Writing In Prose

Ah, what a week.   It's been a doozy.   My husband worked this week about an hour and 15 minutes from our home installing a kitchen.   To save on gas money, he spent two nights at my aunts house.   Which, of course, left me for 3 days with the kids all to myself.   By Thursday, I was at the end of my rope.   On top of which, my husband thought was going to be a short day in which he didn't get home until 11 PM.   I think the expectation of him being home earlier on top of three days of fighting, complaining, crying, whining, etc just got to me.  

Sometimes, I tend to hide out in my hard times, not wanting to "bother" anyone.   Hence the reason I am able to write about this now.   I feel better today and now that we're on Christmas break, I hope the next few weeks will go better than usual.  

I been overcome by feelings of failure lately.   Like I am doing irreparable damage to my kids in my emotional roller coaster, lack of self discipline and lack of consistency.   I also feel so alone.... like every other mother out there has got it together.

So my husband and I ended up having a "spirited" conversation yesterday about everything that's been going on.   Neither one of us has a true gift of motivational speaking so it takes some working through to pick out the nuggets of good information that are put forth.   But he did have some nuggets.   One of the main ones was to start thinking in prose.   And I thought, well I already do that considering prose is the ordinary form of spoken or written language.   Then I realized, he wants me to think in pros.   Verses cons, of course. 

I've been very stuck on the negative lately.   No money for Christmas, my husband is working all the time, the kids are fighting, the kids are asking me a hundred, no a thousand questions, school isn't going like I expected, etc.   I forget to look at all the good things I have.   God has met our bills since I quit, I have been able to spend quality time with each of my children, I can play and read and chill with them, my house is cleaner (sometimes), I'm doing what God called me to do.   I've been living like the Israelites in the desert wanting to go back to slavery in Egypt, blaming Moses for all the pain and suffering.   When I focus on the negative I get irritable and just all around down.   It makes this mothering process a burden instead of the joy God intended it to be.  

I want to live in faith that we are continuing to do what God has for us.   I want to be blessed by my children and not burdened.   I want to enjoy the time while they are little, cause it won't be here forever.  

So a special thanks to my husband for putting up with this wall of "stuff" I lay out there and for getting through to my heart and giving me a better perspective.   You truly are a gift from God to me and I love ya tons.  

To any other mother out there that feels at the end of her rope... you're not alone.   I cried three separate times on Thursday.   I made dinner, served it to my kids and locked myself in my room.   I love them SO MUCH and I didn't even want to eat dinner with them, just so I could have a few minutes of quiet to myself.   I think I'm safe in saying, we've all been there and this too shall pass.  

Psalm 127:3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward.

High highs and low lows

What a couple of weeks.   As you can tell from the title it's been a real roller coaster ride.   First I'll start with the highs.   I wasn't going to post this until the end of the month, but considering the second part of this post, I'll share my good news.    For 2010, we made a good effort to pay down some debt.   Unfortunately when we got to the end of 2010, I had no idea how much we had paid off.   I would have had to dig through a lot of paperwork to figure out what all of our debts were at the beginning of 2010.   Additionally, we acquired new debt in 2010 after purchasing a car, so it definitely off-set the balance.   Near the end of 2010 is when we really headed in the direction of me quitting in 2011 so the journey got really serious.   Last December I took a tally of ALL of our debt.  It was BIG.   But now, I fortunately can see the progress we've been making.  

I was really excited about determining where we ended up this year, so I couldn't wait until the end of the month.   So here's the bottom line... From 12/28 last year, to early December this year, we paid off over $15K on debts.   That's principal balance!!!   I'm ecstatic!   Who knew?  Granted, now that I've quit, we anticipate that the pace will slow down considerably and we still have years ahead of us to get completely out of debt.   But I felt pretty good about the progress we made this year.   Just goes to show what we can do when we put our mind to it.... and have God's blessing of course!!!

So onto the lows...  I guess I'll just get right to the point.   Well maybe not... my husband has been working at a local computer shop for about 15 months.    Business has been slow.   My husband's old boss decided to sell the business to one of the employees.   Ownership changed Oct. 1 of this year.   Because business was slow, my husband's schedule had been part time to full time and then back to part time.   He is currently working 2 days a week.   Because he was only working 2 days a week, he's been picking up tons of construction work. 

Side story... since the construction has been picking up.   My husband has considered going full bore into business.   We've been praying about what to do.   My husband went on a hunting trip recently and had lots of time to pray and seek the Lord sitting in a tree.   He told me he didn't feel like he was supposed to stay in computers.    This is a little crazy for me, because about a year and a half ago we had a discussion about where to go and decided computers was probably a good avenue.   So here we are having a similar conversation again and going in a completely different direction.  I truly left it in the Lord's hands.   My husband is the head of our house and I want to follow his leading, but I also needed to know from God which way to go. 

So to the point... my husband got let go from the computer shop.   The new owner recognized that only being there 2 days a week, this job was not as important to my husband as it was before.   He also recognized that he could not pay my husband in the salary range we need to support our family to bring him back full time.   So of course I'm bummed to lose the income from this job... especially since it was guaranteed income compared to the ups and downs of construction work.
So that's my story.   Always a new adventure.   It's going to be an exciting ride.  

Blind Taste Tests

For whatever reason, my mom over the years has been very interested in blind taste tests of similar products.   One of the products is usually a no name, discount store brand verses top brands.   This has also flowed into recipes.   We are known to make two versions of the same item just to see which recipe is better.   Why do I bring this up you ask?   Well in the past two days, we've had TWO... count them TWO, blind taste tests.  

