Why moms love Laura Joffe Numeroff stories so much

Mom life: if you give a mom a reminder to take her vitamin, she'll realize she needs a drink to take it. So she'll get her cup and see her plate that needs to be washed. So she washes her plate and finds other cups that need to be washed, and washes them. Then she sees that the counters are gross and wipes them clean. She swept crumbs to the floor so that means she has to sweep the floor. She goes to empty the dustpan, and finds the trash is full. She pulls the trash bag and takes it outside to the collection bin. She returns to put a new bag in the kitchen trash can. Then she sees the splats the kids left behind and mops the floor (swiffer wet jet, really). Then she remembers she came to the kitchen to take her vitamins before bed and finally takes them 20 minutes later.

Moms love Numeroff stories so much because moms can freaking RELATE. Well played, Laura, well played.

Gratitude: indoor plumbing & awesome fixtures

Blur is three years old and not always cooperative in the attempts to get her to use the bathroom somewhere civilized, instead of in her pants, on the floor or even out in the yard. This comes as no surprise to me, since 2 of her 3 older siblings were equally intriguing to train. In an attempt to stretch the measly budget, and eke progress at using a toilet, some days I put her in panties or cloth diapers. I had to stop that nonsense for a while because cleaning the mess was not worth it. I put out a call on crackbook asking for a shower head with detachable hose sprayer for the purpose of washing her tush more efficiently.
My sister found one for me at a great price (FREE!) but it took a while for one of us (her) to end up on the other side of town with it. Devildog installed it a couple days ago, and it has come in handy a few times already. Indeed, cleaning up the mess is more efficient, and thorough.

So, today I am thankful for my helpful sister, indoor plumbing, and awesome bath fixtures, because without them, I'd be up Poop's Creek sans the paddle, with an uncooperative and stinky 3 year old in my canoe.

painting is work

I know it's work, but with a baby underfoot, it's an adventure too. We have a lot of painting to do, and it's mostly because I don't want to have to paint after we move into it. I want to get it done and over with and move in and enjoy the house. Sadly I am not an octopus, nor am I Superwoman. Progress is slow, but if it were not for the help of my Father-in-Law, it would be even slower. Teenagers are only so helpful. We (I) want to have a housewarming party before the next round of birthdays at the end of September and beginning of October. After that you've got Devildog and my anniversary, a major rivalry football weekend that takes place here, then Halloween, Thanksgiving, another household rivalry football game, and Christmas, New Year's, and my birthday. So the timing is key. We are excited, our friends are excited for us, and we just want to get this work done so we can live in the house before the baby finishes her doctoral thesis.

Eyeballs and Elbows

That's where Devildog and I are in debt - albeit secured debt, it's debt nonetheless. We signed our lives away Monday morning.

On this:








And my wrist and hand still hurt from the closing. Then you add the first day of school and the million forms (asking for duplicate info on all of them ::eyeroll::), and I think my hand will fall off before I can start painting the new place.

Dead Roses

I am sitting here, trying to process some things, so bear with me a moment or few. I've been in this small 1100 square foot house for a little more than 6 years. We've grown to have a love/hate relationship with this house. There is always new hope in moving to a new place, and dread of schlepping your worldly belongings somewhere. Today's adventures took me to the laundry room, which equates to the "dungeon" of this house. It serves as a closet of sorts for Devildog and me, because our bedroom has no closet. It serves as extra storage for the stuff most people house in their garage. Well technically it IS the garage, except it's been enclosed and we now sleep in part of it. Anyway, I came across some roses from my mom's funeral, that had been wrapped in newspaper. I know I need to part with them. They're dead flowers. Dead flowers carry negative chi, according to the tenets of feng shui. Dead flowers kill a mood too. I was in what I call 'mission mode' pecking away at sorting through things on the shelf over the machines when I found them. I knew they were up there, but ignored them.

As I unwrapped them, with the intention of rewrapping them for some reason, I looked at them and knew I had to release them. They're dead flowers for pete's sake. They serve no purpose for me, they don't make me smile, they have no home here or will they in the new house. No problem right? Well for some reason I started getting emotional over some dead roses from my mother's funeral. Five year old dead flowers wrapped in newspaper shouldn't strum heartstrings. But they did just that to me. I looked at them a minute, and then took them outside and laid them under the loquat tree by the road. I couldn't just throw them in the trash, and we don't have a yard waste bin since the trash guys took our other garbage can (if they didn't leave it in the road it wouldn't get hit by cars). It was a logical step for me.

