In Like a Lion, and Lots of Boring Stuff

Wow, when did March get here?  Here in the Midwest it has arrived lion-style.  I can do without the sustained 30 to 40 mph winds.  I've discovered that I don't sleep well on windy nights. Until 3 years ago, we had 100 foot tall pines plumb against the house.  They were top heavy, having been plantation planted many, many years ago, meaning they only had needles near the tops where they could get sun.  The lower branches die off.  When we cleared the lot to build the house, these top heavy trees really, really swayed  in the wind.  When they have forest friend trees, they sway less, supporting one another.

So to make a short story long, for 10 years I wondered which tree was going to come crashing down into the house.  Given how our house is constructed (with structural insulated panels~~SIPs), if they were to hit the roof, there are no rafters to stop them.  I feared that one of the kids would be killed in his bed.  We finally took down the trees that were tall enough to hit the bedrooms of the house.  I still don't sleep well on windy nights.  Sigh.  The good news is that we didn't have any tornadic activity here, but I'm waiting to see if a call comes out from the Red Cross for shelter volunteers.  Sadly, I can't go this week, since we're getting ready for All Things DD Day next Sunday.

So here's the catching up news.  I begin work at YNP on May 13.  Yea!  I called two of the parks that are closer to me (so to speak), but one didn't hire anyone new this year, and the other had two new positions and 5 military vets on the list who qualified.  Oh well.  Too bad for me, Yellowstone is my fall-back position.  ::grinning grinning grinning::  Since I've made this trip 4 other times, I'm not going to sweat the details this time.  A week or so before I leave I'll check the weather maps and pick a route.  I prefer the North Dakota route, which is actually shorter, but if they or eastern Montana are having blizzards, we'll go the Iowa way.  But if Iowa is having tornadoes, we'll go north.  Sheesh. We still haven't found a room mate for Tommy but I'm plugging away at it. 

Other news on the nature front, our buzzards are back and they are waaaaaay early!  The woodcocks are back in NW Ohio, but I haven't heard any right here yet.  Now that bluebirds and robins are year-round residents it's a little harder to get excited about them.  But they are so much brighter now.  The goldfinches started showing more gold two weeks ago.  And since the raccoonnss totally trashed the feeders a couple of weeks ago, we haven't fixed them, so no feeding at the moment.  Drat.  That's on this week's To-Do list.

In housekeeping news, we have 5 or 6 projects running all at the same time.  Now I confess that when I'm sewing, I often have multiple projects in the works.  But they pack up nice and neatly in to smallish bags are are put on the shelf.  When DH has a project in the work, it involves getting out every tool he owns, which he never,  I repeat nEveR puts away.  It's always my fault that he can't find stuff.  I use my best passive-aggressive approach to get him to do it, but alas, he's totally immune to that.  (Probably the reason he looks to be only pushing early 60s instead of the actual 71 that he is, he can easily let things roll off his back.)  Then I finally get pissed off and put it away.  "Away" now means a small, rolling scaffold that is now his tool pile. You should see the size of his workshop.  Truly, it's huge.  And truly he can't find a damn thing.  I've labelled, corralled, marshaled stuff, worked with him, worked without him, all to no avail.

So to make another short story long, we have several projects all strewn all over.  We've finally picked a design for the quilt display rack in the dining room which is now painted a fantastic yellow.  I'd show you the pics, but now the partially completed rack is on the table, the small table had to be moved to the center of the room, etc, etc..  Crap.  He's waiting to finish that until he speaks with his bro, the real woodworker who would kill someone if they don't put the tools back properly, but bro is getting a title to a new car and has his phone turned off.  Crap again.  (Okay, a few pics below.)

So the other huge project is in the basement.  Because of the design and construction of the house, we have two locations for utility systems.  We're now trying to hide the pump, conditioner, and basement floor heater, since they are next to the crafty corner and train stuff.  We've had lots and lots of ideas, all of which ended up with rolling doors.  He found some super cheap ones that will work perfectly. And omg, he got the end boxed in! We'll try to get it "paneled" tomorrow.  Tonight he's off to a Northwestern Ohio Rails to Trails annual planning retreat.

Foyer, before.

Dining room, before.

Dining room, during.

Foyer, after.

Other side of foyer, after.

The new beast..... yep, right in front of the boob tube in the family room.

Basement trains and a new moving wall on the far side.

New moving wall by the Crafty Corner.

