My Overthinking

Philly Area mom, Life forever changed by adoption

Archives for February 2014

Shovel or snorkel?

Oh, weather channel. I’m not sure if your link to family activities is thoughtful or mocking me as I am buried in snow today with 4 children who now have attended 4 1/2 days of school over the last 3 weeks.

Screen Shot 2014-02-13 at 9.28.35 AM
We’re at about 10″ right now and counting. That’s a dog in the park across the street struggling to stay afloat in it all.

snowfall2
snowfall3

So happy to hear more is coming yet tonight because 10″ and then a wintry mix on top of that just doesn’t seem enough. I was really thinking it would be awesome to get something more like 14″ especially since our snowblower died in the last snowstorm.

Got to FaceTime Mark from Thailand this morning. Everyone at the conference is going snorkeling tomorrow in their partly sunny and 86 degrees weather. But, he’s going to take a day trip somewhere else with some folks because he doesn’t want to be out in the sun all day.

Well…here’s the good news….when I check the 10-day forecast…

Screen Shot 2014-02-13 at 10.25.05 AM

Together Called may see some rain showers but no snow. 

Clinging to this today:

No_Matter

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I should have googled something else

Perhaps I should have spent less time googling the weather in Pattaya, Thailand and more time googling the weather in Tokyo where Mark had his connecting flight to Bangkok.

Here’s the picture I received by iMessage at 5pm today.

Pattaya hotel

It’s no mistake that it’s blurry eyed; it clearly reflects the eyes of the photographer which happens to be my husband.

The picture was of the front of his hotel where he was just arriving…that’s right, at 5pm our time, 58 hours after he left on Friday morning. Apparently, Tokyo had it’s worst winter storm in 20 years right as his plane was arriving. Go figure. So, 24 hours were spent at the Tokyo airport with no restaurants open like one of those crazy scenes you see on the news when you say, “Oh my goodness, those poor people.” Yeah, he was in one of those scenes. He, along with 6 others who include my parents, finally got their 7-hour flight to Bangkok a day late and then enjoyed a 2-hour drive by van to the hotel where their conference is, only to have to wake up a couple hours later for breakfast and their first meeting.

Poor Mark. There must be some significant stuff happening on this conference.

As far as the home front goes, we had our own traveling excitement here. We spent 13 hours in the car in two days as we road tripped it to Virginia Beach for a wedding Saturday. It’s not 58 hours…but I did have the four children with me…so…if you use the kids-with-you-equation, than it was comparable to about 30 hours, I think.

Stuck in the United clubroom in Tokyo for 24 hours trumps that, I think.

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I shouldn’t have googled it

Here’s a glimpse of my view right now.

snow phoenixville
There’s a reason that you can see my dirty window and the screen. It’s too darn cold to step outside my house.

8″ of snow on Monday followed by another ice storm which caused massive power outages all over the place around here including at 4 of the 6 schools in our school district. In the last two weeks, my kids have gone to school for one half day. I’m not even sure their teachers will remember their names when they go back to school next week.

And, while I’m living in an eternal winter wonderland, Mark left this morning for a conference for 10 days…in Thailand…which I just happen to learn has a 10-day weather forecast of mostly sunny with highs in the upper 8os. I just had to google North Pattaya too.

north pattaya beach
Thinking I better just stop writing at that because the words that may spill out may not be as pretty as that picture.

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Our Disney World autograph book {bed sheets}

Three years ago in Disney World, I—I mean, we—got autographs using fabric markers on pillow cases. I used fabric paint and freezer paper to put the year on the border of 4 white pillow cases (adding Mickey ears to the 0 complete with a red bow for the girls). Carrying around 4 big pillow cases and cardboard to put between the layers was a bit of a pain and I constantly felt like I needed to apologize to the characters when it was my our turn.

Hi Tigger! I’m so sorry…I actually need you to sign four of these things. Yup, right there, that’s good. Now, hold on, let me get the cardboard situated. Wait, not that big…not that close to Stitch…um…okay. That’s good. Yeah, sorry, just two more.

But, you know what? It’s pretty much they’re job. They don’t care. And, if they did, I wouldn’t know it because their face doesn’t change and they can’t talk. And, the thing is, I got lots of eye rolling from my kids and the “come on, mom!”s , but they love those pillow cases. They’re super cute and they look at all the autographs and remember exactly where we were when Indiana Jones or the Mayor of Main Street signed their pillow case.

For this trip, I thought I’d make it a little easier. No big pillowcases…but, I wanted something to complement them that would be appreciated just as much. So, I bought 4 flat sheets, but I didn’t want to cart around 4 entire sheets. So, I carefully removed the stitches along the top border and then cut the border off the body of the sheet. I only took the 4 borders with me and actually carried them around in the white fabric envelope that came with the sheets. Using the same fabric paint and font that I used last time, I painted the year in the center of each border and then had the characters sign all around it.

Yeah, I confess that I occasionally found myself alone with a princess or two while my children were on a Space Mountain adventure. I’ll spare you the collection of pictures of the short middle aged mom smiling next to pretty girls with too much makeup in Renaissance clothing who hold the edges of their skirts as they talk in high voices.

Rapunzel1

Daisy duck1

Despite all that, I love what we ended up with.

After we were all Disney charactered out, the kids made up their own Disney autograph to add…Ashlyn integrated her beads into hers, Drew made his D a guitar because he loved Rockin’ Roller Coaster, Evan made his futuristic for Tomorrowland, and we collaborated for Lydia’s, bringing in an arrow to show how fast moving she is.

Disney world autographed sheets
Disney world autograph sheets Lydia
Disney autograph sheets boys

When we got home, I quickly stitched the border back on the body of the sheet with my sewing machine. Easy Peezy. And, then they were all done. Perfect. Love them with the pillow cases. And, so do the kids, fortunately.

Disney autograph sheets 2
Disney autograph sheets

Already thinking about what we can add to the collection next time…any suggestions?

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