This is not usually this frequent of an occurrence for us.   However, my mom bought Eckrich bologna for sandwiches yesterday and had a small portion of Aldi's bologna in the fridge as well.    She and my dad tasted both of them side by side.   My mom of course knowing which one was which, but my dad had no idea.   Believe it or not, Aldi's bologna came out the winner.   It had more garlic according to mom.  

So the second taste test was banana bread recipes.   My mom has an old passed down recipe in her "box of recipes" that is a really good recipe.   However, it would have required me to go downstairs and find it.  Additionally it calls for cake flour in the recipe which we make ourselves (mixing flour and corn starch... not actually grinding flour), so it meant more sifting and mixing.   Neither of which I was up for.   So I opted to take to the web and found a pretty good looking Betty Crocker recipe.   Unfortunately, the recipe I found required buttermilk, which I do not regularly have on hand.   My husband stopped at Aldi's on his lunch break yesterday to get me the buttermilk and found out they don't sell it.  

After discussing with my mother, she volunteered to make the cake flour for me.  (Yay!  Thanks mom!)   Additionally, we needed the bologna (Eckrich, noted above) to go with our dinner, homemade turkey soup and sandwiches.   So when mom headed off to the store, she got me buttermilk as well.   (Again, thanks mom!  What a great woman!)  Then she asked which recipe I was going to make.    Since I had 5 very ripe bananas, I told her I'd make both.   And so I did.  

The Betty Crocker recipe definitely "looks" better.   The bread is all risen and nicely browned with the little cracks in the middle.  It also calls for an extra 1/2 cup of bananas, so I thought it would taste better.  I thought for sure we had found a winner.   The other recipe is much flatter and much darker in color.   I tasted them both today and there is definitely a difference.   The recipe that was passed down to me from my great aunt tastes delicious!!  Much better than the Betty Crocker one.  So there you go... don't let the looks deceive you.   We'll have to get a family consensus later this evening.   I'll let you know the results tomorrow.  

I do have to mention one more thing.   When I gave my oldest son a BC piece this morning, he said "why didn't you make grandma's recipe".   Since I made it late last night, there was no way for him to know which recipe it was.    I asked how he knew it wasn't grandma's recipe.  He just said "it tastes different".   Hmmm.... I guess we'll see.

Here's a pic of my two breads:

Big Excitement!

Our big exciting news for today is we FINALLY have an electric pencil sharpener!   I know it's the little things in life.   But this is seriously a huge improvement.    We have been struggling since we started school to keep pencils sharpened and not lose the little hand held pencil sharpeners.   Then when you do sharpen them by hand, half the time, the lead ends up breaking out the pencil.   Was totally driving us crazy.   I was able to get a nice electric one for a great price and it got delivered today.   Yay for sharpened pencils!!!

In the Moment

One of my boys is a totally in the moment kind of guy.   It actually drives me crazy sometimes because he can be totally okay and as soon as something doesn't go his way, he's off and pouting.   He usually doesn't like to talk about it either, so half the time you're wondering what's wrong.   One time we went to a small amusement park that has fun stuff to do like laser tag, go carts, mini golf, inflatables, video games, etc.   When we were leaving, we asked the kids if they had fun.... his answer "eh".   I was so mad that day.   It was mainly the fact that we were leaving and the 'fun' was over.     

It's funny though because I've been feeling that same way lately.   God has blessed our family with SO much and the first sign of an average or mediocre day and I'm like "why is life like this".   Today, and yesterday actually, I've been having a 'blah' day.   I'm not finding any joy in homeschooling and missing somethings about the business world, like the satisfaction of a job well done.    Oh, it's not like this all the time.   Some days I'm totally loving everything and it's completely awesome.  What's so crazy though is how quickly my attitude and thoughts can turn.  

We often remind my son that life's not a party.   It's not always going to be fun and sometimes it's just plain hard.    Today I need that message.   So I'm preaching to myself.    Just because things aren't all peachy doesn't mean God isn't in them.   Oh Lord, help me to realize the amazing gifts you have blessed us with and be thankful for them everyday.    Even in the midst of the blahs help me find joy!

So in other news, I'm not crazy about my daughters kindergarten teacher.   The teacher my boys had was so awesome.   So awesome in fact that you don't realize how good she was until she's not there anymore.   My daughter had some homework this week that I just thought was crazy.   I'm not sure if the teacher really expects them to be able to complete it, or if she really expects the parents to help as much as I had to without telling us.  Will definitely have to bring it up at conferences.    AND... my daughter is writing letters as part of her homework and has NO idea the proper way to write them.    If it's part of her homework, I would have assumed they practiced it or went over it in class??   Just makes me miss the other teacher.    The silver lining is that if my daughter stays in public schools next year, she will have the opportunity to have that teacher since she moved to teaching 1st grade.   We'll see.  

I so want a vacation right now.   I really love to travel and am getting the itch.   It looks pretty bleak for taking a vacation anytime soon; unless we do it with tax return money, which only means something else won't get bought or paid.   Ah, choices, choices.  

Guess that's all for now.  

A Whole New World

I am so excited to be typing this right now on my new Netbook that my husband got me for my birthday.   Well, new to me.   It's actually rebuilt, but I'm not complaining.   So I started to think about how things have gone over the last 3 months since I left my full time job to stay home with the kids.   Things really are different!

