If I buried all this junk, would somebody dig it up somday and think it's a treasure?

Time sure does march forward doesn't it? I posted my last update, bought a house, moved into that house, started the kids in school, went on a cruise to Alaska, started unpacking, continued unpacking, got called in by the principal, kept unpacking, discovered that mowing my new lawn takes 5 hours, accepted that I will never be done unpacking, gave up unpacking, complained that my house is always messy and cluttered, nursed a few kids through the swine flu, found out that my family was coming for Thanksgiving, started unpacking again, dug up 7 Halloween costumes, planned a few Halloween parties, flipped out about the endless task of unpacking, wasted a decent portion of my life on FaceBook to include Mafia Wars, threw a few boxes away without even opening them, and the next thing I know it has been 4 months since my last post.

Here we are, firmly entrenched in the “Holiday Season” and I am not sure what is up and what is down. I have really loved being in the new house. I have room to pretend I have fewer kids then I do and I can hide quite effectively if needed. On the downside, I have realized that getting almost everything you want in a house still does not guarantee life long bliss. For instance, 3 bathrooms. You would think that with 5 kids, 3 bathrooms would be the answer right? No. I have 3 boys and when you gotta go you gotta go (and we are happy when they make it to the nearest toilet). The problem still remains aim and focus. Now I have 3 bathrooms to clean and 2 of them are open to the public (meaning when you come to visit, there are 2 bathrooms I must keep semi presentable for he viewing and urinating public and my boys still have no shame). I should just lay yellow tile and caulk with yellow caulk and save myself the trouble and embarrassment.

Also there are the stairs. Yes, I have space to send children away and somewhere to hide the mess and noise but I have to climb those stairs about a million times a day and usually I am carrying my weight in children, groceries, or trash. I have lost my cruise weight (I know, I'm amazing), but I should have the most well defined legs in America by now (but I don't). I am also struggling to master the art of air conditioning. If it is hot upstairs it is cold downstairs. If it is warm downstairs it is super hot upstairs. What the crap!!!!
I am very pleased to have a yard again. And people, this is not an ordinary yard. This is a yard on steroids (when compared to the 3 ft we had in AZ). It is big and fenced and pretty and green with trees and everything. Welcome back yard work. At the rental, someone else clipped, trimmed, and mowed. All we did was send our kids out to break the fence, wander off to the neighbors and dig holes for no reason at all. Here, Dan has taken maintenance seriously. There are lawns to mow (2 times a week in order to keep up with the neighbors), edging, fertilizing, weeding, pruning, raking (darn seasons), watering, seeding, and so on and so forth. Dan gets home from work and heads outside to work on “his yard.” I'm really starting to think he has a problem with the clutter inside. Pretty soon, I'll start taking it personally. And in the summer it is worse because we now have a pool to maintain.

I do need to acknowledge the good times we have had in the past 4 months. We got to take a once in a lifetime cruise through the inner passage of Alaska. It was peaceful and beautiful and I would love to take my kids and show them the wonder of the world around them. We also have finally gotten settled and are not feeling so transient anymore. The kids love their new school and I feel like it is a really good fit for them. We still live in dread of the pink slip, but that has slowed down at Dan's work and now that he won't let me watch the news before going to sleep every night, I am sleeping a little better.

Right now I am just trying to find places to shove junk so that when we do have guests, they are fooled into thinking that we have at least got ourselves a little bit together. Because everyone that knows me knows that I am all about putting on a show for the neighbors ( right, because the constant yelling at the children and fighting of the children can be explained away by the volume of the TV. My extensive hat collection is just because I like hats. And the fact that I won't let anyone past the entry is because I don't want to disturb my children who are diligently engaged in their studies.). If you can help me in this endeavor, drop by anytime. Don't bother calling (because I can't find my phone and my kids don't give me messages anyway. Plus, I will forget.). We prefer drop ins anyway. That way there is an excuse for not having a spotless house (because 5 active children isn't enough of an excuse).

Overall life is pretty darn good. Everyone is well now and Danny is employed. We will be missing our second planned yearly cruise (because while we are pretty sure his job is secure we aren't willing to bet $1000 right before Christmas on it.). I guess we will just have to live like the common people who only get to vacation once a year (Oh I don't know how they can stand it). But that does not include those that are in the mood to take a trip to Kansas and experience the beauty of the central plains. If you come I will even clear a path so you can venture past the entry hall. That is how much I value friends and family. Happy Thanksgiving (and belated Halloween, Veteran's Day, Labor Day)!!!!

