White Paint and Comfort Cooking

We are having our children's bathroom--which is also the guest bathroom--renovated right now.  A total renovation, right down to studs and insulation!  The tub has been set--a process that took *two days* and involved a lot of very loud noises, plus an access panel cut into Finn's closet wall.  Wow!  

This morning the bathroom looked like this (notice the care our contractor takes in protecting that brand-new tub: it's covered with a quilt and plywood!)

I took the children into the city for piano lessons and ballet class, along with a nice long walk with Finn on the pleasant urban trail that cuts through the city. And when I got home dinner was ready in the crockpot (Moroccan chicken and vegetables) and the bathroom was a nice, bright white. I picked "Chantilly Lace" by Benjamin Moore because it was the cleanest white I could find to coordinate with the beveled subway tile that is supposed to run halfway up the walls.

It felt good to come home to these cheery things because poor Mr. Polly is in the midst of a difficult work situation.  Please pray for him!  A Major Machine Breakdown has occurred and he's scrambling to get it completely resolved, but it's not yet.  One hundred people are not working because production isn't running.  One hundred people.  That's a lot of pressure.  He's the one they turn to fix anything and everything--just call him MacGyver.  His reputation is unparalleled! But this is an issue that involves waiting on parts to come...parts that are apparently not easily obtained at this time.  And while they wait, one hundred people cannot work.  He was supposed to go to Charleston with us on Sunday, but unless a real miracle occurs tomorrow morning (he's trying all sorts of substitute ideas), he's going to be working all weekend and through next week....until things can run again, and until those one hundred people can get paid. 

Tomorrow night I plan to provide comfort in the form of braised chicken with mushrooms, oven-baked polenta, and roasted brussels sprouts. I can't help fix the problem, but I can at least keep the senior manufacturing engineer well-fed. 

The Lost Sense of Quality

"We need all along the line to recover the lost sense of quality and a social order based on quality.  Quality is the greatest enemy of any kind of mass leveling. Socially it means the renunciation of all place-hunting, a break with the cult of the 'star', an open eye both upwards and downwards, especially in the choice of one's more intimate friends, and pleasure in private life as well as courage to enter public life. Culturally it means a return from the newspaper and the radio to the book, from feverish activity to unhurried leisure, from dispersion to concentration, from sensationalism to reflection, from virtuosity to art, from snobbery to modesty, from extravagance to moderation.  Quantities are competitive, qualities are complementary."

     -Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letters and Papers from Prison)

On the Bright Side

Yes, we're on our fifth straight day of nausea, fevers, fatigue, and tummy troubles. Annie had it the worst; once her stomach settled, she spiked a fever of 104 that did not want to go away, and she barely ate a bite of anything for four straight days. I was awake a lot at night, dithering over her. But this morning she's only left with fatigue--so I'm hopeful that the worst is over for her. She's a tiny thing already, a whopping 66 pounds and in the 10th percentile for her age, so she doesn't have a lot of excess to spare.  I feel compelled to give her lots of avocado and peanut butter. 

Finn is still in the fever stage, although he's at a lower level than Annie, so he's been able to spend lots of time listening to Pride and Prejudice on Audible or reading his travel guide to Cartagena, Colombia.  In fact, Finn is so resilient that in between "sick to his stomach" sessions yesterday, he was engaged in energetic conversations about the member countries of NATO and the EU.  Honestly, I don't know anyone like that guy.  His brain never goes on vacation.  

I've been spared the fever and the nastiest tummy issues--my primary complaints are constant nausea and some fatigue.  But that's okay.  My husband appeared to have escaped it all, as usual, but today he has slept for three hours straight, so we may have identified the next victim.

On the bright side, though!

*I'm working my way through a long book--getting close to the finish line, so I can move on to the next long book.  Reading is my favorite thing, and I don't have an excuse to read for hours every day...unless we are sick.

*We woke to snow this morning. 

*This illness happened during our time at home, not our time in Charleston with my father. (Whew.)

*I will finish my husband's knitted hat before he goes to chillier climates across the Atlantic!

*The farm (pictured above) is cold and beautiful. Just envision it with snow and that's what we're looking at today.

*I felt well enough to get dressed today!  I told my husband that during the last four days, the highlight of my day was showering, because it was Something Different than shuffling around in stretchy clothes and feeling miserable.  Today I'm in pretty clothes.  But still shuffling.

This too shall pass.  

Down for the Day

 Annie--and that means Annie and I--woke at 2:38 this morning.  But only one of us got sick to her stomach.

Poor Annie!  All night long I held her between intervals of illness. I was so glad when dawn came: I could get up and justify my coffee.  

So today was all about Annie: give her popsicles, give her Pedialyte, give her a bit of water.  Tend to her needs.  Three showers (they make her feel better).  Hug her.  Sit and knit at her side.  Annie is a very needy person when she's sick, but I can't blame her: she was throwing up several times an hour for most of the day. 

Fortunately her pace has slowed and I'm hoping that tonight we will get more than 4 hours of sleep...and that she won't get dehydrated.  Bless her.  I'm really hoping that tomorrow will involve calories for Annie.

On the bright side, our contractor was here doing framing in the bathroom, and I got several more inches knocked off the knitted hat I'm racing to finish before my husband goes to Europe next month. And Annie and I got lots of cuddles! 

Shoes from Finland

 My son's Karhu shoes (pictured here when brand new) are nearly a year old and falling apart at the seams: I'd say we got our money's worth!  So it's probably time to replace them.  

When he got them, I realized his feet were officially bigger than mine. He was 13. 

We got a real kick out of the fact that these are Finnish shoes. You see, my husband and I spent several weeks in Finland....about 40 weeks before Finn was born. You can do that math!  I loved Finland.  It's beautiful, serene, and clean. When we were there I was training for a marathon, and I did many long solo runs around several cities. I find there's no better way to fall in love with a place than to walk or run--you get such a feel for the people, the landscape, the flora! 

Off my husband goes to Finland again in one month! But this time I don't think he'll bring back another Finn. :)  Maybe he'll bring back some shoes?

Blue and Yellow on Broad Street

 Last week in Charleston, hanging from the City Hall building on Broad Street.  

At the end of Broad, the Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon flew it near the U.S. flag and the South Carolina state flag. 

We continue our fervent prayers for peace, freedom, and democracy.

Two Hours to Tidy

 Today I had two hours--one before picking Annie up from ballet and one after sitting with Finn and plotting out classes for next year--to work on our garage, which had turned from Reasonably Tidy Storage Space to Complete Pit of Utter Despair. 

I didn't think I'd get it done!  But by the time I closed the garage door last evening, order was restored (okay, except for Mr. P's workbench, but we'll get to that!).  

Call me an oddity, but I find that there are few things I enjoy more than taking a mess and putting it all to rights.  I just love the entire process: arranging, tossing, organizing, purging, sweeping, tidying.  It's so satisfying!  And yesterday I had done our fridge, which sorely needed it after weeks of neglect due to my running back and forth to Charleston.  It took about two hours there, too--and then I made pumpkin muffins, banana bread, rosemary-chipotle spiced nuts, spinach squares (yummier than they sound, I promise) and almond butter brownies (ditto) from all the bits and pieces I found that needed to be used. 

In fact, I think washing all those dishes took longer than it took to clean the garage!  But it was all good work, and now once the basement is tidied up, I'll feel like I've gotten my home back into shape!

And one more thing that I've discovered: Annie keeps her room immaculately tidy if she is permitted to go into it with an audiobook and listen to stories while she works.  She can spend hours on this.  Her room has gone from total disaster (last year) to being neat as a pin (this year) and the difference is Beverly Cleary!