Firstly, I've read more books in the past 3 months than I think I've read in the 18 or so years since high school.   I would say that I wasn't much of a reader, but the truth is I probably never had or made the time.   Now that I sit a lot and watch the kids outside, or have all the housework done during the day which leaves evenings more free, or wait for kids at appointments, etc, I have a lot more time to read.    I'm totally guesstimating, but I think I've read over 10 novels recently.   Jude Deveraux is one of my favorite writers, although I've really come to love the Little House on the Prairie books recently too. 

Another thing that's changed is I've been losing weight without even trying.   I've lost 10 lbs since quitting which is just under a pound a week.   I think it's because I hardly ever sit anymore.   And I can actually say that I've missed meals because I've been so busy...  that NEVER happened to me before.   I would usually sit at work and force myself to hold off on snacking until the next meal or appointed time.  

Among other changes, the other thing I started doing was BAKING!   Seriously never considered myself a cook/chef/baker or any other name for someone who prepares food.   I've been baking birthday cakes for everyone in the family instead of buying them and making homemade chocolate chip cookies like ALL the time.   I even got a bunch of recipe books from the library.  

It's so weird to be living this "alternate" life.   I've gotten to see other moms that stay with their kids, take my kids to story hour, relax and watch movies or read books just for me!, visit the zoo during the week, visit the beach and build sand castles with my kids.   It's so amazing.

I just feel so blessed.   I guess it just goes to prove that so much of who you are can be buried beneath layers and layers of outside responsibilities.  Maybe that's not the best way to explain it.  It's just, I never got to do this stuff because I just never had the time working and raising a family.   I just thank God for this time and opportunity to explore new talents and gifts that have been hidden away for such a long time.  

Too long

Its been much too long since I've written here.   I've thought many many times about jotting down some thoughts or a little event and just never made it to the computer to actually do it.   So needless to say, things have been busy.

Homeschooling is in full swing.   This week is our 7th week of schooling.  It has been an up and down roller coaster for sure.   I can truly appreciate comments I've heard from other moms about trying to be a mom and teacher at the same time.   Wearing both hats is truly challenging.  I often say to my boys, "you would never whine like that or say that to a teacher in school".   There are also days  that I have to remind them a few times that "Playing with younger siblings" is not currently a subject we are studying during school time.  

It took us some time to fall into a routine and to be honest, our homeschooling is nothing like I envisioned it to be back in the summer... nothing.   The boys really enjoy working independently so they can crank out their work and get it done.   I pictured us sitting around the table studying each subject together and working through the curriculum.   There are some things we have to do together, but too often it doesn't happen and that task gets pushed to the next day.   But for now, it seems to be working and the boys are learning stuff.   Sigh of relief :)

The financial side of us doing this journey has had it's roller coaster ride over the past month as well.   My husband went back to work full time for the month of September, just to have his hours cut again in October.   A new twist to the situation though is that his company transferred ownership to one of the other co-workers (now boss) that was at the company.   Unfortunately for the owner, business has been SO slow.  Luckily for us, God has continued to put construction work in the path of my husband in order to make ends meet.   So much so, that we are contemplating, just naming the business and running with it.   We will be prayerfully considering that option over the next few weeks.   Not that anything would change really.... it would just be more formal.   My husband would continue to work at the computer shop part time and do this on the side (Is it really the side, if you do it more than your *real job*??)  Anywho, in the meantime of praying about it, my husband has been looking for other work.  

The main thing we are lacking right now is Health Insurance.   Go figure, we haven't had any major things come up in the past few years that weren't planned ahead of time and just in the month of September we had two ER visits.   Two of my boys on separate occasions cut their heads open enough to require a hospital visit.   My oldest son had 4 staples put in his head and one of the twins had his head glued.   How crazy is that!   So regardless of what happens with a job or business, that is one thing that needs to be seriously considered.  

I guess that's all I'll ramble on about today.   There are other stories to tell, but I'll save that for tomorrow.

Wide Awake

For some odd reason, it is 4 AM, I have already been up for nearly 2 hours, and I am wide awake.   It started with the boys coming in our room because they were afraid to sleep on our floor.   Then one was thirsty.   Then we had to convince our 8 year old that he was old enough to stay in his bed.   And on and on....    Then I just continued to lay there, not being able to sleep.   Finally, I decided, if I'm going to be awake, I mind as well do something useful with my time.  So if you're reading this and for some reason you were awake during this time and needed prayer.... I was praying for you.  

While I was awake, however, I did think of some people that might specifically need prayer.   A friend of ours recently gave birth to a baby.   I was talking to her today about how he was sleeping etc.   Our conversations reminded me back to when the twins were born.   That first week was unbelievable.    I remember waking nearly every hour and a half to feed one or the other of them.   I was so tiredly trying to keep track of who I was feeding and what time.   But at 3 in the morning, I can vouch that your handwriting is not nearly as clear as you hope it would be and sometimes I would mix up babies and times and it would all be a mess.   I remember sitting in the rocking chair right next to our bed, holding a baby in my arms, feeding him, resting my head wearily against the back of the chair and close my eyes, just for a few extra seconds of sleep.   So I pray tonight for all the exhausted moms of newborn babies that are just grasping every ounce of sleep they can.  

I also thought of a friend who recently lost her husband and is battling some feelings of depression.   I pray for those who are lonely in bed tonight, that God would just bring comfort, peace and friends who can lift their spirits. 

My one son struggles a lot with fear.   Oddly enough I beginning to think this is a trait passed down hereditarily (if that's even a word) and not necessary by environment.   Regardless, I too, struggle with fear all the time.   I reminded him that God is everywhere and is the best protector.   He also is our father, and we are his children, so just like he feels comfort sleeping on mommy and daddy's floor, we can find peace and comfort in the presence of our holy Father.   I also reminded him that the word of God promises that his angels will watch over us and guard us.    So I pray for anyone else out there tonight who is feeling afraid and needs the peace of God to calm their souls.  

