Things I'm thinking about today...

1. Our master bedroom/bathroom project. This is the big "thing" going on in my life right now (outside of all the normal homeschooling and karate and swim team and archery and all) and why I haven't been around as much. This is what my bedroom looks like this morning:

Thanks to generous Christmas monies, we're redoing the flooring along with painting and updating fixtures and all. It's a not-insignificant project but will be soooo worth it when we're done. :) I'll be sure to post before and after pictures when we finally finish. (Be warned. This may take awhile. I'm having issues with decisiveness and am having a hard time picking curtains and bedding, lol. Let me know if you have any go-to places for either of these, okay?)

2. Paint. Um, does anyone know how to get interior paint out of fabric? (specifically, out of the fabric of one's down coat?)

3. Height. It's a good thing Nathan's tall. ;) Even with the ladder, I can't reach the edge between the ceiling and the walls.

4. Towels. How many? Seriously. How many bath towels per person do you have in your house? I'm curious and am thinking I may need to donate some of our extras, especially as we're hoping to replace our current ones when we repaint the bathroom. (Mom, don't answer this. You have too many towels, lol. I know that.)

5. Asher's voice. Asher's been sick. Over the weekend, he also lost his voice and is pretty miffed about it. (In all fairness, he's handling it pretty well and way better than Micah handles it when he loses his voice, lol.) He's no longer contagious (according to the doctor) and the fever is gone and all...he just can't talk...which also leads to coughing fits and the inability to get enough breath when exerting himself. So, we're still taking it easy. What I find entertaining about all this, though, is how it's affected Micah. Micah has a great tendency to talk, talk, talk without waiting to listen, right? Asher's loss of voice is forcing Micah to slow down and really listen. Ha. ;)

6. Growth spurt. Heaven help us, I think Noah's growing again. The boy has been eating almost non-stop (when he's not sleeping) all week. Oy.

7. Bathroom light fixtures. Why is it so difficult to find one that we like?! Argh. For the moment, we've given up and are working just on finishing the painting. Eventually, though, I'm going to want light. (We already took the old fixture off.) Wish us luck! (Specifically, though it's not our top choice, we're looking for a fixture for over the mirror that is chrome (not brushed and not bronze, though we like those better) and has at least four lights, more would be better. I'd also prefer for the lights to point down instead of up if possible. If you see something like that, would you let me know? Thanks!)

Okay, need to go paint now... ;)

Karate tournament

Last night, Micah participated in his fourth karate tournament at Karate West. As usual, all was good and Micah took first in his group for forms and second for sparring. Here he is sporting his trophies:

He was pretty excited about it. ;) (Like last year, the trophies are repurposed and awesomely big. Incidentally, the larger trophy doesn't fit with his others on his closet shelf so now holds a place of honor on his desk, lol.)

(Asher is still sick so didn't get to participate this year. :( Here are the posts from our previous tournaments, though: 2011, 2012, 2013.)

Five on Friday.

1. Another one bites the dust...ish. You may not have known it, but Noah fell to walking pneumonia at the start of the month. (Remember, Nathan had it mid-November, I got it a couple weeks after that, and Micah got it a couple weeks after me. We'd gone more than a month so thought we were in the clear. Shows what we know, lol.) Being a stubborn 13 year old, though, he managed to recover fairly well (thanks, also, to the drugs) and we held our breath to see if/when Asher would get it. Well, on Tuesday, we thought that was it. He started showing all the symptoms we'd come to expect. But. He doesn't have walking pneumonia. 

On the one hand, this is good. Who wants walking pneumonia anyhow? ;) But. On the other hand, I was kind of hoping it was walking pneumonia. The rest of us would have been relatively safe then and we knew how to deal with that. This new thing (technically I'm told it's adenovirus in case you care) doesn't have a treatment, is contagious and will last longer. Lovely. (Basically it sounds like a cold to me...just with a fancy name. But he also has more fever accompanying this than a normal cold and is pretty achy. I'm told he's contagious until he hasn't had the fever for a day...which means we're sticking close to home these days. If you don't see us, this is why.)

