!!!!!!!!!!!!

1/28/11

Do you see what that says?!?!? "Hello, Mark...Your overall Application Status is: Awarded"

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!

If you haven't been following, the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program is for doctors, PA's nurses, dentists & hygienists, psychologists, etc. If you agree to work in a rural or medically under-served area in primary care medicine for two years, the federal govt. agrees to pay you $60,000 to go toward your student loans. If you serve for five years, you get up to $170,000. (We have $150K. *cough*) We were otherwise going to be making big fat payments for the next 25 years. Uuuuuuggghh....

So there I was this morning, eating my Lucky Charms and listening to some especially outer-spacey Angels and Airwaves music ("Et Ducit Mundum Per Luce") and I found an email for Mark headed: "Your NHSCLRP Disbursement" and almost peed my pants. Actually, I started crying.

You see, I started researching loan repayment programs back in like.....2006? I dunno. Then when Mark graduated, I found out that our state funded program had been axed. Finally, last spring I happened upon an article on MSN that talked about the NHSC (which I think I had looked into previously but the requirements had since changed). Thus began the ridiculously long and bureaucratic application process, which I first completed in June 2010. We heard nothing for five months, and then found out that they had run out of funding for that year. We had to wait another month or so before we could reapply, and in November 2010 we went through the whole process again.

This time they had a new program director who decided that you should get regular(!) online(!) updates and emails and that they should try to be organized(!) and everything, and this time it only took eight weeks. Needless to say we are a little excited.

High fives to Mark, my Health Care Hero!!! Our finances are saved!!!

I need to go make the man some brownies!

Why I'm going gray

1/24/11

I'm blaming the gray hair I found this morning on my kids. It's not my first gray hair, but it was almost six inches long and so was very alarming. Not that I don't LOVE wiping snotty noses and cleaning up after accidents and breaking up fights and staying up all night and getting bossed around within an inch of my life. That's what [my] children do!

Madelyn has been sick for a solid week and missed two days of school due to a high fever and a cough. She woke up last Tuesday morning and came in and said (slapping herself dramatically), "When I cough, it SPANKS me in the throat!" She did however feel well enough to demand that I make a birthday cake for her stuffed animal Lamby, who "is turning five." Madelyn thinks that you don't actually turn your new age until you've blown out some candles on a cake. And never underestimate the persistence of this girl. I've been thinking that she'd be an excellent attorney someday.

 

Uh....happy birthday Lamby! Many happy returns!

 

 Her new glasses arrived last week. Her old prescription wasn't strong enough and I lucked out and got a free pair with a Coastal Contacts promotion. I was dubious about choosing glasses online, but it was either that or pay $$$ somewhere around here. She loves them because they are pink and have hearts on the sides. And she actually wears them! Woo-hoo!!

The Miss has also been drawing an awful lot lately. She's very good at portraying her emotions. She drew this, folded it up and handed it to me the other day:

 

She was upset because I had made her turn off the TV or wouldn't let her have chocolate milk for dinner or something like that. I am so mean!! (Every time I see this drawing I bust up laughing, though. It is just SO sad!)

But when she's happy, she's all hearts and sparkles and sunshine:

 

Note the flourish on the "N" and the pretty eyelashes on the big heart. She is so very girly.

Luke has his own brand of mischief, which by now you are all familiar with. Madelyn's constantly tattling on him for messing with the computer/our phones/the remote/the garbage/shoving DVDs into the VCR/ jumping on the beds, etc.

 

He thinks he's such a stud muffin standing on the furniture...

 ...leaving surprises for us in the tub...

...turning the lights off and on, off and on, off and on, off and on...

 

...standing in his swing, turning it on high and going for a ride...

 "helping" sort through my stuff in my cleaning extravaganza

 

...and getting to go in the ♥garage♥ (which is like Disneyland to him) to help daddy build a nifty little contraption for sorting our recycling:

 

He is starting to talk more (gibberish and general exclamations: "Wooaaaa!") and is Mr. Personality Plus. If you say, "Where's Mister?" he'll play peek-a-boo. It's the cutest thing ever.

 

 Well.......I guess  they're worth a few gray hairs. Just let it be known that they owe me a lot of chocolate for Mother's Day.

Outtakes

 1/20/11

I guess these aren't really outtakes--they're just the rest of our family pictures from November that I received a couple days ago. Aren't they awesome?!? Thanks again, Sammi! Check out her website here.

Maybe he just needs to grow another 18 inches

1/17/11

I should be cleaning the garage right now, which is why I decided to do a post. This seems like a WAY better idea.

Mr. Luke is still in training to become a mountaineer, as you can see. And I'm not sure if this will be a passing thing, since Madelyn still can't just sit on a chair like a normal human being. It's perch precariously or nothing. Sigh.

*Note how pleased he looks with himself in all these pictures.

It's come to this:

 

We can't keep the chairs closer than three feet from the table or he's up on top of it or the computer desk messing with stuff/about to fall off and break his neck. Fabulous how I can no longer take a potty break (or shower/get dressed/cook) without him attempting death defying stunts when I'm not looking. As I type this, he's trying to climb onto my lap and onto the desk so he can poke at the monitor and reach all the forbidden electronics. Just last night, he deleted a huge email just before I had a chance to send it, and this morning he called my sister and left a long voicemail of empty silence.

