Checking in

Still here, just in the midst of summer busy-ness.  I home-school, so my kids are home all day every day, just like in the summer.  So why do I feel our lives are so much more crazed now when we actually have less we have to get done?

Pool

Yesterday we joined a pool for the summer.  Oh, a third of the summer is already gone, you say?  Yes, yes, but we love to swim and want to use it for as long as we're able.  So yesterday we joined and zipped up for a swim.  Closed.  Closed because a small child unloaded in the pool what should have been done in a toilet or, more appropriately given what happened, the swim diaper this child apparently should have been wearing but wasn't.  Closed for sanitization.  And today?  Today it's cloudy with almost certain prognosis of thunderstorms shortly.  Figures.

Temporary Basement Fix

This last rainfall solidified, at least in my mind, big-time basement renovations were going to have to wait.  Maybe forever.  Who puts up drywall and lays carpet in an area that leaks when it rains?

But I had to do something.  The ugly, dreary paneling was getting to me.

So, after the rainfall and before the clean-up, I painted.  A bright, cheery yellow.  And the kids helped me paint, which was fun.

Yes, yes, I need an after picture.  Yet here I sit on my sofa with a cup of coffee that is both the perfect temperature and the right combination of coffee and cream.  Oh, and all three kids are still asleep.  So no, I will not go snap a picture just now.  Blame laziness, blame selfishness, say what you like, but I am not moving from this spot just yet.  Later. I'll take an after picture later.

I won't say that I love it down there now, but I like it much, much more than I did before.  It certainly is bright and cheerful now and, besides dry, what else can a homeowner ask for?

Father's Day: Go Brew Crew!

Joe's Father's Day request?  Attending a Brewer's game.  With all three kids.  For me, it was an unhappy prospect.  Don't get me wrong, I like baseball and I like the Brewers, but three kids with all their squirminess and complaints baking out in the hot sun for three hours?  It sounded horrid, to be perfectly frank.  But Father's Day isn't about me, so tickets were bought to a 1:05 game to see the Brewers meet the Minnesota Twins in the last of a three-game series.

And boy oh boy was it fun!

First off, and least important, it was an exciting game which the Brewers ended up winning 4-2.  

But more importantly the kids thought it was great.  Our seats were way out in left field, really close to Bernie's home run slide (which he did whiz down after Mike Cameron's home run).  See him there, right outside of his dugout?

Here's our view of the field.  Ryan Braun is at bat in this picture.

Here's the happy daddy enjoying the game with his brood.  See that Hank has his glove on?  He was convinced he needed to be ready for the entire game for a wayward ball headed our way (none ever did).

After the thrilling victory and lots of yelling, cheering and, yes, even some jeering, the kids were invited onto the field to run the bases (as they are after most Sunday afternoon games).  Madeleine dutifully followed the rules and ran as fast as she could around all four bases, passing her brother close to second base.  And Hank?  He ran slowly, savoring the experience and even tried sliding into second (sliding is against the rules).  After a quick admonishment from a staff person sporting a Brew Crew Event T-shirt, he was back on his way (he's sliding in this picture, and Madeleine is just behind him).

At some point during the eighth inning Elisabeth managed to tune out the yelling and cheering and fell asleep.  After holding her while waiting in line to run the bases for quite some time, I turned her over to Joe to snap a picture of the little girl sleeping through her first Brewer's game.

All five of us crashed when we got home after eating a supper of leftovers and dozing during a chapter of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Still though, fun, fun day.  A new Father's Day tradition, perhaps? 

Last Day of School

Madeleine and I had her last day home-schooling earlier this week which I will blog about at some point.

But today was Hank's day. Today was his last day of school. My little guy was excited because, let's face it, what kid isn't excited about endless days of hotness, swimming and friends laid out before them? So Hank is excited that school is over. But he's sad too. He loved his teacher and he bonded with a lot of kids in his class and enjoyed the constant playtime (he dismissed any carpet gathering time or time spent at his table as "boring").

Right now excited/sad Hank is outside playing with the neighborhood brood (we just hit twenty-three kids on our block last Saturday!) but just a few short hours ago he was running up the sidewalk to the K4 doors (he's wearing a blue backpack).

And, then, just a few short hours after that, he comes charging out of the K4 doors for the last time (see the kid with a mile-wide grin on his face who's sticking his head up like an ostrich? That's Hank).

