Can you believe it?

This baby…..

Is starting eighth grade today! 

My first day went well….I was busy doing lots of the orientation and training…which boils down to reading lots and lots of info, watching lots of videos (There are 7!) and being filled in on lots of other details.  I even have to get a TB test done! 

Today is more of the same, I still have 5 of the videos left, most of the policies and procedures binder left to read, some more paperwork to deal with…..It’s a rockin’ good time!   Actually, it will be nice to push through it all and get it all done!  Then I will be able to get on the floor and working.

I did actually get some work done yesterday.  The COTA (Certified Occupational Therapy Assistant….That’s what I am too now!) Team Leader was chomping at the bit to get me out on the floor and into the action.  He snagged me to observe him treat a couple of patients.  Mind you…the second observation turned into a hand-off of treatment….Which is totally fine.  I have a sneaking suspicion that he wanted to put me through my paces a bit to see how I did.  So, I observed him and he then got to see me.

I have my little desk area in the office.  It is in a decent spot. (Not that there are any bad spots).  I have my blotter and little bulletin board and little in-box tray.  My own 2′ of glory!   Really, we don’t spend much time at all in the office, we are usually on the floor most of the day, so the office is empty most of the day.  I will bring in a few bobbles to cozy it up a bit.  Last night, I went to send some pictures (online) to Costco so I could post them and discovered that they make collage prints.  So, I ordered up a 8″x12″ collage print of my family that I can post on my bulletin board.  I will pick it up today after work.

In totally unrelated news:  Poor dh has been up all night.  Some server at his work was misbehaving, causing all sorts of angst for them yesterday.  Then starting last night around 8:30, he was trying to make a back-up server cooperate and move data…actually, I think restore files…..But it didn’t cooperate.  I woke up at 11:00 last night…No dh in bed.  1:30….Nope.  2:30…Nope.  Finally at 3ish, I dragged myself downstairs to make sure he was still alive.  He was…..but still trying to fix the server.  Pretty much, I am going to leave for work and he is going to go to bed!  Poor guy.  At least he was here though, it is nice that he can sometimes fuss with the servers remotely!

K…That’s all for now, I still have a few things I need to do before I head out the door. I’d best get at it!

And so begins the balancing act called: Back to Work.

This is the first time since April of 1996 that I have worked fulltime outside the home.  I am wondering how I will handle it all.

And yes, I know that school was a fulltime commitment…..But it seems a bit different from the steady day-in/day-out of working fulltime.

And when will I ever have time to blog?!

Beads and flowers.

I took Nature Boy shoe shopping yesterday…It was sort of a frustrating trip.  We found him sneakers for gym, which he needed.  We did not find him every day school shoes despite stopping at a handful of stores.  We were looking for Crocs…I will have to order some online, I guess.

However, we were in the part of town that has a bead store and as you know I’ve been a bit beady lately!   So, we popped in the store so I could pick up some beads.  I have quite a collection of earrings as you saw, but have some color gaps in it and wanted to get beads in some specific colors.  I like going to the bead store and looking through the individual beads, however, I find the owner to rub me the wrong way.  It is not the first time I have been in there and felt that way either. <sigh>  It will limit my visits to the store for sure!

Anyway, I was able to put together a few more pairs of earrings.

I must say, I love, love, love the lollipop earrings on the top.  That bead is not only beautiful, but it makes me think of those small flat round lollipops….Fun!

The green stars have some different ear wires.  As you know, I can wear titanium, but due to an allergy can’t wear anything else metal.  I had read about niobium, another supposedly super-hypo-allergenic metal.  Well, this bead store had some niobium ear wires, so I bought a pair to try.  It will be clear very quickly if they are truly hypoallergenic.

Now…as to flowers….This one’s for you Berry.  It’s a picture of one of my gladioli…I am getting a few blossoms this year and am really enjoying them!

I must report that though it is still August and technically summer and we are even enjoying the fruits of summer…flowers, tomatoes, potatoes, etc.  We are having fall weather here and are kinda feeling chilly.  There were even frost warnings for some areas last night! Frost! In August?! Yikes. 

How is it you always refer to our area, Fibermom? The Frozen North?  It is feeling like it here this morning. Luckily, it was still “mild” here last night, our temps appear to have stayed in the 40′s.

Beads and Earrings.

A while back, a friend of mine send me a big ol’ Ziploc bag of beads.  I was very excited.   Every since I discovered the titanium ear wires, I have been happily rediscovering dangly earrings.  I certainly didn’t mind wearing plastic studs and titanium hoops…but the titanium ear wires have freed me considerably! Because of this, I have been happily making my own earrings as well as buying some earrings that I can swap out the ear wires on and even reclaiming a few old pairs that I had in the bottom of my jewelry box. 

Anyway…back to the bag of beads…..So, I have had these new beads and fondled and drooled on them for a while….but just the other day, I actually pulled some out and made some earrings.