I don't know exactly what is in there but it is one of my most prized possessions and I am about 2 seconds from throwing it out. Or not...

I'm back. Sometimes you have to vent before you can let it go. And since I did that (in a little under 4 pages of craziness at 3 am for everyone to read and ask about) I am now back and ready to tackle new craziness (that I'm sure I will or have somehow brought upon myself).

As many of you may (or may not) have heard...We Found a House!!! We put in the offer and the inspection went great. We got the financing and have figured out how stressful it is to stop spending money so you have 20% plus closing costs to put down at closing. But it was all worth it, because we close on Aug 14th and get to move into a very nice house that will actually be all ours (in 30 years when we finish paying the bank). While living in the duplex has been OK, I will not miss the noisy night activities of the neighbor or his dogs recent decisions to poop everywhere in the yard (or their owner's decision not to clean it up). In all of my excitement and stress over actually finding and getting the house I managed to overlook the fact that must now pack, AGAIN.

You would think that this is not such a big thing due to the fact that our garage is stuffed to the point of exploding with junk we didn't bother unpacking when we got here the last time. We have spent the last 7 months feeding our family of 7 with 8 plates, 8 bowls, 8 spoons, 8 forks...(you get the idea. The reason for this is that WalMart sells their junk in sets of 4 and we need 7 so we bought 2 so we wouldn't have to unpack the dishes that were so carefully packed from the first move this year. I still have no idea if they are still in one piece or smashed to smithereens, and I'm really happier that way.)

It truly amazes me that even with everything that is still packed, I have so much more to put back in boxes/baskets so they can make the move 10 minutes eastward (as in Eden cause the new house rocks). I find myself wondering if I really need all the crap I have spent the last 11+ years accumulating or should I just chuck it all (and start over because you know I will. Once a pack rat...).

So what if I've had to convince my kids that sharing towel is normal, and that shoes are not considered gender specific (even if they are pink). So what if I have repurchased pots and pans (because apparently I need them to cook even if I don't want to dig through 15 boxes marked “Kitchen” to find the perfectly good ones I already had). I think it is really a matter of deciding what you can and cannot live without. For instance, I can live without opening the 6 boxes of my children's toys because we just didn't have the room, but I cannot live without my cell phone (which my children have decided is a toy because there is nothing else to play with and, has had to be replaced once already). I guess the decision there has been made for me. The toys serve the greater good so I have to not only keep them, but unpack them. On the upside, my kids now know that I am serious when I tell them that I will throw all of their toys away if they don't pick them up.

What really irks me is the fact that I have not unpacked all of the clothes/shoe boxes. What that means is that I have 4 closets full of clothes and a mound of dirty clothes (perpetually) in front of the washer, but there are still more. I have to get rid of quite a few things because I can't stand the idea of moving dirty clothes to an new clean house. Maybe it is time for a compromise (I'll make my husband move them. He is sort of a germ/dirt-aphobe and how he has managed to live with me all these years is still a mystery).

In the end all the stress is totally worth it, because we will be moving from less then 1500 sq feet to almost 3300 and there will be plenty of room to hide all the junk so that I can live another 5 to 10 years without ever having to open half the boxes if I don't want to. I could just leave some of them packed and make sort of a game about moving boxes full of who knows what, from place to place until finally I break down and open them to discover that they have become priceless antiques. I think we have found a winning plan that will enable me to make it through the next few weeks until we finally settle into our new wonderful house.

I didn't realize how much I took space for granted (or maybe it is just that I am missing my beautiful blue kitchen that my husband tiled perfectly, exactly the way I asked him to. Or maybe I am missing my girl's room that my sisters helped me paint with pretty flowers that coordinated perfectly with the comforters that I got for their beds. Or maybe it is the high ceilings with crown molding that Danny and I spent months putting up while trying to pretend the piles of molding waiting, lined up in the entry hall, to be installed was an interesting decorating piece and a conversation provoking design choice. But sill there is the office that was built from scratch using instructions downloaded from the internet by my sweet husband with a little help from my dad and his and the skilled texturer that lived next door). Maybe it's not the space alone I missed.