Except, doing that just did not feel right. I keep thinking I should take them to the new house and set them under a tree there. It keeps feeling like I'm leaving part of my mother at a house where I have no roots, nor ever intended to plant roots. And it just feels wrong. I sat down here and started blathering about it in my cleaning chat room (yes, question me later on that one), and in an IM to another person.

Then I had a bit of a revelation. When Mom died, she did not want Dad in the room with her. After 35 years together, you know a person, and Mom knew Dad would not handle watching her die very well, despite his iron-stomached stint at Walter Reed as an orderly tending the sickest of sick. She figured there would be the puddle of Dad goo that we would have to clean up and take home to the house they shared in all that. But it felt so very wrong for me to leave my mother alone, septic, smelling of horrid infection that is the "smell of death", but still present enough to know Dad was out of the room and actually try to leave before he and my brother got back. As soon as he returned, she perked back up. I think if they'd stayed downstairs five more minutes she would have accomplished her mission to leave without him there to see it. In my gut I knew I should stay, but I was driving Dad home. I could have sent him with my sister, but didn't. When I got home, I sat down and the phone rang. I knew it was the hospital calling. "Your mother has expired. I'm sorry for your loss." Perfunctory but polite. I asked what time she died. "11:16." She knew when Dad was safely at home again and held out long enough till she let go. They both were "home" at the same time, one last time.

Somehow I equated leaving those flowers from my mother's funeral to leaving my mother. Logically I know those flowers are not my mother. It still feels so very wrong to leave those dead roses by the tree at the roadside, like I felt it was wrong to leave her in the hospital alone to die. So, I've decided to take them to the new house and leave them by a tree there. I ultimately will release them, but it won't feel like I'm abandoning them - or my mother by the side of the road here.

Unexpected findings

We looked at a bunch of houses a couple weeks ago. We'd planned on looking for 2 days in a row, but the 2nd day, something came up. There was a round of bad moods, with a long conversation. I was going to resume the search with the rest of the list I forwarded to the realtor. Then a phone call with a question was met with "Let's just put in an offer on the house on B. Lane"
::blink blink:: "wha? .... ok" So we did that Friday. Given the circumstances we expected the sellers to accept our offer. We picked up our copies of the sale contract today. We are waiting on approval from the sellers' lender for the short sale.
I was not expect to find something in the neighborhood we found. We're cautiously optimistic. I've gone from praying to find the right house to praying that we can pay the bills and keep up the house if the bank approves the deal.
We apparently liked the place, because we were there looking around for like an hour, and the realtor was able to talk at length with his son, and take about 10 other calls. I talked to the next door neighbor who happened to be outside, and asked about the house. She seemed nice enough and said most of the kids in the vicinity grew up and it was a lot of older folks and empty nesters or people with early adulthood kids still at home. Lord, just don't let us be the bane of the neighborhood with 4 busy (aka loud) kids, and the Devildog with his friends.

I'd hoped to not tell the kids till after we got the contract back, but Devildog told them about it already, so we're getting a lot of questions about the new place.
Who's sharing a room?
Can we get a cat? (no pets, I just don't want any animals, regardless of "whose" it is etc)
What school is it assigned? (Oldest, b/c the other 2 are in magnet programs)
What is near it? (Publix, McDonald's, and named off several friends nearby, the PAL, the Fort, it's a quick ride to the beach via the WW, and my sister is moving out across from the state park at the beach, so she'll be nearby too.)
Can I use Aunt C's addy to go to the other high school out there? (::shrug:: that depends on a couple other factors, as well as the aunt and roomies' permission.) I think that school may have German, which would alleviate the need for him to take 2 years of a foreign language, instead of the 2nd year of German. I think. This other issue has to be addressed and he has to comply with all rules otherwise it's not gonna work or happen. I think he's attempting to do things different, but I remain cautious to my expectations and his delivery.
Who knows, maybe an extra 900 square feet with some elbow room and less chaos/clutter will help his mindset. It will likely help mine. Living 6 people deep in a dinky 1100 square foot hovel as I've come to call this place, makes everyone in it a little cranky for lack of turning space.
Again, the phrase "cautious optimism" is the prevailing theme on many fronts. We'll see how it goes, however long it goes for waiting on the bank approval. I was fully not expecting to find something this early in July. I was expecting that I'd have my paper clutter sorted and disposed of before we found a house. Which reminds me, I need to finish that bin of stash-n-dash paper, and my goal is to be done by the week's end. Oh and in that bin, I found my power of attorney paperwork...go figure.

