Playdough Take 1

Click here to view these pictures larger

So, I did it! I made homemade play dough today!

Joseph has been LOVING playing with play dough at school and I had found a recipe. All for making things cheaper at home, and know exactly what the ingredients are! I had one ingredient that I didn't have and after a little research, found a substitute and it came out great!. It was so easy, I ended up making 2 more colors. Joseph's favorite colors are

"pupou" (purple), "ohange" (orange) and "GEEN" (green).

For his birthday, I'm going to suggest some good play dough "tools"...must find a good kid sized rolling pin!

State & Main

....in hollywood. Look it up on IMDB. It's a funny movie, with some language, but the reason why I re-watched it was because of the real life implications.

...in real life.......It's School & Union. The same intersection. Jon and I lived on Union Street, then moved around the corner onto South Street.

.....oh the irony......

State and Main: "A movie crew invades a small town..."

Manchester by the sea: A small town that is invaded by a movie crew...

When I first moved to Manchester-by-the-sea, someone told us to watch this movie, because a lot of it was filmed downtown, and we would recognize a lot in it. We did and, low and behold, the corner we lived on was the prominent corner in the movie that the film was named after. Our apartment was in lots of shots.

It was, and still is, odd to see where we lived, every day every night. Where we first had a home together, in a movie. It did explain why the "front" of our apartment building (two old homes that were joined by a central staircase then chopped up into small apartments) is a different color than the back. We lived in the front one, painted olive green for the movie, and the back one is still yellow.

So, rent it...and laugh. Because, not only was it about a film crew that invades a small town, while living there, a movie crew invaded our small town. That resulted in the movie "The Proposal". Another movie to watch, laugh.

....Oh the greater irony....in the film, the town is in VT, where Jon grew up.

Back to "normal"

Today is Wednesday. Joseph now attends Medfield Children's Center (aka, school) every Wednesday and Friday now. They were just closed for their 2 week break in the summer and now we are back to normal schedules. He was glad to go and I'm grateful for these days. The plan is that this will give me a chance to get the big shopping trip we do twice a month done, by myself (not only without a 2 year old, but also not taking away from the limited time all three of us have to spend with each other). The alternative weeks, I'm trying to use it to make headway in the house, keep up with housework better and advance my photography skills.

It's 9:51 am and I dropped off Joseph at 9 and talked with the director of the school for a while. Since then, I've gotten a much better handle on the remaining mess from being away on vacation that had landed on the office floor. Not 100%, but at least you can walk through it a bit better now.

We're having company this Friday and I was scheduled for an extra shift at the library (YEAH!) so, I'm trying to be diligent and plan ahead and NOT just let the housework go.

In other news, my goal is to also spend a minimum of time that I give myself to write, sort/edit photos, practice taking pictures and learning how to use my camera better every time I use it. I'd also like to read some, but may have to settle for a compromise of listening to a book (which I love to do) while I do something else.

In my love for double uses and "why buy something when you can get it for free" motto for life, I have started a new website. If I started a "share site" through shutterfly, I got 30 free prints. So, I started the website (also free). The "double use" is that I'd like to use it as an essential "digital portfolio". On which, I would love any feedback!

Here's the site. http://thewillofarightbrainedwife.shutterfly.com/

I THINK I got the settings so any visitor can view it, but please let me know if you can't see it...or need a login, etc.

Here's my favorite latest picture I took. Like?

Technological Break (sort of)

In this day in age, it feels so hard to do "anything" without some form of technology (as we think of it modernly, remember at one point the egg beater was "technology"). Of course, when it comes down to it, it is not a "basic" need or necessity. However, it is a wonderful tool and I am grateful for it.

Where am I coming from? My computer basically died. I couldn't do anything on it without it freezing. After trying everything to get it working, patience, and lots of consideration--not to mention the frustration of sharing a laptop--we have since resolved the problem. And I am very grateful for it.

It was a nice "break". I can't say that without the quotes, because I did use Jon's laptop when there was something I couldn't do on my phone...another thing I was VERY grateful for in this interim.

I am so excited to learn how to use this to it's full potential (I have crossed to the other side) and also learn to use my other new tool and present to IT'S fullest potential. End goal being to make some money off of them.

Stay tuned for more postings! I have a big project I'm going to be doing this weekend and I'm sure you'll be excited to see. I'm making a drafting table...

The Roller Coaster of Life

Life is a challenging thing. It can be so blissfully wonderful and it can be so devastatingly horrible. While one might say (and I might agree) that this does create a sense of balance over a lifetime, the ups and downs are not so balancing when there are many of both within just a few short weeks. Then it becomes a roller coaster at the end of which you're simply dizzy, exhausted and sick. It's different than those ones at a fair, 'cuse you don't have seat belts.

This has been our life since just before Easter. We have been so encouraged by the response to a difficult book study with church members and then devastated by a meeting had with Jonathan where there was a sense of "you don't want to know "...or what?" if you don't do what we ask". We had the extreme high of FINALLY getting a positive pregnancy test. I was sleeping 3 hours every afternoon and was so excited to be feeling pregnant again. About two weeks later, a miscarriage was confirmed. We're all doing well at this point and moving forward.

We have our bundle of energy, Joseph, who gives us so much joy and keep us moving fast! Every day he seems to all of sudden learn new things. Two nights ago, he ran into the kitchen, opened the fridge door (never done that before) and came running back to us with an apple in his hand! He is an exceptionally polite 2 year old (if I do say so myself, due to me being a p's&q's drill sargent)--to the point that last night at 9:45pm when we said "15 more minutes then time for bed" he said "No thank you". (I'm sure some of you are thinking...2 year old going to bed at 10pm?!?! Well, he went down for a nap at 1:20pm and didn't get out of bed until almost 8:30pm..make more sense now?)

