The Calendar Keeps Going!

Hola!
I have been a little dry for "exciting topics" for the blog! So I decided to just give an update on the regular day-to-day. Nothing earth-shattering, just days of normalcy.

We have been making baby steps of progress on getting drainage work done in the basement. The garage and the laundry room were the worst, so we've had a group chopping up concrete and digging trenches, laying pipe and filling it all back in with gravel. Then covering it up with cement again. Here is the laundry room before...

















Here is the laundry room right now...


















...and the garage floor now...















Frank put down some new mulch in the front yard last week. Now he wonders why there are so many tiny plants coming up through it? Maybe he didn't read the label, and instead of "mulch" it was "weed fertilizer?"














Teresa (7th grade) has had a few track meets. She runs the 800 meter dash (2 times around the track), and is learning the high jump. Here is an action photo of the high jump this past week.










And, David (9th grade) is making dinner for us tonight. Ham and cheese and scrambled egg in a pita, plus pasta salad and a vegetable. Here he is, studiously examining the boiling water with the pasta.


Our long weekend will involve a little more jack-hammering of cement, sealing walls in the basement, framing walls in the laundry room, choking down more dust and shouting over lots of noise to go along with it!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, Love, Kari

May, May, May

May is one of my favorite months in New England.

I've decided that May and October are the very best and most beautiful times to be here, so if you can swing a visit during those months, it is WORTH your WHILE!

Flowers, flowers everywhere, new growth on trees and bushes, and just enough rain to keep things fresh but not too hot or humid yet. Excellent.

I'm sure we did a million things this week. I wish I could remember just one!

While the rest of the country finishes up their school year, we still have about 5 weeks left. We didn't even have any snow days this year, and we are STILL in school until June 21st. Go figure.

I'm drawing a blank on excitement: I drive every day more than I thought was possible. The school, sports practice, orthodontist appointments.

I still go to the grocery store more than I'd like (note: I'd LIKE to go ONE time a week. It never seems to happen). I still spend more money there than I'd like.



Oh, here's a good thing: they've finally started digging the perimeter of our house foundation: jack-hammering up concrete, digging-digging-digging, and laying gravel and pipe so in the future, water has a place to go, easily flowing to the sump pump in the other corner of the lower level. It's loud. It's dusty. My house is still a shambles and I can't find anything...but we have been dry--! :)


I'll leave you with an image of the great cake that Grammie D made for Kara's birthday party a few weeks ago. I promise you, it totally looked like a dish of spaghetti! So much so, that the girls at the party were NOT too sure they wanted any or not! Very funny. but the noodles are frosting, the meatballs are frosting, and the reddish sauce on top is strawberry jam. It was awesome!

Have a great week, Kari

The Hair Donation

Hello!

Teresa (12) has had this idea for a long time that she wants to donate her hair. It's kind of a cool thing, where you grow out a ponytail and donate it to be made into a wig for cancer patients. She got the idea from her cousin Mandy, who had a new haircut last summer and she had just donated her hair.

It takes quite a few ponytails to make a wig, and it has to be tied together with rubber bands before you cut it, so they won't be all straggly.

Many places require a 10 inch minimum, but we found one with an 8-inch minimum. (Pantene Beautiful Lengths is the program, if you want to click for more info.)

The other part was, she didn't want a REALLY short haircut. So she grew it out a little longer. (She could keep a little more that way.)

You can click on these to enlarge them. Here are the "before" pictures.

Then me cutting the ponytail...

And the "final look" after we went to a friend of ours who cuts hair professionally.

Teresa donated 9 inches.

Now. Before you think she's "turned over a new leaf" with a BRAND new look or anything...she came home, we took these photos, and she immediately put it up in...what?? -- of course a ponytail, which she wears every day except maybe Sundays, when I can convince her to do something different with it! It's just a shorter ponytail.

Have a great week! Kari