I think the reason I am so happy is that I will finally be able to settle in and make it a home of my own (by painting and making my husband spend all of his free time on pet projects that require hours of backbreaking manual labor). Once we get settled, we will have more then enough room for visitors. If there are any of you out there who are longing for a fun filled vacation in beautiful and exciting Andover, KS (a suburb of Wichita) then give us a call, and we'll make sure you feel welcome.

I've heard that a weak flow could be a symptom of several conditions. You might want to see a doctor because I am tired.

It would appear that I cannot sleep. I am up at an unnatural hour because I cannot seem to turn off my brain. My husband never understands this because he denies ever being overtaken by the constant bombardment of sometimes random, but always unending rapid fire that causes one (generally me) to toss and turn until they (I) have no choice but to get up and watch a few hour of mind numbing TV until there is no choice but to surrender to sleep (repeat that sentence 5 times fast).

I want to sleep. I crave it. I need it. I grow fangs and claws when I am operating at a deficit (which is often but usually self inflicted). This is a proven and indisputable fact. Small children cower and grown me tremble when they see me coming after a fitful night of sleep. (Tonight, it would seem, my inability to sleep has caused me to make myself sound like a wonderful and pleasing individual.)

Every night, before I go to sleep, I seize the opportunity to talk with my husband for the few child free moments we enjoy together. Tonight we strayed to a topic that got my mind whirling. He had a conversation today that he found innocuous but I found (in my completely rational female way) to be laced with judgment. We were talking about looking down. (not to be confused with looking up which I find to be a necessary, hope filled, and enjoyable activity.)

Just in case you skipped the first few paragraphs of my little schpeel here, I am perfect and completely without flaws (she said sarcasticly), so I assure you that I try with all my heart never to judge. This is not to be confused with my love of holding firmly to my opinions and views while trying, with all that I am, to shove them down the throats of others. I just subscribe to the school of not throwing stones while standing in a glass enclosure of any kind. This may be hard for some people to believe, but coming from where I do, you know without a doubt that it takes all kinds. And being one of a kind (and wanting to be necessary) I try to let you be you without judgment.

So this is where I find myself now. Sitting at the computer hoping that by spilling my guts into cyberspace, I will be able to unburden my abnormally large frontal lobes (my brian people) and find sleep. Knowing (as I do) that those that bother reading this know me well enough to chalk everything said up to delirum, I plan on continuing without fear of offense but looking for answers.

Looking down is a time honored tradition employed by many due to its effectiveness and high success rate in achieving tears and turmoil. The “down lookers” make you feel like less because you don't seem to have as much. These are people who are stuck in a rigid box that dictates if you don't do things the way they do, you are wrong and therefore deserve to be scorned and ostracized. These are stupid people who have put themselves on a teetering pedestal of their own design, who will fall as soon as they realize that they are not really standing on anything. (Here I go with the judging. I don't really mean stupid. I mean snobby, rude, condescending, boastful, prideful, shallow, spiteful, unkind, mean spirited, hurtful, and small minded...but stupid seemed to be an easier way to express my current feelings even though I know it is not a nice word. It also made me sound like a little bit nicer person who has chosen to hike up that high road. But as we have already established that those of you reading know me pretty well, you might want to grab your flashlights and shovels because I am about to dig a tunnel beneath the low road. Wait. Just the thought of doing that was enough. I really feel a little better so, at the risk of seeming flaky, we are going to hop on the golf cart (because It is always easier to take the steeper route when you don't have to actually walk it.))

What do you do when someone that you care about is a judgmental pain in the patute (pronounced pa-toot-tee meaning bottom)? There have be subtle jabs for years that have steadily intensified (undoubtedly due to that fact that I have tried to be completely oblivious to the intended underlying hostility). I am vocal and quick-whited (if I do say so myself), so these types of attacks have little to no effect on me because I try to take it as well as I dish it. The problem is that I have recently found that the offender has changed battle tactics by sharing opinions and misinformation with other people I value. And now the questions have begun, and the looking down has spread. It makes me want to spit (and not just due to an abundance of saliva that I am convinced is a condition associated with aging even though my husband is trying to convince me that it has more to due with the bucket of Sour Punch Straws I got for my birthday. They are yummy and I would live on only them were it not for the sores they create in my mouth after a while).

