Permission to practice driving...

(Well... we couldn't exactly scan a learner's permit and put it online. That would have been kinda dumb. But here's the picture. Sorta.)

Change of scenery...

Making a splash...

Winding up our show-n-tell time - IKEA: Part 4...

And finally... the family room and rec room/basement goodies...

...my new laptop desk. It is so handy not to have a hot laptop in my lap when I'm blogging. The searing heat of the flames shooting out on my legs was getting a little distracting.

...and the new side table. It is fun to see the flat box in the car turn into a piece of furniture at home.

I saw this lamp online and knew Jimmy needed something over in his corner of the family room. This light is perfect in that it both creates ambiance and provides task lighting. Swedish genius.

And finally (for now... there's still one more little thing, but it's going to take some doing to get it blog-ready), I got four metal display/dry erase boards. Yep. Home Organization section of the Marketplace. But all four of them were still half of what it would have been to make the galvanized display board I had in mind. And these you can use dry erase markers on them too.

The only problem is that I can't figure out where to hang them.

I got them to go here, in the ping pong room, but the color doesn't fit nearly as well as I'd envisioned.

So now they're sitting in the hallway, where we need something to break up the gold. But I can't decide whether to put them on THIS side...

...or on THIS side. Do I match the fuse boxes on the same side or carry the color to the other side to create a more color-balanced space? Hmmm... thoughts?

These are a few of our favorite chairs - IKEA: Part 3...

Jimmy's ratty old desk chair...

Jimmy's new IKEA desk chair...

These are a few of Zack's favorite things - IKEA: Part 2...

When you first go upstairs at IKEA, you enter the Living Rooms showrooms, but there's a little shortcut over to the Children's IKEA. If you have a child with any kid-stuff sense, you will be taking the shortcut before heading on to the Ektorp sofas. Trust me.

Go ahead and purpose in your heart that a stuffed animal will come home with you. They are soft and squishy and perfect little cuddly souvenirs. "Golden" the golden retriever hopped into the big yellow bag at the start of our journey and got the VIP tour of the showrooms, courtesy of Zack.

Right across from the Children's IKEA is the cafe. We missed the .99 breakfast by about five minutes or one trip to the bathroom. So Golden, Zack and I headed to the cafe around 11:30 for an early lunch. I got the traditional Swedish Caesar salad. Zack got the traditional Swedish meatballs. Grandma Ida immigrated to the US from Sweden when she was a little girl. I think Zack was feeling his Scandinavian roots from the way he inhaled the meatballs.

At the IKEA cafe, they serve children's meals in colorful bowls and plates. Which are readily available in sets of six across the way in the Children's IKEA. (BRILLIANT MARKETING!) Here are three of the six we came home with. The other three are getting cleaned. EVERYONE (who is not at camp) has gotten to eat off the IKEA dinnerware this week.

After you tour the showrooms upstairs at IKEA, you can head down to the Marketplace and the Self-Serve Furniture Warehouse. Of all the areas in the Marketplace, I was most excited to head toward Home Organization, Home Decoration (where the lanterns and candles live), and Lighting. What I didn't anticipate was Zack's excitement too as we made it to Home Organization. He found the clocks. I had no idea that the boy loved clocks as much as he apparently does, but he has quite the affinity for wall-mounted timepieces.

We searched and searched before selecting the perfect (cheapest @ $2.99) navy blue-rimmed wall clock. Zack has become the resident town crier, letting everyone know what time it is (and how long he's been downstairs before a grown up woke up) ever since our trip to IKEA. Bless his heart.

You know, yes, bless his heart; he endured a 2 1/2 ride each way on our IKEA odyssey. We traveled there, just the two of us. Kelsey and Zane are at camp. Jimmy was at work. The little guy spent 3 1/2 hours wandering through Swedish paradise. He absolutely loved it and wants to take the rest of the family back as soon as we can go. I explained that we have to save some money before we go back, but he and I both have a head start on the list.

These are a few of my favorite things - IKEA: Part 1...

100 tealight candles. Yay!!! But they were only $3.99. Hah! And let me tell you, the red candle... oh. my. word. One of the best smelling candles ever. Wish we had scratch-n-sniff gadgets here on Blogger. The red is a mixed berry candle. The green, green apple.

This may be my favorite thing we brought home. I go back and forth. They are indoor/outdoor lanterns. I bought four and got some black decorative chain and hung each one from an eye hook that the previous owners of this house used for gorgeous ferns. I would love to have gorgeous ferns, but I am an unwitting plant assassin. I can't kill lanterns, so I love them on my porch. They have brown coffee-scented candles in them. Perfect for a late evening on the front porch.

I saw similar lanterns at Lowes the day after we got back. Lowes price: $26 each. IKEA price: $6.99 each.

Did I mention how much I love IKEA?

To the "I" to the "K" to the "E" to the "A"...

FINALLY!!!

Harris Teeter Happy Birthday...

Ummm... yeah... I posted this earlier this week. Maybe...

