Robots Get Crafty

The moving prep continues! Monday John and I put a bid on a house. We also booked all our hotels for our cross-country trip and had a tow hitch put on the mini van.  Then we didn't think we'd accomplished enough for the day, so we decided to finally start a project we've been planning on for a few months.

In the new house, each of the girls will have their own room. In preparation for the looming teen years, we purchased new beds for each of them.  Hana got a loft bed with dressers underneath, so we decided that Ria would have both of the dressers that are in the room they currently share. Those dressers were green and yellow with gingham knobs. This would not due for our quirky Ria's Tim Burton themed room. With the help of Pintrest, I came up with a solution!

I had the girls empty their dressers and John and I brought them downstairs. We removed the drawers and took everything outside onto a tarp. Next we lightly sanded the dressers and drawer fronts. We wiped them down to make sure they were clean and free of dust and then we had some fun. We primed each dresser and the drawer edges with a grey spray primer.After letting that dry overnight, Tuesday we spray painted both dressers a satiny black.  The next step was a little more tricky. We cut adhesive shelf paper and applied it to the drawer fronts. Lots of measuring and remeasuring, and sticking and resticking (and some cursing!). The final step was to replace those cute little gingham knobs with some textured black knobs.

I'm sure that this is only the first of many projects we'll do over the next few months. So here we are,
Robots, getting things done!

Robots Start Over

The last time I tried my hand at blogging, I was doing it because we were getting ready to travel across the country. I kept it up for a few months, but eventually I became caught up in the every day and let this hobby slip away from me. We are about to begin a second trip across the United States, this time we will be on our way home to give civilian life a try.

This effort finds us in a very different starting place than the last. Lilly is 14 now and on more psychiatric medication than ever before. A severely autistic teen can be a handful, add in severe cognitive impairment, OCD, epilepsy, a mood disorder and possible hallucinations and you've got an explosive package! Oh, and for an extra added bonus, Lilly's left leg started turning purple a year ago and it's now spread over a significant portion of the rest of her body. None of the more than a dozen doctors who have seen it have any idea what is causing it. Lilly is an enigma, but she's our enigma. She is difficult to handle sometimes, but when Lilly's happy, everyone's happy. She's contagious.

Ria is 12, and while she is still her amazingly smart and artistic self, her body has continued to betray her.  Last year Ria was diagnosed with an autonomic disorder called Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Basically it means her heart races when she's standing so she gets dizzy and faints or just gets so exhausted she needs to lay down. Ria uses a wheel chair to help avoid this fatigue and fainting, but she has many days when just getting up and getting dressed maxes her out for the day.  Ria is also having seizures now, but hopefully we'll soon have those figured out and under control.

Hana has had a wonderful few years of overcoming fears and growing up. She is about to turn 11 and continues to earn the Good Citizenship award at school every year. This past spring she went on a field trip to camp for three days and developed an interest in botany. Hana has been great about helping out both of her sisters.

We will miss our Navy family here in Washington. We will  miss our respite care provider, Brandy, who has become part of the family. But, John is ready to start a civilian career and I am ready to go home and live near our family. It's time to start another Robot Adventure.