Cold Spaghetti

April in New Orleans.  What a tease.

Beautiful, beautiful weather, low humidity, sunshine, and music, music, music.  She comes to us at the height of our crazy spring, coinciding with finals, abstract submission deadlines, and all of the other stress-inducing things that come when folks are trying to wrap up their lives to prepare for summer.  In New Orleans, you learn to stop and smell the roses when you may… because if you wait until you’re ready, it’s too late.  She’s gone.  April has run off into a breezy dreamland and you’re stuck with sticky, unpredictable May.

In an effort to keep the stifling grip of May at bay, Paul has been dedicating his afternoons to the repair and renovation of the yard.  Yup, we’re shifting gears yet again, before the summer hits full swing.  It’s yard time.  The schedule is a familiar one… he leaves for work before 6am, works until I’ve taken the kids to school and comes home to continue work, stopping around 3.  Then he starts on the yard and works until dark, when the kids are going to bed.  He eats dinner and showers and then works the second job for awhile, until he’s too tired to think and crashes.  We do this schedule a lot, with me sort of flying around trying to keep all the pieces from collapsing in order for Paul to make progress.  This is why DIY home renovation takes a lot of time.

The current project is the next phase in one we begun before Katrina, when the builder next door (Todd Tedesco) built the house roughly a foot and a half above grade and then brought in truckloads of sand to build up the land around it.  Paul realized quickly that the run-off would severely erode our foundation and built a “levee” to protect our house almost overnight.  We’re glad he did… the neighbors on the other side, who do not have nearly the proximity and volume we experience, have severe settling to their handicap ramp (and likely to their home) so it’s alarming to think about what state our house would be in if Paul hadn’t acted quickly back then.   (See the depth of the shovel?)

The levee was a temporary fix.  We had a site surveyor come out and was preparing a report about the problem… this was literally a day or two before Katrina.  After the storm?  Well, nothing is the same after. So we’ve had to deal with the problem ourselves.  The run-off, while not going under our home, is still a tremendous problem.  Rather than erode our foundation, it’s eroded our front yard.  We haven’t been able to plant anything in the front because it is washed away.  The entire front sidewalk has a lean that wasn’t there before due to the weight of the flowing water… it’s that dramatic a problem.

So, Paul has brought our side of the yard to grade.  Where it was when we bought the home.  Down to the original sidewalk.  This matches the other side of the house, where Paul installed a drain long ago to great success.  He exposed the downspout, created a bed of concrete to slope to the drain, and unearthed the original sidewalk, which naturally leans inward to prevent water from going under the house.  We are just thankful that the contractor the builder used* didn’t tear up the bricks when he dug up the area between the house to lay down plumbing from the backyard.

The other plus is that the wood used in the previous solution’s ‘levee’ was creating a termite draw.  Much better that these old pieces of lumber are away from our foundation.

Another benefit is that Paul will be able to access the underside of the house on this side — rather than having to crawl all the way from the opposite side to address an issue that is right there.  Considering this is the side that has the junction box, this is a big deal.  (Look below… see the light sand over the dirt?  It’s several inches thick.)

There is much work still to be done, but so far he’s laid more than 800 pounds of concrete and moved several hundred pounds of dirt.  In less than 5 days.

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* Remember him?  He was very nice.  Let Will drive the bulldozer.

Top Chef was at the Farmer’s Market today.  It’s spring break for the kids, so they were there, too… which is why Paul and I weren’t able to stick around for the show and tasting.

I met Paul and the kids there (I came late from French class), where Paul filled me in that there was to be strictly no video recording and that Radhika had been in a scooter accident yesterday and given herself terrible black eyes.  She told the crowd “always wear a helmet,” which, as a ‘learn from me example’ means she must have been really lucky.

In addition to the chefs, there were games.

But, at least while we were there, it was all about the food.  I loved the big mirror reflecting the cooking area.

Richard was talking about halibut.  That’s all I remember.

These blender bikes were pretty cool, too.

We brought home broccoli…

Carrots… (notice his face? I couldn’t get him to smile, until I asked him to talk about toilets…)

…and now he’s smiling.

