It's been awhile

some of my projects waiting to be painted

All I can say is I've been busy:

We started first grade.
I've done some building.
I've been doing lots of painting- rooms and projects.
I've been chauffeuring the Little Miss to various activities.
I finally got a new laptop after putting up with my broken piece-o-crap for more than a year, but there's a learning curve- I got a MacBook Pro. I like it, but I don't have everything figured out and transferred over yet.

And, most recently, I got knocked flat by the flu.

I know, the flu in August? If it wasn't the flu, I'm not sure what it was, but according to the internet (not the most reliable of sources, but I checked several sites to see if they gave the same info), the flu consists of about 3 days of high temperature, some light-headedness, headaches, achy muscles, chills, and nausea. Sounds like what I had. The discouraging part is that it can take 1-2 weeks to recover. I have a four mile race in just under two weeks. I may be walking an entire race for the first time.

In any case, if what I had was the flu, I don't think I've ever actually had the flu before. I would remember being unable to stand up for 3 days. Thank goodness LMS kept herself occupied (audiobooks helped a lot), since Mr M was, of course, out of town for all this. {very inconvenient} Though I didn't enjoy cleaning up the mess she made while she kept herself occupied. Let's just say she had a bit too much fun with her scissors.

As I lay on the couch and tried to think coherent thoughts, I realized we do need to be a bit better prepared for things like this. Mr M is gone often enough that I can't rely on him being present the next time I'm incapacitated (which will hopefully happen never).

Some thoughts:

• Meals in the freezer. Most of what we eat doesn't translate well into a freezer meal, but I've come up with a few meals that should freeze and reheat without sacrificing taste and texture.
• Childcare. This is a tough one for me, given our food issues. Thankfully LMS has shown that she can handle me not being fully functional. This works as long as we're at home, but if I were to have to go the hospital (I came close- I kept taking my temperature and if it had gotten just a smidge higher I was going to go to the ER), I would need to drop her off at a friend's house. Though honestly, if I needed to go to the hospital I probably wouldn't be able to do it myself, so I would need to find someone to drive me there. The take-away on this one: make sure I have food on hand that the Little Miss can take with her should she need to be dropped off at someone's house.
• Written notes/instructions. This would include safe food lists for the Little Miss, food prep instructions for freezer meals, emergency contact info, etc

Truthfully though, I will probably do anything and everything I can not to go to the hospital. I don't react well to most medicines, and if I had to be hospitalized overnight food would become an issue. Though actually I can partially resolve that now by calling the local hospitals and finding out how allergy friendly their kitchens are. You would hope they would be, but I'm not holding my breath on it. Even if they're allergy friendly I doubt they'd be able to handle our limited diet.

Have you had the flu?

Have you prepared for a similar situation? What did you include in your preparations?

Our cute new shed

the view from the back deck- isn't it so cute? just like a miniature house!

A couple months ago we finally placed an order for a shed. We don't have a garage, we have limited indoor storage, and our only outdoor storage space has been this:

Not very big (6'x8'), and not a permanent solution.

We priced sheds at several locations, including kits and prebuilt sheds. After comparing costs, time, and convenience, we decided the best route for us at this point was to buy a prebuilt shed. It wasn't that much more than the kit, and we wouldn't have to build it in triple digit heat in between all the other things we have going on. Win-win-win.

After making that decision we decided on size, style, and colors, then placed our order. Five weeks later, one corner of our yard went from looking like this: 

To this:

I don't remember the size right off, but I think it's 10'x16'?

Small enough to be brought in on a trailer, but big enough to hold our stuff.

The delivery and set-up process was quite interesting to watch- part of the trailer tipped up, 

and up,

and up, 

then slid off as the truck moved forward. 

Here it's laying flat on the ground, which wasn't level, but after jacking up the shed and using quite a few blocks, 

The shed is now level. 

Amazing!

Now we need to build a small ramp below the double doors on the end, build a small step for the front door, and put some kind of trellis-y thing around the base to keep critters and such out from under the shed.

So much space- now we have to decide just how we're going to organize it as we fill it up so we can still access everything.

When we landscape the back yard, we'll dig a trench so we can run a power line out to the shed, but in the meantime we'll have to use our really long, heavy-duty extension cord.

The view from the front porch, with our stunted garden in front of the shed. Once it cools down a bit, we'll build raised beds for square foot gardening and get everything ready for spring so that we'll hopefully have better luck next year.