The bag had tons of amethyst chips in it and I was very excited to make some chip earrings.

Simply, yet lovely.

You will note that simple yet lovely is a theme with most of my earrings!

Here are some more I made….I love the faceted tear drop purple beads.

And the red beads are just fun!

And notice to the right….I mentioned those earrings a while back but I don’t recall if I posted a picture….Those were earrings that had tarnished in the embossing (more like the silver flaked off).  In order to save them, I used nail polish and enameled the embossing.  I love the way they look!

At this point,  I have many earrings to wear.  I love being able to think and choose which pair to wear when I go out. 

I also was talking to a friend recently about earring storage.  My system is quite simple.  I use bowls.

I just hang the earrings over the edge of the bowl  It is quick and tidy. 

Hmmm…I see that in the top bowl picture, that with the exception of the vining flower earrings in the center, I made all the pairs of earrings that you can see in the picture. In the bottom bowl, I made the three pairs on the left.  And the faceted purple drop earrings are missing because they are in my ears!

And please note, I made sure to get the embroidered table topper in the photos too.  That’s one of the items from that yard sale a couple of weekends ago.  I just love it! It is so pretty!  I enjoy having it dress up my bureau.

We are starting to harvest from our garden.  Well…truth be told, we have been plucking grape tomatoes off the plants on the deck for a month now! However, the garden at the end of the yard is also starting to pick up.

I am most excited about the potatoes.  In case you don’t remember (or I forgot to mention) these are volunteer potatoes from plants I planted three (yes, three!) summers ago.  As I got my garden and flower bed going this year, these potatoes kept popping up everywhere! It looks like we tilled the stragglers around and spread them liberally over half the garden.  So, every time I found a potato sprout, I’d dig it up and move it to one spot on the garden.  It has paid off nicely.  We have had lovely, fresh potatoes at dinner three times now.  And the best part…..The color!

Purple potatoes just make me smile!!!!

Unfortunately, when they cook they lose some color and become blue….But it’s okay because they are purple to start and that is enough for me!

We are going to be coming into a glut of tomatoes soon.  I don’t always have luck with tomatoes, or maybe I should say I do have luck….It’s just bad luck!  But this summer, I have happy, happy tomato plants and we will be having a gazillion tomatoes before too long!

My broccoli got eaten, but my brussel sprouts are still there and growing strong.  I am also pleased to report I have one cantaloupe coming along….I don’t know how it will do, but it is growing and that is amazing in and of itself (I have terrible luck with melons!).

I am already contemplating next year’s garden…..I am definitely planting more of those potatoes!!!!

I am a sleepy head this morning! I could just not get up on time.  Usually, I wake up and am pretty much wide awake and hop out of bed….but this morning, I was just so sleepy! However, no more sleeping in mornings for me! I have to be in training for getting up for my job.  <yawn>

Sunday, Speedy and I hit the road to head out to a few yard sales.  The yard sales were few and far between.  We have noticed a trend here lately of the Friday/Saturday yard sale.  Folks start the sales early and then don’t have them on Sunday.  I understand not wanting to have the whole weekend taken up by yard sales…..but it means there aren’t many sales to be found on Sunday.

If I recall correctly, Speedy did not find one thing to buy at any of the yard sales. I admit, many were duds, but I got a few lucky (really!) treasures.

First off is an Ikea computer hutch.  I had a couple of ideas of what it would be used for, but family consensus is to use it as a homework desk for Nature Boy.  I am also keeping lots of our office supplies in the top of the hutch.

It is not so much my plan to keep a computer in the hutch as much as to have him have a place to sit and do his work.  We’ll see how it goes.

The second lucky find was a weed whacker.

Believe it or not, this also is for Nature Boy.  Nature Boy has taken on yard maintenance chores and has been asking and asking me for a weed whacker.   I was lucky enough to find this one for very little money.  It is rechargeable (my preference over a gas powered one) and came with two batteries and the charger.  It is relatively lightweight.  Nature Boy and I have both played with it a bit and it works just fine.

And can I tell you, I think it is the sweetest thing watching my kiddo cradling his guitar and already making a little bit of music!

As promised…Pictures of the new favorite swimming hole.

This is a beautiful spot up close to the mountain where glaciers dropped huge boulders to create a gorge.  The water runs so deep under the rocks that when you stand at the bottom and look up the gorge, you can only see boulders, not water. 

(Oh yes, most pictures were shot into the sun on a hazy day….so many seem to have a bit of an ethereal fog to them.)

The swimming hole we swam in is at the bottom of the gorge.

But dh and Nature Boy scrambled up a level and found another swimming hole there.

Evidently, if you climb up the gorge there are even more swimming holes, but we are not that adventurous!  We stuck with swimming at the bottom where the water comes down.

Except for a main swimming hole, the water was only knee to thigh deep and the current wasn’t swift at all.  It was a really nice place!  The rocks were a bit slippery and very hard though, so we all kept our sandals on and picked our way carefully around the more slippery spots.

