Tea With Stephanie

I use a dressing table to dress in the morning and to get ready for bed at night. I use it to do my hair, put on makeup, get dressed etc. I have used one for quite a few years now and honestly would be quite lost without it. One of the side difficulties of moving our bedroom downstairs last spring was where my dressing table got moved too. It was moved into our bedroom under the window. The mirror I used to use with it would not work in the new location so after a bit of fussing I had come up with a small tri-fold mirror I put on top of my jewelry box. It was not ideal but it worked ok. Then it nearly caused a major problem. Devin lightly bumped my table one day and everything came crashing down everywhere. I was lucky nothing broke. I was informed that finding a better attached mirror solution needed to be a priority.

Here is the before photo of my very messy dressing table.

I wish I could say it was neat, organized and very pretty all the time but that would be a lie. It is a well loved and used piece of furniture.

For the last several months I have been looking at second-hand stores, Craigslist, antique stores and even furniture stores for a new dressing table or mirror. Most of them I did not like and would not fit the space I have available in the master bedroom for my dressing table. I also noticed that a lot of old dressing tables were missing mirrors. Then just this last week at our local Goodwill I found an ugly mirror with two drawers under it. I tested it out and on a table it would be just the right height for a dressing table mirror. A can of primer, white semi-gloss spray paint, and two new knobs later I had a pretty mirror for the top of my table. The best part was that I was able to screw it to the table from the back and secure it with a couple of brackets. Now a knock into my table might knock a few things over but most things will be secure.

And another of just the top…

My table it much neater and the whole space is brighter and easier to keep clean. I did lose my jewelry box so had to be creative about where to put that. I put my makeup in the two drawers just under the mirror, and my jewelry got moved into the top right hand drawer.

I am so pleased with my project and have already enjoyed the new space.

In no particular order

1. My ball makes a great substitute for a desk chair keeping me a lot more ergonomic and not hunching over.

2. My exercise ball is now in a safe and convenient place for me to use it for exercise and especially stretching.

3. People are less likely to sit in my chair and get on my computer now, not everyone likes to sit on the exercise ball.

4. I can bounce along to music or just bounce slightly on my ball while I am working on my computer.

5. I do not dread sitting at my computer to do things nearly as much.

6. I got to toss my desk chair that I despised out of my room and do not ever have to sit in it again.

7. My ball fit into the opening of my desk perfectly like it was meant to go there.

8. In just the last week my core and low back have already gotten stronger.

9. It is a lot more fun to sit on a ball than a chair. No one cares that I twitch and jiggle constantly nearly as much.

10. The chair pissed me off and the ball makes me happy.

Lots of things have been happening and I doubt I could even remember them all so I am going to dig up a few photos to share of the last few months.

The 1st day of September we went to the local fair at the Evergreen State Fairgrounds here in Monroe. My little brother Christopher was up as well though for some odd reason I do not have a single photo of him. Weird. Well I did find a photo of him from either before or after we went to the fair that day.

So the children’s friends came with us and here are some photos of them at the fair enjoying their treat. 

Mom thought this chainsaw sculpture was really neat so wanted a photo with it

Also in the middle of September I got a giant pile of wood chips delivered.

  This is the before photo. It took over a month to get the entire thing moved! Now nearly every single bed around my house it filled with wood chips. It is helping with the weeds though lots more need to be dug up under the several inches thick wood chips. I will plan on taking some photos when it is warmer and neater outside. The wind and the cold is not making it look pretty at all.

The kids started school and like a complete space-case I totally and completely forgot first day of school photos. Alaric is in his last year of Elementary school in 5th grade and while we were unsure at the beginning of the school year if we liked his teacher we are pleased with her now. Treanna is in 7th grade and has a couple of favorite teachers again this year but otherwise has all new teachers and it really doing well.  Here is the kids with their new to them laptops that they got from Dad just in time for school to start. They have to check them in and out and the priority is for school work but so far it has worked out great.

Near the end of the month we had a day at the Camp-O-Rama for the local boy scout council. This time both Devin and I went with Alaric for the day to the beautiful Camp Brinkley.  

We stayed through the closing campfire but I think the above were two of the best photos of the day. Alaric in the second one is doing a mountain bike race with his pack and this was his second go-around after a spectacular wipe-out the first time.

Then our boy turned 11 and here are some photos from his birthday.

His special A shaped breadstick.

Him and his cake!

I think that pretty much sums up September. I do know that in the middle of the month Alaric did the scouting for food at the local Fred Meyer’s and they all managed to collect a lot for the local food bank. Plus the kids had school photos which I will remember to scan and put up sometime. The only other significant event is that we had started attending church again and have been attending since then.