And Cauliflower.

Here’s the question: what would you make??  All veggies together?  Roasted Cauliflower?  Broccoli cheese soup?  A casserole?

Ideas and suggestions welcome!!

Too much candy on Easter?  Try the BUNNY SALAD…

Step 1: Assemble ingredients.  Pears, lettuce/spinach leaves, carrots, strawberries, cottage cheese, peppercorns.  A plate for your garden, peeling tool, and cutting board are also useful.  Note that the actual recipe calls for fully-sized carrots and cloves, which will screw you up later, so be prepared to roll with it.

Household bunnies are optional.  Note that if you take one to the store, there will be a lot of pointing and giggling.

Step 2: Contemplate safety of child’s fingers, then say, “F* it” (to yourself, please) and let them go to town with the peeler.  Consider counting fingers before he starts, just in case.

Step 3: Use a knife to cut peeled pear in half.  Keep the stem on the end for a nose, if you like.  Use the peppercorns and carrots as eyes and ears.

Damn.  The string carrots won’t work.  Substitute pear peel.

Damn.  Pear peel won’t stick.  Neither will peppercorns.  Realize you screwed up.

Get creative.  Dig some holes for the eyes.  And ears.

Step 4: Get smart.  Use toothpicks.  Let the kid cut the toothpicks before insertion, he’ll love it.

Pat yourself on the back for being such a Super Mom.

Step 5: Notch that Super Mom status up a few bars by letting the 5 year old use the KNIFE.  The emergency room won’t judge you, you creative Mom, you!

Step 6: Add strawberries and carrots to the lettuce patch.  You’ve got bunnies in the garden!

(Note: if you haven’t already realized that you need two bunnies for your two children, hurry and make a second.  Substitute whatever necessary to make it work.)

Step 7: Don’t forget to use the cottage cheese to make fluffy bunny tails!

Step 8: Have your kids pose with their salads so you can send them to Mothering and Parenting websites and magazines.  You need to document your awesomeness.

Step 9: Realize that your kids may begin to get that the salad is a ploy to distract from eating Easter candy.  Be prepared to talk up the awesomeness of the salad!

Step 10: Reward children who eat bunny salad with Easter candy.  As if it would end any other way.

My lovely Aunt Deb, a photographer, traveler, hard-working, dedicated, all-round sort of lady to admire, came and visited for the past 4 days and we’ve been basking in the glow of it. Besides the fun excuses it gives us to blow off working and go out to yummy lunches, we have had an extra adult in the house to help with kid wrangling. The bonus is that this adult cooks, cleans, and grocery shops without so much as a peep from us– she just sees that something needs to be done and does it! It’s like having a fairy godmother around doing all the things you just can’t bare to think about.

Plus, she’s fun to take pictures with.

The kids adored her and we know this because they actually smile when she pulls out her camera. A very different reaction from what I get.

Between adventures in photography and culinary indulgences, I’ve managed to finish my Schweitzer Poster for tomorrow’s Celebration in Service, AND completed my final report (which isn’t due until May 1st, how’s that for accomplishment?!)

(Please don’t ask how much I’ve written in my dissertation. It may make me cry.)

(Insert baby duck chaser as mood lifter.)

I am trying to finish an abstract in the next few days for conference submission. It was a goal I set a few months ago and after Alejna‘s brilliant balancing act of abstract writing and cross-country travel, I want to be her when I grow up so I’m thinking this is a good start. That’s SORT OF writing for my dissertation, so maybe that means I’m not totally off schedule. 

(Insert inspirational rainbow.)

Here’s where I could use some insight:

This weekend starts Will and Kate’s spring break.  Paul and I have to be back for work mid-week, giving us 4 days open for Quality Family Time.  4 days of it.  Since the kids are out of school, we’ve got them no matter what, so shouldn’t we use the time as best as we can?  (If we stay, no matter what, we’ll work through those days.)  We could leave as early as Friday.

Should we have a family siesta out of town? And, if so, are there suggestions on fun and exciting things to do within 5 hours of New Orleans?

