Repairs From Within

Just a quick update for those of you following Oldest Daughter's burn saga - it's been 10 days since the burn and tonight she let us dry it after cleaning and said touching it didn't hurt. We have it wrapped lightly in gauze so it can breathe and hopefully it will start drying out and tightening up by morning.

I've spent most of today working on my competition piece for the HBS Creatin' Contest, but nothing I can post. I'm quickly learning why miniaturists say that private builds are such a downer :-/

We beat the record sales total at the book fair by almost $2,000. I clearance priced almost all of my Etsy stuff last week and a lot of stuff got snapped up. Hopefully getting rid of older stuff that's been kicking around too long will help spark some new ideas. That's all I've got that's fit to share for now. Maybe new stuff in the next few days - my muse has been hanging around a little lately, so we can hope. Thanks for stopping by :)

The Never Ending Story

I didn't get much work done yesterday. I glued two pieces of wood together and then that was the end of that. I did, however, get in contact with one of my closest friends that I haven't been in much contact with for the last ten years. I met her and her husband through one of my ex-boyfriends. We went to their wedding in January of 2004. That boyfriend and I broke up in the summer of 2004 and that was mostly the last I saw the friend and her husband. I've talked to her a couple times on facebook over the years, but nothing that lasted. Well I looked her up yesterday after getting a nagging feeling that I needed to check on her. She has three beautiful little girls between 2 1/2 and 7 1/2... and her husband got very sick and died pretty suddenly in December of 2012. I'm still stunned by this news and so saddened for her and the girls. Also, I'm suddenly painfully aware of the passage of time. So we're friends on facebook now and I'm discovering that no matter how much time passes, we always seem to pick up right where we left off.

Shortly after talking to her I got a call from Son's school saying he was "acting strangely" after an incident where they noticed him laying on the ground outside but he seemed to be fine and they'd watch and see what happened. They called about an hour and a half later and said that things weren't improving. Husband and I went to pick him up when they said he'd been laying on the ground with his eyes twitching and when they checked on him he got up to run but ended up getting dizzy and falling back to his knees. Then they took him inside and they noticed his eyes weren't tracking what he was supposed to be looking at on a computer screen. He was very angry with us for having to miss the Valentine's party at school.

We took him to the doctor right after we took him out of school. So far, things are pretty inconclusive. The doctor seems to think he had a seizure, but there isn't anything they can do about it unless he starts having repeated occurrences. Some people have one and then never have another. It might also be a heart problem or a virus. He will go in for an EKG next week to eliminate the possibility of a heart problem and we're watching him closely this weekend to see if he displays any signs of illness. So I dunno. He seems fine now though, whatever it was.

So that's what I've got today. Still hoping for a quick cessation of the recent string of injuries and illnesses plaguing our house. Thanks for stopping by :)

Feel the Burn

Yesterday was my final day at the Scholastic Book Fair at Son's school, and we had a parent-teacher conference at the same time. Mostly good news, thankfully. We'd met (or very nearly) the sales goal for the year by the end of the night and there is still all day today and tomorrow. So YAY!

While Husband and I were gone, Grandma cooked dinner. She took the chicken out of the oven and for some reason, Oldest Daughter grabbed the pan. Her had has a pretty bad burn and we're going to the doctor this morning as soon as we can get in. I didn't know about it until I got home because I'd forgotten my phone when I left. So this is what we're dealing with this morning.

I worked most of nap time yesterday on my house, but not tons of progress because I glued a couple pieces together wrong and had to go back and fix mistakes. It was probably better that I had to quit and go to the school since it wasn't going so well anyway. 

In the interim of all this book fair and kids hurting themselves, I've completely spaced that tomorrow is Valentine's Day. Thankfully we never actually celebrate it on February 14 so I'm sure it doesn't matter that it will be late, especially since I already told him. We have stuff for both girls and we'll have to find something for the boy and Grandma and then we can call it good for what HAS to be on time. 

That's all I've got. I'm off to call the Dr's office and see if we can get in soon. Thanks for coming by :)

Foghorn

Youngest Daughter and I just got home from Children's Hospital North where she got her pinkie finger x-rayed after getting it smashed in the fire door to the garage this morning. The bones are fine but there may be a lot of bruising and her nail may blacken and fall off over the next few days.