What's behind door #8?  Yep, there's 8 individual sliding door panels.  Three of them will be joined together, so I can put my design wall on it.  At the moment, DH wants the other doors to remain singularly.  We'll see.

One of the doors moved, to access the freezer.  Pretty nifty.  The wall helps to cut down some of the pump noise.  And boy is it noisy.

So here are the things I didn't get to write about this week:
Quilt for swap is done.
Ranger Anderson quilts have been mailed (short version, we raised over $500 on the two quilts and stuff.)
All Things DD Day (Sun. March 11)
Whack-a-doodles Purple Toilet Quilt. (For auction May 11)
FTD and diabetes.
IEPs for both kids. ( One down, one to go, then meet with next school for DD)
Waiver option provider search continues.
First wedding ceremony scheduled. Friday, March 9)
Relaxing afternoon with my Sis at the Toledo Museum of Art. (Last Wednesday)
Little Turtle Service Unit Girl Scout Sing-along. (Saturday, March 10)
DH leaving for golf trip (hallelujah!) (Monday, March 12)

Girls' Night Out Cocktail Party--here on Friday the 16th~~ BE HERE!!

EDIT:  I forgot... PT for my screwed up Achilles tendon (the PTs said, "Hmmmm, we've never seen anything like that before.  Stay off your feet, and don't wear shoes that rub the back of your heel."  Yeah.  Right.)
PT for FTD's back--the slouchmiester.
Paint last two basement steps (tonight?  Get off the dang couch and step away from the computer!)
Paint basement stairs landing. (Ditto)


Other than that, not much happen' here......

Too Early to Pack?

Yes, Ranger Anna, mid-February is too early to pack for YNP. I had to stop myself from buying food staples the other day. I did pick up a shelf thingie for the bathroom in the apartment and put it in our cargo trailer for safekeeping.

We sort of have a plan for this summer. Being a seasonal ranger with kids who are still in school is on the unusual side, especially when school and park are 1700 miles apart. If our kids were typically developing, it might maybe be easier. But not by much. In the past, when we went to TR and Acadia, we just pulled the kids from school early and went back late. We figured if the truant officer wanted us, they knew exactly where to find us. Because of the kids' disabilities, they don't attend 'regular' classes per se. Our philosophy is that the kids can learn more tooling around the country than sitting in a boring classroom. Yet dragging kids with autism all over the place runs the risk of messing with their need for routine. Fortunately, very fortunately, for us, this type of disruption to schedules is well tolerated by the boys. I don't know if it's because we resisted tight schedules and rituals, or if they just don't have a propensity for it. School districts, however, want everyone and everything to be on one schedule--theirs. Tough tookies for them.

This year, FTD will 'graduate' from HS. He has more than enough credits to actually graduate, but if he isn't a full-time student, he looses DH's insurance. Medicaid will cover him (as long as he doesn't have more than $1500 in his bank account on the first of every month) and for that we are thankful, but we would still rather he be on our insurance. He'll attend the local vocational HS for hopefully two years. He'll age out then. They have a program for kids with special needs, helping them to acquire skills needed in the world of work.

Since it involves changing schools and learning new routines, we're fairly sure he should be there in the fall. Make that, in the summer. School starts on August 15, which should be criminal for a district that purports not to be a year round school.

DH and FTD will stay in Ohio, while DD and I drive out to work. DD will only miss three, maybe four weeks of school. His teacher sends packets along for him to work on. And I make him take care of the budget, miles traveled, etc.. It looks like he and I will fly back to Ohio a couple of days before graduation.

Then a couple of days after graduation, FTD and I will fly back out. DH will either drive out or fly out with us. We're still working out the issue of one or two cars. We've always taken two before, so the boys could go play while I go to work. I've never had access to a company car to get me to and from the office. At YNP, I can walk to the Madison Station and a car is theoretically available to drive to West. But if we don't get 3 cars for the crew, there might not be one available--maybe. One of the other rangers and his volunteer wife work with only one car, also. Last summer, he usually had dibs. But if DH and FTD need to make a run for something, and two of us rangers need to get to West at different times. . . well, it could get dicey. I'd love to get a scooter instead! We'll see.

But wait there's more! In order for this to work, we have to find someone to stay with DD here in Ohio. He can attend the day program at Bittersweet Farms, a nationally renown community for folks with autism. Best news is that it's just a couple of miles from us. We've got interviews with a couple of fellows, so that's looking promising. The apartment out west is just too small for two boys with such different needs. DD is the center of the universe (just ask him) and having to share a tiny bedroom, which was designed for one person, is tough. He also has issues dealing with both DH and I at the same time. We send subtle and different signals, being, well you know, parents~~ and he has trouble reading reading them. That makes him confused and angry. He takes that frustration out on FTD usually. And as DD would say, that no good.

