A long day, always

Yesterday after J woke up from his nap we decided to go outside and play with sidewalk chalk and bubbles. That's a good time right? I was happily taking pictures:

When a bunch of neighborhood kids (much older) came riding by on their bikes. Of course, this makes my kid want his tricycle. No big deal, I opened the garage to get the bike. That's when I saw it, the ceiling in the garage was leaking water, had a huge water stain that was growing mold, and the ceiling looked like it was very close to buckling and coming down. Water is pouring out of the light fixture in the middle of the ceiling. And I'm cursing because this is so not a good time. I almost never go in the garage except to take the trash out. And I don't even turn the light on to do that so I have no idea how long this has been going on. I ran to shut the dishwasher off, what I think is the leak. Nothing under the leak has water damage, dh's weights are a little more rusty but otherwise we were lucky.

The rental company is not so lucky. They are going to be replacing a kitchen floor, and garage ceiling, as well as buying a new dishwasher. I did warn them on several of their inspection visits that the dishwasher was not acting appropriately, not getting things clean and leaving water in the bottom. They didn't listen. But, it's us that will suffer here while they renovate the kitchen. While I do dish washing by hand for what is looking like several weeks at least. I am so not happy. One more reason to move. Had I not gone into the garage at that exact moment, I probably would not have known until I fell threw the floor. 

Sorry for the long post, I'm getting there I promise. :) My project today is something that is very functional. It's a food journal. My sister has Crohn's disease and in the last few weeks she has not been doing well. She is very tired, falls asleep on the couch after work and is having some pain. She is being started on some vitamins (B12 and folate) that she is deficient in which should help with the fatigue. 

When I was with her 2 weeks ago at the her doctor's, she was told to start keeping a food diary to see what helps and hurts her symptoms. In her particular case, I believe she is probably in a flare-up and this is a mute point. However, it certainly couldn't hurt anything. So she went into Border's bookstore while I changed J's diaper. When we met up again she was empty handed. I asked her why she didn't get a journal and she said they were all too expensive. I told her I would make her one. Here it is with Cosmo cricket's Early bird:

Food journal

Supplies: Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Patterned paper: Ribbon Sandwich; Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Borders; Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Elements; Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Ready, set, chipboard; Cosmo Cricket Mr. Campy Ribbon; plus Studio Calico Stamps and Van Dyke brown ink.

Instructions: Album was purchased for about $1 at Michael's. It is covered in patterned paper. The vertical strips are from the Cosmo's borders paper. I cut the journaling tag from Cosmo's Elements paper, printed the title and added the chipboard stickers. I poked holes and added Mr. Campy's Ribbon (I also checked some others and lots of the Cosmo ribbon from other lines: Everafter (blue), Get Happy (blue and green/tan), Fleuriste (yellow) would have worked here; also the blue ribbon in Studio Calico's Soda Fountain would have worked as well.) 

This is where it gets tricky. Since I had so much stamping to do on the inside pages, I realized very quickly that my ink was bleeding threw. I threw away the inner kraft pages the album came with. I cut my own paper (cream) and stamped them separately so that they could dry in between stamping. I used a hole punch to add back the holes. I secured it with ribbon as shown. 

My sister is under a lot of stress, please pray for her. Her dh, an officer in the National Guard, just got called up to to Iraq at the end of the year. I think that is what has thrown her into the flare-up. But, I think she will use this little journal to record the food she eats on the right and her reaction/how she feels that day on the left. It's not very long, but most people don't keep one for longer than a month. I stamped her some refill pages just in case. I got my money's worth out of the stamps, that's for sure! Would make a good gift for anyone struggling with food/digestive or allergy issues. Or even a new Mom trying to figure out a child's food allergy. Happy Wednesday, until tomorrow.