This is what I have left to do:









And this is the stuff pulled from that bin that needs to get filed.

To market, To market

That's the song I'm singing to the house I know Divine Intervention is sending our way. The houses I am looking at in our budget and neighborhoods we're willing to live in are not jumping out and biting me. It's a bit annoying because I would like to find something soon. Of course I'm not seeing it because a) it's not there, not being on the market yet, b) this current house is not ready enough to vacate, nor have I decluttered enough (doesn't look like I did anything at all, because essentially I haven't), and c) I'm known for 11th hour everything. I was even born at 10:28 pm. My best papers in high school and the little bit of college classes that I took ages ago were written at 1 in the morning. I guess it's part of my wiring.

I'm being patient. I don't have much choice really since work is busy right now. I have a feeling work will be busy for a while. The boss asked me to cover some recently vacated stores, adding to my 12 store list, making it 13 on my assignment list, plus another 5 to fill in till a replacement is hired. Then Clone is going to camp next month. I think I have a slow week next week, because this week is already jam full. I think that's when I'll be able to squeeze in the Mini-Human's 9 month checkup and a camp physical for the Clone.

Yet, I'm up beyond the 11th hour, blogging. In my defense that's only because the Mini-Human was up till 2. You read that correctly. UP. TILL. 2. She fights sleep like a trooper, and I need some time to decompress. Unfortunately for my knitting, I can't pay attention enough to knit at this hour. That sweater pattern requires note-taking and attention. That's not possible when I'm not brain-cooperative.
But wait! There's more! For the low low... oh wait, wrong market. No I'm just tired and feeling overwhelmed by a lot of things. My shoulders reside in my ears almost permanently and my back dislikes me often enough. Anything more that I say on it, would be whining, and per FLYLady, I'm not allowed to do that. So I'm going to just crawl in my bed.

A new house needs a few things

You may recall me saying we are restarting our home search. The timing is stellar, since work is gearing up for resets too. Devildog works a crazy shift schedule that makes it inconducive for anything. So I am feeling very overwhelmed by all this, even before it starts full swing. I'm wired to be that way. Right now I am working on 15 minute blocks, and this one consists of feeding the baby while I blog. She's almost asleep and I think my timer's about to buzz anyway. I need this kind of structure today, as I'm working myself up over all of this work around me and that's just foolish. But I am dreaming too. I'm mentally thinking of the stuff I simply want for the new house, not even the needs. Among them for anyplace we live is a Kitchenaid mixer. I've tried to win one from The Pioneer Woman several times. My chances are slim because she has so many readers. The author of one of my favorite cookbooks is giving away a red one. While you're there check out what else is Saving Dinner and how you can save yours. Some of my favorites to cook come out of Leanne Ely's recipes. I have found a few things that I now love that I wouldn't have thought to eat before. Kale is one of them. Food can be an adventure, and on a smaller scale and budget then this adventure we're on right now with buying a house.

Now if you'll pardon me, my timer buzzed a few minutes ago. The baby is now out of my arms, and the rest of my list beckons. I'd still just much rather knit though.

Since I can't do much

I may as well blog.

Miss Mini-Human, Clone2, Piglet, Must-Be-Upright-and-Moving, MUST-yell-for-food, or perhaps also known simply as "the baby", is out of sorts. She's got gum pain from those phantom teeth that aren't making an appearance yet, but we all know they're hiding in the wings, waiting for the most ~opportune~ time to erupt. She's got gas because I can't seem to figure out what I'm eating that disagrees with her gastric functions. I try to knit even a row on this wrap I've been working on since June 2008, and she wakes up screaming. If I try to pump, she'll get mad and accuse the machine of stealing her food. I feed her and she still yells even more at me and at the food sources. I got a Bumbo seat for her because she insists on sitting up, and I can't always hold her, and her siblings have other things to do sometimes. She hates it. She turns in it with one leg sticking out further than the other, leans over the side bites the side and yells. She stiffens her legs and back and tries to pop out of it. She loves the Maya wrap most of the time, but my back injuries don't like that too much.