So what do I do people? Do I surrender to my instincts and expose my confrontational nature? Do I put my gift for making people cry on display in open warfare? Do I respond by removing myself from the situation and duck and weave my way out of the relationships? Do I continue as if I am unaware? What do I do? What would you do? What would Jesus do (because, at this point I feel that both cheeks have been slapped)? Why do I even care? I must really be getting soft in my old age (or I just have a very close relationship with the offender/s) because normally I don't care.

And so here I am in the dead of night at the end of a week that has denied me sleep repeatedly (I went to the midnight showing of Harry Potter 6 and that sort of messed with my schedule). On the up side I am not fuming anymore (I would classify myself as being at the tale end of smoldering nearing the stage where the boy scouts pee on me to put me out (because that is what boys do at scout camp outs I have recently been informed)). I just wish they would bring on the pee because I am so ready for my bed.

Time Flies (especially when you are sitting on your butt watching 24)

I know I know. It has been far too long. I wake up thinking I will have all this time to update the old blog and before I know it I am wondering where the day went and praying that my kids will pass out from exhaustion soon. I have begun to type several times but, where much is given, much is required and I want to make sure that the 4 people who actually read this blog will not feel like the 10 minutes they wasted on me were not the biggest wasted 10 minutes they spent all day. You know what I mean?

The problem is that I blinked and all the sudden it is June. The good thing about that is that I managed to tivo the entire 7th season of the action paced, tension riddle, must see event of the fall television season , 24 (I LOVE THIS SHOW). The down side is that I have spent the last 2 and a half days watching 26 solid hours of television (I included the 2 hour movie event: 24 Redemption and I include the time I had to pause the show so I could yell at the kiddos to quiet down and leave me alone. I so need to cancel cable. It might make me a better mother.) and we are now smack dab in the middle of summer vacation.

So much has happened and I can barely remember the details of any of it. This year has passed in a blur so far and I only have about 2500 pictures to remind me of my life for the past 3 or 4 months. It is nice to know that I was actually there for the time but now I have to scrapbook those pictures (and there goes another big chunk of my life).

The sad thing is that not much really has happened to me personally but, with so many people around me, a ton has happened. So I am going to throw in an update: Karen Roberts style.

Temple Trip – Oklahoma City





Visit the Chairs – Oklahoma National Memorial



Bug Had a Birthday – The Big 08

We Had a Nephew

We Had a Baptism

Family Visit – We had family in town for the baptism and Easter



Hole in the Wall – Ahhh, family harmony.


Tubbs Had a Birthday – The Big 01

Magoo Had a Birthday – The Big 04

We Went for a Jog – The Hawker Beech Craft Health and Wellness Fair

We Won a Cruise – Alaska Here We Come

Dan Kept His Job – There have been layoffs 3 times in the 7 months Danny worked here.
Danny made it through the “Final” layoff for the next year and a half.

We made an offer on a house

Another Layoff Announced

We pulled an Offer on a House

The Outdoor Pools opened – This is OUR YMCA



We Had a Nephew

We Had A Niece

I know that for all intents and purposes this is not the most interesting blog ever written but I at least feel like I have done what I can to keep you posted on my “real life.” I have also been toying with the idea to do something fun for myself (although if you ask my husband he would tell you that almost everything I do is super fun and for myself but what does he know? He is always at work talking to grown ups and all involved in trying to keep his job and stuff.)

Maybe when I get another moment (in a month or 2) I will unveil my ideas for how to mix things up in my life. Right now I have a giant to do list that I have to get to if I ever want to be able to relax and enjoy my summer.

1. Watch my kiddos mess up the house while yelling idol threats and then tell my husband I was so busy all day.
2. Visit Texas (I will be there the 10th through the 19th. I am going to see Wicked!!!!)
3. Cause contention within my family (I have already done what I can for the month within my own family so this month I will be concentrating on my husbands family).
4. Applying Sunscreen.
5. Complaining that I am so white and overweight (but doing as little as
possible to remedy either of those conditions)
6. Applying more sunscreen.
7. Chilling with my kiddos at the pool (did you see our totally awesome YMCA
pools?).
8. Blogging about how I didn’t do anything all summer and where the time went
while being overly excited that my kids are back in school while my husband
is hopefully still employed and looking into making another offer on a new
house.

