Office Mural

This is a slideshow of the mural that was just painted on the office. The main artist thought it would be cool to have us all add personal touches to the mural so we all went at the end of one Friday and did various things. I think it's all pretty much explained in the comments I put with the pictures. It looks really great and I think we're all happy with the way it turned out!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A quick note

We have a LOT going on right now and I will post longer blogs later but I just wanted to share a few photos (particularly for my family and friends who are not on facebook to see the photos I posted there).

A fun shapshot of Kay - a couple more of

these to post later.

Kaelyn looking entirely too cute. :)

Kevin and Rod's office has been getting a facelift.

The mural is a hurricane over the ocean. We all

went out and added our own personal touches

this evening. It's looking REALLY cool. I have a

bunch more pics. to post later.

Megan and Kay each "painted" a footprint

in the sand to make up a pair of footprints.

They put a special paint on their feet and then

we pressed their feet on the wall where the

sand is painted on the wall.

The "teeny" footprints - the foot on the

left is Kay's the one on the right is Megan's,

Kevin and I painted a heart and our initials

onto one of the palm trees to make it look like

our initials were carved in the tree.

The Browns, us, and the painters.

John begged the nurse to let Kaelyn go

up and visit with them so she was able

to see them for a few minutes. She thought

she was going to get to see a baby. She's

a bit confused about the whole thing.

I don't know why these pics. look grainy.

They did not look that way on my comp.

or when I posted them on facebook.

No baby yet as of press time. :)

Bookstore observations from a nosy person

So I'm sitting in Barnes & Nobles today using my computer and minding my own business. Oh - who am I kidding? I was TRYING to mind my own business but it was too interesting watching and overhearing others around me. The first interesting person to come along was a college age girl on roller blades. Now mind you, I'm sitting in the cafe part of Barnes and Nobles so I was a little shocked to see someone come rollerblading by. She rolled around while she decided which table she should sit at. She took her roller blades off once she sat down but then discovered she needed to move to a table where she was closer to an electrical outlet. So she gets up and walks around barefoot as she moves her stuff to a different spot. Now I'm a gal that prefers to be shoeless myself so I can kinda' understand - especially given the fact that her "shoes" were actually not shoes. Had she just stayed at the table with her feet under the table I wouldn't have thought that much about it but any time she had to get up to do something, she did it shoeless and sockless and what's more, she did it with an "I'm barefoot so shoot me" attitude. Then this elderly couple came and sat down at the table next to me. They were probably both easily in their 80s and they were so cute. I REALLY tried to just keep my eyes on my computer and not pay attention to their conversation but they were both hard of hearing and thus the conversation was hard not to overhear. They chatted about this and that and watched people come and go. Mr. Elderly Gentlemen was drinking a coke from the Starbucks cafe and his wife Mrs. was drinking some variety of coffee. Mrs. Elderly, seeing that her husband had finished his coke, asked him if he would like her to go get him another one (he didn't get around very well). He said, "Not at a dollar for one I don't." So they sat there a bit longer and he finally asked her how much coffee she had left. She looked in her cup and said, "Oh, about 30 minutes." He said, "Well, maybe you better go get me another coke then." So Mrs. got up and went over to the counter to get the coke. Meanwhile "I'm barefoot so shoot me" came walking past to go over and get her bagel with cream cheese from the counter. Mr. Elderly looked as surprised as I had been to see her walking around the cafe in her bare feet. In a few minutes, Mrs. Elderly came back with the coke and some good news. She set it down and said, "It was a refill so it only cost me fifty-three cents. Isn't that cool?" (I am quoting everything - she really did say "cool" - not that it's illegal for someone in their 80s to say something's cool but it was just unusual.) So anyway, Mr. Elderly was duly impressed and responded with, "Fifty-three cents? That's not bad at all." I was trying so hard not to give any indication that I was paying attention to them at all but I was a little bit amused by that point. It was so sweet though the way they just seemed to enjoy each other's company. Mr. told Mrs. to remind him when they got home and he could show her a picture of something on the computer and they they discussed all of us that actually had our computers right here with us and could get on the internet. About the time they left, Mr. Laugh-a-lot came in and let me just say that his name is well earned. He works here and I have heard him in here before and he's ALWAYS happy. He has a laugh that you can hear all over the bookstore and he laughs about EVERYTHING. He walked up to the counter to order, said something to the girl behind the counter and laughs a booming laugh. When she told him his total, he made some joke about how he used to pay for his coffee before it cost so much and then laughed another uproarious laugh. After which, he instantly made some joke to someone else near him about how "you better have ordered a sandwich too or I would have had to feel guilty" - more uproarious laughter. I know you might think I'm exaggerating for the sake of my story but I AM NOT. He laughs after about every line that is spoken and he laughs very loud. Now that is certainly no crime either - better someone that's jolly then grumpy but all I could think of was the "I Love to Laugh" song from Mary Poppins where they describe all the ways different people laugh. The last people I would like to tell you about were the "We are going to be your nurses someday if we pass this test" girls. They were also fairly obviously college girls and they came in with piles of notes and books. This is how the studying began: "So I'm just standing there while he comes in and and they had this whole big blow up before he left and then I helped her clean up her place for awhile and she's like a total clean freak. I mean I like stuff clean but blah, blah, blah..." and on and on she went. The other girl with her actually wanted to study unfortunately for her. Chatty Nurse to Be finally decided to get down to business and she went on and on about her system of studying with someone the night before "If she missed the question once I marked it with red pen, if she missed it the second time I hi-lited it, if she missed it 3 times, she got an orange mark. I spent about 10 hours typing up all these notes like this from the book... more blah, blah, blah." When she finally started asking her friend the questions, she was shocked that the friend knew the answers and said, "How do you know all these things?" I wanted to say, "I'm betting she has actually studied them." I didn't say anything though, I just kept on minding my own business. :) They have entertained the rest of us here with their loud, animated studying (which led me to my conclusion that they are studying to be nurses). So far I have heard them discussing questions about mucus, rectal pressure, the differences in hysterectomies and then there was a long debate over post menopause years which ended with the conclusion that they should look it up in the book. Once again, I am not making any of this up. Oh, and just for your own peace of mind, "I'm barefoot so shoot me" got up to apparently go to the restroom or somewhere else in the store away from the cafe and she put her roller blades on when she went. I guess it would be too gross to go there without shoes on. So here I thought I was going to have a boring morning just hanging out at Barnes & Nobles and it turned into and interesting day after all. :)
Author's note: names have been changed to protect people's privacy - actually, I didn't know any of their names so I had to make them up.