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OH. And we’re working on those Just Posts…. due out on the 10th this month! Because we’re (ahem) nostalgic. 4-1-1 available here.

Kate’s room, as seen last night while the kids were in the tub.  It is now officially Kate’s room.

We moved in furniture from our room and gathered it on one wall. Without the huge bed in the room, it feels cavernous.

The house is feeling strange. Posh, even.   There are no boxes piled in the kids’ “play” area.  Toys are displayed in places where kids can reach them and use them.  Children have separate areas.  There are places for imaginative play.  We are not stepping over drying pieces of wood trim.  Unprotected tools, wires, and other dangerous equipment are limited to a few places.

The canopy was one of Kate’s Christmas presents.  It has flowers and butterflies to decorate and hang at the top… I’ll tackle doing that with her one afternoon when I can pack up my crazies tight in a box and be okay with her going wild on those perfect little flowers…

We never painted Kate’s closet doors.  This is because we keep going back and forth on whether or not we’re going to put my Great-Grandmother’s vanity beside the closet — which would prevent the doors from opening.  If we did this, we were going to hang curtains over the door openings.  I actually have had the curtains since before Kate was born… but we can’t decide whether to actually move the vanity.

Sometimes, I seem to favor discussing the possibilities more than actually doing them. Also, I really like to move furniture around.

Now the thought is that we’re going to move the bookshelf into Will’s room and put the mirror up on the wall for Kate, with hooks along side to hang her hats and masks for dress up.

These wood pieces are from Iquitos.  A butterfly and 2 parrots are missing — they were missing anchors on their backs for hanging.  Another trip to the hardware store and they’ll join the bunch.

I finished this painting the night before Will was born… I never even signed my name!  Kate calls it “Mommy,” which I love.  The angels and moon/stars are Nancy Thomas, compliments of my Mother’s wonderful taste in fun, lively art.  (She worked for Nancy in her studio/store in Yorktown when I was in college.)

Kate has been enthralled with each and every part of the room… I was surprised she stopped for a second to smile at the camera!

The art on the door is from Will — maybe it’s time for Kate to hang up some door art?

I’m trying to think of other ways to display their art around the house… cords hanging on the walls to display pieces like a laundry line?  Other ideas?  It seems like they bring home volumes of paper from school and it just piles up in the kitchen.  With all the space in their rooms, I feel like it should have a place, too, where the kids can be proud of what they have done.  What do other parents do?

For the past few months, we’ve been getting wonderful surprise packages from my friend, Gwen. If you follow her blog, you’ll know that she possesses unlimited energy and discipline toward anything she puts her mind to (giving up dairy at the drop of a hat? not spending a dime on anything excess for a month?) but what she really excels in is household simplifying.  I can attest to the extent to which she reduces within her home, because as she does it, she is thoughtful enough to put aside little tokens for our family. They include sentimental objects (like sunflower bags we sewed together in 6th or 7th grade), fun things (a French book for Will), and little gadgets that she makes (hair clips for Kate).

I am not so disciplined.

In fact, my influence may work in the opposite direction; I sent back the sunflower bag with explicit instructions that she keep it forever, so that when we’re sitting together in the retirement center people will comment on how cute we look with our matching bags.  But this weekend, I let my inner-Gwen reign supreme.

In a fit of energy and enthusiasm, I stayed up all night on Saturday and organized the kids’ toys. Paul had a head cold and didn’t make it passed 10 — just long enough for me to nearly kill him by making him move pinball machines with me — so I was up all night working by myself.

My catalyst was the spring Children’s Clothing Exchange, which started accepting items on Sunday. Saturday afternoon, I talked Paul into buying a small storage unit for the toys and after the kids went to bed, I started in on the work. I literally poured each and every toy they own into the center of the front room. First I sorted by theme/type. Then I went through each and purged.

Unfortunately, I only have photos of the finished product, taken in poor light this morning.

