Oww. My nose hurts....

I went to my primary care dr. b/c I had a spot on my nose that reminded me waaay too much of the first skin cancer way back when.....She referred me to a derm doctor for an appt. this morning. Good news: he didn't think that any of the freckles/moles on my arms, etc. were necessary of biopsy. Also good, although he wanted to biopsy two sites on my nose (bad), he thought that, if they were anything, it would be basal cell (the kind they can just remove and you're done).

So he took the two biopsies and, although he told me they would be very tiny when they're healed, at the moment I have stiches in and band-aids over, and am not having too happy a day....I have to go back in a week to get the stitches out. No sparring at karate until then.

And here's the real worst part: he was 45 minutes late to see me, after I was 10 minutes early for the appt and.........I didn't have......ANYTHING..........to read. I hadn't thought to bring anything, and his waiting room had nothing but ads and info brochures for Botox and other junk. It was horrible!!!!!!!!

The WORST Park

Blech! Only had time to take Ilana to the park right near PB's camp before going to karate this morning. I hate this park (and I try not to use that word much. As I tell the kids, there's enough hate in the world already....).

There is always a lot of broken glass and beer bottles strewn around. The small, "made for little kids" slide ENDS about three feet off the ground! And the spray fountains, which at most parks stay on for five or so minutes, stay on for about 40 seconds. And then the button to turn them on again is so hard to push that kids can't do it themselves, so it meant I had to hover over Ilana and keep pressing one of the two fountain buttons.

It's been about four years since I've been there (i.e. since I used to go w. PB after dropping off Batsheva at the camp around the corner!) and the return was none too soon!

Onward and upward :)

No nibbles?!

Sigh. Not even the teensiest of nibbles on the house and it's been on the market since after Pesach. Now I'm thinking that we should leave it on the market longer, and, if we move mid-year, so what?! I'll homeschool Batsheva and probably sign her (and maybe Chana) up for K-12.com so she'll do most of her schoolwork online through them. If we move, no biggie--K12 is covered by NJ so we could homeschool mostly for free.

The flip side of this is that I think we'd all like to know for sure that we will be here or not so that I can put a big non-refundable deposit down for the homeschool coop we got into (which, after being on their waiting list for months I had to turn down b/c I wasn't about to blow $300 if we moved). And PB has outgrown the toddler bed she sleeps in and is like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, with her feet literally sticking out the end. I told her months ago that we would either be moving over the summer and she would get a big bed, or she and Ilana would start to share the guest room (the guest room switching over to PB's teeny nook) and we'd buy her a big bed then. But I can't start moving furniture around and messing with the guest room NOW b/c, oy vey, we might have a house showing.

I really don't know what to do. I had no idea that, when all the experts said that real estate had tanked, it meant MY HOUSE too!

psst....hey you....

wanna buy a house? www.19Vista.com. You'll love it!

We've decided it would be a nice thing to all live in the same state again (Sam has been working in NJ and commuting from M-Th).

We'll see what happens. The market has totally tanked here. Boo! (It's supposed to stay nice where we sell and tank where we want to buy!)

May....

Yeah, nothing very much happened in May anyway! Let's just forget that month ever happened.....

I should have taken a picture....

I attained my goal! I donated 10 large trash bags of stuff to the Vietnam Veterans of America. Also, three boxes of books went to the MA homeschooling association's upcoming book sale. My porch looked fabulously full of tzedaka!

And, FINALLY, there is (some) hope for my school room. Tune is soon for "before/after" photos. THOSE I did take!

Ilana is 2!!!!!!

WOW! I can't believe two years has gone by since her birth! She has learned such an amazing amount in two years.

Today she was in her car seat singing parts of "Baby You Can Drive My Car" (the fun parts--"Beep, beep, beep-beep YEAH!"). She worked on "schoolwork" (a Hebrew coloring book that she swiped from PB's stash of stuff). Took a nice 1.5 hour nap (who knows how much longer that will happen for. Better record for posterity)....

Happy Birthday, Ilana. Ad Me'ah V'esrim (until 120) in good health and with much happiness in your life ;)

From Batsheva:
It's been 2 years since Ilana was born and she's been working hard! Working hard at singing, talking, walking, screaming(how can anyone hold their breath for that long?!), "reading" Calvin and Hobbes...But most of all, working hard at being the cutest little Ilana in the world! Happy Birthday!

Making Challah

So Chana has a few things that none of the rest of us eat around here b/c it's just too hard for her. Challah is one of those things. So for Shabbat during most of the year we eat matza. Except now that it is the Hebrew month of Nissan and we are not allowed to eat matza until Pesach begins in a few weeks.

So now, two weeks before Pesach, I had to go out to buy flour and yeast. But not just any flour. I had to get 100% whole wheat so that, although we non-SCD'ers would be eating challah, it wouldn't be "too good".

I've evidently totally forgotten how to cook challah in two years being an SCD family, so the dough came out terribly. It's 4 pm and it's not done yet. I am cranky!

Ilana wins!

Scene: our schoolroom

Personae: Ilana and me

Dialogue:
Me: "Ilana, do you need to make?"
Ilana: "Yeeeees"

She takes off and runs to the bathroom doing a loping, side-to-side Snoopy-Dance kind of thing. She enters the bathroom with her arms held high, triumphantly yelling, "I win! I win!"

PB's View of Politics

Last month, we were (like everyone else!) talking a lot about political primaries. PB age 5) got into it, too, asking about the primaries in Florida (where we had just come back from) and Massachusetts (where we live).

PB: "Wow. You mean they're running in Florida *and* Massachusetts?"

Me: "Yes, and there are several other states also having primaries on the same day"

PB: "But they're going to RUN from Florida to Massachusetts?!?!?!"

(I evidently did a decent job explaining how far it was from FL to MA!)