Oh wait! It's ME?

 Since lockdown I've followed a bunch of You T*bers that teach home renovation skills.  I have about 4 favorites that are my go to sources when I am learning new skills.  And if you've meandered through this blog you will know that I have learned a lot.  Truthfully not JUST from the vids. I also have a talented friend who has shared his time showing me plumbing and electrical wiring.  But from the computer I learned how to demo, how to build and put up a new wall, how to modify cabinets, how to hang cabinets, how to do a back splash how to hang and repair drywall and more.

The other day when I tuned into one of my fave tubers he was doing a piece on using new found skills as a side hustle.  The premise is that by devoting the occasional Saturday one could now charge for doing these things for others and make some much needed cash.  He pointed out important things, like keeping the jobs you take on to ones that do not require a permit, registering your business etc.  And although I have little  no free time, I was still intrigued.  After all, I COULD have time in the future?  Maybe??  And i do love to do these kind of things.  Then the dude continues on, talking about not underpricing your skills. . . because there is a huge labor shortage and a lot of boomers are now in their 60's.  They don't want to be on ladders and doing these kind of things anymore.  They will pay good money he said.  Wait!  Stop the presses! Um,  I fall into that age demographic.

I don't mind being on a ladder.  I can carry drywall and subflooring.  I can do these things.  So if I can do them, can't a lot of other "boomers?"  I posited the question to my co workers who said that probably others didn't and it was just that I am an anomaly who does not feel or act my age.  I'm still trying to decide the veracity of that and whether or not it is a compliment.

Meanwhile I am going to go continue repairing and refinishing a table destined for my workplace!

Recital 2022!

 Yesterday was recital.  And prom.  A double header of emotional exhaustion and fun for our family.  This guy in the center played Aladdin in the recital production which is both theater and dance.  To say he shone would be an understatement. Yes, I am biased.  But he is so good at this.  It leaves me with my jaw hanging down.  The combination of theater and the dance.  It is so fun to watch and so so good.  This was a big year.  The school almost closed; a combination of the pandemic and a tragedy in the owners life.  But the love that KC and his class have for her was a big part of what made her hold on and try to rebuild.  They would literally do anything for her. He has danced there since he was 5 and he is now 18.  He dances all disciplines.  He taught a boys hip hop class-a first for the school.  He choreographed two duets for himself, one with the young woman who plays Jasmine and one with the young woman who played the genie.  They were fabulous and showed a lot of maturity in his craft.  The lovely young lady to the left in this shot is his sister Elisabeth. She too, has grown so much in her dance abilities this year. 

From the high of the performance it was home to scramble around and get ready for senior prom. Most readers know that we are homeschoolers.  Homeschoolers constantly get the question "but how do you socialize."  Well, fear not!  This guy was taken to prom by not one but TWO lovely young ladies.  I am not posting their picture as I don't have the ladies's permission but they looked amazing.  One wore white, one work black and KC wore both!  They have been friends for years and had a wonderful night together.  More dancing and he was exhausted when he got home.  

Today is a Youth Group party to say farewell to an Indonesian exchange student who has been part of the group this year.  To say this was an emotion packed weekend would be an understatement!

Suddenly 18

 KC is 18 today!  Obviously this is not 18 pictures, but it is a reasonably good photo glimpse of how somehow that wee tiny baby who honestly only fit in doll clothes, is now this tall handsome young adult!  How this happened I don't know. It feels like not long ago that he was so young, so needing of help.  Our buddy in everything we did. The little guy who needed me to sing him to sleep every night and who put on "shows" after supper for us every single night.

Now he is a thoughtful kind and engaging teen, someone who has found within himself the capacity to lead peers, to teach dance, to work on making a positive impact in the world we live in.  I am so proud of him.  I am also frequently scared for him.

I will be forever grateful to have been chosen to be this young man's mom.  I will always remember leaf piles and puddle jumping, the first terrifying dance recital and the triumphant ones that followed. The hikes and homeschool classes, the silly traditions we have that make up family life. The joy and magic that he has brought to us all. Today we celebrate all that he is in many ways--favorite breakfast rolls made by me, birthday dinner made by big brother Rob, and a viewing of a show at the theater.  Happy Happy Birthday dear son!

