I was just chatting with Brandon about his day. He was excited, they watched the inauguration news coverage all day at school. Brandon has been interested in the election even way back in the primary. Whenever you asked him about it, he would say “I would vote for Barack Obama.”

So then later today…

There is a new house for sale up the street, someone Brandon knows from school. He asked Patrick why they were moving. Patrick told him because the dad lost his job. Brandon answered, “Don’t worry.”
“Why?” Patrick asked.
“Because Barack Obama promised everyone a job.”

So he not only watched the inauguration, he listened and remembered. I don’t remember ever being interested in election coverage or inaugurations… I mean, at his age, they were just messing up my shows on TV!

This truly is a historic day. President Obama has inspired the nation in an amazing way, including the second graders.

Brandon is always coming up with “inventions” of different sorts. Give him some basic supplies of tape and paper and he’ll use what he finds around him to create something new. His latest is a “telegram” system he devised that runs from his desk to each of ours. Here’s how it works:

1. Brandon’s desk lamp is the hub, and the message holders run to my desk lamp and Patrick’s desk lamp on some silver cord I use for gift wrapping.2. He sends the message holder across by moving the cord at his desk.3. The message arrives at our desk, for us to read and reply. Just in case you wanted to make your own, here are the instructions he had written on his easel white board: You never know what the message might be! What a fun, sweet, creative boy we have.

Lately in our house a lot of conversations start with:
“When we are in Italy…”
“When we get back from Italy…”
“If we don’t go to Italy…”
We’ve been waiting and waiting and haven’t been DOING much these days. Yesterday we finally DID something, not waiting for what is coming next. And it felt soooooo good!

We rearranged our front room to finally, FINALLY give me a reading chair that will get some sun. Sun is a precious commodity in Oregon winter, and we have only one south facing window. For years I’ve wished for a comfy chair to read or nap in the sun, but we never had the space. I’ve always loved that warm or even over-warmed feeling you get when sitting in a sunbeam. 🙂

In order to make this happen Patrick and I swapped desks, and we moved another cabinet from the front room into our spare room. Since I haven’t been doing a ton of crafting, I don’t need a lot of supplies out here. Many of my craft supplies are out on loan anyway. We moved my favorite chair from the spare room to the front room. Here is what “my” side of the room looks like now:

Here is the desk, where I mostly do my Italian lessons and homework these days:
Since it’s clean and fresh, maybe I’ll so some crafting again too. Who knows. 🙂

The only thing new I bought is this new collage photo frame above the chair, which I found at BiMart and it fills the space great. I did some conversions of our family pictures to give them a unified feel and was good to go.

I love it! It felt great to do something instead of waiting. It didn’t cost us much of anything other than time. Today is sunny again so I’m going to take some time this afternoon to read in the sun.

I just want to give a quick update on my cousin’s son Blake… they were able to meet with the doctor in Texas and then went back to Colorado to do the treatment. It sounds like the therapy option in Texas wasn’t the best one for Blake. So they are back in Colorado, Blake is currently in treatment and doing a little bit better. We haven’t been updated in the last day or so but I’m assuming everything is at least holding steady with Blake because I haven’t heard anything.

If you would like more information, either to subscribe to the blog they have on Blake or to donate to help with the family expenses, please contact me and I’ll give you the information.

Life throws you curves sometimes, and we are all lucky to have the family and friends that we do to support us when that happens. There has been amazing support for Blake and his family from family, friends and strangers alike. No matter what the news says, people are GOOD! 🙂

I’ve been lacking topics to write about lately.

Work is… work. Nothing new.

Italy is… not happening, still waiting for the work permit.

Home is… normal home stuff. Nothing new, except for the time it’s taking to learn Italian. Classes and homework.

Ever feel like that? Nothing bad, nothing great, just moving along.

My cousin and his wife are in Houston right now trying to get their 4 year old son Blake in to see a specialist down there for some experimental radiation treatment in order to save his life. He has brain cancer, had surgery last January to remove the tumors and has been in chemo the last year. They just found out last week that a new tumor is growing on his brain stem and he has only weeks to live.

When they got down to Houston (after driving the weekend from Colorado), they found out that the treatment center will not see them unless they have $125,000 in hand. They are scrambling to do whatever they can to raise the money and to get in to see the doctor. There is a fund set up to take donations if you can help. Checks can be made out to:

Sandy Wells
Cancer Treatment Fund (write on memo line of check)

and send to:

Members Trust of the Southwest Federal Credit Union
PO Box 925687
Houston TX 77092
1(800)683-6455

Email me if you have any questions or would like more information. They also keep a blog updated at: http://www.carepages.com/carepages/BlakeKurtz2004. I can’t even imagine as a parent what it would be like to be going through all of this.