The other thing that we are VERY distracted with is that out of some of the frustration with the church, we have decided to start an evening service that is going to be very simple, but allow for many more freedoms (i.e. we don't HAVE to sing 2 songs, then a reading then 1 song, then announcements then 1 song then sermon). It's a big endeavor and Jon and I are basically tackling it alone, intentionally for a few reasons. One is so not to burden already overburdened volunteers and also to avoid a "too many hands in the pot ruins the stew" situation. This may very well mean, and so far looks like it will be, me signing/leading worship with a DVD with back tracks and Jon running the powerpoint and then we switch for his sermon. We really believe that it has lots of potential, but I do believe it will start very small. We have a few strong supporters in the church that we are trying not to depend on, but are eternally grateful for. We are set to have this new service begin this coming Sunday.

Coming up in our lives will be very busy but very promising for lots of happiness. We are having long missed company this weekend and then within 48 hours of them leaving, more company comes, for a week!!!!! My roomie's coming!! (her fiance, too) and I can't wait! I hardly ever get to see them and am so happy that they will be getting married out here next year, and we are located in a good central place for them to stay at while they nail down wedding plans. We have so many of our dearest friends that live, not just far away, but on-the-other-side-of-the country-far-away. Ugh. Now in the matter of a few days, I'll get to see 3 out of 9! I'll take it!

I know it has been so long since I posted, but now you know why. Here are a couple of new pictures. Thanks to my wonderful husband and best friend of 20+ years, Sarah, I am able to enjoy an amazing new camera that I had convinced myself we couldn't get for a long time. I'm so excited to start putting in to practice what I've been teaching myself about digital photography. We have learned so well how vital the right tools are to do something. Having had my camera broken for over a year, I'm so grateful for it!

My love.

Father's Day!

My little boy is growing up so fast!

Printer anxiety

I got a "new" printer at the dump last year...Now, let me stop right there and explain something for those of you who did not grow up in New England, because apparently, we're weird like this. Our "dumps" are now called "transfer stations" is where we can bring our trash, recycling and most have some form of a "swap shop". It's a place for unwanted things, working but no longer needed, can possibly find a useful home with someone else instead of just being put in the landfill. It's great!

Last year, I got a sandbox with cover for Joseph, sand toys, a slide, a printer, a bike (for Joseph), and iHome. My mom once found a Kitchen Aid Mixer that was better than hers!

So, the printer didn't have cables or ink. Fortunately, our cables from our current printer worked with it. It turned on, etc. We had JUST purchased this multi-multi pack of cartridges for our current printer. So, we decided to let that run out and then get some ink for the "new" one and make sure it printed, and then use that as our main printer. It's a better model than our old one. BUT, our old one is better than my Mom's. Her printer is just a printer, whereas our current one is a printer/scanner/copier and very compact! It would be a perfect fit in my mom's desk and she'd have a scanner again! Win win! So (yup, I said it again), we FINALLY were getting close to using up our ink and I was able to find some cheap to make sure that the new printer actually PRINTS. I got them yesterday and got it all set up and sure enough, it prints!!! After much research, I am still fighting to get the thing to be accessed remotely through our modem/router. This will make it MUCH easier to share the printer with Jon so we don't have to torture our poor wire by switching it from one desk to another.

The "new" one

I just e-mailed my brother for help...hopefully he can!

I'm about to do a crazy thing

Ok, so here it is....

My sister in law, Louann, does several things for work part time, a lot from home but also a lot where she's interacting with people she doesn't know all the time. She's great at it. I know I can do it well, cuse I've had to before and have been told I was good at it by bosses in the past. But in all honesty, I like the quiet of my home. (even as I type this, I have 2 two y/o running around).

SO...anyway...one thing Lou does is merchandising. You ever seen an "extra" coupon on a product in a store? Well, she'd be one of the people that gets paid to go to the stores and put them on. I think this job is in that realm.

Over the next 2 weeks, I will be driving all around Cape Cod, replacing a decal on 100 ATM's. All while getting a GOOD paycheck out of the deal. That's what basically made Jon and I figure out how to make this work...it's too good NOT to do. Here's the part that makes it THAT much more crazy...It's Easter season. Which in a pastor's life is the peak of crazy for the year. We pretty much won't see each other until May 1st. It's a lot of hours, in a short time, but it's only a short time. The GOOD side of it being during these crazy weeks for Jon is that I probably wouldn't have seen him much anyway.

So that's what I'm about to do. Even Lou said "It's crazy to have to get this all done by May 1st, but...hopefully we'll get it all done!" (there's a legal deadline on getting this done)

I will be spending Friday afternoons going down to the cape, running around until the stores close and then sleeping at my mom's and getting up and putting in a full half day work on Saturday then come back home to take over parenting so Jon can have some concentrated work time. Jon will also be solo parenting Sundays after church and ALL of Monday. He will probably be taking Joseph to do the bi monthly shopping trip.

I have a feeling I will be very "out of contact" for the rest of the month...HOWEVER!!! (I will blog about this in May, only 4 months late) Jon and I were FINALLY able (thanks to my additional jobs) to get smartphones. The plan was that Jon was going to get one before he started as a pastor. Serious lack of money prevented that. After 2 1/2 years, we were finally able to get these amazing tools that have already paid for themselves! So, for those you who text, we have fully entered the world of texting and have an unlimited family texting plan! I also will let you know that while I check my "regular"email all the time on my phone, I do have a new email that goes directly to my phone. Creatively (not!) it is veronique.chechile@gmail.com.

ok...it's nap time...hopefully...See you in a couple of weeks! Pray we all make it through...especially for Joseph. A lot is going to be different for him and he's started being picky about routines.