I'm trying to clean stuff. My house is a disaster. It looks like it puked all over itself, and it kind of actually did that. I won't list the messes, but it's like ADD gone awry to say the least. Between the actual ADD in my brain and the baby, it's a bumpy ride on a personal watercraft in pre-hurricane conditions. I managed to get one big box of clothes sorted. Somehow while still baking the mini-human, a bunch of different sized clothes got lumped together in one box. I found 3s, 4s, 5s, a couple 2s and even a 12-18 months item in there. I re-sorted the box and started to put them away when the cute bundle of screaming tantrum sounded the alarm - again.

So, I sat down to feed her and she refused to be put down, acted sleepy but fought it...and here I am. I grabbed the My Brest Friend cushion and hooked her up so I could type with 2 hands, because I'd be here 5 hours trying to type this post one handed. She yelled at me some more. I gave her teething tablets, Tylenol and snuggles. I looked at her a few minutes ago and said "You're not going to let me do anything are you?" and I was met with a playful-eyed grin from behind a pacifier. That means no. She's cute. She's funny. She's sweet. And my 16 year old said she's evil. Pot meet kettle? Now that she's asleep again, I'm going to try to lay her down and finish these tasks I started several hours ago around my house. At least I was able to make dinner.
(And don't mind the timestamp on the picture. That's entirely incorrect and I am not sure how that happened.)

Unfamiliar Territory

The oldest is out at a friend's house helping them do stuff like Spring Sprucing and the sort. I haven't a clue what that would be, since we don't do that around here. It's one of the "perks" of not going to a brick and mortar school facility. The friend's child is homeschooled as well. I have not been ALONE in my house for MONTHS. I kid you not. In December, I had to go get the oldest from a relative's where he was living. Since early December, I have not had a single day at home without someone else up my posterior. I woke up this morning, severely sleep deprived, but excited. I can get stuff done, like mortgage and job applications, sorting through piles of clutter around my desk. Why? Because I'm not annoyed or interrupted by other people, and the boy isn't here to complain about my being in such proximity to HIS workspace. Yes, I'm having another child and will be interrupted by that one. It's different. This latest model will be dependent on me, and I will once again get into a groove like I did with Clone when she was a baby. But the oldest? Well, he has his own ideas and agendas and they don't cooperate with mine at all. I am looking forward to his finishing this stint as a homeschool student on the state's Virtual School. I love my children, but I also am one of those moms that literally NEEDS her time and space away from the family to clear her head. I practically turned a cartwheel in the parking lot when the Clone (previously the youngest) started kindergarten. I'd be one of those "ha ha! he he! ho ho! They're coming to take me away! HA HA! HE HE! HOHO!" people if I was constantly exposed to my family incessantly.
Oh wait...I am edging closer to that each day he's dragging along with his schoolwork.

I'm off to listen to the sound of NOTHING while doing SOMETHING.

House Hunting

Devildog and I have been looking for our own home for a while. We've got different opinions on things in some regards, and agree on yet others. It's long been a mixed marriage on many levels, so it's nothing new. So the search for a house that accommodates all the bodies, and the stuff, and has the spaces to function like we need them to function and all under budget has been hopeful but occasionally annoying. Devildog and I have felt that God would lead us to the house we're supposed to have, at the right time. Divine Guidance is what I've been calling it. The houses I picked out were not what they were cracked up to be at all, and they've been quickly eliminated from our pool of applicants. The ones Devildog likes, are generally the ones I have liked as well. We looked at one house that we both liked, but we disagreed on how to use certain areas of the house. He wanted my office in a spot that was out of the way. While I understand his motive, he forgets what life with a baby is like, and where I'll be spending most of my time. Plus there were some other factors that made it a risk for the long list. But we kept it on the short list. There were others that were what we wanted but out of our budget. Then our realtor took us to a house we hadn't looked at online yet. We may have found the house that fits us. Devildog and I didn't disagree on how to use the spaces. We felt that this may be "the one". So, we've been asking everyone to keep it in their prayers that if the house is the one for us, that it happens. Our current needs are met, and we can make it work in our current place a while longer if we have to do that. We'd like to have some elbow room though. Devildog and I both, would like to avoid constantly seeing the mess that is my office. We literally need a closet for our clothes. Our room is the converted garage and there's no closet for it, unless you count the laundry room with a closet bar. Devildog wants a place for his friends to visit and hang out. Since almost all his friends smoke, a "man-den" is helpful. And possibly very important, we want to be off the main road, like we are now. Here if we tell the kids to go play in traffic, they don't have to go any farther than the front property line. Not that we would seriously tell them to go play in traffic. Besides, if we did tell them that, they wouldn't listen anyway.