My new windows 7 computer that Devin put together for me is all finished. I was even able to put it in my desk earlier today. There are a few things I will need to get used to about the new system but I think I can live with it.  Now if we could just fix my email I would be much happier. My email has been broken since January. My new computer system was originally put together in January as well. Things are just taking a long time to get completed. I know I have been busy and procrastinated a lot of things as well but I am striving to get caught up and better organized. Sometimes I regret not taking more before photos. I have been so busy doing that I have not been documenting what all we have been doing nearly enough.

We had the opportunity to purchase some strawberries recently and so purchased a rather large amount. I don’t know if I had ever seen a five gallon bucket of strawberries before. 

After we bagged it all up we had a total of 25 pint size bags for the freezer.

Yes I know I have not been updating. I realized that I was having attitude failure and since I had decided to really only keep my blog positive and informative I was struggling with things to write. This is not a journal I don’t write everything, I keep this the high points of my life as a way to share with family and friends.

 On the technical side it was time consuming to embed the photographs that I wanted of the kids and such. I am still undecided about how to do that part or make it easier to do.

I am hoping that since I am mentally in a place where I am wanting to post again that I will start doing so.
 

I got a link to a post today about parallels between the Episcopal Church's relationship with the Anglican Communion and domestic violence.

It was interesting and really made me stop and think. I was in an abusive relationship for a year or so and it was very difficult to wake up enough to leave. Even then I cried through several states as I left. At times I think it was the most courageous thing I ever did and also the most difficult. There is such a slippery slope to abuse that often it is only when it starts to get really bad do you realize just how far you are in it.

There are some valid points to the claims of abuse. I think however that an anomynous commentor to the blog is correct in saying that we don't need to be vicitmized, we have the power to evict the abusers from our church ourselves. I am still not sure that is the right answer either but I do think something other than "talking" needs to be done. Of course being a non-cradle episcoplian as well as being only 33 makes me a non-typical member. I am young enough to constantly be ignored and yet sought out because I am young.  

http://wildernessgarden.blogspot.com/2006/10/thing-that-has-helped-me-most-in.html 

Treanna and I had a good time doing the filming for the TV
Eucharist at King Broadcasting in Seattle.
She did great and I was really proud of her. I did get permission and took a
couple of pictures. I uploaded three of them to her photo gallery.
She got to see a helicopter land and the News center.

I have managed to mostly complete my to-do list for this
week and still do plenty of outings as well. I even cleaned the carpets.

I have also had a friend’s grandson a couple of days this
week as he and Alaric are the same age. The boys have enjoyed playing together
and yesterday we went to the Reptile
Zoo/ Serpentarium that is about 2 miles from our house. This place has an
amazing collection of unique reptiles including the 10 deadliest snakes. I
personally liked the albino alligator and the HUGE albino python. My most
favorite of all the things I saw was the 2 headed Red Slider Turtle. It was
really neat and not nearly as freaky as I thought it would be.

Had a bit of trouble staying asleep, so I decided to just
get up instead of lay there awake. This does not happen to me too often, just
every now and then. I sure hope today’s weather will be nicer than it looks
now. It would be very nice to have clear skies for the cruise this evening.

Thanks to Devin working steadily on it yesterday afternoon and evening, I now have a working computer again. I am in fact typing this at my own desk on my own computer with all of my stuff plugged in and working! Even my microphone and webcam works so I can use Skype.

I think the computer working was my Mother’s Day present from Devin. The children however each made me a card and a cute little present. Alaric made me a ladybug outdoor thermometer and a cute card about what Mom’s can and can’t do. The most memorable can’t is Mom’s can’t eat garbage! Treanna made me a cute card with her and I gardening in dresses on the front. Inside the card had a bouquet of flowers that had chores she was willing to do were written on the stem. It was adorable. They also made me breakfast in bread. I had toast with Marmalade, a bowl of cereal, and tea. Yes they made me tea and it was even good tea! I was so proud of them. They brought up the tea tray with a pretty teacup and the teapot. I had my milk for my tea in one creamer and milk for my cereal in a different one. My cereal was in one of my nice bowls but my toast was on a paper plate! Alaric even filled one of my vases full of flowers for me to have in my room too. He stole flowers from my other arrangements and then grabbed my clippers and went outside to get some more. I had to laugh it was so cute and wonderful. They also each chose 2 movies for me to choose from that I could watch while staying in bed. We watched Lord of the Dance together. Later when I got downstairs I found out that they had even selected CDs and preloaded the stereo in case I wanted to listen to music. In all it was a good day.