Youth Group Sunday

 It happens.  It sneaks up on us.  One night we are rocking our babies.  The next, they are on the cusp of "grown." That's where KC is now.  And I am so.not.ready.  This was hard with Rob too.  But Rob wanted to live at home and train in to school.  KC has an interest (dance and film) that make that not the best choice.  He has opted for a gap year to spend time sorting this out and will likely be applying to Hampshire College in the western part of our state next year.  It looks like it could be fabulous.  He tours the end of next month.  

In the day to day living, I lose track of how close to grown he is.  His shoes still clutter the entry way.  He still has to be reminded to do things like hang up clothes or do the wash.  Yet there is so much that shows how much he has grown and hints at the amazing young man he is becoming.  

Today was one such day.  Yearly our church Youth Group does a Sunday service.  They craft the service themselves and put on the whole thing.  It is their vision, their words, their day.  This year the group had trouble pulling a service together.  They decided on a theme but covid protocols threw meetings back on zoom right when they typically do this prep.  With zoom fatigue at an all time high, it was hard to pull people in.

KC did though.  He organized most of the service, playing to the individual strengths of the youth group members.  He got them to agree to dancing a prelude down the aisle of the church. (thankfully the surge passed and protocols allowed for masked gatherings) He taught them a dance that had everyone in the pews standing and clapping along.  There were fabulous readings, reflections written and shared by the graduating seniors, one of whom was my son.  He not only wrote something, which was read thoughtfully and powerfully, but he wrote an original dance and did that as part of it.

I was blown away at so many levels.  The dance was amazing.  But if you zoom in you will see that he is wearing a necklace with a ring on it.  I didn't notice it at first, caught up in the movement of the dance.  But there was a place where he stopped and held the ring and looked up.  And then I saw it.  It is his Grampa Ken's wedding ring, gifted to him when he was very young by my mom when Ken passed.   Ken was a minister in our faith.  He would have been so very proud of his grandson and what he shared and the young man he is becoming.

I am not ready, but I need to do the work to get ready, because KC is.  And I want to watch him stretch, and soar, and reach for all that he envisions.  

Strikes and Subway!

 As our world opens up again (this would be the second go round at trying that!) gatherings have begun to occur.  We went to our second birthday party yesterday for a family friend.  The party was held at a bowling alley and was a lot of fun.  Partly because of the good friends, partly because I still enjoy bowling (and to my credit did get scores of 80 and 70 respectively)  I said I bowled older than my age so I was very happy.  LOL Elisabeth finally bowled for the first time ever and got a strike. She has never bowled because she deems bowling shoes ugly and that they should not be worn. So when I would take the boys when she was younger she always ate snacks and cheered but never bowled.  She still isn't a fan but had a good time because of who we were with.

While we were gone, K began tiling the wall in the bathroom that our sink is on.  When I got home I helped cut tile and it went much more quickly.  Then we decided on how we would finish the vanity that the sink sits on.  When I bought the vanity on line, it had a little bottom drawer and an open space above it with a door. (of course it was a vanity you had to build so it has been sitting with just the exterior built so that the sink could be on it for months. )  The challenge is that in this bathroom the plumbing to the sink comes up from the cellar not through the wall as it does in our upstairs bath.  Which meant we had to drill a hole in the bottom of the cabinet rendering a drawer impossible.

There were a number of options.  We could put a false front on where the drawer should go.  We though of attaching the drawer front with strong magnetic tape.  Then my wife thought of marrying the two together with small flat pieces of metal on the backs and treating it as one door.  It worked. . . except that our screws when we did this dimpled the front of the door in a few places.  This is not fine cabinetry folks. We are talking MDF here.  I'll give you that  you can't see the dimples unless you look for them.  But we know we WILL look at them, because we did this and we know they are there.