I just couldn’t get over how pretty the place was!  I love beautiful places like this!

And the Falls is on public land with easy trail access.  I can guarantee we will be going back!  I only wish we had discovered it sooner!

(Rock sculpture by dh.)

It’s a gray day today.  I don’t mind.  It is not hot out, so I will take the gray.  Of course, I am supposed to go yard saling with a friend and this gray and rainy looking day may put a damper on the sales we find….However, I am hoping we will be able to persevere and have some fun anyway!

Yesterday, we met up with a family we know and went swimming at a really nice spot a couple of towns over.  I don’t have the pictures off the camera yet, but I will get them off soon.  I had no idea we had such a nice swimming hole (on public land) so close to our house.  It took us less than 30 minutes to get there and I am guessing it will be a place we frequent.

You have heard lots of talk lately of my efforts to purge around the house.  I actually took some before pictures of the office area in our dining room….and now I have some after pictures too.

Brace yourself, the before picture is pretty awful, and embarrassingly enough, we have spent months and months with the office table in that state of disarray. (I would try to clean it now and then, but only would make a dent in the mess, not actually an big improvement.)

Before:

After:

Amazing, isn’t it?!

I replaced the table with a smaller table we had.  The whole reason I had used the bigger table was to allow for a work space next to the computer, but as you can see that idea was misguided.  The horizontal surface just accumulated papers.  I eliminated lots of the horizontal surface in hopes of minimizing the pileup.

I also repurposed a wooden trunk box by taking off the hardware, turning it on it’s end and painting it purple.  It now serves as a cupboard.  It’s not beautiful, but it is functional and does the job for now.  It helps a lot to have place for things to go. Actually, that’s the theory behind the shelf on the table too.  I decided to go vertical with storage and now we have a basket for all the USB cords, power cords, etc. that were heaped on the table.  We also have baskets for games and another for installation CDs.  And the two blue trays on the bottom are basically in and out boxes.

Plus, the shelf gave dh’s birthday dutch oven a home too!

Oh, and I cleaned up the walls too.  The artwork that was up that I wanted to save is ready to be filed (I have a binder of Nature Boy’s art.).  The calendar got moved, little post-it’s of phone numbers and addresses got added to the address book…..Basically, I took the time to do all the little jobs (like entering things into the address book) that cleared up lots of the stuff.

I also took down the bulletin board behind the desk.  We used it to hold important papers that really should have been filed.  I figure if we just file them when we get them, then we won’t have the mess on the bulletin board. (Crazy theory, eh?)  And I rediscovered the bulletin board is backed by a chalkboard.  So, I reversed it and hung it and you can see it is set up as a grid.  That will be our new chore chart.  (As a matter of fact, I do believe today is chore assignment day!)

So, a lot of filing, shredding, moving, repurposing, purging and organizing has led to a much more pleasing and functional office space.  I am satisfied with the results.

This is the kind of purging that I have been doing lately, in closets, on bookshelves, in our bedroom….I am trying to get rid of stuff that is weighing us down and reorganize what we need.  And I am trying to make spaces that are not just functional but aesthetically pleasing.  The office area is not necessarily so pretty looking….but let’s face it, it is much more pleasant to look at than that awful before picture!

Yesterday, we went and saw Ponyo.  It was delightful.  I didn’t even get ill watching it. (I have all but abandoned watching movies in the theater as I get motion sick watching them.)  I highly recommend it as a sweet feel good movie.

I also stopped a Penney’s and got a few pairs of pants for work as <gulp> I will be starting up in about a week! 

We also stopped at the ultra-estrogen teen accessory store, Claire’s.  Wow! It sure is shiny in there. Dh and Nature Boy were good sports to go in.  Dh tried on some rhinestone studded headbands and Nature Boy picked a huge garland of pearls to throw on dh and add to the look…..It was quite amusing!

I was looking for something very specific at Claire’s, hair spins, and I found them.  Have you seen hair spins before?

They are basically a bit of bling on a spring that you twist into you hair.  Since I have very dark hair, I thought that hair spins would be quite pretty in my hair.

The report is that they are quite pretty in my hair indeed.

I also had the luck to find some Hello Kitty barrettes.  You may or may not know that I am a Hello Kitty fan.  I like to think of myself as a tasteful Hello Kitty fan.  My barrettes reflect my choosing of subtle Hello Kitty items.

See? Cute + not over the top = tasteful. 

And I got them for 50% off as part of a buy one/get one promotion.  Actually, several HK items were just plain 50% off, so I may also have bought some earrings, but I will never confess to it!

And speaking of cute Hello Kitty, when searching for hair spins online, I even saw these….

Honestly though, I have no idea when or where I would wear such an item…But they sure are cute!  However, they do have the potential of being over the top.

K….my morning farm chore calls…Must let out the chickens. And then perhaps I will even have some breakfast!