What’s Up????? Not Much!
Well, as it turns out, the 2 Korean boys went to a friends house yesterday from 1pm until 5pm. That was such a relief. I needed to get some work done that morning, but because I was stressing about all the kids and what to do – I never got it done.
I was pretty excited that I had the whole afternoon to finish up my work. My grandma came over about 1ish because my Grandfather had some work stuff that he and Jon were working on. We talked for a few minutes, and then Grandma said that she’d tidy up my kitchen, and why didn’t I go and lay down and she’d keep an eye on the kids. Well, let me tell you – that whole counselling ministry thing must really be working because before I could have never shirked on my responsibilities and gone to sleep. I would have felt like I had to help clean or be watching my own kids or entertaining her. When I think about it, it’s funny and sad because in someways I was taking away the opportunity for her to be a blessing to me. How selfish of me!
Anyhow, I was out of there so fast and I slept until 5pm. As a result I didn’t get my work done, but was able to finish it up this morning. YAH! I had been so tired. And when I woke up I really didn’t want to wake up, but knew that Jon would be going to get the 2 Korean boys and I really needed to get dinner started. Nice Surprise, my house was tidy, and my kids were happy, and I was less tired than I was before. I was SOOOO thankful to have had the opportunity to sleep. THANK YOU, GRANDMA!
Today, we have been just waiting around because we were not sure when the other homestay mom was coming home from her vacation. We had heard something about 7:30 this morning, but were expecting a call around 11 or so. She called at 12:30pm and came and picked him up shortly after that. He was so excited to go. I’m not really sure what was up. He seemed quite content while he was with us, but was also so eager to get back to his original homestay. He seems like a very nervous and upset little boy. It’s so sad to see a little kid so young with so many worries and stresses…..almost like he’s not comfortable in his skin. Very weird!
Oh well! He’s gone and is not my problem or worry anymore! Hopefully life will settle down and just get back to a normal quiet schedule.
Jun is going to a hockey game tonight with another homestay family. It’s actually the family of the kid that the 2 boys went and played with yesterday. So, he’ll be gone from about 6-6:30pm until 9ish. It’ll be nice to just have a quiet evening. Hopefully with no issues or problems or stresses or late night phone calls worrying about the safety and well-being of the boys. PHEW!
In other news, we had our piano tuned today. The tuner figured that it was made in the 20′s and was worth about $800-$1000. We ended up paying close to $200 to have it cleaned, (He said it hadn’t been cleaned in probably 50 years) brought up to the correct pitch(it was apparently 40 cents off pitch – whatever that means) and then tuned. He said it was possible to tune it with out brining it up to pitch, but that then we couldn’t play another instrument with it. Whatever! Jon figured that to get a good working piano for $200 bucks, tuned, cleaned and pitched properly was totally worth it. The tuner figured that it had only been tuned once or twice in it’s lifetime.
The amount of dirt and stuff that he sucked out of it was horrific. To think that dead people’s cooties were inside the piano and we have been banging away at it, and breathing them in…..YUCK! Another one of those things that I really don’t want to think too hard about because…well…it creeps me out and I really don’t feel like creeping out.
Pregnancy related news: I have finished 8 weeks today. I have been feeling kinda crappy still. The meds have been helping a little, and I’m taking one pill around or just after dinner time, and then 2 more before I go to bed. That has been helping me to sleep better, and I’ve been waking up and not feeling so sick. I’ve felt quite queasy today, though and that’s hard.
Oh well, my house is a disaster right now. It’s amazing how much mess 5 kids can create in such a short little time. OH, I almost forgot! I was talking to the boys at lunch time, and apparently the reason they are so at loss for what to do is that all their free time in Korea is filled. If they have a day off then they go to “Academy.” After school, they go to “Academy.” All extra time is filled with homework and learning. That would explain why they seem to be at a loss for things to do. They are not used to having this much spare time. Maybe being here will let them be kids for a little bit of time. I think that it is stressfull for them as much as it is fun. They have played Hide and Seek with my kids more times than I care to count and they still enjoy it. They have played Monopoly more than 10 times in the last 3 days. Geli is thrilled to have someone who will play with her. They have played basketball, hockey, soccer and some other ball games that I have no idea what they are. They have gone with our kids into the forrest behind our house. Today was the first day that just being here, going with the flow, and just “playing” have seemed to be a little less stresfull. I think they are figuring out how to “play.”
I hope this is a good thing. That is one thing that the overseer of the the program told us was that they wanted the kids to live Canadian lives. Well, I think that we are about as Canadian as they get.