And that's it. Summer vacation has begun!

Rain Update

The basement seems to have dried up in most spots, thankfully. To put things in perspective, the local middle school is closed because of flooding and numerous local houses that have never experienced water in their basements had trouble during this last storm. These were extreme circumstances.

But, there's more rain in the forecast today, but tomorrow looks sunny so far. And, from what I hear, the violent storms producing the flash flooding and tornados are over. At least for now.

Long term I don't know what we're going to do. The drain tiles and palmer valve should take care of the wetness problem, just apparently not when we get 2.5 inches of rain per hour which is very, very unusual. I suspect we'll start with some regrading and mud-jacking the driveway in some suspicious spots. My answer Saturday night while moving the contents of our basement to higher ground and cleaning up gross messes was just to chuck it all and move. But given the reports I'm hearing of wet basements abounding, I think that's a pretty extreme reaction.

I'm in clean-up mode today. Throwing out old carpet remnants that lined my laundry room floor and washing rugs from the family room. After the basement is cleaned up and normalcy is returned to our chaotic house then we can start mulling over long term solutions.

Some good news: Elisabeth is feeling better. Completely recovered, I'd say. Oh, and we had the most delicious sandwiches ever last night. I'll share the recipe later today. YUM!

UPDATE: This is mere moments from our home. See why I feel thankful the damage wasn't worse?

It's raining, it's pouring, an old man is snoring...

I don't usually like to use my blog for whining, but today I'm going to make an exception.

Last night it rained. Buckets and buckets of rain. So much rain, in fact, that interstates were shut down and basements got much wetter than ours. But oh, our basement. Our formerly fixed and dry basement was soaked. We're talking standing water eeeeeeverywhere. But guess what? It's supposed to keep raining here until Wednesday. WEDNESDAY! And today is Sunday. Then we're going to have a day of reprieve, and then, yep, you guessed it- MORE RAIN!

Then, the frosting on the cake: guess what else happened this morning? Elisabeth is sick! YAY! Yes, throwing up, making messes kind of sick. Only problem is that my washing machine is in-- wait for it-- the basement. The very same basement that I have to wade through to get to my washing machine that I can't use because the laundry sink is alternating as a catchall for wet rugs and pillows at the moment.

I'm sorry for whining. While watching the news it appears others got hit a lot harder than we did, but it's my blog so I'm going to whine about stuff that affects me. At least for today.

Oh, and Big Brown lost yesterday. I was so hoping for a Triple Crown winner. *Sigh*

Hey, On-Line Shoppers

Before you buy something on-line next time trying googling the name of the store you're buying something from along with "coupon codes." I've done this the last few times I ordered something and more often than not there's been some code out there that has worked for my order. Sometimes it's free shipping, sometimes it's a certain percentage off but, no matter what it was, it always (save one time) saved me money.

Happy shopping!

Doctor and Running Updates

Some of you may still be wondering about my vague post a few months back about the lack of responsiveness of my primary care doctor. The even more observant may have noted my lack of running posts.

OK, the lack of running posts. Last summer I curiously noticed that when I woke in the morning my feet felt weird. When I would step out of bed the bottoms of my feet felt tingly, almost as if many tiny little pins were pricking my feet. But it would go away as I started to move around and I didn't give it too much thought. I'm just getting older, I told myself.

And then I started running last October. At first, as I said, I felt great. I was sore after my runs, but as an inexperienced runner, I felt this was somewhat normal. I can't quite pinpoint when my joints started aching to the point where I was sore in my knees, shoulders and hips when I woke and whenever I would kneel down or walk more than just a few blocks or anything, really. Again, I sort of attributed to aging. Yes, yes, I know I'm quite young, so feeling signs of "aging" at my age sounds absurd, but I really felt fine and couldn't think of another reasonable explanation. I'm also not a person that goes to the doctor often; I go for my annual physicals, but that's about it. And I certainly wasn't about to go with vague symptoms that I wasn't able to describe well. Plus, I never felt that bad and, as I said, I figured it was normal to a degree. And then there was the exhaustion. All parents with young kids are tired, right? So it had to be normal that I felt like I was ready to collapse by 7 p.m. I felt like a failure that, gradually, I just felt too tired to go running at night anymore, which was a really bitter pill to swallow because I really, really enjoyed the time alone. And, as it turned out, I really liked running. But I just couldn't do it, and I felt like a lazy sloth. A lazy sloth who'd started something challenging and quit.