Please ignore that we still have to sand, paint, and repair the walls and trim in this room. It’s one of several rooms we still have to renovate. As for the paper blinds we taped up there 5 years ago?  Hmmm, well, a drawbacks for having a handy husband is that he can completely be on board with spending a year’s worth of savings on better wood to use under drywall so that the walls are straight.  And contemplate a few year’s worth of work trim.  But window treatments?  Not so much.  Don’t misunderstand, it’s not really a financial thing, since I wouldn’t know what to do, anyway.   Actually, the one room in the house that actually has something in the vein of window coverings is the kids room… because my Mom gave me old curtains she had used in a previous home.  Our paper window blinds aren’t there because we’re tacky.  It’s because we’re clueless.

Games and puzzles are in a chest in the front room right now.  Except for some hats, costumes, and stuffed toys in their room, these are their toys!  They can see everything, it’s all organized, and clean up makes sense.  Same with inside the kitchen — just a few items and all organized.  Sometimes?  I like to just open the doors and look at how plates are with plates and pots are under the stove and all dessert toys are in one bin, separate from the fruits and vegetables.

The feeling leaves a fabulous, if unnatural, calm.

And did you note that fantastic kitchen?  We’ve had it for months, as a result of my favorite manner of shopping… bottom feeding.  They are floor models from the local pottery barn that we picked up at a discount of 75% off the original price.  A little beat up, but nothing a touch-up stick can’t fix.  We also bought a bunk bed for Will this way.  It’s not a fast way to shop (we signed up for the bed about 2 years prior) and it’s not particularly convenient (Will’s bed has been in pieces in the front room since August) but it is definitely a way to save.

Oh, and that table?  With the clear tape covering the rips and tears?  We took it and the matching chairs out of a neighbor’s garbage after Katrina.  Remember!  Not tacky.  Resourceful.

Will’s room is also getting together.  We emptied the closet and put in an organization system.  All his clothes are now here:

I talked Paul into going forward with this without refinishing the inside of the closet.  We still have to paint the room… and are working to find the inspiration for doing this.  Once we paint the room and finish trimming the lights we can put together his bed — and then the kids will each have their own room.  Whoa.

With Will’s room empty, this means we’ve moved into the study!  We’re using the old stuff now and hope to put matching work tables with wall shelves above in the future.

We switched up our standard paper window hanging routine to opt for the Priority Mall box look for this room.

Note the unfinished outbuilding in the back of the last picture.  We have many more beefcake home-fix-it photo opportunities in our future…

Until then, anyone have decorating advice?

We knew it would come.  We just figured we had until the contract ended in a month.  Turns out, things went a bit faster than planned.  Thank goodness Paul obsesses over Quicken we’re thrifty.   So we’re on Day Two of no billable hours for Paul, and predicting this will reach into a third day… or more.

No demonstrable household income* = Lemons

Having some time to work on the house = Lemonade!

Like getting back to the front yard, which we hadn’t seen in a long while.  Weeding, top soil, mulch… and it’s a different place all together.  Remember us bricking in the plant beds? Time to finally get those last bags of concrete and mortar off the porch!  A few more days and the middle bed will be done.

We used our child labor to help on weed control.

We haven’t forgotten about that 4+ year and going renovation in the back!  More on that soon.  It’s just too overwhelming to get into tonight.

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*No demonstrable income, meaning, nothing that we really can speak for or give strong evidence towards… as opposed to the little spurts of cash I bring in.  Some good news, though: I was recently offered a summer adjunct position to teach in the School of Social Work.  And a grant project I was written into as a consultant was funded.  So it’s not like I’m a total loss?

Haydel’s is the current King Cake Champion in this house.

At least, until we’ve tried a MacKenzie’s.  Must not leave a stone unturned!

Oh, and Haydel’s?  They put the baby IN the cake, the way nature intended.

Our household had a big surprise a few days before Christmas, when a Wii game console suddenly showed up at our front door.

Turns out, friends of ours read that we had no plans to get one for the holidays, what with cash tight and yadda yadda.  They thought about how much they loved theirs, phoned up a friend who runs a Game Store, and sent us a Wii.  Just like that.