 

 Stinker.

We had a lovely weekend: the drain in our laundry room kept backing up and spewing water, flooding the pantry several times and seeping out into the kitchen under our 10-month old laminate flooring and making the edges warp:

 

 I guess it could have been worse, but it is super annoying. I keep tripping over all these edges that are poking up by 2mm. Luckily Mark was able to get things moving again with a 50-foot plumbing snake and plenty of caustic drain cleaners. Meaning the laundry maid (me) has to resume work today.

We also had friends over and Mark made his dad's egg rolls--his dad (Mark's Gpa) was a Chinese immigrant who had his own Chinese restaurant. I think they're awesome--pretty mild and not too salty. You can buy the egg roll wrappers at Smith's in the produce section next to the tofu and the sushi supplies. The bamboo shoots and water chestnuts should be in the Asian food aisle. We're thinking about buying a mini food processor so we can make these (and my salsa) more often--there's a LOT of chopping involved.

 

 Egg Rolls

by Frank Yoder

1 1/2 cups celery

1 8 oz. can bamboo shoots

1 8 oz. can water chestnuts

1/2 large onion 

1/2 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. Accent (MSG powder--shield your eyes, mom)

1 1/2 T. vegetable oil

1 tsp. salt

dash pepper

1 cup cooked, chopped pork

1 lb. package refrigerated egg roll wrappers

vegetable oil for frying

 Dice everything into very small pieces and combine in medium bowl. Place a few tablespoons into each egg roll wrapper and fold according to package directions. Deep fry in oil heated to 350º F until golden brown. Drain on paper towels. Serve with white rice and soy sauce, if desired. Makes about 20.

Hope you all have a good MLK day--may we all strive for peace and harmony in our lives, and clean garages. Wish me luck on mine.

Updates and ANOTHER recipe

 1/14/11

Well, folks, it's been a while since I've done a regular post since recipes have taken over my brain. The latest happenings:

Mark had something big and exciting happen at work this week. But I'm not allowed to blab about it (like I normally would...party poopers...). Part of it involves him being in the final stages of *hopefully* being approved for the NHSC, which would pay his student loans. Hallelujah and praise the Lord!!

Ear wax update: After using three ear candles in each ear, Mark still had to bring home his earwax removal doodad from the clinic to remove a GIANT wad from Madelyn's left ear. There's another giant wad in her right ear, but it's packed up against her eardrum so we're trying to use ERO drops to get it out. I know you've all been on pins and needles for this update. You're welcome.

I think I want to marry this product:

I saw a couple people post about using Scrubbing Bubbles to clean their grout on facebook, and eventually I figured out what they were talking about. This little tool works like one of those sonic toothbrushes with high vibrations and a lovely blaring noise, plus I bought the accompanying cleaning spray. (Tool is $12.99 at Walgreens, and the spray is $3.99. I couldn't find either at Wal-mart.)

You see, my kitchen table has a tile-top, and the grout has bugged me for YEARS. It was used when we got it and so there's got to be at least 10-year old grime in there, and not for lack of cleaning on my part. If you have small children nearby, you might want to shield their eyes for the "before" picture:

Blllllleeeeecchhh!

So yesterday I spent about an hour blasting the heck out of that grout with my new tool, first with the Sonic Scrubbers cleaning spray and then with Soft Scrub with Bleach. And........

 

 It's a MIRACLE!!!!!!!!!!!

 Of course, I have been planning to knock the tile out of this table and replace it with either new tile or wood, so my victory might be short lived. But never fear, I have about a mile of tile-covered countertops to clean as well. And who knows, now that it's actually clean, I might leave the table as it is!

 Luke had to give it a closer look. He's already plotting how to scribble on the grout with green crayon like Madelyn did in the hall bathroom.

Speaking of my little miscreant: 

(I love the view of him from the back)

Mark put a serious damper on his recreational activities:

AHA!!!! Take that!

These drawers (and the ones in my bathroom) were the last to finally be safety latched. I could tell when Luke discovered this because I could hear him screaming bloody murder from all the way up in the attic in the garage. Mark said he was turning red from straining to open the drawers. Although he did discover a faulty one on the entertainment center and was quite happily taking DVDs out of their cases this morning.

And last but not least:

We finally finished Lost! We had been faithful devotees for the first three seasons when they were on TV, but then we moved and didn't get it anymore and meanwhile, the series finished without us. Cue Netflix Watch Instantly (which as we all know is the best invention ever). So starting around Thanksgiving, we started watching a few episodes a night...

This is one of those shows that always ends on a cliff hanger and brings up more questions than answers. It's maddening and thought provoking and makes you have trippy dreams about alternate realities, time travel, existentialism, and why you should always have a rifle with you when stranded on an island. The ending blew my mind. We hardly know what to do with our free time now that it's over. Do you have a favorite TV series?