Then in March I had my regular physical. When my doctor asked me how I was feeling I said fine. Yes, honestly. And at 9 a.m., which is when my appointment was, I did feel fine. At least, relatively speaking compared to how I felt at 9 p.m. most days. But my doctor felt something suspicious in my thyroid. I hate the word goiter, but that was the word she used. Later, it would turn out my thyroid numbers from my blood test were abnormal as well. My doctor referred my for a thyroid ultrasound which showed enough suspicious growth that my primary doctor referred me to an endocrinologist who specializes in thyroid issues. Dr. Drobny, the endocrinologist my primary doctor referred me to, took forever to get in to see and, I will say, after castigating Dr. Reeder, my primary care doctor, in my last post, she was dutiful in calling consistently until she was sure I had made an appointment with Dr. Drobny and was following up on my thyroid ultrasound, which Dr. Reeder sounded sufficiently worried about (and thanks to my cousin H for the suggestion of calling Dr Reeder's nurse; I did that and she has been extremely responsive and proactive on my behalf. Great tip, so thanks!).

Anyway, I finally got into see Dr. Drobny a few weeks ago and she is wonderful. She is relaxed and I never once got the impression she was in a hurry, even though I know she's booked beyond belief. But best of all, I could tell she was abreast of current thyroid research (something I stupidly thought all doctors just did; you know, staying abreast of current developments as part of their job).

The growth on my thyroid is small at this point. Dr. Drobny is going to keep an eye on it, and we'll do another ultrasound in a few months, but she doesn't want to biopsy it yet. If it is thyroid cancer, which she doesn't think it is, it's completely treatable when found early and she felt completely comfortable waiting six months to see if it was even necessary to biopsy it. In the meantime, she ran a bunch of blood tests and it appears, based on the results that came back, that I have Hashimoto's disease, which is an autoimmune disease that attacks the thyroid and prevents the thyroid from producing the hormones it's supposed to produce which, in turn, manage and regulate many of your body's regular functions.

The bottom line is this: I received, and filled, a prescription for Synthroid, a synthetic thyroid hormone, and I feel fantastic again. Actually, I probably just feel normal, but after months of feeling absurdly tired and sore, it feels fantastic to just feel normal. I spent the weekend gardening, which would have killed me a month ago, but Saturday evening I just felt the plain ol' amount of tired someone would feel after a day in the sun digging and lifting and pulling and things. Most of all I feel so, so thankful. Good health is nothing to grow complacent about, and I know I never will again. I was making decisions about social activities based on how exhausted I thought it might make me feel which, at my age, is so beyond ridiculous that I feel absurd even typing it. But no more. Now I feel like every other young other with small, exuberant children: tired, but nothing a cup of coffee can't cure.

So, thankfully, that is it. Other than more frequent doctor visits and taking medication, that should be the end of the story and, hopefully, clear up any lingering questions readers might have had.

Gardening

Growing up I never pegged myself for a gardener. My mom was, of course, and she was an enormously talented gardener. But probably one of the reasons she had such locally famous gardens was because she didn't let her too young daughter near them. (A few examples of my mom's talents can be found in past blog posts here and here.)

And still, to this day, I am not as dedicated to the art of gardening as Mom was. I have other things that interest me more than gardening, and those things are often easier to accomplish with three kids in tow.

Lack of talent or dedication aside, spring usually finds me outside cleaning up the few gardens I have. Mostly these days that has involved pulling vast amounts of weeds (I did not tend to my perennial flower border garden as I should have last summer-- shame, shame!). Yesterday, though, most of the weeds were finally gone-- hurrah!-- and I was able to move onto more exciting endeavors...

...like replacing a rose that didn't make it through the winter, adding some porchulaca as a ground cover and some cocoa bean shells to (hopefully!) stop, or at least slow, all the dreaded weeds. It smells like a chocolate factory outside my house right now, another benefit to my favorite type of mulch,

putting some favorite herbs into pots near the kitchen door (basil, dill, oregano, thyme, rosemary and tarragon),

replacing-- yet again-- some hollyhocks that have been eaten and replaced year after year for the past few years by some sort of critter and never take off.  This year I splurged on a larger containers, I hope this helps ward off my hollyhock kidnappers(!),

and replacing plants that, for whatever weird reason, just disappeared or never came back (salvia pictured here).