Big Plans. Big Plans.
Happy Summer Everyone (and by everyone, I mean the 3 to 5 people that actually read my blog).

Cold Found Me - I don't know how but it found me.

We had a little cold snap here. It kind of stinks that it is the end of March and we have to bundle up still. This is the plant hanger by our front door. We had to pull down the ice because as it melted it was freezing on our front step and my 3 year old fell and knocked his head.

Danny's car isn't in the garage so it was covered in ice. We tried to open the door but it was frozen shut. We did manage to free the handle.

The tire nozzle is completely covered in ice as was the tire. It is pretty neat because you can see water closer to the tire floating around under the ice.
This is the front light of Dan's car.

This is a shot of our front storm door. What is so funny about this picture is that the glass is clear. We do not have frosted glass that is all ice. We couldn't get it open. We had to go in and out through the garage.

The rest of these are some pretty pictures. I love how nature can be so destructive but so beautiful at the same time. The ice covered everything and the patterns and colors are amazing. I took the last three photos right outside on my street.

Father Time marches on - It figures he would be a man.

I don’t want to alarm anyone, but it seems to have happened. I have gotten old. Now don’t go giggling and thinking things are all funny. You are getting old too. It is one of those things that happen really slowly for a long time then all of the sudden it sneaks up behind you and kicks you in the butt right before it trips you and then repeatedly kicks you in the face while you are down. I not saying it is a bad thing, it is just a little unpleasant when you have to get up.

Most of you know that I have a gaggle of little ones (gaggle = 5+). I recently had their pictures taken (it only took me a year and a half) and I got them back. When I looked at them I received a shock. The faces in the pictures are no longer my little kiddos. My baby’s faces have been replaced by young adults (or at least pre-teens and non-toddlers).

My oldest no longer has baby fat and bed head. He is a good looking 10 ½ year old who wears deodorant and wants his hair to look good for certain occasions. He puts on clean shirts and changes his undies without being asked. Who is this child and where did mine go?

My second is 8 now. He is playing computer games and getting love notes from girls on the playground. What is even more shocking is that he can now read them on his own so I don’t always know about them. Last year he had a hard time reading other peoples handwriting, so I at least got to know what they said without having his older brother snooping for me. How do I get my baby back?

The oldest girl in my story now requires bows in her hair and earrings in her ears. She likes shoes that match her outfit. She wants to talk on the phone and brings home phone numbers of people who she simply must speak with. She also has a problem with my rule of NO make-up until she is 14. I wonder what she will say when she finds out that she can’t date until she is at least 16 (older if I can find any excuse at all to make it so).

Magoo is, as always, a gigantic handful of energy with a side of trouble. He can type in his favorite URL’s and work all of his favorite PC games all on his own. Not impressive you say? He is 3. He has also fine tuned his powers of manipulation (after all he has 2 girls to compete with). His big blue eyes are deadly weapons and he will use them. He also likes to critique my television shows. He likes American Idol but doesn’t care for anything that I have on when he wants to watch Deigo.

Then there is the baby. She is almost one and, for so long, she was content to sit still and smile for the adoring masses. Now she is mobile and gets into everything but when she gets caught, boy does she turn on the charm. You will be rendered powerless. I have yet to meet anyone who can fight her control (I doubt anyone has ever tried. She is that good.). Now she stands up on things. My baby is no longer a baby.

Then there is the hubby. As if adding insult to injury the man doesn’t age. He looks the same as he did when we got married (except for the tired eyes of an old man and the grown up hair cut). It took 11 years for me to come to terms with the fact that the man doesn’t gain weight but, as I was sitting on the bathroom counter plucking out my grey hairs, I realized he still looks young. I am the one who gains and looses (hopefully) weight. I am the one that has ruined my once perfect body (My ramblings, my opinions, and I HAD a great body) with the birthing baby after baby (after baby after baby after baby….). I am the one getting wrinkles worrying about…everything. I am the one who shows the wear and tear of day to day life and he is the one who can hide his age (until I stand next to him and “date” him). I know that life isn’t fair but someone needs to throw me a bone. In my head I think I stopped somewhere around 27 but the mirror might as well be calling me a liar to my face (or my mother’s face because it also struck me that my face is slowly morphing into my mother’s. I do hold the perpetual double chin against her and her DNA but I don’t think I helped things by dying my hair the same color as hers on accident while searching for a way to cover the aforementioned grays).

