Saturday, January 31, 2009

Acute Corneal Abrasion

Two nights ago, the girls snuck out of their bedroom to see what all the adults were doing. (We were watching Numbers.) I heard funny whispering noises, and glanced up the stairs, but I couldn't see anything. Then the bathroom light went on and I heard whimpering.
I went upstairs prepared to put the girls back in bed, and discovered Deborah in the bathroom crying. (Abigail had already made it down to the front door.)
Deborah was trying to be sneaky and she fell and scraped her eye. We gave her tylenol, a cold cloth and I held her for a long time. The next morning she was still crying, so I called our pediatrician who had us go to the emergency room. She has a bad scrape on her cornea. We've had to fight my little wild animal to get eye drops in her eyes every four hours since then.
Happy, happy, joy, joy.
The PA at the ER told us that corneal abrasions hurt so much that they typically give adults narcotics, but they can't give them to kids. So, we've got two kinds of eye drops and she's getting tylenol and ibuprofen round the clock. She's so sad!
I hate that she got such a profound lesson about obeying, but at the same time, she's the kind of kid that's got to learn the hard way... Seems that she always has to find out for herself... Parents would always prefer to prevent pain, but if that's the only way Deborah seems to be able to learn. I guess I should be thankful that her lesson was a scratch on her eye rather than getting run over by a car...
One of my worst mommy moments happened when we were traveling through Canada. I was 6 1/2 months pregnant with Abigail and we had a flat tire. We stopped in a little town to get the tire patched, and had a couple hours wait. Jake was talking to the mechanics, and I was watching Deborah. She started running into the street and would not stop. I was yelling at her, and she was so fast. And she was ignoring me. I couldn't run fast because I was so big. I couldn't get hold of her arm or clothes 'cuz my belly was in the way. I kept grabbing at her... Finally, I was able to get my toe in front of her in such a way that she tripped and fell. She got scratches on her hands and she was so sad. Wailed and wailed... I'm so thankful that she got those scratches rather than getting hit by a car...

Singing' in the Rain


This tickles me.

My Camera

This is my old Canon. I LOVED this camera. It went absolutely everywhere with me. I took it on many trips- down to Anchorage & Homer in college, off to the wilds of Texas in seminary, to Germany, Canada and New York.

This was my High School graduation present and I have hundreds of photos taken with it. I got to take a photography class in college and experience developing and processing my own photos.

I honestly miss the whole process of working with this camera.

Don't get me wrong. I love my digital camera. I just took this picture of my Canon and put it on my computer. Took me at the most 5 minutes. I love that. The simplicity and ease of digital is amazing. I can crop and make magic with this photo. I can spin it, do color changes, add special effects... Digital photography is amazing.

But I don't really have time to mess with it all now. I don't have time to learn how to make really cool photos, and that's what I liked about my trusty old Canon. I knew it. I knew how to focus it in less than 15 seconds. I knew how to frame my photos, and how to get the most out of what I had.

My new Canon (a Power Shot A570IS with 7.1 Mega Pixels) is an amazing little camera. It's got amazing features, but I don't know it. Not like my old Canon. And I honestly don't have the time to figure out all my wonderful new features. Or I guess I should say, the time I've got is spent taking care of mommy fires. I've been interrupted about 6 times in the last few minutes to put out mommy fires. I've traced Ariel, looked for a specific book, and helped my youngest get set up to color and cut out a picture. That's just the way it is, and learning how to use some new technology while putting out those fires is hard.

However, I just took this picture of Abigail coloring. I helped her find the paper and scissors 5 minutes ago. Sure couldn't do that with my old Canon...

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

A Few of My Favorite Things

Mercedes Lackey books! I like most of her books, but not her Bards on the Road series. In particular I like her fairy tale stories, her Valdemar series, and her Elemental Mage tales... I like her characters, the flights of fantasy, and the believable and fully developed worlds and characters.
I love Monet's water paintings... Don't know why, but they satisfy something in me that nothing else does...





Frog Prince by Sarah Gordon


Tuesday, January 20, 2009

2 Sisters Beading

All the Christmas bazaars are over!
Thank you for your enthusiasm about our new designs. Without our faithful customers we would be unable to make all the pretties! Thank you!

Where are we now?
We have been invited to a Spring bazaar out at Fort Eielson during March and hope to be there.