I've worked some more on my Victorian yesterday, and you can read about my progress here. It was the first time in months that I didn't have to force myself to get started after finding tons of excuses to do other things. In a short while, I'll be putting the kid down for a nap and I'm very excited to get back to it - even doing mundane things like cutting tons of pieces of wood and priming more stuff.

So that's that. Thanks for coming by :)

I like to move it, move it

I've made a separate blog for my dollhouse and miniature stuff, which you can find here.

Husband cut his finger with a meat knife yesterday and had to go to urgent care and get it glued and bandaged closed. I spent Saturday modifying a necklace for my neighbor. Other than that, it was a pretty uneventful weekend.

This is the last week of the book fair and my only commitment is to work on Wednesday night for five hours or so and go to a parent-teacher conference. I'll be glad when it's over with for the year. Tonight I'll be driving Grandma down to Littleton so she can go to the Colorado Center for the Blind tomorrow - she's taking braille classes every week and goes to a blind seniors support group on Tuesdays.

Not much else to report. Thanks for stopping by :)

Glass Cabinet

My competition kit was delivered late yesterday, and after discovering that it's MDF (medium density fiberboard) that's hard as the dickens to cut, this will be the telling factor in whether or not I ever willingly participate in the construction of another house made of the same stuff. I may have to make some major modifications to it just to get it to open up enough for photos and furniture placement, so now I'm debating whether or not to continue on with my plan for it.

My gloss glaze and my India Ink came yesterday also, so I can start on my stained glass and rolled glass windows for my San Franciscan as soon as I get the leading done (which is way harder than it looks). I started the leading on the front door the other day, but I've scrapped it and will start again. I've got some thinner, more flexible acrylic to take the place of my plexiglass, and I'm going to modify the pattern a bit so it isn't so full of fussy little triangles and steep angles. Husband and I went last night to get door hinges (because I don't want to use the pin hinges that came with it) and a cutting mat and some parts for the competition piece. I'm going to have to decide on colors soon, because the San Franciscan is supposed to be painted as it's being built.

The Scholastic book fair started on Monday. I dropped my cactus off, finished except for top flowers, on Monday afternoon and by Tuesday night someone had broken it. Of course. So fixing that is at the top of the list of things I have to do when I go over this afternoon. Husband is taking Son over tonight so that Son can use some of his piggy bank money to buy some books he wants. Then Husband and I will pick out more books for the boy and both girls either tonight or next Wednesday night when we go for our parent-teacher conference.

I actually got all but two of my loads of laundry done yesterday and I've loaded the dishwasher and swept and mopped the kitchen this morning, so in theory, Youngest Daughter will take a  nap and I'll have a large portion of this afternoon to look at projects or take a nap or....

With that, it's time for me to let the dogs out and make lunch for the kid. Thanks for stopping by :)

A Painted Lady -

Here's a picture of my dollhouse box, and a cat that was very curious about this new thing. Husband and I opened it up and took inventory last night and amazingly it has all the pieces except one little chunk of siding. I'm going to ask my brother-in-law if he can make me a couple pieces if I send him one to copy. We have colors picked out (none of which are the pale blue or bright red that everyone seems to have used when I pull up a Google images search of the house). It's going to be gothic-y, because that's what I do best.

We have some small changes planned, like for the brick work around the foundation (which in the directions is made by mixing up a sand paste and smearing it over a brick pattern template and pulling the template away) and different, stronger glass for the windows and doors. As it were, the whole thing smells like it's been sitting in a smoker's house for 20 years (which is very possible) so I'm really looking forward to sanding and priming it at the very least. We're also going to build a bigger support board for extra support, outside landscaping, and (most importantly) to house the lighting components. Also, we're not using the flooring strips that came with the kit - it's awful and has no creative design to it. 

I will say that the people I bought it from made it painfully obvious that they've never built a dollhouse before. They said they'd recently bought it so they could put it together for their daughter for Christmas, they were amazed at the number of pieces, and they apparently had no clue of the potential resale value. So their loss is my gain and I'm more than a little excited by that. 

So there it is. I can get started on it early next week, in theory, after I'm done with the cactus and the jam for the book fair.