2. For the sake of recording it somewhere...Micah was recently rather distraught upon realizing that Koaly ends up on the floor most mornings...meaning that Micah's been kicking him out of his bed each night. :) He was actually feeling pretty guilty and upset. Asher came to the rescue, though, by quickly informing Micah that it must just be that Koaly sleepwalks. Whew. So. If Micah ever informs you that Koaly sleepwalks, you'd best agree with him. ;)

3. Noah and Micah had another JOAD tournament last weekend down in Denver. Noah did a fair job and felt pretty good about his shoot. Micah was just "off." At practice just two days before, he'd been shooting 9s and 10s aplenty and thought he'd be able to score really well, but things just weren't working out for him on Sunday. On the plus side, he should definitely win an award for math. Due to a lack of parent volunteers, he ended up being one of the scorekeepers (for his age group, they generally have parents tackle the scorekeeping for the kids, though Micah knows how to do it and practices at our team shoots). Not only did he do the normal scorekeeping, though (which is nothing particularly special for him), he somehow ended up keeping score for two groups of shooters...8 kids. And, I don't mind telling you, he still got all the math right and generally finished it quicker than the adult keeping score with him. (There are always two scorers for each scorecard to duplicate.) 

Incidentally, he still took first, as there were no other competitors in his division, lol. 

(Yes, this is his February pose again. Funny boy.)

4. I noticed while at the tournament that Noah's pants are too short again. Drat. That boy has got to stop growing. ;) So. Dilemma. Can someone please tell me where to find men's pants (we've passed the boys' sizing now) that are no greater than a 28 waist but at least a 32 inseam? From the looking I've done, you generally can't get the 32 inseam unless you go to at least a 32 waist. That would fall off my boy. (The 28 waist he already has is still too big but I don't think they make them smaller than that, do they?) Alternatively, any suggestions for putting some bulk on him? But I don't think he could possibly eat more protein than he already does. ;) 

5. The Olympics are almost over (and we've been thoroughly enjoying them!) so I may actually start posting more after the weekend. ;) 

Olympics

Love 'em. Will be spending a good bit of time over the next couple weeks watching them (and have adjusted our homeschooling schedule accordingly...love the ability to do that!). ;) 

Since we don't have cable or satellite, though, we're actually watching the BBC coverage of events online. I wasn't so sure how this would go but am finding it to work rather well. So far, here are the benefits we've found:

• Given the time difference, we've been watching during the morning/early afternoon...leaving our evenings still free, which is nice. (Live coverage happens at this time of day, though we still have the option of watching the broadcasts later...either the live versions or summarized pieces.)
• I got to do another impromptu lesson on time differences, lol. 
• I also got to do reminder lessons on converting metric to US measurements. ;)
• We've been very much enjoying listening to the British announcers (and explaining some of their lingo to the boys, lol).
• The whole experience is less US-centric than is normal for us, which is lovely. I think it's great for the boys to get to see from another point of view (particularly since historically they've been rather overly patriotic). 
• No commercials. ;)

And that's what we've been enjoying about our Olympic experience so far.

Progress report

1. Thankful for our van and its reliability. (The odometer hit this as I pulled into the garage on Thursday, 2/6.)

2. Thankful, too, for having a garage! So glad to not have to scrape windows.

3. While I'm at it, I'll even add that I'm thankful for treadmills...and the fact that I have access to some at the gym. My training for the half marathon this May wouldn't be going well without the ability to train indoors. ;)

4. Regardless of my gratitude...down with groundhogs! I'm sooooo over winter. Sigh.

5. Our official "off" week is almost over but the Olympics are on now, lol...so I'll be hibernating a bit, doing a lighter load of schoolwork, and trying to post some actual progress reports on how our school year's been going. Stay tuned. :)