Also, you can find our jewelry at the AK Rag Company, the lavender building downtown on Lacey street and at The Stash, located downtonw behind the Co-Op on Third street. Both of these little stores have wonderful selections of locally made fun a beautiful products. You can find jewelry, teas, chocolates, rugs, bags, hats, scarves, photography, paintings... Lots of things to make the perfect gift for YOU or a loved one. :)

And, of course, we sell from our web-site http://www.2sistersbeadwork.blogspot.org/ ! All you have to do is a leave a comment on one of our photographs WITH YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS! Without your email address we will not be able to contact you.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Beautiful Sunset

I had the camera with me on the way to pick up Abigail last week... Caught some pictures of an incredible sunset. Wish the pictures were as incredible as the colors and textures of the sky.
Yup, you did catch that- This is a sunset, and the sun sets as I go to pick Abigail up from pre-school at around 3:45.
We're only getting around 4 1/2 hours of sun right now.
Blech! January is my least favorite month up here. Frigid cold, plus serious dark- about 20 hours a day of dark.



Ptarmigans

I happened to grab my camera on the way out the door to pick up Abigail on Wednesday. The ice on the trees had been incredible and I wanted to capture the way it looked. Of course, with the warm weather the ice had melted by the time I arrived at her pre-school. I was disappointed!

Then as we started to pull out of the parking lot 3 white birds fluttered out onto the driveway. Ptarmigans in their snow gear! And I had my camera! Most of my pictures turned out poor, but we had fun observing them.
For the detail oriented, I pick up Abigail at around 4 pm. You will notice that it's rather dark. Right now, by the time I have her bundled and in the car, the sun has gone down. We're getting about 4 1/2 hours of sunlight.


Abigail was entranced by the ptarmigans.






A car drove by and startled them off the road and into the snow and the tree next to us.

Pretty cool. I enjoyed watching Abigail almost as much as I enjoyed seeing the ptarmigans. They are rather shy and elusive, so it was a delight to see them with her.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Chinook

We've got a warm wind blowing through- a Chinook (pronounced 'shu-nook').
Which means the temperature today is 45 F. Yup, after -50 last week, we've got +45 this week. That's 95 degrees difference...
Everything's melting, and it's slick, slick, slick.
Everyone's wondering around without jackets.
Pretty crazy.
January is normally our coldest month...
I'm not complaining, but it's weird. Plus, we're expected to go back to the negatives soon.

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Be A Man


Over the Christmas break I introduced my girls to the Disney movie Mulan. I put this one off because of the ancestor worship stuff- they're just not old enough to understand what's going on yet. We got through that issue with no problems easily. My girls keep surprising me! ;) They were like- 'Oh, they're ghosts. Silly ghosts.'


I have to share the one thing that seems to get everyone around here- the song 'Be A Man'.
Here is the original chorus:

"Be a man
We must be swift as the coursing river
Be a man
With all the force of a great typhoon
Be a man
With all the strength of a raging fire
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon"

First-
The humor of the girls attempting to sing the lyrics. We hear them running around singing their version:

"Be a man
We mu mmm be sssmmm river
Be a man
muu all the ccchhh phooon
Be a man
wwhoo all ssssh of a raging fire
Mysterious as the dark side of the moon"

The only lines they seem to be able to get are the repetitious 'Be a man', and then the final line sung with all the force of their ability to make out the words... Even though they have no idea what 'the dark side of the moon' is referring to, or even what the word 'mysterious' really means. I have explained both concepts, so they've got a grasp on it, but they're 3 and 5 and not into abstracts quite yet.
Second-
The fact that this is the only section of the song that gets stuck in my head, which means that I catch myself singing it at odd times.... And Jake and I have some of our own silly lyrics, mostly made up on the spot. They're entirely appropriate, I just can't think of an example off the top of my head.

Third-
Jake's silly delight in the idea of a man being mysterious as the dark side of the moon, which just makes me giggle.
Sorry, guys. The one thing most of you are not is mysterious as the dark side of the moon. Mostly you are NOT mysterious. My guy has trouble lying to me, hiding a present from me, trying to think of more than one thing at a time... Which is not to say he's stupid! My man is very smart, highly intelligent, and frankly, a lot of fun. He's silly and sensitive and sweet. But mysterious? no.
Definitely not as mysterious as the dark side of the moon...

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Cold!!!!!

We are now in the twelfth day of our nasty cold spell. For twelve days we've had temperatures below -40 F.
One day it got all the way up to -35! So warm!
After these last few days of -40's we'll all start wearing short sleeve shorts when it gets up to 0!
My mom talked to somebody from Tok last night. They've had -68F for a while, and it was forecast to be in the minus 70's today. Tok's about 200 miles from Fairbanks, and their winters are always much worse than ours.
There were about 40 hunters camping outside of the Department of Fish and Game last Tuesday to make sure they got moose permits. Now that's crazy.