I know that aging is unavoidable but does it have to happen so quickly? Go ahead people, laugh at my pain and suffering, but be careful. Your day will come and I might just be there with my walker to get in a kick or 2 as long as you are already on the ground. Then afterwards we can leave the kids with dad and go party like a couple of wild and crazy ladies that have another few weeks before they are due to take their Boneiva pill again (it’s a pill taken once a month to combat osteoporosis. If you didn’t know that, I’m not sure we can still be friends)

I have a rumbly in my tummy...(and a marble, 2 screws, and about 57 cents in change. Were you hungry, 'cause there is plenty to go around. I promise)

HELLO!!! It has been a while and it’s lovely to see you again. Time has flown by and here all of the sudden it is March. Not only March, but March of 2009. Where has all the time gone?

My baby is finally crawling, and any of you who have kids know what that means….You have to actually vacuum the floor regularly. So I have that to keep me busy.


It really is amazing what this kid finds in the floor. I have found things ranging from a grain of rice (though how she managed to gag herself on that particular item is beyond me. It is tiny and yet, she’ll go ahead and try to choke on it anyway) to the head of a Littlest Pet Shop dog (though in my defense, the body that the head was originally attached to is entirely too large to choke on. How was I to know that my 3 year old has graduated from cutting doll hair to popping the bobble heads off of annoyingly sweet fake animals? What mom can see that progression shaping up?).

She tends to favor things that are clear and/or shiny, and that is just aces for my 3 year old. He has discovered the joy of scissors, (I did mention the doll hair right? Those dolls, for some reason are always sans apparel, therefore destined for the garbage anyway. They are just getting there a piece at a time.) and he leaves me little reminders that I own too many pairs of scissors daily. His favorite thing to cut up is the wrappers of fruit snacks, which fit into both the clear (semi-transparent) and shiny categories.

My new favorite thing to watch is someone trying to retrieve these items from her mouth (I watch the Amazing Race as well but that is only Sunday nights at 7pm on CBS so this takes up all the empty moments).

When she sees us coming, she knows right away what it is for. First, she smiles (to throw us off or distract us from our necessary purpose). When she sees that we will not be deterred, she clamps down tighter then a 10 month old should be able to. It is like a vise grip and if your fingers get caught in those razor sharp teeth, you may have to fish those finger tips out of there as well.

Then, if that isn’t enough to deal with, she throws her head backwards and emits the distress call. The call brings every person in the vicinity that in not already involved in the struggle, to the scene instantly so that they have the opportunity to both coo over the baby and completely misinterpret the situation. All they see is this baby thrashing and unhappy with your fingers in her mouth and you gripping her head in an abusive looking manner (you have to because the “head bucking” (as I call it) is quite unpredictable and could cause her to hurt herself if you don’t grab her fast in anyway you can. If you can hold on for longer then 8 seconds you are promoted to “professional” status.)

Once the crowd has gathered, if you are not terrified at the chance she might actually swallow, you get to explain to people who think that offering advise (such as “you might want to vacuum more often” or “you should have your kids pick up after themselves a little better.”) or asking every other second WHAT she swallowed (if I knew that I wouldn’t be digging for gold) or if you got it yet (I would remove my fingers if I had, in fact gotten “it”) actually helps. She continues to wow the crowd by gagging on you fingers every now and again to keep them riveted.

When you finally retrieve the offensive mouthful and, if you are my husband, have flicked it back onto the floor so it keeps on giving. She cutely rubs her nose and begs to be picked up and held (which I suspect was the whole purpose of the charade from the beginning) which someone inevitable does. Sucker!


What is so funny is that, for a bright kid (if I do say so myself and I do), she has yet to figure out how to be stealth enough to keep the treasures in her mouth (if that is in fact what she wants). She sticks something in there and then begins to chew quite animatedly. It could be applesauce (which I do not regularly keep on my floor but, with 5 kids, I can’t say it has never happened) and the kid will chew on it for about 5 minutes. When will she learn; you’ve got to make noise (so no one comes looking for you) and suck but don’t chew. Even with all the eating of random things off the dirty floor she really is a great and very happy baby.

So basically nothing much is going on here. What’s new with you? Don’t stay away so long next time. I miss you.