Confessions, Resolutions, Re-Solutions

Every year I tell myself I am going to get my act together. Every December I look at the months prior and think "um...at what point did I fall off the wagon here?" I live in a tiny house that is all of 1100 square feet with a sum total of 3 closets, unless you count the laundry room as a closet. I call it a dungeon, right along with the den, my bedroom (that used to be a 1-car garage), the boys' bedroom and the girl's closet, and that little alcove in the hallway that used to house an old oil furnace, and has progressed into housing the exposed air handler for the HVAC unit. My whole house is a dumping ground of sorts. I never wanted to invest a lot into things because I wasn't going to be here long. We moved in here with the expectation that it would be a year so we could get out of an apartment full of mold, and help some friends rent out the place before the first mortgage payment came due. Uh yeah. It's been almost 5 years now. We bought a shed, and that's jam full. I just need to declutter, that's first and foremost. We can't possibly move all this *ahem* stuff to another place and think it's going to be any different. FLYLady says "You can't organize clutter" and she's really right about it. I just hate the thought of doing any part of it, because there's so much of it, I get overwhelmed at the mere sight or thought of the situation. At the same time I can't possibly expect that I'll be able to move tuit suit when my current house is not under control or in order.
I did work on some of that today though. I got tired of walking around the rescued dresser, so it's now in my den. I put my beading supplies, the miscellaneous yarn notions and general craft supplies in the drawers. I didn't want to get the yarn full of sawdust, because the dresser isn't refinished, so it's staying under the futon in bins. It's bare wood, and I'm okay with that for now. I just wish the drawers had an extra inch of depth towards the back so I can get my 12x12 scrapbooks in there and out of the big plastic bins. In a couple more years, I'll be able to purge some more old Tupperware files and the school supplies can find a new home in the filing cabinet. Someone remind me next summer NOT to buy notebook paper please. I unearthed part of my desk yesterday. Tomorrow holds some sort of plan, probably involving the kitchen. I was gifted a new-to-me stove today and it's uber nice. I have to call the friend we're renting from to send our old stove to them for storage till we move out. Unless of course they're going to sell or rent this place without appliances when we vacate...which means someone could get our old one. I will miss the stove light that is on the back of the 20 year old bugger, because it was nice to have. But I think I can get over it considering it's a very nice stove that was given to us. I offered to pay for it, since the gifters were trying to sell it. They said that since my husband has been their handyman, they wouldn't allow me to give them a dime for it. Now, I wouldn't have picked this stove out for myself because it's got a stainless front, but I won't whine since it was given to us. Way back 14 years ago when everyone had mauve and blue with ducks geese and cows, I wanted a black and white kitchen with black appliances, and stainless accents (drawer pulls, cookware, toaster etc-small scale stuff). Apparently I was a bit forward thinking because that's what a lot of people now have in their kitchens - black and stainless. Next time I want to redesign something, I'm just keeping my mouth shut till I can market it myself. Because I could've been a bit richer, and could buy all new cookware. And as vintage as my cookware is that my grandmother bought and stashed for me 10 years prior to my needing it, I can still use it on this stove. I've become immune to the brown and orange flowers on the side. The only problem I see with the new stove, is that the drawer in the bottom is vastly shallower (save money on materials perhaps?) so I can't store quite as much in it as the old one. Which means I have to re-configure the storage of other things to accommodate the displaced items. Of course Devildog installing that one last upper cabinet that is in the boys' room is a possible solution. I'm just thankful that I have a functioning MacGuyvered kitchen, instead of no kitchen at all or one that is gutted.
So, I will embark on some additional cognitive journey to come up with solutions for my house as it is, because I honestly can't say how much longer we will live here.