And he'll go to the vocational HS next year also. Hopefully, he'll be there for four years. Keeping him interested for that long will be a good trick. If he stays home he can start at the new HS with no problems--except for the fact that sometime this summer, I also need to become his legal guardian. I might need to fly home for two trips this summer. I so wish the boys could just both come out and spend the entire time with DH and I. Makes me go back to thinking we either need to look to buy/rent/lease a place in West or just haul them out of school and not worry about full time jobs for them. Or I have to get a real job. Not. I did apply at CUVA, since our YNP jobs weren't posted for so long. I suppose if I got a GS-7 over there, we could make it work. Or a GS-5 or 7 at Perry's Victory. But that is unlikely to happen, since the tower will be closed this summer for repairs. Drat.

All this makes my head hurt. Too much thinking! Way too much worrying. Tomorrow, I'm going back to thinking about silly things.

Sewing Blitz

One of the really great things about knowing where I'll be next summer (assuming that The Call from YNP will happen soon) is that I don't have to wonder what to take for living. You know, stuff like pots and pans, linens, junk like that. There's at least an 80% if not higher chance that we'll be back in the same apt as last summer, so this week I finished curtains for each room. I stuck some fabric over the boys' window last summer, but this year I dug out ones I had made for their room in Acadia. I took my sewing machine with me then, hoping there would be room for it. Boy was there and we totally paid thru the nose for it.

But I wasn't sure what we'd have in YNP. Turns out that it's wonderful--all 664 square feet of it. Yeah, I know our Ohio house is three times that big plus the garage and the basement, but what the heck. And as great as our view is here--woods we actually own--there are no bison roaming around. I can actually do without the bears, but bison I miss. Wolves would be nice, but the occasional coyote here is nice, although they hardly ever howl here.

Our cabin in Theodore Roosevelt NP was the cutest of our housing places. It had a nice size bedroom with a closet, nice bath, small but cute kitchen, living room--which was the boys bedroom--how loverly, campground office, and front and back porches. We ate 95% of our meals on the back porch. Since there were no mosquitoes thank goodness, Tom and I pretty much lived out there. The boys each had a bed in the LR, along with the ratty couch, one small dresser, and a small closet. They set their game cube and vcr up on our traveling boxes and called it home. And I when we got home to Ohio, I went on a rampage and cleared out a lot of stuff that we don't need.

Living in a tiny space will do that to ya. Sadly, I'm still up to my eyeballs in stuff I don't need, but I've done pretty well getting rid of stuff I don't want. I even--gasp--got rid of lots of books!!! There are still some things I can't resist, but I'm soooo much better than before. For many years I kept myself on a strict rule about if I buy new clothes a like item has to go to the Goodwill. Then I was subbing and needed school clothes. I'm not subbing much now, so last week I pared down my school clothes. That felt good.

So what does all this have to do with a sewing blitz? All the curtains are done for the apt.. Venetian blinds are in each window, but I hate blinds with a passion, so now the place will have curtains. Our Ohio house doesn't have any curtains because who's going to bother looking here? Out there we have neighbors and tourists and all sorts of other interesting riff-raff. Not to mention the long summer nights and early mornings. And the curtains give a sterile apt. some flavor. I'd post pics of the place, but when 4 clutter-prone people live in a tiny space, it always looks messy. Ah hell, it IS always messy. I've got a couple of ideas on ways to try to do some clutter busting next summer, but as usual it involves serious re-training on 3 male members of the species. Wish me luck.

And for extra sewing fun, Amy and I are working on new cushions for her cool old "Heywood Wakefield" furniture. I was hoping to duplicate the shape and construction of the original cushions but after dinking with one for several hours that ain't gunna happen. So we re-grouped and got it figured out. The inner covers are done for the 3 bottom cushions (well, almost--they're all cut out that that's the pain in the butt part). Tomorrow I'll finish those, and in between errands, I'll start cutting out the outer covers, which will be simple black denim. We were hoping to put on piping, but again the pain in the butt factor is high there. Amy also has the good sense to want good looking simple stuff as opposed to poorly done cooler stuff. Yea.

Oh, and I also made 2 wee tiny pillow covers today, too. Gotta justify all those fat quarters that seem to jump into my cart at the fabric shop. . . .