Archive for the 'Ramblings' Category


Where Did This Week Go?

Friday, July 18th, 2008

Seriously, it seems like it should only be Wednesday.  I have been playing catch up all week and definitely need a couple more days to finish it all! 

Hubby and I had a super afternoon yesterday.  We get far too many opportunities to hang out … just the two of us anyway!  So it was heaven to be able to chat about just about anything under the sun WITHOUT INTERRUPTION!  I know …. amazing!   We had a wonderful lunch together then went to the mall where my hubby (who’s been trying to decide on a cell phone for a while now) discovered the Apple Store.   Can I just say that it’s a dangerous place to set a non-techy loose with his somewhat-techy wife? 

Suffice it to say he found the PERFECT phone for himself.  Sure they were out of stock, who isn’t …. he discovered who wasn’t and many hours later had one for himself (oh, and one for me too LOL).  So there’s our anniversary in a nutshell :)

I think we do our most major purchases on our anniversary.  We don’t spend a lot of money (we don’t have a lot to spend for Heaven’s sake), but three years ago we had just found out we were pregnant for the 5th time (didn’t have the remotest clue it was twins though) and we purchased our Yukon.  

So, here I am on a Friday-that-should-be-a-Wednesday and I desperately need to get going on all my projects.  Should have a fun contest posted for you a little later today here, so be sure to hop back over this afternoon to take a peek.  Have a great Friday and a wonderful Weekend!

It’s My Anniversary

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

My wedding anniversary that is! Yup, we’ve been married for 15 years today!!!!! I realized recently that I don’t post about my Hubby a lot here and that’s actually quite unfortunate. He’s a great guy, truly the best! He’s a wonderful dad, but an even better hubby! He works very hard to support his family!

I could go on and on, but he took the day off today (yay!) and I need to start thinking about getting ready. So, at noon we’ll begin our Anniversary Date … kidless! The weather is turning out to be very different than we had planned, but that’s the good thing about having a “fly by the seat of your pants” spouse …. nothing is ever set in stone ;) .

So you may hear more from me tomorrow … until then, have a great day!

A Little Monday

Sunday, July 6th, 2008

Hope everyone had a fantastic 4th of July!!!  We had a lot of fun.  It was a really crazy weekend with some very late nights, so it will probably take me all week to recover LOL! 

We had some family over on the 4th like always and we didn’t get to bed until about 1am.  Then on Saturday we decided last minute to go to a drive in movie!  They were playing Wall-E and Get Smart, so it was a LATE one!  We didn’t get home that night until after 2am!  Unheard of in our predictable and child-filled life. 

Crazy thing happened at the drive in though, the only one in our entire area is in a town about 35 minutes away from us.  It is ULTRA popular because it is the only one, so especially if you go on the weekend you need to get there early.  The gates open at 7:30pm so we were there at about 7pm and there was already a lineup.  The line always extends beyond the three gate line areas, out onto the side of the road.  So we were a couple of cars back onto the road in front of the drive in.

Out of the blue a vehicle in the first lane up in the lane parking area for the drive in decided to leave and that opened up room for the car in front of us and ourselves.  As we pulled into the lane we suddenly realized that the car to our left was my cousin and her 3 children.  We had absolutely NO clue they were going that night.  So we ended up hanging out the whole night with them which was a lot of fun for the kids! 

So after all that excitement, we slept in rather late today.  But, my dear hubby was able to get the bathroom floor done today which was one of the major jobs still hanging around on our big To-Do list.  We still have a couple more projects and some serious detail work in the painting department needs to be done, but I love checking off tasks from that hideous list!

I’ll have to try and post a picture tomorrow, so check for an update :) .

Discouragement

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Ever get to that place where life isn’t going the way you thought it would?  Where things are going backward and you’re desperately peddling forward?  Where you feel like you’ve lost control of every facet of life … but not in a good way? 

That’s where I’ve been finding myself recently.  The good is being overshadowed by the crazy parts.  I work hard each and every day to find joy, peace and growth in my life.  To be content with where I’m at and to try and make my world a little better place.  Every once in a while though you may get to the point where you find yourself in “the depths of despair” … that’s where I’m at. 

The kids’ last day of school was yesterday, but when they got home from school I was so frazzled I didn’t even know what to do to celebrate or make the day fun.   I’ll be spending most of the rest of this week trying to come up with a plan for the rest of the summer … for all of us.  Fun things and the things that simply MUST get done around the house.  Setting up any necessary appointments for the summer and hopefully some activities to keep everyone moving.

Through it all though, I’ll be desperately crying out to God for the answers and direction!  If nothing else, just to give me peace and rest in the midst of it all.  He is the one solid thing I have on my side!  The One I can call on in my time of need and despair.  The One who loves me more than I can even fathom.  I often don’t call on Him soon enough or take His promises to heart. 

“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the LORD your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.” (Deuteronomy 31:6 NIV)

“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.” (Deuteronomy 31:8 NIV)

The “them” in my life is everything on my “To Do” list, and even in a small way the fear of the crazy, potentially life-threatening things my Twinkies will attempt each and every day. 

Do you have any “Goliath’s” in your life that are leaving you feeling a little discouraged or even terrified?