Happy days...

Happy birthday to my baby girl, Kelsey! I can't believe that you are growing up so fast. I remember the days when we weren't sure we'd even be able to have children. Little did we know that while we sat in the office of a world-renowned fertility specialist who told us we would have, at most, an 8% chance of ever having biological children, you were being formed, skillfully wrought. You are a miracle. I love you.

Happy Father's Day, Jimmy! On the day our sweet Kelsey was born, she wrapped you tightly around her little finger and there you have stayed. She is our princess, isn't she? You are a wonderful dad. She is blessed. So am I. I love you.

And to my own Daddy... Happy Father's Day! I missed you when I called, but I wanted you to know how very much I love you and appreciate the road you traveled in parenting me.

Happy special days! I love you all!

Life in the candy store...

The traditional way of saying that you are joyously overwhelmed at all the possiblities is using a simile (a literary device making a direct comparison using like or as): Norma is like a kid in a candy store seeing the potential for all her summer projects.

Only my first real life "candy store" was actually K&W. Now it's a K&S... good ol' cafeteria eatin'. But back in the day it was the K&W and we would head there or the Piccadilly for Sunday dinner (which was always at lunch time, which is a whole 'nother blog post... lunch vs. dinner vs. supper). I can remember walking through the line and piling my plate... nay, my tray, for I had to annex space for the additional little dishes of jello salad and baked apples and strawberry shortcake...so full that I could barely balance it to carry it from the silver tray track over to the table. I always had to go back and get the drink. I can hear my parents now, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. There's no way you'll ever eat all that." And I never did. Of couse, it never went to waste either, as a very wise parent would hold back on getting a lot of food, knowing there'd be leftovers on the kid's plate.

Waxing a little Forrest Gump here: Life is like a K&W. You always pile more on your tray than you can actually eat in one sitting.

Well, my eyes are still the biggest part of me. I look at the blank canvas (literally) and see so many possibilities. I look at the old nightstand at the Goodwill store and see so many possibilities. I look at the beads at Michaels and see so many possibilities. I look at the fabric at Mill Outlet Village and see so many possibilities. I look at the magnetic paint, wood trim, and dry erase paneling at Lowes and see so many possibilities. Sometimes I just wish I could see things as they are and not as the could be because for me, the biggest rush comes from imagining how things could be and not so much in the actual process of making them that way.

Ask my mom about the shutters. I start. I hit a little glitch. I stop. It never gets finished.

So it's accountability time. Here's what I have on my plate now:

...the (now) unfinished nightstand is becoming a side table in the family room...

...the stairway to the playroom that I want to paint with magnetic paint so I can display artsy-craftys...

...frames to finish painting black and nail on the wall to display stuff up and down the basement stairs...

... canvases that need to become artwork for display in the basement rec room...

...basement storage that needs cubbies/shelves to get whipped into shape...

... the cave - paint apple green; make window treatments; put weather-stripping under the door to the "basementy" part...

... and I STILL need to decide what color to paint the columns and paint them!

I'm kinda thinkin' that no one's holding back on their own projects so they can come in and rescue me. I'm either going to have to get to work bigtime or get my fanny out of the candy store.

A rainy Tuesday...

Normally, a rainy Tuesday morning would be awesome. Lying in bed, listening to the sound of the rain pouring down against the roof, drifting in and out of consciousness, and relishing the snuggly feeling of I-don't-have-to-go-out-there merge to create a sense of perfection.

But on this particular morning, as the yellow/red on the doppler map passed over our house, my baby girl was up and straightening her hair, getting ready for her first behind-the-wheel session in Driver's Ed. I don't have any idea how that happened. I'm certain that a couple of weeks ago, she was three feet tall and I was waking to the startling sensation of a preschooler tickling my nose and whispering, "Mommy, are you still sleeping?" :)

Riding in the car with her and the instructor was a high school boy who had never before been behind the wheel of a car and evidently found a talent for running over trash cans. Kelsey took the wheel first, fearlessly in the torrential downpour. She loved every minute of it. I sat home and prayed.

She'll be out on the road again Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Who am I kidding? She's going to be out on the road from now on.

Gettin' jiggy with it in the summertime...

Heather started it with her "Summertime" post. She had to go and get all Will Smith on me. I think Will Smith could conceivably be the coolest person alive today. Of course, Will has ventured into the dramatic and shoulda-been-funny-but-is-just-a-little-too-much zones recently, but you cannot deny that the Independence Day and Men In Black Will Smith is... subzero in coolness. (That's a good thing folks.) Maybe it's Will+aliens that is cool. I don't know. What I DO know is that my all-time favorite music video is the one for Men In Black. Once you get to the 2:30 mark, you just gotta get up and dance. Go on... clear a space and get jiggy with it.

Cheeseburger in blender, diced...

If there's Harris Teeter cake, it must be birthday time! Yay! Earlier this week I celebrated my birthday. Isn't that a rockin' cake? Family tradition, you know. Gotta have the cake from the Teeter. I loved the colors. If I could decorate my whole house in bright colors like that and possibly get away with it, I most certainly would.