Making snowflakes

My dear daughter was at it again today. I heard the water running in the sink back in the little bathroom this afternoon. I didn't really think that much about it at first because earlier today, Kaelyn had gone back there and was playing with a bottle - filling it up, dumping it out, etc. She wasn't really hurting anything so I let her be (though she did end up quite damp). This time though after a little while I realized I still heard the water running so I went back to check it out. It certainly wasn't as tragic as it could have been (at least she hadn't plugged the sink or anything). She had gotten her shampoo off the bathtub and then climbed up on the counter and she had used up the rest of the bottle of shampoo. A few weeks ago the top had broken off of the lid otherwise she wouldn't have been able to get it open. There wasn't a lot in the bottle to start with but it certainly wasn't empty before. There were soap bubbles in the sink and on the counter and all over her. I grabbed my camera and went in to video her. I asked her what she was doing and by her own account, she was "making snowflakes". She shouldn't even know what snowflakes are since she's a Florida girl! You can hear my amusement on the video when she tells me that because I was a little surprised by her answer. I went and put my camera back and then went back in to get her and she was "washing her hair". At least that's what I'm guessing she was trying to do. She was rubbing a bunch of shampoo into the front of her hair till it was all matted to her head. I actually think that all of Kaelyn's antics recently might be my own mom's fault because I think she prayed all during my childhood that I would have days like this if I ever had kids of my own. :) What's more, I'm sure she (my mom) will find this all quite amusing - I don't know why - I was always such a a sweet, calm child that never had these "creative" ideas like my daughter has. Although I do remember spraying the bathroom spray on the bathroom walls lots of times when I was a kid pretending I was spray painting and that was one of the things my mom DIDN'T know about at the time(s). So anyway, Kaelyn's happily making snowflakes singing all the while and the sad thing about this whole story is that she was home sick today - supposedly. The school called me yesterday around lunch time because Kaelyn had a fever of 102. She hasn't had a fever at all today but has been coughing a bit and just seems run down and tired - well, at least she did earlier in the day. So I've decided, next time SHE GOES TO SCHOOL - unless I know she's dying, she WILL go to school. :) And Mama, you can stop praying now that I will have a kid just like myself. :)


The now empty bottle of shampoo.

You can't really tell it here but I was trying to get
a picture of all the soap in the front of her hair.