What was I thinking? First, I painted over old hardwood floors (GASP!). I know, I know...it was shameless. But here is why. 17 yrs ago, when we bought the house, we wanted a whitewashed finish on the floors. We vacated the premises for a week and let the refinisher guy do his thing. Well, he was new to the business, and you get what you pay for. We came home to dark cherry stained floors. He said they were too damaged to whitewash. I was disappointed, but they did look nice, and what were we gonna do? That was 3 kids ago. Fast forward through 3 toddlers, tonkas, 2 cats, airsoft b-b's, and a host of other hard knocks and we have floors in desperate need o refinishing again. Ugh. I talked to two fellas this summer, each with a different process, and both said I needed to get the paint off the floor before they would work on it because it would gum up their equipment. So that's what I am working on. This product goes on thick and is supposed to work miracles. For the price it should. It does not. It covers roughly half the area the can says it should, and dries out too fast. Then the amount of scraping required is unreal! I have been all day scraping and have only cleared about 30 sq ft of 144! I will never EVER paint a wood floor again, nor will I ever EVER try to strip one myself! What a nuisance! The second photo above isn't very clear, but shows how the floor bubbles up while the process is working.

My girl was in the newspaper yesterday with her interpreter, although they said she was in 2nd grade instead of 3rd- she was very quick to point out to me. It was a wonderful photo of her and an article about her interpreter. http://www.pressconnects.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071227/COLUMNISTS01/712270319/1022/COLUMNISTS

OMGosh, is it possible that I've not blogged in almost a year? How sad is that???!!! Good Grief! Anyway, lots of things happening and changes coming up to blog about these days. First, I took leave from my DTM position at SBB. I had to focus on my kidsters, on learning sign language for Claire as she is rapidly out-pacing me, and on some health issues. I was hanging dangerously close to diabetes as my weight was out of control and had been for some time. My mom and sis already battle with it and why I wasn't yet was a miracle. I needed to get a handle on that. So, while it was a hard thing to do...I'd been a DTM I think for about 4 years!...I knew I was doing it for the right reasons and it needed to be done. Sadly, I haven't scrapped nearly enough since then as all those deadlines kept me on my toes, but, I hope to pick that up again.

And I have met some of those goals! I have lost about 80 lbs so far! An advantage to being tall is that I can carry more extra weight than people realize (that's also a huge disadvantage as it's easy to just ignore it creeping up up up!). Pffft....I guess telling you what I've lost gives you a fair clue as to how much extra I was carrying though, eh? :) I still have some more to lose, but it's coming off much more slowly now and that's okay. I'm 5'10 and wear a size 20 now, and feel a thousand times better. If I ever see a 12 or 14 again, fabulous, if not, I feel better and look better than I have in years and I'm good with that! And losing it will keep me around for my babies for a few years longer!

I am also a college grad! WooHoo! It feels good to say that! Not that an AAS in Humanities/Communications with a concentration in ASL and Deaf Studies is going to get far in the jo market, but I did it for my daughter. And I think it will allow me to be a substitute teacher where we are moving (more on that below!). I was able to take some wonderful classes and learned soooooo much! I will still be making that horribly long drive 4 days a week for one last semester as this is the first time they will have offered ASL IV and I will be auditing that class. Why auditing and not for credit? Because I get to slack a it! Not really... I don't need the credits and I get to take the class withiut the pressure of exams, which totally works for me since I will have the pressure of getting my household ready to move at the same time!

Yes, we are moving! To Indianapolis!!!!!! We visited the NC school for the Deaf last year and seeing Claire communicate so easily and naturally with all of the children there, made us realize that she deserves that every single day. So we started looking into education at Deaf schools around the country. Thanks to my Deaf Culture class, an ASL class and research I needed to do for some projects, we looked in bilingual-bicultural programs. Indiana has one of the best in the country. Claire and I visited there last week and fell in love with it! What an opportunity for her! Steve and I have such a positive feeling about this, that we know it's the right thing to do and really feel it is God-directed. Levi is sure the girls must be cute there, so he is ready to go go go. Ben, my shy guy, is a little more reluctant, but totally okay with it. So now we wait and work for the other pieces to fall into place...getting our home ready to list, selling it, finding a home and jobs there....etc. I have always been fortunate enough to stay at home with my children and want to be home with them when they need me, so finding a job in one of their schools would be ideal. Hoping!

That's the update for now! Hoping to be more regular with this and journal all these upcoming changes! Thanks for bearing with me!