I was hoping by typing this post that I too would be able to find rest.   So for now, I sign off until the beautiful sun shines on this glorious day.  May God's blessings, peace, and rest be on all who read this post. 

Ciao!

Finally, a day without tears...

Well, today was the first full school day at home without any tears shed.   You can't believe how good that makes me feel!   Last week, one of the days I made the boys an assignment sheet with things they could do themselves.   That seemed to work better.   Today I just enhanced it.   I made the assignment sheet and then listed the times of what else we would be accomplishing together.   They pretty much had the whole day laid out for them and I think they liked knowing what to expect.   Also I did one of our lessons with the laptop hooked up to the projector... they loved that.   It reminded them of the Smart Boards they had at school.   My oldest asked if we could do ALL of our grammar that way.   I said I would use it when it "fit" what we were learning.   This direction requires a lot more up front planning, which is usually not my style, but it seems to be working.   Unfortunately, it ends up keeping me up late, cause it ends up being the last thing I do before I go to bed.

On other news... my daughter is getting her first school pictures done tomorrow.   My sister and her family had come up for a visit in early August and my twelve year old niece put a string wrap in my daughters hair.    It looked very cute and stayed well for over a month.   About 2 weeks ago, I cut the knot at the top to get it to loosen and hopefully fall out.  well... it never did.   So here we are the day before school pictures and I figured I needed to cut it out.   My daughter and I talked about it today and she seemed fine with it.   However, I didn't want to get to the morning and have a big drama event about it, so I just cut it out while she slept.   Hmm.... we'll see how that fairs in the morning.

My kids did not win anything at the county fair this year.   That was really a bummer.   My son entered a lego model that took a lot of time and $$ to put together.   We thought it was really good, but unfortunately someone else won.   Last year, we had two ribbons, one for first and one for third to my second son and daughter.   But no such luck this year.

Well, looking forward to another good day of school tomorrow.   Please.....

Calgon, take me away

I started a post about day 2 of homeschooling and never finished it. So I will recap that day here and then continue onto today's events. Day 2 was almost as bad as day 1. Again it ended up in tears (mine, not the kids) and left me feeling completely overwhelmed. The end of last week I held a garage sale and therefore, Wed- Fri of schooling was pretty light.

As a side note, the garage sale did very well. Thank you Lord! I prayed that the time and effort that went into setting up, cleaning out, and pricing would be well worth it. I was blessed with over $300 in sales, so I was thrilled. Again, praise the Lord!

This weekend held some fun activities as well. Friday night we had tickets to the Indians game from my prior employer. It was the only chance the kids had to go to the game this year. While I did spend 3-4 innings at Kidsland, a fun time was had by all.

Saturday, we had a picnic with a family from our church and it was really nice to get to know some other young families a little better and hang out with close friends as well. My two older sons got to ride a real 4-wheeler and that has been a topic of conversation for the two days since. My oldest has even been on the internet pricing them out for future purchase. (WAY future purchase if you ask me :) )

Sunday was a church service in the middle of town, and once again we had beautiful weather. The rest of the day was spent working around the house cleaning up after the garage sale. It's amazing how quickly things can get piled up again after being run through like a tornado for 3 days.

So onto today... the third full day of school. I'm sorry to say, once again, I ended up in tears. Luckily they didn't flow until after most of the kids had gone to bed and weren't all sparked from homeschooling. I'm one of those folks though that once the tears start falling, anything worth crying about is game, even the dog that died when I was a child. So of course, schooling got lumped in.

Right now, I feel like I did when the twins were just born. The first month I was completely overwhelmed and people kept trying to encourage me by saying "it gets better after the first year". All I could think at the time was 50 more weeks of this!!! I don't know what my kids will do if I cry every night for the next few months. I don't think I could handle it either.

The fact of the matter is that I'm currently feeling very lost. I came from a job that I was very good at and often received compliments on the outcome of my work. Now I'm doing stuff that I have no idea about, that I'm not very good at, and things that have little to no direction -- which results in I have no idea if I'm doing a good job or even improving.

On top of that two other pieces of information crossed my path, one that I took personally and probably shouldn't have and the other that requires more faith and trust in God.... faith that was so hard to come by when quitting my job that requiring more at this point seems insurmountable.

As lost as I feel, usually when the tears finally stop (somewhat from the relentless efforts of my husband to make me break a smile... thanks babe!), I come out with a clearer head. These are the times, I wish God would just give us a glimpse of what's ahead and say "It's going to be okay". I didn't get an "okay" from God, just a "My plans for you are to prosper you and not to harm you, to give you hope and a future".... I guess what else could I ask for.

Oy vey, I say!

Well I surely wouldn't classify today as a good day. However, I don't really think school was to blame. We got rolling this morning just a tad late and breakfast and chores took a little longer than I expected. We started school before 9 though so we didn't do too bad. I thought I would start the day doing read-alouds because I thought the twins could sit with us and feel included. That lasted all of about 10 minutes. I want the kids to learn how to sit though, so I did pester them a for a little while to sit down and be quiet and listen. When it started to interrupt the flow of what we were doing, I just gave up on them and let them play. Even then, I had to ask them to be quiet numerous times because even playing with their toys, we got the loud "vrooms" and "rawrs" from their play. About 1/2 hour in to reading, my oldest son said to me, "Mom, when are we going to start school?" I said, "this is it kiddo!" He said, "are we going to read for an hour every day?" LOL! Considering we are using Sonlight curriculum, I said "you betcha!" He was so looking forward to the worksheets, etc.