The generosity of it still has us in shock.  All we really can say about it is that it goes to what we’ve known for years: people from Pittsburgh are simply GOOD PEOPLE.

We’ve been slowly trying it out over the past few weeks.  It is very, very cool.

Then, yesterday, I scored a Wii Fit board for $89.  And OH. MY. GOODNESS.

Here is some video of the kids… golf, yoga, and our personal favorite, Kate skiing.

The Fit is a household HIT.  And inspired the following Facebook discussion by Paul:

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Paul’s Facebook Update, 6:08am, January 21: Paul can’t help idly speculating about Wii Kama Sutra now that he’s tried the Wii Fit.

A friend at 6:19am
That’s just wrong. Interesting, but wrong.

Another friend at 7:07am
Have you seen the Wii Pee? I think it is only in Japan, but damm that is funny.

Yet another at 7:25am
Sounds hilarious!

Still another at 7:38am
“Daddy, why does the Wii-mote smell like potty?”

Me at 8:49am
NOW I know what you’re spending all that time coding over…

Different friend at 11:23am
That is soooooo funny! LMAO! You know I could imagine it, I was called to a domestic dispute that turned out to be a husband and wife playing Wii Boxing!! The neighbors could see them through the window and called 911! Imagine the calls for the new Kama Sutra!

Back to Paul at 10:19pm
Well, given that iPod Touches, Wii Fit, and MySpace are all hot items right now, I have decided to seek venture capital to fund me to develop an iPod Touch application that can be used to publish your Wii Fit progress to your MySpace Page. I figure I can call it “iTouch myWii”.

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Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there you have it.  My darling husband, the future creator of “iTouch myWii.”

And Ed and Brenda: THANK YOU!!!

2008, the bloggy recap, as described by the first sentences from first posts from each month.

January: I was too chicken to climb on the roof, wondering why they weren’t using the extension ladder and feeling incredibly impressed that Paul and David were climbing to the top of the A-frame and hoisting themselves up on this end of the roof.

February: It’ll take hours for my 7-year old computer to eat up all the pictures from the first 2GB card I filled this morning, so here’s a preview from the second set already loaded.

March: I am surprised and impressed that now, in my moment of weakness, neither of you seem willing to make the final blow and do me in.

April: We’re having a bad day.

May: Look! A ceiling in the study!

June: In the past, re-entering the United States after weeks abroad has not went well for us.

July: Cabinets, cabinets in my room.

August: “My parents called.  They said that Kate called them last night.”

September: A few strong cells have moved through Mobile, but nothing so threatening that we bothered to move chairs inside.

October: The “Greater New Orleans” interview airs tomorrow on WLAE channel 12 at 7 and 9:30 (and I think again at 2:30am?)

November: “Mommy, I love you sweeter than the sweetest bullfrog ever kissed.”

December: Writ in the style of “The Piggy in the Puddle” — my favorite children’s story to read out loud.

Bonus, a few favorites:

Krewe of Abeona, Mardi Gras 2008.

One of the many pictures of our house with no floors.  Or walls.

Will dresses Kate.

The La Divina Commercial.

Seeing Obama.

Kate meets Elmo.. and THE DOG.

I throw my two cents in the political ring.

Will and Kate give advice to tourists.

The WLAE interview.

The start of our ongoing health insurance woes.

Ode to La Destructora.

Old Holiday Photos.

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And for next year.  Some bloggy goals.

— Finish the writing and posting from the three weeks in Peru (I found the missing notebook!) and post pictures now that the article is up.  (Once I get a good copy of it, I’ll post it, too.)

— Finish adding tags/categories to the posts dating back to 2004.

— Clean the blog up.  Make a design that works.  Add the pages about the tuk-tuk and the hopes and dreams about driving one across the country.

— Write down what I eat.  Use the blog as a motivation for being a healthier person: more exercise, less binging.  I hesitate to make something like ‘weight loss’ a goal, because without a partner in the grind of it, I know it won’t work for me.

— Write snappier openers.  Some of the sentences above are painful.

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** I first saw this style post over at Mad’s.  Then there were similar posts at the ‘Tars and by Magpie.