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Anastaya's 14th birthday
On Thursday, Anastaya celebrated her 14th birthday.  Dode took her out for dinner at her favorite restaurant, Cafe Neo, for gyros because I wasn't up to cooking yet.  They stopped at Haggen on the way home for her to pick out a birthday cake, white chocolate raspberry.  For her gifts, it was an avalanche of zebra print.  She received a bed in a bag set, a duffel bag, a lunch bag, and a coin purse.  For a bit of variety, we also got her some Eeyore socks!

Sunday she got her official birthday meal of chicken gyros and white chocolate raspberry cheesecake.  I told her she's learning how to be the mom in the family because she had to do the lion's share of the food preparation for her meal.

We worked together to make the cheesecake.  Anasastaya at the mixer, me at the stove and stirring something in my lap.  Ignore the messy kitchen counter!  (I love our matching shirts!)

While Anastaya rolled out the bread for the pitas, Miriam had fun in some extra flour with her Disney figures.  (Notice the dusting of flour across her face?)

Anastaya found this cute hair style (a braid on each side ending in a messy side bun) on Pinterest.  She made the flower hair clip at a birthday party.  Happy birthday beautiful girl.

Ready to enjoy her self made cheesecake

Some of Anastaya's birthday gifts.  Grandma Sharon gave her the off white zebra body pillow.  She got a movie gift card from my dad.  My mom came on Sunday and gave her more zebra stuff (not pictured): zebra sleep shirt, bank, and beanie baby.  She also got some knit ankle boots she's been hankering after.

Produce Snafu
Each day my foot is incrementally better which means each day I seem to push how much I'm up to doing a little more.  By the time we went to bed on Friday, I was hurting pretty badly and all I could think of was getting my foot up in the air and taking a pain pill.  I'd made sure everything was ready for produce in the morning and had found a substitute to be in charge outside.  I'd forgotten one important thing, checking to make sure the cordless phone was on the base next to the bed.

Instead of waking up to the produce truck driver phoning that he was at the bottom of the driveway, I woke to the sound of volunteers showing up!  Oops!  I was able to get ahold of the driver and he came by at the end of the route but that put pick up time 1 1/2 hours late.  The driver showed up at 8:15, half way through our normal pick up time.  Cars were everywhere with absolute chaos as people tried to help transfer produce boxes from the produce truck to our trailer at the end of our driveway.  We found out later that Isaac, who had gotten up early to help Dode get the produce off the produce truck, had heard the phone ringing at least three separate times but he thought we were upstairs picking it up.  If he'd picked up the phone, the whole crisis would have been adverted.  Classic experience when you're dealing with kids!

The distribution of produce went smoothly and everyone managed to adjust their schedule to pick up at the new time.  I was inside with my foot up so I don't know how much grumbling there was.  The one bad thing that happened was that some of the bulk items people (me included) had ordered had been set aside up against the house.  When I limped out to get my things, people had thought the items were out there for swapping and accidentally taken everything.  I tried a Facebook plea to ask people to return the items but they've disappeared.  Big bummer!

Elizabeth's tooth
Friday night Elizabeth came to me complaining that she wouldn't be able to eat dinner because her tooth was so loose.  When I had her wiggle it for me, I saw that all that was holding it on was a tiny piece of pulp in the middle.  Dode managed to convince her to let him cut it out with a pair of scissors.  After talking a very nervous girl through each step, she never even felt it when he made the final cut!

The tooth while it was still attached. 

Can you see the little peace of skin still holding it?

Elizabeth's sewing project
Elizabeth went to a friend's birthday party at a swimming pool and wanted to give her a swimsuit cover up like I've made for all my girls.  It's so easy to do, I helped her make it herself.  She was very proud of the finished product and her friend was thrilled.  She's now on the lookout for a towel to make a new cover up for herself.  Unfortunately, January is not the best time of year for finding beach towels!

Dangers of Surveying: Dogs

One of the dangers of walking around in people's yards that Dode has never enjoyed is meeting up with their dogs.  There have been times when he's run with all that's in him to get away from dogs.  There have been times when he's resorted to throwing stale pastries to distract dogs so his coworker could escape.  While the experiences sounded funny as he told me about them, at the time he was pretty worried about his safety.  Friday was not Dode's day when it came to dealing with dogs.  It started while he was walking down a road looking for water meters.  A friendly dog came out to play and started running around Dode.  Soon, a dog that looked like his twin showed up.  They had a grand old time, chasing each other up and down the road and pretending to bite each other's faces.  Around and around they went.  The next thing Dode knew, two dogs barreled into the back of his knees, buckling both of them and about collapsed him to the ground.  They were having so much fun playing, they hadn't paid any attention to where they were going.  

Later he was looking for a water meter in some one's back yard.  An old black lab came up to be his friend.  When the owner came out, Dode remarked, "You sure have a friendly dog."  The owner replied, "Well, the last time someone tried to cross our yard in the middle of the night, he ended up with 37 stitches."  Good thing the dog was having a good day!  

Lastly, Dode met up with a dog while looking for yet another water meter.  This one was behind a fence.  The fence was too tall to look over but there was a lower area at the gate.  As he peered over the gate, an old greyed dog started barking at him.  Dode figured the dog was giving a friendly "hello" and kept looking around for the meter.  He had his hand resting on a fence post as he leaned over to look.  The next thing he knew, POW!  The dog had jumped up and nailed his hand with his fangs.  Luckily, Dode was wearing a thick leather glove because the dog bit down hard enough to break the skin through the glove.  He felt pretty silly that the dog had been barking away at him, warning him to get lost, and he hadn't even thought to move his hand to safety.  Dode was doubly glad that it wasn't worse.  First, he didn't want to deal with a dog bite.  Secondly, Dode's boss is always very conscious of his safety.  He isn't allowed to go out and do field work by himself.  He isn't allowed to go out in bad weather.  He knew if he went back to work with a hand torn open by a dog, she'd be even more hesitant to let him out in the field again in the future.

My foot is better each day
Thankfully, every day is better with my foot.  I was even up to going grocery shopping on Saturday.  Dode drove me over to Haggen (our next door neighbor!) and once we got there, he told me I needed to ride in one of those battery operated carts.  We went in separate doors, with me telling him I was just fine and I'd meet him at the bottled water.  Pretty soon here he came, driving a lovely cart.  He told me he was either going to see me in it or he'd follow me around the store with me limping and him driving.  I got in, put my foot up in the basket, and felt like a big dork.  I also realized that those things go so slow!

Dode and I had a man/woman communication problem this week.  We were sitting on the couch together.  I started wiggling my foot a lot.  It's something I do when I'm hurting to distract me.  Dode knows it's one of my pain clues and asked, "Time for a pain pill?"  My response, "Yes".  He was reading a book and I watched as he finished the page and went on the the next section.  I figured he was getting to a good stopping point before getting me the medication.  He figured I was waiting until enough time had elapsed before taking a pill.  After waiting even longer, I got frustrated and thought, "Fine, I'll get it myself!"  When I got off the couch to get it, he wanted to know where I was going.  I told him, if he wasn't going to get it for me, I'd get it myself.  He said, "If you told me you wanted it, I would have gotten it for you."  In my mind, I had told him.  He followed me all the way upstairs to our room where my pills were insisting that he'd get it for me but he'd got my stubborn up and I was determined to get it myself.  We've been married quite a while but those male/female communication problems still come up from time to time.