So even once we got into the worksheets, dealing with the twins was hard. I even tried to engage them with coloring sheets, reading books etc. All in all though, school time still went well.

Then this afternoon, I don't know what snapped. I think I was a little out of sorts because I didn't get to do any cleaning this morning, so the kitchen was a little bit of a disaster. Plus it was such a beautiful day and I knew the kids needed to get outside to play. We headed outside and I sat on the swing, book in hand, reading while they played. After an hour of reading, the wonderful breeze, perfect temperature, I was so sleepy! I just wanted a nap. I thought we'd come in and watch a movie and I could rest on the couch. I don't know if it was cause I was tired, or if it was the house being messy, or realizing I had to run to Sams Club to pick up dog food or what, but the kids just started hitting every last nerve. Oh I do have to add what some of my day entailed...

My youngest son, one of the twins, spilled water on the counter early this morning. At lunch he spilled mandarin orange juice on the floor and chair. He wet his pants in the bathroom all over the floor. Then on our way to Sams Club, he spilled Sprite from McDonalds in the back seat. Seriously, it is time to bring out the sippy cups again???

And that's just one of the 5 kids.

Last Friday was the first time in the month or so that I actually thought about going back to work. It also was during my Aunt Flo's monthly visit, and so, I attributed the bad attitude to that. However, Aunt Flo has left and today, the thought was there again. Am I in over my head? Maybe Christian School isn't all that bad? I had a good cry and hopefully got rid of all the negativity.

I do admit though that I have never felt so incompetent in my life. I am usually pretty good at things and very confident. I don't know if the Lord is working on my humility or what, but I'm feeling it! I'm trusting the verse that says He will not put me in a situation that is above what I can handle. I am reminded of a Facebook status that one of my friends posted. It said something about being thankful for all the spills, cries, screams, fights, etc that come from kids, cause otherwise, I could be like some who are crying tears of not being able to bear children. And on that note, I thank God tremendously for the blessing of my five children. I just hope we can all make it emotionally unscathed :-)

Summer is over

Well, at least for us it is. This week marks the first week of school and therefore, all of our unscheduled free-wheeling days of summer are over.

The past few weeks have been busy with last minute summer fun activities. Our family had the pleasure of going to a local water park this weekend for a friend's birthday party. We've been to parks and to a local kids fest. It has been so great spending quality time with the kids.

This week I also spent a lot of time cleaning out boxes of packed up stuff and getting our house more organized. I decided recently to hold a garage sale, so I've also been trying to get ready for that. In preparation for the garage sale, I knew it was finally time to sort through the many many toys we've had and sell some and garbage others. Thankfully, my friend, Jen, offered to help sort through stuff. We had a wonderful night of "toy cleansing"! I seriously think we reduced our toy stash by about 2/3's. Probably resulting in 1/3 in the trash and 1/3 in the garage sale. My husband and I even hauled all the trash out that same night and moved the garage sales toys into the garage to avoid the barrage of questions from our children as to "why we were selling this?" or "why are you throwing away that?" The end result is that I feel great about the toys we have left and the ease of maintaining/organizing our toy shelves.

We spent today playing Monopoly with our two older sons and then hanging out with friends from church for dinner and bowling. We had a great time. My mom watched the kids so we were blessed to an adults only evening.

The past few hours have been spent getting ready for school tomorrow. With the garage sale coming up this week and other projects in midstream, a friend suggested that I wait to start school. As soon as I discussed that with the boys, they were so bummed. They have been looking forward to this day for a few weeks now. I figured I couldn't disappoint them this time... especially when it comes to school work (who can complain?), so on we go. Tomorrow, oops, today will be day 1 of school. I've reviewed the lessons and work for the day and feel pretty comfortable with it all. I guess we'll see how it goes. If you happen to read this today.... throw up a prayer for us!

Never more than enough

Ah, so many things to post about. I realize it's been a little while since posting, even though I have thought about posting various things many times over the past few weeks. God has been blessing my husband with lots of side jobs the past few weeks. It's been great because we're paying bills ahead of schedule to make sure this recent jump to one income can be maintained. However, wouldn't you know it, our oven broke today. I preheated the oven to stick some brownies in and as I was passing by, noticed a little fire brewing in there. I opened the door and noticed that the heating element broke in two places, so there was a piece of the heating element completely detached. Oy! Hence the title of this post. Seems like God always gives you just enough. Luckily, my husband and father should be able to fix it themselves. So blessed to have handymen in the house.

Things around the house have been going okay. Had our main living area pretty spic and span and then my sister came to visit. Let's just say 10 kids under the age of 12 in a house, makes it very hard to keep up on housework. I'm not sure how families like the Duggars do it. I'm guessing the mom's are much more disciplined than I. But I'm working on it. I'm just not one of those people (yet) that makes sure the house is clean before I go to bed.

I'm trying to get garage sale stuff together to get some of this "stuff" out of my house. Man, what a headache. Today was the day that if there had been a dumpster in my driveway, it would have ALL gotten pitched! I'm trying to keep some of it out of the sights of my kids because as soon as they find out I'm selling something the tears start falling. My daughter told me today that this Princess drawing book she has is "her favorite", but it's been buried under a bunch of stuff in a closet for months unnoticed. Is a garage sale really worth it anyway? I'm still not sold on that one. Ugh!