What's going on? It's December ya know

Um, it's mere days before Christmas, and the only Christmas decorations we have up are the lights on the front of the house. I kid you not. The tree is in the attic, and packed with it are the little 18 inch individual trees that I got the kids for their rooms, and the garland that normally would reside around my front door...or at least over it. As such, the rest of the decorations are in the green tubs in the hall corner collecting more dusty debris from my 50+ year old house full of dust and other miscellany. I sent out several Christmas cards and got a few from friends (none from those I sent cards to either mind you). I have a small assortment of gifts purchased and hidden. I have a cookie recipe languishing in the kitchen after discovering some EVOL menace in my house consumed the remainder of the package of chocolate & peanut butter chips/morsels/machine created drops. They were peanut butter chips and chocolate chips coexisting nicely in a yellow bag. They were slated for one last run of cookies and I was highly ticked to discover their empty bag abandoned in the garbage. I had to buy more today. At least the bag wasn't abandoned behind the futon like a million Halloween candy wrappers were. I really loved finding that mess. I don't recall spawning an offspring and naming it "Not Me", but apparently this Not Me character has adopted us without my permission, or my obtaining legal counsel. But somehow this being has conspired with my genetic offspring and aided in the little messes that realllllly pile up and annoy the you-know-what out of me. I have my share of the clutter in this house. We also have no storage here, and I refuse to rent a storage unit. Which is part of why we don't have our tree up yet. The clutter won't allow much space for it. Big giant pieces of furniture in the living room leave little place for it. The one spot we have will result in an obstructed path through the living room. I'm seriously giving consideration to using some brown craft paper we have and green paint and painting a tree, taping it to the wall there and leaving the walkway free. Then I'll put a small pile of gifts on the floor in front of the paper tree on Christmas Eve when Devildog and I go to bed. At least this Christmas I have the opportunity to sleep in my own bed, which has happened a total of twice since I married Devildog 14 years ago. We've usually gone to visit his relatives for Christmas.

Welcome to Camp Aunt Wench

My family's relationships are all complicated for starters anyway. Normal for my family is something that is often met with quizzical looks and the occasional "huh?" from outsiders. But when it comes to the muck, we tend to help when and where we can....almost to a fault. That's what has happened again. This time it's a chaotic situation at my brother's house. Dad calls the place a "flop house", I call it a crazy zoo, complete with a poo-flinging monkey type. My niece is here because she doesn't need to be around that stuff right now. It is getting adventurous to say the least over there. So since I have a daughter that is 3 months older than my niece, I get to host Camp Aunt Wench. They seem to play well together at first, but that's because they hardly ever see each other despite living a mere 6 miles apart. However, given a few days in a cabin together, things are going to get interesting. We have the older girl who is the youngest of three, and the only girl. Add to this we have the younger girl who is an only child. The one who is accustomed to fending off siblings for her things or space, tends to get a bossier as the days pass. The one who is not entirely accustomed to sharing tends to get whinier as the visit progresses. I hear "she's being mean" numerous times. Please define "mean". I guess my family can be brutes in some ways (regardless of gender), so it is entirely possible that what we consider normal is in fact "mean" to another. I can only suppose that the longer my niece is here, the better she will assimilate to my family's brand of chaos. However, as the aunt, it is my job to keep it interesting and fun or as a mom, I will go absolutely bonkers beyond recognition. In several ways this visit to Camp Aunt Wench is good for everyone involved. My niece gets away from the insanity in her own home, and my chaotic house gets a dose of fun. My usual intentions of doing fun stuff often end up tossed by the wayside because I lose momentum halfway through the day.

In the meantime, we really ARE camping in the house because the kitchen remodel is progressing in small steps because of my husband's retail hours. I am washing dishes in the tub with a dishpan and the drainer parked in a large roasting pan so the clean ones can be plucked out of the way in the event someone needs to defunk themselves. Oh yeah....that's right, I haven't been here to post anything for something like 2 weeks. I got word that new cabinets were being bestowed upon us with 2 days' notice, and one of those days I was working. So it was a bit of a stash-and-dash to empty the kitchen with some semblance of organization that allowed me to still feed my crew without drive-through and takeout menus. I can deal with no stove, as I have a nuker, crockpot, electric skillet and toaster oven. However, the SINK is highly important and makes things more challenging when it's lacking. I have incoming water because the pipes are still in place. However, the lack of a drain is posing a bigger challenge. It's manageable but not exactly convenient. In any case, we've been occupied with that and I will be glad when I have a sink back....I think I can even deal with bare plywood for temporary counters, as long as I can wash dishes while standing again. I've been spoiled by modern conveniences like sinks and electricity, so I can't see myself going off to the woods where bugs will feast upon my flesh while I wash dishes on my prayerbones.

Now if you'll pardon me, I just saw two little girls trailing off to my room, to bid Uncle DevilDog a good morning.......