Later this month Devin will be traveling for about 2 weeks out of the country. It will be interesting for the kids and I. I do know that before he leaves and hopefully next weekend we are going to the Japanese Gardens that are in the Washington Arboretum. We will probably just buy a family pass so we can go many times over the next year. In fact the children and I may go there while Dad is out of town too. The first weekend when he leaves we are heading down to see family that we have not visited in long time.

My garden is coming along but the grass is still growing. So many things are blooming, even the weeds. Some days it feels like the weeds are winning. I want to make me a potting bench for my garden and have even begun collecting wood and other stuff towards that goal. I now could use a chop saw and I would actually be able to make one.

Along with clearing off my desk so that I could actually get my computer and stuff there I have been working on my craft area. Treanna and I worked on a couple of her paint your own horse projects. I have managed to finish up a few other various little things and am planning on working on others. Today I even cleaned up some of the stuff that is going with me to on my visit later this month. I have 2 big boxes and Alaric and I need to finish going through the trains so we can get the last box ready to go. It will be very nice to be able to say my area is organized and able to just pick up whatever project I want.

After being sick nearly 3 weeks I am finally all better! This was a weird sickness and it really sucked. Fortunately I was the only one that
seemed to come down with it. Unfortunately I think my mother got the same
thing.

I am no longer in danger of running low on tea. Between a
trip to Everything Tea in Snohomish and seeing the lovely Bonnie Rose of Teatime Garden at the show my mother just did, I now have plenty.I picked up some more
northwest breakfast, Scottish breakfast, and Raspberry Earl Grey from
Everything Tea. From Bonnie I got more of the Black Orange Spice and the
Morning Glory Grapefruit. I should probably still pick up some more various
green teas as well as some more white teas.

After receiving a small shipment of Victoria magazines I now only have 4 holes
in my collection. I even have a small pile of my doubles that will be going to
a friend I met because of Victoria. Needless to say I am delighted that my collection is nearing completion. My next goal will be to complete my collection of the books. I have quite a few already so it should not take me that long.

I have tried to keep a bunch of lilacs on my table lots
lately. The whole area seems to budding or flowering. My garden is really
starting to bud and I am so pleased to see that I may have lots of peony
blossoms this year. My bleeding hearts are blooming like crazy and I sure hope
they go all summer long. Even my Hostas are up and my daylilies budding. Of
course there are lots of weeds as well. I did get some of the edges weed whacked
but already need to mow the lawn again. The ugly bush in front has been
butchered some and I am hoping to kill that thing this year.

I am currently working on clearing my craft table and my
desk so that I will actually have a place to put all my peripherals for my
computer. If I actually get a working one soon like Devin thinks may happen. I
should also be able to get out my sewing machine to do some mending and the
annual turning jeans into shorts for the children. Who knows I may even do some
projects for myself like make an apron.

When my mother was here last weekend her and I actually did
a whole day of yard sales. We must have picked just a great weekend and a good
part to go. We had lots of sales and found quite a bit of stuff. We went to
some very nice ones too. My mother got herself a cute little old red lap desk,
it is wonderful! I got some napkins to match one of my tablecloths, some
clothes for Treanna in the next size up, some pretty fabric, a 50 yard roll of
washable beige grosgrain ribbon that is about 2 inches wide at least, some
bionicle books for Alaric, a lunch box for fall, and a cute lime green leather
purse for me.

For the past week or so I have been sick. Not deathly ill but just some sort of crud that has me coughing and a sore throat. Fortunately I think I am on the mend and should be better for sure in the next week. The house did not fall apart while I was sick. I rested and coughed my way through several books.

The children and I have been working on being completely on time every day to school. They have quite a few more late days than I would like them to. Sometimes we cannot avoid it because we do not control the train schedule.

We have had several days of nice weather recently. Due to the nice weather I have been outside a bit attacking my yard. I have mowed and weeded just a little at a time over the last few weeks. Today I finally finished the mowing and did a bit more weeding than normal. I am also butchering the large bush in my front yard that I hate. Ugh I really just want to kill the thing. Plus with all the other lovely flowers the dandelions are blooming as well. I did get a beautiful dark pink bloom on my tree peony this year!

Today I walked down to the doctor’s office and picked up some medicine I have not had a chance to start before. This one is specifically for my liver and my doctor has been pleased with all the results of everyone who has been on it so far. I started it today so who knows what all will happen. On the way back I stopped and cut me some lilacs (after I asked permission). I also happened to talk to another neighbor and asked him if I could cut some as well. He brought me a large bunch and then thanked me because he was going to go cut some for his wife. I now have a lovely vase of white lilacs and another of some light purple lilacs. They smell so wonderful.

Of course to top everything off I am starting to run out of tea. Not dangerously so but enough to cause me some concern.