Sunday, January 04, 2009

Minus 47

I'm cold!!! It seems like I can NEVER get warm this time of year.
I hate the darkness- we're only getting about three hours of daylight a day.
I hate the cold!

Jake took the first picture at about 5:45 pm last night. All the fog is from ice crystals in the air. At extreme temperatures, all of the exhaust from people, cars and houses freezes and crystallizes in the air.

The second picture is of our computer screen last night.

Saturday, January 03, 2009

Grumpy Bird


Books I read in December

Honestly, I didn't read much in December... I was almost incapable of anything during the week of my surgery and right after. The best books were surprises- a silly British fantasy and a dark violent mystery.
******
5 Children and It by E. Nesbit A+
I loved this British children’s fantasy... A family of 5 children spends the summer in the country and discover a sand-fairy, called a psammead. The grumpy 'fairy' grants one wish a day, and the children learn the power of words, and making choices. One day they wish for a mountain of gold and end up with gold pieces that are too heavy for them to carry and that no one will take in exchange for any of the the things the children would want. In the tradition of Mary Poppins and pure silliness.

Killing Floor by Lee Child A
From the back cover:
Ex-military policeman Jack Reacher is a drifter, just passing through. He is in Margrave, Georgia, for less than a half hour when four policemen arrive, shotguns in hand, to arrest him for murder. All Jack knows is he didn’t kill anybody. Not in their town, and not for a long time..
One of my mom’s murder mysteries
Excellent story. Interesting situation, and non-stop action. Twisty mystery with lots of clues and fun characters. I'm looking forward to finding another one by the same author- I think that he might have even written another one with the same character, and Reacher is a delightful epic hero.
Shakespeare’s Landlord by Charlaine Harris B+
Excellent mystery. I like the main character, Lily Bard, and was drawn into her story and the small southern town, Shakespeare, she’s adopted as home. She's dumped into the middle of a murder mystery and decides the only way to get free of it is to discover who actually killed her landlord.

Shakespeare’s Champion by Charlaine Harris B+
Excellent mystery- even better than the first in the series. This mystery circles around a bigoted murderous militia. I’m not from the south and found myself flummoxed by the racial tensions... Still a good story.
Shakespeare’s Christmas by Charlaine Harris A
My favorite in this series so far. Lily must return home and face her family... And deal with a missing girl, and a series of nasty murders.

Final Truth by Mariah Stewart C
One of my mom’s murder mysteries-
FBI, serial killer, a true crime author... Very staged and rather cold.
Almost Dead by Lisa Jackson C+
One of my mom’s murder mysteries.
An insane prison escape, twisted family murders... Rather sick and disturbing story.
The Hiding Place by Karen Harper C+
One of my mom’s murder mysteries-
Tara wakes up out of nine months in a coma to discover that her husband has divorced her, and her best friend has been murder. Her past won’t let her alone- danger and violence chase her through to the discovery that her husband stole her newborn infant, her doctor kept her in a coma to the birth of her child and that he’d rather kill her than let her have her freedom and her son.
Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle’s Magic by Betty McDonald A
YA book- Silliness and fantasy. I read this series when I was younger, enjoyed them then. It was fun to read back over it now. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle helps kids behave more appropriately and kindly by exaggerating the results of their choices.
The Lies Women Believe and the Truth That Sets Them Free by Nancy Leigh DeMoss B
I don’t know what to say about this book specifically... I agreed with her on some issues, and disagreed with her on others. I believe that in some instances she’s using scriptures to prove her point, rather than allowing scripture to prove the truth. However, she has some very useful, practical and powerful things to say.

COLD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, I forgot to say this!
It's been -48 F here for about the last week.
The warmest the temps gotten to has been around negative 35.
I looked it up -48 F is about equal to -44.4
Pretty miserable.
Jake's car has been REALLY acting up. Hope it makes it through January.

Sleeping

All I've been doing is sleeping...
Reading a bit, but I'm so tired!
I was anemic when I went into surgery, not just the usual 'a little anemic' or 'borderline anemic'. This time I was actually clinically anemic.
Maybe that's why I'm so tired. I don't know...
Maybe it's 'cuz I had major surgery...

So, I lay around, and the girls climb all over me. Although, not on my back. It still hurts to sit straight back into a chair.
I'm not getting anything done.
I'm not making dinner by myself. I'm not taking care of the girls by myself. I'm not doing dishes... I'm barely doing any beading... I just run out of steam.

I still can't bend over right.
I still can't drive myself anywhere.
I still can't carry anything heavier than a gallon of milk.
I am pathetic.

Yes, I'm whining. But now that I've said all that, I feel better.
Maybe I'll go to bed and sleep some more...