I'm also wondering how it can seem like I have so much time to do stuff and it just flies by! There are days that I feel so incredibly productive and then others that I wonder, what in the world did I do all day? Today I sat in front of the computer all day working on videos for various people. So the house feels untouched and I feel overwhelmed, and that usually makes for a not so good day. I asked my husband around noon today to pray for me to have an extra dose of patience today cause I was already starting to take it out on the kids. Well my oldest son must have heard because he reiterated the statement at our dinner prayer this evening. I shot him a look of you better watch it kid! Ah, I think I'll make sure every one is in bed at 8 today and reading quietly while I veg out in front of a movie. That'll help get the housework done :)

Well I think that's all I'm going to rant on for today. Hopefully tomorrow goes better!

"Pork chops and applesauce"

That's an old quote from the Brady Bunch. We had the pork chops for dinner today, but not the applesauce. Whenever we have pork chops though, I think of this quote. So the whole point though is that dinner was delicious today. I made the pork chops in the crock pot all day with barbecue sauce so that they were not dry. We also had mashed potatoes and salad. I also steamed some cauliflower.

Funny thing about cauliflower... we told our kids for a while that they weren't allowed to eat cauliflower until they were 18. Then they all really wanted it, so when we would let them have some, it was a special treat. Now they all love it!! We can steam an entire head of it for dinner and it will all be gone. Reverse psychology, gotta love it!!!


Two days ago, my hubby gave me a special treat too. He used a gift card for Giant Eagle that he had earned from work (since we are short on cash these days) to buy me a card and some ice cream drumsticks (who needs flowers when ice cream is the alternative!). The card was so special and talks about how blessed he was from the day he met me. I love when my hubby does stuff like this. It made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Thanks babe, you're the best!!!!


Lastly, my boys are taking swimming lessons at the pool and the cutest thing happened yesterday. My oldest son's instructor was out for the day, so they had a substitute, Matt. Matt decided to take his team in the deep end. Now mind you, my son does NOT know how to swim, so even I was thinking "what is he doing?" The point was that kids are so afraid of the deep end, but floating in shallow water is the same as floating in deep water. The few things that his group does know how to do, he had them do in the deep end, just to show them that they don't need to be afraid. So he was trying to get each of the 4 kids to do things like front float, back float, put their head under water, etc when one of the little boys said "There's no way you're gonna get me to do that without a life jacket". It was so funny at the moment. My husband and I were cracking up. Kids are so cute!

Eat more chikin

I don't know about you, but as parents, we try to plan events and family times that are fun and will be memorable for our kids. Well yesterday was one of those days. Chick-Fil-A has a Dress like a cow day every year where they give away free food for dressing like a cow. I was talking with our au pair about it and she said WE SHOULD DO IT! I called my husband at work to see if he was game and he said sure. So we spent about an hour cutting out spots, finding white or beige clothes, making tails, blowing up latex gloves for utters, etc. Once we got into it we had a blast.





When my husband got home, he jumped in the fun too. The more dressed up like a cow you were the more free food you got. So if you were just partially dressed up like a cow you got a free entree. Completely dressed up, you got a free combo meal. We went all out and headed to Chick-Fil-A, hoping we were dressed enough for the free meal.





And we got it! All of us got free meals. About $40 of free food for an hour of preparation and the willingness to make complete fools of ourselves in public. Nothing like it!!!





Here's a memory that will last!

Lightning Fast Fireworks

Today we went to our local fireworks which are set off at the local high school. As we were arriving we heard an announcement that due to cloud cover and an approaching storm they were going to set off the display a half hour early at 9:30 PM. We did our normal visiting activities and Grandma had brought glow in the dark necklaces and bracelets for all the kids. Then they announced 5 minutes to begin.

We all got settled and the National Anthem played. We are so blessed to be citizens of this country. Then the fireworks started. They seemed to be setting them off pretty fast. Then we noticed why....

Off to our left (north side) we noticed these dark dark clouds moving in. And man, were they coming quickly. We kept watching the fireworks, which were definitely in fast forward speed compared to normal, but also kept an eye on the approaching storm. Then the wind started to pick up. My husband said, we better be prepared to make a run for it. The storm got closer and closer. Papers and stuff started flying around. This was a let's not wait to see what's in it storm. We knew once it started raining it was going to downpour! People started packing up their stuff and we decided to as well. We grabbed our stuff and started heading towards the car, still trying to enjoy the even quickening fireworks as we walked. We got to the edge of the field at the high school and still no rain. I decided to hang out there and watch the fireworks a little more calmly... still standing of course.

The fireworks ended without rain and we headed to the car. What an exciting evening! That was a new twist on the city fireworks. So now I sit here at home about 10:15 and it is pouring rain. Sounds like it was a smart idea to start them early. My son decided he likes them set off faster. He says "it looks cooler"!

Take me out to the ball game

My son had a baseball game yesterday and played really well. He had an unassisted double play, 3 hits and 3 RBIs. Also he batted in the 'clean-up' position based on batting average, which means his must have been the best for the team as of yesterday. I was so proud of him.

He really loves baseball. Our YMCA is offering a league that starts in about a week and he wants to play again. Right now, he has a dream of being a professional baseball player. Every time I say that to another mother, they say "oh yeah, my son went through that phase too". For some reason though, I don't think its a phase for my son. Maybe I'm disillusioned by the fact that it's my son, but he is really driven to be better. He practices all the time. I mean ALL the time. My husband and I bought him a pitching machine for Christmas last year just to save OUR arms from having to constantly pitch to him.

