walking and eating :-(

We love you lots Fluffy and hope that there are lots of mice to chase, tunafish, cantaloupe, and comfy cushions and warm bodies to snuggle with.  I'm sorry I couldn't be there for the end.  Know that I love you and will miss you!

Pinterest Challenge

One of the blogs that I follow called Young House Love (DIY Home re-do) challenged readers to actually make something that they had been eyeing on pinterest.  I had been trying to figure out a way to organize the mail for us 5 roommates, rather than spreading it out on the counter or the dining room table, but hadn't seen anything in stores that I liked.  My friend Amanda got me started on pinterest during my trip out to Chicago, and I found an idea that I could replicate in a smaller scale!  Challenge accepted!

Here's the pin that I found, (originally from Remodelaholic) it's a wall mounted storage unit that they use for their kids socks.  Great idea!  However, it's too big for the area that we want it and proportions aren't right for mail.  So...I did a little sketching and took it home to get Dad's help.

We got wood from Lowes, 1/2" pine boards rather than 1" boards and set up in the basement.

 First task was to figure out the sizes.  We decided that the box should be about 11" wide so that a standard envelope will fit in it, and then the front board should be about 3.5" tall, again to fit an envelope, which means the real height of the box is 6".  Because there are 5 of us we decided to make 6 boxes, one for each and then another for our landlords/junk mail/catalogues/takeout menus, basically what ever we need.  This meant that the total height would be 36" tall.

We started by cutting the bottoms of the shelves to 11", setting all of them up so that we could have equal cuts, and then cut the fronts to 12" so that they can be attached onto the side walls, not into the side walls.  We used a circular saw, but for future remembrance, use a table saw so that your cuts are perfectly 90º angles.  A few of the bottom boards ended up different lengths by a millimeter, which ended up not making a difference, but it could have been a problem!

 Then the tricky part arrived in cutting out the side panels which are angled so that the boxes are on an angle.  This involved some math (luckily Dad was there!) in order to figure out the angle.  Once we marked where the bottom boards would attach to the sides we measured halfway (or 3") and then out 4.5" and drew our angle lines.  Not the easiest thing to describe!  But you should be able to see the faint zigzag line on the boards in the picture above.

 We then clamped the two sides together to make sure that the cuts would be symmetrical, and Dad started to cut using a jig saw.  He's better with the saw, so he did the cutting.

 Progress with half the side boards cut into their shape.  Is this starting to make more sense?

 Two sides cut!  Now to add in the middle boards and the fronts...

 We laid everything out on the workbench to make sure that we cut everything right.  Success!  Can you see it coming together now?

 Next step was the nail in the bottom boards between the two side boards.  We actually drilled little holes where the nails would go to make the nails go in easier, with a little space left at the bottom for the nails to stick in.  A quick sanding to smooth all the sides and drill holes and then Dad lined it up and I nailed it in, working on one side first before attaching the other side.

 After the frame, we attached the front panels, again using the drill and then nail technique which made life so much easier!

 Finished product!

 Demonstrating it's proper placement on the wall.  Next we used wood filler to seal the nails so it's a flat finish, let the filler dry and then sanded it down smooth.

 I then gave it a coat of primer that Mom and Dad had in the basement to help seal them and cover any markings that we made.  We had a perfect piece of cardboard so I could spray it outside with minimal grass coverage.  I sprayed the back first to get all the inside covered, and then flipped it over and painted the front

After letting it dry outside and then in the garage, it was transported south to VA where I gave it a coat of yellow paint, attached the back panel and hung it on the wall last night!  Next step is to find labels, something that you can attach and then slip a piece of paper into so that each roomie has a box.  I'm not completely thrilled with the yellow, which looked great outside, but is blah in some lights against the wall.  Maybe adding a blue paint stripe to frame the future name labels?  Any suggestions?

And we have mail in it already!  More pictures to come when I decide on how to completely finish it.

Early antibiotics may have been the problem?

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/19/science/studies-of-human-microbiome-yield-new-insights.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

Mom and Dad sent me this article from the NYTimes about how our bodies are huge micro biomes and  it mentions how children develop their immune systems and when they are given lots of antibiotics at a young age it can lead to later cases of asthma and allergies.  I had lots of ear infections when I was 7 months old which meant lots of antibiotics back in the late 80s, and today I have asthma and lots of allergies!  Makes sense because genetics can't be an answer (no one else in my family has allergies).

Biking troubles

Drivers- please be very careful of bikers on the road!
Bikers- please be very careful of drivers on the road!

Last Friday night my mom was biking home from work around 7pm and crossing a street got hit by a car.  She's OK for the most part, but broke her left tibia, just under the knee.  Other than that, not a scratch.  It's amazing nothing else was hurt!  Originally we thought she'd have to get surgery to fix it, put a pin or two in place, but after the orthopedic appointment yesterday we found out that with a millimeter gap, she can avoid weight on that leg and keep it immobilized for 4 weeks.  Every 10 days they'll x-ray to make sure that it's healing and not increasing the gap.  Mom will be on crutches for about 6-8 weeks, which changes the summer a bit, but hopefully she'll be getting back as we go to the beach.  We can deal with the accommodations for an injured leg, I'm just happy nothing else went wrong!

May update

May was a crazy month, both at school and at home...

My AP kids took their test on the 11th, and they said it was easy so I'm hoping that they did really well.

Alex came to visit on the 12th-13th weekend and we had fun watching the Caps game with some of his friends and getting dinner with Uncle Jim.

My friend Evan and I went to our friend Danielle's wedding in Pittsburgh on the 19th.  We had a great weekend, got to see the Avengers in 3D, Danielle got married to a great guy, and Evan drove both ways so I could get essays graded!

SOL testing started on the 20th - a week of high nerves throughout school and only two of my students failed the exam.  Not bad for a first year teacher!

At the same time that week I was moving from my small room in the house into the bigger room upstairs!  Easy move right around across the staircase, and while it's more expensive, it's a much larger room (almost 2x the size) and i have my own bathroom.  Didn't realize how much I missed having my own bathroom!  It took a couple evenings, but I finally got everything moved in before heading to Ithaca.

First night: bed, dresser and clothes moved in

Very large desk moved in next

Bookcase and hanging pictures last!

Headed up to Ithaca on the 28th to see Alex get his Master's and finish his time at Cornell.  The whole fam was there, we rented the same house, had lots of family time, ate some good food, went out in the evening with Alex and his friends, sat in the sun for commencement, orchestrated a surprise visit from Andy and Katie, ate more good food, and flew back to DC.

Pictures will be added...Done.

Confusion

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood." 

--Henry Miller

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day to the best Mom and Gma!!!

Testing Time

AP Testing began this week and in 2 weeks our state tests (SOLs) will begin.  I had half a class of juniors this afternoon as most were taking the AP Psych test, or had gone home after the AM test.  I really get this feeling that my kids aren't studying for their History exam on Friday and it's making me nervous for their results!  Not to mention that several students have become chronically absent, some due to personal issues, some sick, some anxiety.  Great timing life, that's just what they needed.  Hopefully they'll pull through soon.

Lots of lazy sophomores right now, we'll see if reading quizzes rather than completion grades helps that...probably not good to start getting mean/tough at the end of the year, but it's all I can do to not yell at them when 3/25 turn in a homework assignment.

1 month and 13 days left.