Hello everyone,
It's been a while since I've written an update. I have been kind of busy, but mainly I've just been uninspired. My writing muse must be on vacation or something. Or maybe I just haven't been in the mood to poke fun at myself.... So going back abit, I guess I'll try to do a quick version of the past few weeks.
My mom went back to California on Feb. 7th and we were very sad to see her go... we were just getting started having fun. I had more choir rehearsals and then Saturday the 10th was my performance singing Beethoven's 9th with the Portland Mormon Choir and Willamette Falls Symphony. The performance went really well. We also sang "This is The Christ," "Witness", and Mack Wilberg's "Praise to the Lord the Almighty"- and they were awesome. I was very impressed with how our choir pulled off the Beethoven. The orchestra was not quite as good as we were =], but all in all it was a good concert. The concert was held at the Rolling Hills Community Church in Tualatin. It reminded me of a 2500 seat version of the conference center (except it had a Starbucks inside it... I wonder if it is open on Sundays?) They also did not have the inspired women's restroom design of the conference center: there were only 2 women's stalls in the backstage restroom- the line lasted for the entire intermission. It was a really nice church and a good concert venue. You know a church is big when they mark their parking lot sections with books of the bible so you can remember where you parked ("Hey honey, there's our car over in 1st Corinthians....").
The other notable occurence of that weekend is that Dave and I risked life and limb and hung a new chandelier in our entryway. This was a 12-light, 75 pound behemoth that we were trying to hang from a 20 foot ceiling, so this was no easy task. Dave, a true engineer, came up with the perfect solution: I stood on top of the alcove over our coat closet (it juts out next to the stairs) with a bar stool and we set the chandelier on the bar stool (with me holding it in place) while Dave attached the wiring so there wouldn't be weight on the chandelier chain while he was doing the wiring. It was a little too exciting for my taste, but the chandelier is hung and we are both still alive.
Other than that, we have had a pretty normal couple of weeks: Dave works long hours, trying vainly to make this infuriating machine work; I put off cleaning the house as long as possibly can and then go on a cleaning rampage, only to let the house fall apart again; Jared and Camryn play with friends, go to school, watch TV, use up humungous amounts of paper and dump toys on their floor.
After deciding that I absolutely could not live with our green bathroom, I decided to try decorating it first before repainting it. In this process I have discovered that I am a little bit neurotic: 2 trips to Costco, 4 trips to JCpenney, 1 trip to Target, 1 trip to Marshalls and 2 trips to TJMaxx later, I have finally found towels and bathmats that will work to create the right effect for our bathroom at a reasonable price. The good news is that I don't have to repaint the bathroom now: with the towels, bathmats, a picture on the wall and a floral arrangement it looks lovely. The bad news is that I could have hired someone to paint it twice with the amount of money I've spent on gas driving to all these different stores. But the insanity doesn't end there.... No, no, no. I have discovered that I have a very unique talent: wasting money on paint samples. Not being content to have painted our bathroom, I am now researching colors for our laundry room, office and master bedroom. I have used my laundry room to paint up color samples so we now have a lovely rainbow look: two shades of green, about four shades of beige, three shades of yellow, one way-cool aqua blue, one peach, and three purply-pinky browns (sadly, I am not exaggerating). In addition to that, for the first time, Dave and I have not been able to agree on a paint color (for our our bedroom), so in our bedroom we have one pinkish-taupe, two shades of sand, two pinky peach sands and a brownish-mauve. Like I said, it's a talent. Or insanity. The sadder thing is that I haven't noticed that painting a sample on the wall makes me any more able to determine what it will actually look like when the whole room is painted. Oh well. Amid all the frustration, I had a happy thought the other night. A few months ago we were stressed out and frustrated because we didn't know whether we were going to stay in school or leave, where we were going to live or what we were going to do with our lives. Now I'm stressed out because I'm having a hard time finding towels in the right color for the bathroom and we're having a hard time deciding on paint colors. I can deal with the change. =]
Primary has been going well. Last week we were playing "Name that Word" (I sing a song for them and when I stop, they have to tell me what word comes next). The game would have worked great, except that Camryn, our little sunbeam, kept blurting out all of the answers....
Jared is VERY excited because there is a BIG holiday this week. Tuesday is the 100th DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!! YES!! I'm not kidding! He gets to bring 100 of something in a baggie and they are going to have a party! You have no idea how big this is! Jared started playing indoor soccer and had his first game on Saturday. Camryn is taking a "ballerina class" at the YMCA. I still exercise at the YMCA whenever I get the chance.
We still occasionally see Dave. Dave made chocolate cupcakes with pink frosting with the kids today while I was at choir (Camryn was very upset at church because a bunch of kids in the hall had pink cupcakes and she WANTED one). I thought that was very fun that he did that with them. In other news, Dave's car broke down (the starter died) and has been sitting in our driveway for over a week now (Yes! I get to drive Dave to work again). I guess it's a chance to see Dave, so I won't complain. =] We've just been so busy that we haven't had a chance to get around to figuring out how we're going to get it fixed (ok, I admit that's pathetic). On Wednesday, I hosted the first meeting of a new Cooking Enrichment group. It was really fun. We made (surprise, surprise) Curried Chickpeas and my Stove-top Macaroni and Cheese. I also showed them how to sugar nuts since I figured nobody can live without that.
And so life goes on for the Porters. I hope you are all doing well.
Love,
Karen
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Camryn: I wrote headache! (HDEC)
Camryn: (dragging around her sunday bag on the floor behind her) Look, mom. It's like a suitcase cuz we can slide it.
Jared: (After spraying and combing his hair, we went outside to wait for the bus and his friend Ally put on her hood because it was raining): I don't need a hood! I already have water in my hair.
Jared: When I grow up, I want to be a dad. And I will throw my kids to our Lovesac.
Camryn: Mommy, don't send me to the junkyard. People don't like to go to the junkyard. It makes them sad.
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