God has really given him a talent too. He is one of the better players on his team and he is 7. The league goes from 7 - 9, so imagine where he'll be when he's playing on these teams at 9!!

So with all this thought of being a pro-ball player, I've read up on it some. Apparently living up in the North here like we do means the kids don't get as much playing time; obviously because of snow. So that can end up putting them a little behind in the big scheme of things. Interesting.... never thought of that. We have no plans to move to Florida, however, so its all in God's hands. I am interested to see though where it goes. Will it really end up being a phase?? Who knows maybe he'll end up being the next Babe Ruth (a Christian one, of course)?

The approach of summer

Coming up to summer is both a relief and like running the end of a marathon. With school ending we are so busy getting projects wrapped up and such. Six more days of school! Yippee!

My oldest son had to memorize a poem for school and present it before all the parents. He HATES getting up in front of people. He actually won't get baptized in church even though he's made a decision for Christ because he doesn't want to be in front of everyone. I keep telling him, that's kind of the point! Anyway, he did awesome at his poetry night. I believe he had the longest poem to memorize. Even other parents told us how good he did because of the length of his poem. He must have felt encouraged, because then he decided he wanted to to be in a play. We'll see how that goes. He has a part in a Bullying play being put on by the community theater in the next couple of weeks. Maybe baptism will be next on the list??

My second son has been working on a country report for a number of weeks. His group was assigned to study Canada. He also had to do a project at home about his country to be presented at the multi-cultural fair. He did a poster about hockey in Canada. He did a great job and was very proud of the final product. This past Wednesday was the main event. I think 10 - 12 countries were represented by both classes. They had food from each culture too. My son was concerned about not having food at their table, so I was thinking, well Canadians eat the same stuff we do? Then I remembered Canadian Bacon, so that's what he brought. Then I thought it would be cute to get Canada Dry too, so I did :-)

Of course, none of these projects can be truly completed without parent intervention, so we all stayed busy until it was all done.

My husband has been out of town all week going to see his twin brother graduate from Basic Training or Boot camp... whatever the correct thing to say is. He is on his way home as I type and it will be so nice to have him back with us. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a single parent to 5 kids. That's all I have to say about that!

So as we go into Memorial Day weekend, I am looking forward to some much needed rest!! Hope you all enjoy your holiday weekend as well!!!

Decorating on a dime - Part II: Pictures

As promised, here are pictures of our redecorating on a budget.


This one shows all of the changes. We painted the kitchen a dark coral color, the back wall, a dark blue color, and stripes on the outside wall. Also seen here is our couch we found online. You can also see in the bottom right of this picture how NASTY our old couch was looking.... just wanted to point that out :-)

While the stripes in the first picture are very noticeable, they aren't actually that noticable when looking "straight-on" the wall. This second pic shows how subtle they are towards the right side of the pic. You can barely see the lines between stripes in parts. As the light reflects off the semi-gloss paint, the stripes pop out.

The Angels are Singing

My little girl just told me a little while ago that she wanted to be a Christian and follow Jesus her whole life. I asked her if she had prayed and asked Jesus to be the boss of her life. She said, "no". I said, "do you want mommy to pray with you now?" She said, "yes". We went into my office and I thought I would pray with her, but she said to me, "I want to go first". Then she proceeded to pray something to the effect of:
"Dear Jesus, thank you for this day. I want to follow you my whole life and be a Christian. Please come into my heart. In Jesus name, Amen".

I was touched. And just like that, in a few moments, she became a child of God. How awesome! And she initiated it all! Thank you Lord for touching her heart and calling her to follow You.

Happy Birthday

to my wonderful 3 year olds. Truly a gift from God to us and ever present reminder of God's sense of humor.

I have a hypothesis

Tonight I was giving my 5 year old daughter a bath. I was doing a little science experiment with her. I had two 8 oz cups, one that was tall and skinny and one that was short and wide. I asked her which cup would hold more water. Then we filled up one up and poured the water in the other. Obviously we found out they were the same. She then says to me, "That's interesting. I have a hypothesis."

I just started laughing. Quite rude of me that I didn't actually hear what the hypothesis was, but I was flabbergasted by the fact that she used the word. I said, "where did you learn that word?". "Dinosaur Train", she replied. Guess that goes to show me that not all TV is bad!

Still never heard the hypothesis, but impressed at the little scientist I have on my hands.

Redecorating on a dime

We put an addition on our house about 3 years ago. It's still not finished with some trim needing to be added and a punch list of a bunch of little things. However, all that time, our walls have been white. We actually still don't have the final inspection completed on our addition yet either. My brother in law came up last week and finished off a bunch of drywall and painted my parents hallway. His painting inspired us.

We made an impulse decision to take a little money out of savings and do a quick face-lift on our family room area. I'm so excited because it is looking so good.

We've also been having issues with our couch. The springs have broke and the fabric under the cushions is ripped. It really is in bad shape. Considering we bought this couch about 4 years ago from Sams club for $300, we didn't have high expectations for it.

I decided to go looking on Craigslist for a nice used couch. Buying other people's old stuff can be quite a risky deal. While outward appearance is important, so are things like smell, etc. We also needed it to be CHEAP! Most of what I found in our price range out there was hideous! I mean UGLY!!! I started to realize also that TONS of stuff is available out on the west side. I wanted something on the east side a little closer to home. I started looking more at locations and then at price and then at pictures.

God totally blessed us because I found this little gem of a couch about 10 minutes away from our house. My husband and I went to look at it the other day and thought it was perfect. No smoking, no pets, and the couch had no smell. It of course is worn, but for the $50 we paid for it.... it is in NICE shape. We are picking it up today! I will post pics in another entry once the painting and couch are in place.

