Feeling purple...

Yesterday at lunch Thomas dropped his plate on his toe. At first we didn't take his crying too seriously.  Then he sobbed out, "Mommy, I think you need to kiss it."  He's pretty kissable, so I was about to oblige, when I saw that his toenail had already started to turn blue.  If you've ever experienced that, you will know that it's painful enough to make an adult want to cry.  Instead of a kiss he got a heated pin through the nail to relieve the pressure.  I know it helped, but he wasn't impressed.  After a popsicle, a phone call to Daddy, some Tylenol and a long nap he felt a little better. 

Later Justine asked how he was feeling.  He said, "I'm feeling purple." 

"Feeling purple!  What does that mean?"  

He replied, "Purple is how you feel after you drop a plate on your toe." :)

Another chuckle...

Warren showed me the dime he found in the front yard.  Gavin saw it and said, "Oh, that must have fallen out of Dad's leaky pocket." (I guess mending should be added to today's chore list.)

The pool is finished at last!  With the help of a friend, Gerald built the deck last week. Now we have more peace of mind knowing that when the gate is locked, the little ones can't get in. 

We've been in it nearly every day since it went up.  It feels so good to jump in after spending some time in the garden or doing yardwork.  And an evening swim is a refreshing way to end the day.  Perhaps the best part is that we don't have to shower the boys every single night, and their toenails are the cleanest they've been since March!

Swimming lessons are over for another year. With that out of the way I started the next project -  peeling wallpaper in the master bedroom. It's the last room left with wallpaper.  I would have attacked this job sooner, but I was afraid that the wallpaper would not come off easily and it would be a big job.  Most of the rooms were wallpapered when we moved in and all but one had not been properly prepped before they put it on, which means that when you take it off, it comes off in tiny bits, pulling off as much drywall as paper.  The first strip came off in a large piece with a resounding yahoo from me.  But my elation was short-lived.  The only place it is peeling off easily is where they mudded the drywall.  It looks like they rolled out some primer between patches of mud, leaving strips of bare drywall between.  Not funny.  But since I started, I have to stick to it until the job is done. We didn't have a good selection of scrapers at home - the best ones were, of course, in the work van.  The two that I found were extremely dull.  Over the phone Gerald gave me a lesson on using the bench grinder.  Now, power tools are just not my thing. Gerald knows that, and he is very patient with me, giving me exact directions of every step. He warned me that it would vibrate when it got up to full speed.  It did.  He didn't warn me about the sparks that would fly when metal hit metal.  I guess he thought that was just logical.  It is logical, I just hadn't thought about it.  But wow, what a display.  We had our own little fireworks show right in our workshop.  It was impressive!  It totally took me by surprise.  But I got over it and eventually the scraper was somewhat sharper than it had been before I started.

While I'm working, I'm listening to John Stonestreet's seminars on CDs  that we brought home from the homeschool convention this spring. He spoke on a variety of topics relating to worldview.  They are really good, and since we are using Lightbearers, it's good timing for me to refresh my memory on what he said.

Here's Nadia.  She was getting tired and wanted a snuggle, so she sat down on my ladder and leaned against the bottom of my legs. :)

I've also been digging into A Charlotte Mason Companion.  There are so many rich ideas and thoughts in there - I have to give myself time to digest and absorb them, considering how we might be able to implement them.  It's getting me excited about the coming school year.  That's a good thing, because I should start planning for it soon.  But not yet.  I need to get the wallpaper off first.

Care to give me a hand?