See how I'm switching it up on you? Last post I put the comments BELOW the photos. This post, I'm commenting ABOVE the photos. Ooooooohhhh... tricky! Trying to switch it up to keep your summer from being boring.

Jimmy brought me gorgeous roses. In this photo you can also see the new columns that are keeping our master bedroom from falling into our family room. They are still unpainted, as no one will let me paint them orange and blue like the cake. So now I have to decide whether we are going to keep the painted trim color we have now for the long haul or whether we're going to start the transition to white trim with these columns and the stained beams. Any suggestions? (I can hear my dad now... Why would we give you suggestions? You're going to do what you want to do anyway. Ultimately, true. But I do value counsel along the way!)

You can also see the mugs that go with our new dishes. Had to get new everyday dishes as the old ones were plastic and it was driving me and everyone else in the house crazy that we couldn't microwave in them. Didn't want any added toxins messin' up our dinner. So I ordered new dishes a couple of months ago. They're happy dishes. :)


And then there was the traditional take-out for birthday dinner. Last year, we got take-out from Kemps, which led to an anaphylatic reaction to shrimp on Zack's part. That was a little more excitement that we were up for this year, so we got Outback. No shrimp.

Who loves the cheeseburgers most? Kelsey-girl. And since she was a little less than 36 hours post oral surgery, she was bummed everyone else was eating her favorite. Poor, poor Kelsey! Quick... what can we do to include Kelsey in the birthday fun???

I know! Let's get her a cheeseburger and put it in the blender. A cheeseburger shake!!! So... per Kelsey's request, we blended the WHOLE think together: burger, cheese, bun, lettuce, onions, tomatoes.

And the end product looked not unlike Pepper's dinner. Bleh! But Kelsey said it tasted good. I hope so. I sat diagonally across the table from her and carefully avoided looking at her cheeseburger shake directly.

We made it through dinner to Harris Teeter cake time. Woo Hoo!!!

And EVERYONE was happy. Even Kelsey, who had to eat cake like ice cream. Ya know, eating utensils are usually not optional when eating cake that isn't cupcake. But for this birthday, we were adapting, improvising and overcoming.

Maybe next year we can have the most boring birthday dinner ever. That would be nice.

Nothin' like a little oral surgery to kick off the summer...

So on Monday, Kelsey had her wisdom teeth extracted by an oral surgeon. Four of those babies. All impacted. Nice. She will attest that surgery is a breeze. Recovery, on the other hand, well... not so simple.

Under the heading of hilarious was the ride over to the appointment. During the consultation, they asked Kelsey is she was nervous about having oral surgery. Sheesh... what do you say to that? Heck yeah, I'm nervous! And bam! In addition to the scripts for antibiotics and steroids and pain pills, Kelsey got one for Valium. No one asked ME is I was nervous about her oral surgery. I suppose they figured someone had to drive.

Oh yeah... the ride. At one point, Kelsey looked at me and said, "For some reason all I can think of to say is, 'I want a pony.'" So I told the nurse/assistant (what do you call them in an oral surgeon's office?) that if she asked for a pony, tell her she'll get one later, but they aren't allowed in the office. I'm still dealing with the fallout from Chauncy the imaginary unicorn who lives in our backyard.

Normally I hate meds of any kind. I scoff at notion of better-living-through-chemistry. But on Monday, I was good with it, and I have been ever since.

Why? Well... take a look...


We had just gotten home and gotten a little food into Kelsey so she could take her pain med. Facebooking all the way. Still under sedation from the procedure.

Still on Facebook on her iTouch. Pepper sensed something had happened to Kelsey and was absolutely set on sitting as close to Kelsey's face as possible. I think she was taking care of Kels in her own little sweet doggie way.

With a mouthful of gauze, Kelsey sat up and posed for a picture. She wanted to capture her chipmunk cheeks. Sadly, they weren't very swollen at the time.

I mean, I totally admit I'm biased, but I think she looks pretty cute in this picture. It was still early in the afternoon. She'd had a nap. We were just rolling along...

Then around dinnertime, she ran out of gas. Bless her heart, she fell asleep sitting up at the table. That's a chocolate milkshake. Her throat hurt something fierce after the surgery, so milkshake = good.

Is that the most pitiful look you've seen in a while or what? She woke up and not long after this picture, she headed for bed with her ice packs.

And that's about how the whole adventure has gone. She wakes up. She's feeling pretty good once the meds kick in. She interacts with the world for a little while. She crashes. She wakes up. She's feeling pretty good. She interacts with the world for a little while. She crashes.

There was one moment on Monday where I would have regrown my own wisdom teeth and had them removed again if I could have saved her the pain she was in. I sat on the stoop outside and cried. Then I got my act together and came in and made another chocolate milkshake. I think I made four that day.

Thanks for the prayers. There are great moments and not-so-great moments in her recovery, but overall she's getting better and better each day.