#11 MAY-be I'll Play Catch-up

I'm not sure where this week has gone. It is the last week of school around here and there has been a lot to do with that, helping Jake stay on top of projects due and things to be turned in and tests to study for.

And Nick has been busy learning how to do things. And doing some of them. It is slow going but I'm just kind of staying out of things and letting him navigate his way through.

In the meantime, this is how things look around here:

Kind of droopy and forgotten and, well, dead.

Any time anyone embarks on any home-improvement project they forget that it always take 5-8 times longer to do than originally thought!

Abbie's room? Still waiting on that:

Abbie and Nick have been painting trim and installing baseboard. I was told it would be done today which is good because we can then start moving Abbie's life back into her room. Which means we can start putting the living room back together-which is where all her stuff has been piled.

The bathroom? Still waiting on that:

You know, I am just so not worried about any of this. Yes, it is a mess and kind of disruptive. But I'm really excited for what Nick is learning. To me, the skills Nick will learn from all this is worth any inconvenience we might experience.

He is going back to his other life for awhile and then he'll come back next week and work some more on the bathroom. He may even bring a brother or two.

So that is the state of chaos around here.

On a different note: I was supposed to go to Portland last week with Doug for a dental thing, but then Abbie got real sick and we didn't know what was going on with her and so we made the decision that I would stay home. It was a little hard to know what to do, but once we found out she had strep (after Doug had left) I was glad I'd stayed home. She was a sickie for awhile.

This was the hard part about not going on the trip: We had decided to stay an extra day so that we could spend some time at the sea. Doug had never been to the Oregon coast before. I love the wildness of the Oregon coast and I love being at the sea no matter what the coast. So it was VERY hard for me to give up a visit to the ocean.

Doug asked me what I would like him to bring me home.

I told him that I would like a shell:

And a piece of driftwood:

And some sand:

And that's what he brought me! How cool is that? He found an old empty bottle of Dr. Price's Delicious Flavoring Extracts at an antique store and put some Oregon ocean sand in it. I've poured it out into my hand and felt the cool sandiness of it and it was Delicious.

My newest ocean pieces sit with my older ocean bits and pieces on my desk where I can see them everyday.

Good work, Doug!