But, of course, still lots of weeding to be done. The euonymus in the front has really taken off, and I love how the English boxwood shrubs look interspersed in there (they're new this spring) but I can't stand how big, ugly dandelions spring up in the euonymus and because the euonymus is nice and thick now it's practically impossible to pull the dandelions. So yes, the fun has begun, but lots of drudgery still left. I suspect that will remain true throughout the entire growing season.

Next up, the vegetable garden, which I'm already a few weeks behind on. My excuse? It has been unseasonably cold here for May, but still...

Madeleine's Future Husband: Beware

While sitting around our dining room table eating lunch today Madeleine, out of nowhere, blurts out, When I have kids someday, if I get a girl I'm going to give her fairies in her room, you know, like wallpaper? And if I get a boy I'll do, like, soccer balls.

That sounds interesting, Madeleine, I respond.

And then Hank chimes in, If I get a girl I'll paint her room pink with purple fairies.

I think a purple room with pink fairies would be better, responds the older, and in her eyes, wiser sister.

Well Hank, are you going to let your wife help decide what your kids' rooms should look like? I ask.

Hank thinks for a moment, Yes, she can help.

Well, Madeleine declares, when I get married and have kids my husband is not helping me decorate our kids' rooms. He'll be at work.

Cool Down

Yesterday we drove home from Silver Lake in our shorts and T-shirts contentedly, enjoying the memories of a more than warm but less than hot eighty-degree day spent under the warm sun playing bocce ball and croquet.  For Memorial Day, it was warm.  Summery, even, and we had the flushed faces and tired bodies to prove it.

We pulled into the drive around 6 p.m. and decided we needed to take advantage of the warm weather and get the lawn mowed.  The kids, tired though they were, scooted up and down the block while Joe and I finished some mundane tasks in the yard.  

A few hours later, quite suddenly, the wind shifted.  In an instant the warm, eighty-degree breezes plummeted and no longer was my T-shirt warm enough.  We herded the kids back inside after a few moments and within the hour the temperature dipped down into the forties.  The forties!

Last night's experience reminds me of an old Wisconsin saying: If you don't like the weather, just wait ten minutes.

Yesterday T-shirts and capris, today jeans and sweatshirts.  Gotta love spring in Wisconsin!

Waking Up

Is there any better way to wake up then when a sunny, cloudless spring day coupled with the smell of freshly brewed coffee greets you following a solid, eight-hour night of sleep?  

Sniff, Snort

Last night Hank finagled his way into our bed.  Well, finagled might be overstating a bit.  It's possible his sucker of a mom invited him in since the girls were with Grandfather and Diana.  And by possible I mean likely, but really, how he got there is irrelevant.

OK, so Hank is sleeping with us.  But at 12:30 a.m. he wasn't actually sleeping.  He was wide, wide awake sniffing and snorting.

 

Sniff, sniff.  Then a readjusting of position.  Covers move.  More snot sucking (hey, I know it's a gross visual-- or audio reminder-- whatever-- but it was gross, OK?). More moving.  More rolling.  More sniffing.

Hank, mumbles a tired Superdad, use a Kleexex for Pete's sake!

Sniff, sniff, snort, snort.  Roll over, kick off the covers.

Hank, in a loud whisper, Dad!  Can you get me a Kleenex?

A sigh from Superdad.  Cate, whispers Superdad (why are we all whispering since we're all awake?!), do you have any Kleenex?

From me a grunt.  Joe takes it to mean no and trudges off, tiredly, to the bathroom.  He gets back.  There's more sniffing, sucking and some occasional blowing. Hank, just blow!  whispers Superdad.

Everyone-- and by everyone I mean those actually participating in the midnight Kleenex madness, like Hank and Joe-- lies back down.

Sniff, sniff!  Snort, sniff!  The pillow is readjusted.  Sniff, snort!

Hank, I swear, you're like an eighty-year-old man, grumbles Joe.  I start to giggle.  

Sniff, sniff, snort, sniff!

Now I'm really laughing.  Loudly.

Seriously, Hank, says Joe, look at you.  You can't lie still, you can't stop making all these personal noises and you're lying there with navy blue socks on, for Pete's sake!