So here it is as it looks now.  We have ordered a waterproof peel and stick wallpaper piece that will go into the panel and a grey cabinet door knob.  The piece of baseboard on the left is not attached, but it is what will eventually go around the room.  It is as close as I could get to the baseboard in the rest of our home which is a very wide baseboard and has lots of curves and ridges.  This is smaller but has a very similar pattern and is made of plastic which is what I want for a bathroom. 

We have some drywall to work on on the other side of the bathroom so that is next up.  But we are done with all tile work except for a line of bull nose that will go on the front of the shower area after the floor is installed.  The areas we tiled used 2 full boxes of subway and 8 tiles (yes 8!) from the last box.  Since I can't return the box for credit we are giving this partial to our friends who have helped us on this renovation journey.  They are using the same tile in their bathroom project (though not the accent tiles)

The damas dress!

 It is bizarre to realize that I have blogged, though not consistantly, since 2008!  When I started, my kids were so little and life was so crazy. Now they are in various stages of "grown" and life is still crazy.  Today we went to a bridal shop because my daughter is a damas for her friends quince and we had to get the gown.  Egads that was a pricey endeavor!  I got out of it for under $500 which I guess was lucky.  However the dress looks absolutely stunning on her and it is a huge honor to be one of  L's damas.  It was fun to be there with L and her mom (who is a dear friend as well) and look through the scads and scads of amazing gowns.

I wasn't sure how this would go as Elisabeth does not really like dresses. She wore a gown to prom at youth group but that was the only time she has and she said she does not like gowns.  I explained to her when she was asked to be a damas that there are responsibilities if she said yes, so she definately understood that she had to do this in a certain manner.

The only restriction was that the dress be some shade of pink and that it be long.  She chose a subdued rose lace column dress with lacing up the back.  It was the only dress she tried on.  It fit perfectly. Back when I started blogging, she was probably about 2.  Now she is a lovely, outspoken 15 year old young woman.  Days of choosing matching outfits, and beading her hair are long gone. But today was fun, filled with laughter and conversation as our gaggle of girls and moms traipsed up and down the aisles of the bridal shop looking for "the" dress.

The next task is to find shoes.  This is harder as Elisabeth as you may gather from the picture is quite tall and her feet are sized to accommodate her height.  They are not so much sized for pretty footwear and she is very sensitive about what she calls "her stompers."   Stay tuned!

Tile Date

 Last Saturday my wife and I had an unexpected night where only she and I and Chet were home at night.  The two  youngers were at a sleep over event and I had proposed a date night to K.  She was on board and the plan was to see a movie we are both interested in.  However the sleep over event was over an hour away from our house so 2 plus hours were spent getting the kids there and chatting with friends and then driving home.  Truthfully it killed about 3 hours because I chat! By the time we got home, neither of us felt like sitting in a movie theater for another 2 hours.  Too.much.sitting!  So we decided to tile above the shower in our bathroom.

The rest of the bathroom will have crown molding at the top but in the shower enclosure I wanted tile over the green board all the way to the ceiling.  We also planned for an accent with blue and gray glass tiles.  They don't photograph particularly well but they are shades of blue and silvery gray.

So we broke out the ladder, our tile cutter and our wet saw and went to town.  By 11:30 we had finished two of the three walls. So we called our "date" and went to bed.  Sunday we got up at 6:30 and finished tiling the third wall and then my wife grouted it all.  It looks fabulous.   

We have another half wall to tile at some point but that should really be easier.  For one thing we won't be on a ladder!  It is the wall right next to the shower that the sink is on.  It will have the same pattern except that the bullnose will be at a half way point on the wall. The top part of the wall is painted a soft gray. Now to find the time to get it done.  We are so close to finishing this but schedules are so crazy.

My wife's business is very busy.  My work is busy (I typically work at the site one weekend evening weekly to keep abreast of things) The kids schedules are ramping up with a plethora of recital practices, work and school commitments. . . 

And while we are planning these things and shuttling kids, there are families in the Ukraine just trying to stay alive.  Sometimes I feel so hypocritical moaning about how I will fit in all I need to do.  I am not trying to just stay alive.