Ang Grams: Whew!

Whew! It has been a looooong month.

Riley, Ian, and Hayden finished cross-country. The weather fulfilled its annual obligation to provide the "coldest day of the year so far" for the district meet, so the Lumberjack's Wife and I hid our little brood behind the bleachers as long as we could to block the wind. Riley came in about 15th for his age group.....which probably the top 25%. Ian finished somewhere in the middle, but we were so proud of him for finishing. His coaches had told him from the beginning of the season that 2nd graders only ran a half mile. But he had to run a whole mile when we got there. He wasn't prepared for that, but he finished. Hayden held on to third place until the very end of the race and slipped back to 6th. They all did great! It is honestly always the first worst weather day of the year. They started out just wanting to go home and give up the race. We were really proud of their efforts.

Clayton has graduated from Soaring, and will get to co-pilot a plane soon! He has also started Masterlife with a group of boys that he's been studying with for about three years. He has also begun Serve Leadership with CDY (Christ Driven Youth) and his small group begins out our house tomorrow night.

The biggest thing going on around here is Bill's recovery. He had his third leg surgery on the 23rd of September, and this has definitely been the most difficult one. The doc removed a "wafer" of his joint this time. (love the terms doctors use. Is this supposed to make it feel insignificant that you removed part of my joint because you called it a wafer?) The hope is that the joint will scar up and not be able to produce fluid anymore.

This cyst was 13 cm. long - bigger than the last one. Bill went into surgery with full use of his leg and foot - just starting to really get uncomfortable with the cyst. He came out of surgery without any lift in his foot and without much feeling in it. The doctor has put him on some medication for nerves, but isn't sure at this point what has caused this. Bill has been in a lot more pain this time with lots of pins and needles pain going on in his foot. It has been emotional and tiring for both of us.

He hopes to return to work this week...probably just in time to be laid off for the winter. He has been working hard to build his club repair business though. He has been busy running to courses, meeting pros, passing out cards and price lists, and bringing home a little more work here and there. We shall see if the repair business shuts down as much in the winter as everything else does around here.

I've been doing everything and nothing all at the same time. Basically I've been in high-speed robot mode doing everything it takes to keep everything going and doing nothing of much interest or enjoyment. :P

I've been learning lots by trying to start Those With Young and have spent lots of time in prayer this weekend asking God about some things.

I did do one fun project this weekend. A couple of weeks ago, a super hero knocked over the floor lamp in the living room with his cape, and did it in for good. Later in the day, I found a very unique lamp at a yard sale. I'm the type that always sees potential, so I took a risk.

I asked the family when I brought it home if it was vintage cool or vintage tacky. The vote was unanimous: vintage tacky.

So this weekend I did a little makeover.

I took off the old plastic shades. They were yellowed, smoked, and bubbled from the heat.

Then, I took off the jewels.

Vacuumed all the loose dust off of it. Then spray painted it with Rustoleum's Dark Hammered Bronze. Hammered paint is great because it covers an imperfect paint job....and I'm great at imperfect paint jobs.

While it was drying, I took some translucent scrap book paper and glued the sheets together to make new paper shades for the lamp.

Then, I took all the old brass wire of the jewels, cleaned the jewels off, and rewired them with silver wire (which we already had). Clayton was disappointed that I was putting the jewels back on, but I had Lauren here. Lauren's mom is a professional at creating and capturing vintage beauty, and Lauren like my jewels. Yes, she is only seven, but I decided she knew more what she was talking about.