Sunday, August 10, 2014

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Tonight's picture was taken in August of 2009. Literally weeks before Mattie died. This was "Speedy Red," Mattie's ride-on car, which he loved and spent a lot of time with while he was home. Mattie did elect to return to the Hospital because he couldn't tolerate the pain and felt more comfortable there, and unlike the rest of us, he understood he was dying. Yet while he was home, he would ride on Speedy Red, and initially, I would ride with him. Obviously this car was built for a child, so I would have to squeeze inside of it. But I was determined to do that to make sure Mattie was safe and that he knew how to operate the car. Mattie was a gadget guy... so within minutes he had the car all figured out!  


Quote of the day: The painting has a life of its own. ~ Jackson Pollock

Although Jackson Pollock was not referring to Peter and I with this quote, this is most definitely how we felt this weekend. Our kitchen painting task did take on a life of its own. I think we can safely say that we are thrilled that every room in our home is now painted and we do not have to think about this again for a while. Painting always seems like such a doable project until you actually are in the midst of it. It is actually much harder than it looks especially if you happen to work with me, since I like things done in a certain way. 

Behind our kitchen door, you will still see Mattie's "Block room news." These pieces of papers came from Mattie's preschool class, with his teacher Kathy. During his second year of preschool, Mattie's symbol was the Magnet. So he graduated from Mattie Moon (in Margaret's classroom the year before), to Mattie Magnet (in Kathy's classroom). On the days that Mattie was the line leader, I also happened to be the parent helper for the classroom (since this is a coop preschool, parents are very involved within the school). I saved each paper that Kathy created announcing Mattie's line leader day for that entire year. Those papers are all found behind my kitchen door. They have been there since 2006! Yes we painted today, but the news went right back up! It seems to just be a tradition. One of the many fun things Kathy instilled in her classroom was a special good-bye. Each day she had another fun saying. As you can see on Day 1 that Mattie was a line leader the good-bye saying was "Blow a Kiss Jelly Fish!" 

After two very tiring days of dis-assembling, cleaning, painting, and re-assembling.... the kitchen is now back in order!!! Our mission has been accomplished.