Progress and Packages

It's been a busy day. Seems like much longer than yesterday since I posted, given the amount of things that have been done. I guess that's a good thing.

  

I think I'd get a lot more done if I wasn't always having to be on the alert for things like this.  Thanks to the encouragement of his brothers, the one year old is now able to climb onto the top bunk...

And then there is the four year old.  And sand.  On my floor.  Repeatedly.  And this was no accident. The favorite new game is to throw sand at the open door.  Yeah.  Our big sandbox is buried in snow.  But the kids filled the water table (which is shaped like a pirate ship) with sand and moved it to be near the door.  We moved it yesterday, but he was still carrying a scoop of sand over to where he could throw it into the door.

So if it weren't for all the sweeping, and chasing the baby off the ladder, and today, keeping the baby from filling the toilet with all things un-flushable, I might actually get something done.  That and the fact that my back was hurting yesterday.  I went to the chiropractor and he suspects that I either have a compressed or herniated disc in my lower back, which is putting pressure on the nerve that is making my leg fall asleep.  We're waiting to see how I am Monday, hoping this adjustment will be enough, but I may have to have an orthopedic consultation.  So last night I wasn't up to doing too much.  We had AWANA clubs at church and I went and helped awhile with that until it was clear that I needed ice and pain killer.  I didn't get much done before the appointment because I had a one-month-old in my daycare, and she wasn't interested in being put down.  After AWANAS I did get time to read while I iced my back, and was able to finish my book - The End of Your Life Book Club.

  

Remember how I told you I had gotten myself into a bind with all the books I need to read?  Well, talk about multiplying the problem... I found an online book club on one of the blogs I occasionally read.  Their book for March is The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman.  It's a fiction book, and since I'm obsessive about switching back and forth this year between fiction and non-fiction, I need to read a fiction book now anyway.  So I signed up for the book club.  If I run out of time it won't matter because there are so many people in the book club already.  They won't miss me.  The problem came when I stopped in the library on my way home last night - just quick enough to pick up that one book - and ended up grabbing five instead.  Seven inches worth of books.  (My eight year old thinks I'm nuts for measuring the books.) I'm keeping track of how many inches and pages I've read this year.  I'm sure these won't all get read, but thought I'd bring them home to see which ones I would want to read.

The first thing I tackled this morning was my kitchen cupboard.  As I mentioned yesterday, I wanted to make the second shelf tall enough for the books to stand up.  I figured moving the heavy plates to the bottom row would help my eight year old be able to put things away.  What I didn't think fully through however, was that now he can't reach the plastic cups.  I should have made it so the books were on the top shelf.  I still might.

 Today was a good day for packages arriving.

The eight year old's birthday is coming up next week, and you would have thought this was one of his gifts.  It's not, but it is something really cool.  If we get it put together tonight, I'll show you what it is.  Until then, you'll have to live in suspense.  Hint - it's for the daycare.

I also got two of my allergy-free cookbooks in the mail.  I paged through the one on the left, and am not sure how much I'll be able to use that one.  It isn't free of all allergens - just some of them.  So there are a lot of recipes that I will either have to adjust or not use.  I didn't have time to go through the one on the right.

I also received the cookbooks I had ordered before we learned of the one year old's additional allergies.  I thought he would be able to eat most of the things that are allowed on the Paleo diet, and he probably would have if he didn't have these additional problems.  In fact, that's why I asked for him to be re-tested.  Well, it's a big part of it anyway, along with the fact that I thought there had to be something more he was allergic to.  But as for the recipes, I thought if he could have almond flour, it would be a good low-carb option for everyone.  But that went up in smoke when he tested allergic to almonds.

 The biggest challenge to all these allergies is finding substitutes so he can eat a somewhat balanced diet.  And the substitutes are really expensive... especially the specialty flours.  A lot of recipes call for brown rice flour, and I did the math and figured out that it would be well worth the money to purchase a grain mill.  I researched it and found one I think should work well.  It arrived today too.  I would have shown you more than the box, but I started to open it up, and realized it would be better to leave it all put away until I have time to read all the paperwork and try it out.  So, more on that later.  Now I need to buy a big bucket of brown rice -  which they have for a good price at our local grocery store.  I use rice all the time, including to make my own rice milk, which I also did today.  I'm having to do it every week or two, depending on how much I make at once.

 I also bought a new portable crib.  It's a nice wooden crib, but it folds up nicely for storage.  Definitely a step up from a pack and play, and I use those all the time.  If this one works out well, I'm going to buy a couple more of them.  I hate wrestling with those pack and plays.

 The other big thing I got done was to cut and press my half square triangle pieces.  I layed them out on the counter to audition some designs.  I'm sure the colors will be re-arranged some, but for now I'm just trying to figure out what is going to look best.  So which design do you like best?  I have two at the top of my list, but I'm not going to tell you which ones they are because I don't want to influence your choice ;)  The one above - #1 - reminds me of Charlie Brown.

 #2 reminds me of a flock of birds in flight.

#3 reminds me of a reflecting pool.  And yeah, I see the three pieces on the right that I forgot to flip around.  Ha. I didn't notice them until I loaded the pictures on my computer, and I'm not going to lay it all out again to take a proper picture.

#4 is called broken dishes, but I also see pinwheels here.  Depends on how you look at it.

 #5 is a herringbone design, which kind of reminds me of braids or tire tracks - lol.  And yes, there are errors in this one too. I wouldn't necessarily keep the stripes of color.  I think I would adjust so that the two colored pieces match up better, but are more scattered around if that makes sense.

So, let me know which one you like.  I've got to run to the library again.  My printer isn't working for some stupid reason that I can't figure out, so I need to go print some things for homeschool. Let's see if I can get out of there without checking out any other books.   *wink*