Now I'm laughing so hard I'm crying.  Hank is starting to wonder why.

Sniff, snort, sniff!

Now Joe is laughing.  What's so funny? demands Hank.  He's annoyed now.  SNIFF!  SNORT!

I think I fell back to sleep while doubled over in hysterics.  My goodness, each day this kid kills me just a little bit more.  

Garage Sale

Madeleine and a neighbor friend have been outside in her friend's yard all afternoon preparing for a rummage sale.  They have both been picking the choice items out of Goodwill piles at their respective homes and saving them for this event for months which, if last summer is any indication, will be an on-going, all summer sale.  There are piles of books, cookware and clothes being folded, priced and arranged and rearranged.  They've been knocking on doors up and down our street and flipping old "Scott Walker for County Executive" signs over and turning them into really darling rummage sale signs colored pink and purple with lots adornments only seven and eight-year-olds would think of.

But the pricing.  Oh goodness, the pricing!  I took a stroll down there to look over their merchandise a bit ago and had to chuckle to myself.  Madeleine, who is seven, and her friend, who is eight, are responsible for the price structure.  At their garage sale a decent saucepan can be had for fifty cents while a cheap paperback off the bargain shelf at Target will cost you five dollars.  There are two sets of sparkly, baby girl sunglasses; one pair will set you back fifty cents, the other two dollars.

Book Club

I have always been a reader.  I have always had the ability to lose myself in a book and to become so engrossed that the world around me almost ceases to exist.

Despite my love of reading, I have never joined a book club as so many other readers do.  I don't know why, really.  Many seem more focused on idle chit-chat and gossip than discussing the book at hand and others seem more interested in reading books I am not interested in reading.  So I've never joined.

Well, now, Madeleine is a reader. She too has the ability to lose herself in a book and become oblivious to the world around her.  

I decided to create a mother/daughter book club for her that embodies all the characteristics of a book club I would like to be a member of.  Tonight was our book club's first meeting.  This evening, Madeleine and I carefully arranged vanilla meringues and chocolate meringues on one platter and a plate of scones on another platter.  We then poured a gallon of Trader Joe's peach juice into a teapot and carefully set out four cups and saucers alongside the "tea" in preparation of the discussion of a decidedly British book (by myself I set out an array of wine glasses and a favorite Beaujolais). Four girls in total (six belong to the club, but two could not make it) arrived at our house tonight at 6:30 p.m. to talk over Matilda by Roald Dahl. 

I don't know what I expected.  I knew Madeleine loved the book.  She raced through it in a matter of days and those days were filled with loud snorts and giggles.  I knew the other girls had loved the book based on what I heard from the other moms.  But loving a book does not always translate into being able to talk about a book.  But it did tonight.

I was amazed-- amazed-- at the insightful thoughts these girls had.  Matilda isn't incredibly layered, but there are some inferences to be made that I thought the girls might miss.  Nope, they all were well aware of all the different characters' nuances, what made each unique, why the Wormwoods and the Trunchbull had to be so fantastically evil to make the book funny and why Matilda and Miss Honey related to each other.

All the girls took the job of discussing the book very seriously for about an hour, which was a lot longer than I thought we would get serious discussion out of them and during that hour I could see how much fun they were all having thinking about different scenes in the book and letting other peoples' thoughts about the book soak in.

I can't wait for our next book club night!

WPA Conference

Like last year, Joe and I headed up to Oshkosh, Wisconsin this past weekend for the Wisconsin Parent's Association's annual conference on home-schooling.  Even more so than last year, both of us felt we learned a lot, challenged different ways we thought about certain things and, most importantly, feel we're better equipped to give our kids the sort of education we want them to receive. 

If, though, I were to devote this post to explaining what we learned it would be 8,651,552 words long.  I don't have the time or, frankly, the inclination, to write a post that is that long.  

But I do want to give plug WPA (Wisconsin Parent's Association).  They put together an incredibly beneficial conference every year but, most importantly, it is because of this group that home-schooling is as easy as it is in this state.  This group has made it a point to bring all types of home-schoolers together, no matter what their educational philosophy or religious background happens to be.  It manages to get strong-willed, smart people to keep the goal of home-schooling effectively and legally paramount in their minds, and they do it well.  I highly encourage anyone home-schooling in this state to check out their website and then join, even if you never intend on attending a conference.