So blessed

Yesterday a friend gave me 4 free tickets to go see a screening of the new movie Rio. It doesn't come out until next Friday. We had to be at the theater an hour early because they typically overbook the screenings to ensure they have a full house. We got to the theater. There was a truck from a local radio in front, so I knew we were at the right place. I told the ticket lady that we were there for the screening of Rio. She said there was a line down the hall to the left. We went and got in line. There were about 15 or so people in front of us, so we were definitely getting in. About 10 minutes later, a person came up behind us in line. After standing there for a few minutes, I realized she had a ticket for a screening Soul Surfer in her hand. I thought it was odd that we would both be in the same line. After another few minutes, I asked the lady, "are you here to see Soul Surfer?" She said "yes". I said, "that's odd because I'm here to see Rio. Do you think they'd have us in the same line?". As I was talking I was pulling out my tickets. I looked closely at the tickets and realized they were for next week, April 14. UGH! We drove 45 minutes to this particular theater and the movie was next week!! AAaaah! I had taken my three older children because I knew they would love seeing it. Now we had to drive back home completely empty handed. As we were walking out, my older son kept saying, "please make sure mommy". I was sure. The date was right there on the tickets. I asked the "ticket taker" in the front if Rio was definitely next week. She said she didn't know, but all she was getting was Soul Surfer tickets. I asked if by any chance she had any extra Soul Surfer tickets because we had driven all the way out there. She said she didn't. The movie theater does not control those tickets, nor have any. So we started walking back to the car. About half way out in the parking lot, I had an idea. I asked my older son if he wanted to go back to the table where the radio station was and ask if they had any extra tickets. He said, "YEAH!". We went back in and I asked the ticket taker if my boys could go see if the radio station had any tickets. She said that was fine. The boys took off around the corner. We waited the few seconds. And they came back holding two tickets (each admitted 2)!!! YAY! We didn't go for no reason! So we got to see Soul Surfer which was an AWESOME movie. Highly recommended to anyone! AND we get to go see Rio next week. I kept telling the kids, "We are so blessed!!". We made sure to all thank the Lord for his blessings!!!

*sigh*

That is one sigh of relief. I made the crazy decision a few months ago to be the chairman for the elementary school yearbook. Actually, to clarify, I volunteered to help and then found out that there were no other volunteers. Yup, suckered again.

I have this really hard time of saying 'No', especially when there's a *need*. I take that back, I have learned to say no to a few things. Playing piano at weddings for one. I've messed up enough times during a wedding ceremony, you know, that special day when everything is supposed to be perfect. I definitely can say no to that.

So after many months and hours of work and time off of work, I finished it, packed up and had UPS pick it up today.

Ahhh, what a relief.

Maybe I'll do it again next year... :-)

Speechless

Its so funny. There were so many times I'd be driving home from work or just bee-bopping around and thing of these interesting stories or deep thoughts and have no where to put them. Now I create this blog and I feel like I have nothing to say. Completely ironic.

So here's my short random thoughts...

Spring is here, but its freezing outside. I thoroughly enjoyed the few nice days of weather that we had. Hopefully the good weather will be back soon.

Yep, that's about it. Gotta love it!

Happy Birthday Baby Girl!

Five years ago today, my baby girl was born. My rose among the thorns. We used to let the kids pick a restaurant to go to on their birthday, however, recently due to budget cuts, we let them pick their favorite meal for me to cook. I asked my daughter what she wanted for her birthday meal. She picked peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and mashed potatoes. Hmmm.... Ok I said. I asked if I could make meat for everyone else though and she was fine with that. I cooked up some corned beef and cabbage along with mashed potatoes and corn, and the specialty of the evening, PB&J. It was delicious!

Last night I wrote about making cake pops. Well... they looked pretty decent last night. Here are the pics:

(pictures coming soon...)

"Last night" of course is the key word in that sentence. By morning, the balls had slid down on the sticks, so it looked like they had been placed upside down on purpose. Hmm.... will have to work on that recipe and see if I can perfect it. I think we've had our baking fix for a little while though.

In the beginning

of my blog, of course. I've such fun writing my other blog that I decided to start one just for everyday stuff. Periodically, I have these deep thoughts, or sometimes just want to share random stories. With who? I'm not quite sure. My other blog has very few followers, but that doesn't make it any less fun to write in. So even if my wonderful husband and few friends from church are the only ones to ever stop in, I'll still be here writing. Maybe some day my kids will enjoy reading the chronicles of my life.

So on to my life's happenings....

Tomorrow is my daughter's birthday and I have no idea what got into us, but we've been in a baking frenzy. My husband started selling Pampered Chef and recently did his "practice" show for the family. My daughter must have been impressed because she asked my husband to make her something for her birthday and "do a show". At a PC party on Sunday, someone commented that the batter bowls were good for Princess cakes (where the cake is baked in the bowl and then used as the skirt of the doll). So my husband decided to bake my daughter a princess cake for her birthday. AND DECORATE IT!!! I had my doubts... but I have to admit, I am quite impressed!! Here is a pic:

As for me, I decided to try my hand at making Cake Pops. A coworkers wife makes them and sells them. They are SO delicious. My cube mate and I have been hearing about the secrets of making good and pretty cake pops, so we'll see how they come out. I have no intentions of selling them or anything, but they are really cute for parties, etc. Right now the balls are in the refrigerator and still need to be dipped. Pictures tomorrow!