PS. Any body got any good wart remedies? Jeremy has had a wart for forever. He has no problem with us putting medicine on it, but to get the dead skin and guck off…He screams like we are gouging his eyes out with a rusty spoon. We’ve tried taking the kids to the dr. and having the warts frozen off. All the other kids warts are gone, except J’s. We were the patients with the kid screaming blue murder in the office that scared the crap outta your kids while you were waiting to be seen. Don’t you just love us, now? The girls and Jon went through the ordeal with no problems, but J didn’t handle it so well. So, it seems to just work better for us to deal with it at home, but I’m getting sick of it all. So,…any good tips or anything???….I need help, people! This is driving me insane! Stupid Public Pools! We are getting some aqua socks before we go back there! I’m sure that’s were we picked them up from. Until we started swimming lessons, we never had a problem with them. Oh well, J’s wart is smaller than it was, so that means we are winning – it’s just a VERY SLOW BATTLE!
I’ll be sure to keep you updated because I know that you are all dying to hear how the wart saga goes.
February 10th, 2006 @ 4:38 pm
Unless you’re planning on digging that thing out by yourself, I would go back to your doctor. Let him be the terrible torture guy, and you can be the loving mom with candy for him when he’s done.
February 10th, 2006 @ 4:42 pm
Believe it or not! He actually screams less for me. He still screams though. I’m not sure how much more I can handle,……and the hour and a half that we spend working on it – Can you call that quality time??????
February 10th, 2006 @ 4:57 pm
OK, let me try to remember this stuff. It’s been a while…
A “cent” is 1/100 of a semitone. There are 12 semitones in an octave. So your piano was basically 2/5th of a semitone out of tune, or 1/30th of an octave out of tune.
This is probably an average measurement, as certainly some keys were much more out of tune then others. Thus, the piano probably sounded like one of the old honkey tonk pianos from the Western movies.
The piano is apparently now tuned “relative” to itself. In other words, it’s not tuned to the standard “A 440″. This basically means that if you play it alongside another instrument that *is* tuned to “A 440″, it’ll sound a bit like giving a poorly made set of bagpipes to a drunk Scotsman: Not Good.
However, I suspect most instruments that you will play beside it (like your guitar) can easily be tuned relative to the piano. You will find it a hassle, however, to continually retune whenever you want to play the guitar elsewhere.
Once the strings have “settled” into their new “in tune” position for a few months, you can probably have the piano retuned again to the standard of A 440. The tuner probably didn’t want to tighten the piano strings to much right now, because the tension would likely break them. But after a period of “adjustment”, they’ll be able to be tensioned a little more… but that would be another $200 for another tune. Probably not worth it, unless you have perfect pitch, in which case you’ll be driven mildy insane whenever someone plays your relatively tuned piano.
(Don’t ask me how I know this… suffice to say I grind my teeth a lot when people sign off pitch.)
Wasn’t that interesting?!
February 11th, 2006 @ 8:32 am
I’m assuming your talking about planter’s warts? My doctor would tell you to dig it out would only spread it, to have it removed would only bring it back…. the only rememdy he suggests is weekly freezing visits, which don’t really hurt, but leave your feet cold. In children it can take 6mos to a year to remove…. in adults it can takes years. According to him it the best way to do it. There is an expensive cream you can use along with it. Aldera, I think is it’s name, you need a prescription for it. Unfortunately this form of treatment is very time consuming, weekly visits are a hassle… but for those who can handle it, it eventually works, he has the medical reports to prove it….. Although he also said, that kids can grow out of this problem on their own…as adults it doesn’t work that way. I know, I have them on the bottom of my right foot and they can be very bothersome…. and I gave up on the weekly visits a year ago. Maybe someday I’ll try again…when I have nothing else to do…..
February 11th, 2006 @ 8:07 pm
I seem to remember something in Mark Twain’s “Tom Sawyer” about stumpwater at midnight for warts. I forget the specifics of the applicaton, but how many ways could there be? Or was it “Huck Finn”?
February 11th, 2006 @ 9:21 pm
try formeldehide don’t know how to spell it but it killed all my planters a long time ago and no sign of them since!!
February 11th, 2006 @ 11:11 pm
You don”t ever have to entertain me Patti ,I was just going to visit a little , while Grandpa did something with Jon .You looked soooooooooo tired and I thank you for letting me BLESSYOU. I am no expert on warts so willgive no advice .Hope you have a good weekend.