And hey, if you ever do decide to attend the conference, you can write your own 8,651,552 word long blog posts which I will probably, quite happily, read.

Piano Recital

I discovered, for the first time, back in February when Madeleine competed in her first piano competition, the nervousness it is possible to feel on behalf of your child.  I remember, pretty vividly, the music competitions and recitals of my own youth. I remember the racing heart, the sweating palms and the anxious, sick-like feeling that grew until the time of my performance arrived.  But as soon as those years were over they were soon forgotten.

Until Madeleine started taking piano lessons last fall.  And now all those feelings-- the racing heart, the sweating palms and the anxious, sick-like feeling-- are back.  I felt them this past February and I felt them, even more, tonight.

Tonight Madeleine had her first piano recital.  In February, at her piano competition, she played in front of a single judge, a stranger.  Tonight she played in front of her peers and all their parents.  It was a friendly group, but for a seven-year-old, intimidating.

It was with no argument that she warmed up and rehearsed one last time before walking down the street to her piano teacher's home, where the recital was held.

And it was with no small amount of anxious nerves that Madeleine dutifully posed for pictures.  First, her true emotion, annoyance with the photo session, is made clear.

And then, almost manically, she begins to laugh.  Wisely I realize this is as good as it will get.  Snap, snap!

Moments after this we arrive at the recital site.  We sit amongst the other proud moms and dads, Madeleine on the other side of the living room with the other students, the two groups divided by the shiny black grand piano.  Madeleine chews on her cheeks.  She squirms in her seat.  She makes weird faces at us and looks more and more nervous every second.  As she squirms and chews and wiggles I feel more and more nervous.  Will she be OK?  Will she remember what she's supposed to play?  These are the thoughts running through my head.

A seventh grade student finishes her Bach piece.  Now Madeleine, with a brief introduction from her teacher, stands up and makes her way to the piano.  She won't look at the audience.  At all.  But she sits, regally, and begins to play. As she plays she grows more and more confident and as she plays the songs as correctly and well as she is able my nervousness abates as, I have to imagine, did hers.

Stormy Book Night

Last Friday night we experienced typical Wisconsin spring weather.  It was wet and rainy with various bouts of thunder and lightening, which just happened to coincide with dinner hour.

While reheating our vegetarian lasagna the lights flickered now and again in time with particularly bright bolts of lightening.  Oooooooh! shrieked the older kids.  Maybe the lights will go out! suggested Madeleine.

And then we started to reminisce about the time the lights went out for two (or was it three?) whole days on the entire south side of our village.  It was fall, so heating wasn't really an issue, and it felt like a huge, fun adventure (well, OK, it was an adventure for the first day, then it just became a pain.  But time in a salve, is it not?  All we choose to remember is game playing by candlelight, eating by candlelight, inventing new ways to store and prepare food or, in other words, all the romantic aspects).

We waited awhile, but we never lost our electricity, so we decided to institute a self-imposed ban for the evening.  We gathered all the candles we could find in our house, brought them to the dining room table and ate by candlelight.  This is what it would have been like for Laura, Madeleine declared.  We decided to pretend we were the Ingalls family, of The Little House on the Prairie fame.  That lasted about two minutes, until which time Madeleine started complaining about the spinach in the lasagna.  Now Mary, I said, you eat what's given to you with no complaint.

Mom, replied Madeleine, How about we don't play that anymore.  Let's just be us with no lights.

Deal.

After we ate, we decided it was a perfect, stormy night for a major book night (explanation provided in the first paragraph of this post).  Shall we read by candlelight or the lamp? I asked.

Candlelight!

We broke the no electricity ban to pop popcorn (well, technically, our gas stove doesn't use electricity except to ignite the flame, so we only sort of broke the ban) and then brought what felt like eight thousand blankets downstairs and settled in for The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis.  We read really, really late because with the flickering of the candle, the violent wind, thunder and lightening outside and the warm and cozy blankets inside no one wanted the book night to end.  

We still have about a third of the book to go.  Who knows, maybe we'll be treated to another stormy night soon!

Mischief

Having a two-year-old is a lot of work.  Not having had one for a few years, I'd forgotten.

But I now remember.

Elisabeth makes a point to remind me.  A lot.  How?  Here's a recent reminder.