The Price I’m Willing To Pay

Wednesday, June 11th, 2008

Do you have anything in your life that is a little off kilter?  I know I have plenty of things I could mention, but tonight CJ and I went shopping after he was done with Youth Group.  We went merrily along our way picking out a couple of things for his 6th Grade Recognition assembly tomorrow (major deal for them, dress code and everything, but I’ll save that for tomorrow) and some groceries to get us through the end of the week.  Toward the end of the grocery store adventure I decided to grab each of us a quick drink from the milk section (CJ wanted strawberry milk and I wanted orange juice).

I know I don’t usually walk you through my grocery store wanderings, but I have a point …

I don’t hesitate to frequently pay over $4 for a gourmet coffee, but it nearly KILLED me to pay $1.43 for an orange juice.  Seriously. 

Perspective changed somewhere along the way.  The not-at-all-healthy coffee that takes me a whole minute to order (not really LOL) and costs a small fortune (but ironically now less than the price of one gallon of gas) is considered just a part of life.  While the healthy single serving of nutritious orange juice that costs less than half the price of the coffee (and aforementioned gallon of gas) seems outrageous.

How many other things in life are twisted that way?  How often do I not notice where the perspective has gone off balance.  Far more often than I like to admit.  So I dared to take that thought to my spiritual life and I came to a challenging conclusion …

If I can take the time to write or read a blog post why can’t I seem to squeeze in reading that one little chapter from the Bible a day?  If I can read over 50 emails a day why can’t I spend some time alone talking with my Savior? 

Ooooooh! Ouch!  Reality of the price I’m willing to pay spiritually kind of works in a rather backward way!  I’m the one who pays big time if I don’t take a moment to be filled and refreshed each day.  And since when did all those other things somehow become more important?  Sure, I don’t logically think they are actually more important than my spiritual well being, but my behavior is saying that they are. 

Actions speak louder than words.  So I’m announcing here and now that I am in need of a priority recheck.   Feel free to hold me accountable.  Really.  Ask me next week if I’ve been regularly feeding my soul not just my outbox.  See if I’ve been spending as much time with the Lord as I have writing blog posts.  After all, sometimes all any of us needs is a little nudge here and there to keep us accountable and on track. 

Oh the Craziness

Monday, June 2nd, 2008
oh-the-craziness

I had planned on getting back on track today … offer a deep and thoughtful Mommy Reality for you.  Mommy reality has struck me full force.  Nothing deep, nothing too thoughtful, just a lot of reality.

I woke up Sunday morning thinking that my lips felt strange.  I went into the bathroom and one look in the mirror confirmed that they were very swollen.  The only other time I’ve ever had swollen lips I also had hives all over … not so this time.  I took a little Benadryl, just in case, but all that ended up doing for me is landing me back in bed for a 3 hour nap.  Like I have time!

Once I got up instead of getting better, they were worse and now it was too late to go to the walk in clinic to get checked out.  How miserable! 

As we all know … moms are NOT allowed to have anything wrong with them.  It is an odd circumstance that a day will go past in the life of a mother where the housework still gets done even if she’s not the one to do it.  So a sick day often means that much more work in mom’s life the day she gets better. 

My husband is wonderful with the children but … well … that’s all he can handle.  I don’t blame him, if you don’t know the daily routine well or how to predict and (usually) thwart the twins’ mischief you can get in big trouble before you know it.  So he has learned his limits.  Even leaving the room to make a cup of coffee or a snack for them can be treacherous LOL.

So today instead of giving you an inspiring Mommy Reality lesson I simply have to tell you that due to my own reality hitting hard I will be making a trip to the walk in clinic and PRAYING that they can give me something … anything to ease the discomfort and let me feel halfway normal again. 

I won’t get into the pride that has me dreading the thought of going anywhere people can see me.  Nor will I talk about the fact that I can hardly speak nor can I eat anything without pain.  Oh, and I wouldn’t dream of mentioning that I have ten zillion loads of laundry to do today in addition to caring for my kiddos. Nope, I’ll just hope and pray that you have a NORMAL dose of reality today!

Blessings!

Breathing Deeply

Saturday, May 24th, 2008

Day 1 of a three day weekend has been very busy!  An amazing thing happened today, we worked hard all day and got absolutely nothing done. 

Then suddenly this evening, hubby, now armed with a Paint Sprayer (thanks Dad!) has been able to paint most of the house … in the dark, mind you, but still!! He spent the entire day painting by hand and had only been able to do the garage (with the help of 4 boys) and half of the front of our house.

I spent the entire day over at my parents’ house with the twins … working on my computer and a few designs.  Hubby and I had gone to the store last night and picked up a few “necessities” … for us anyway!  A major hard drive and a battery backup that monitors and adjusts the incoming voltage for our computers and supplies!  So I was trying to get all of that setup.

The entire day I tried to get my computer downloaded onto the hard drive and accomplished NOTHING!  I did a little work on my computer, transferred it to one of my brothers’ memory sticks and moved it onto another computer to put it online.  It was a major workout with little to show for it LOL! 

Then I got home and suddenly I was accomplishing tons.  I was able to get contents downloading as I did housework.  I’d return to my room to continue the process and move on to another project around the house.  It was incredible. 

So now that I have a chance to sit back and breathe for the first time today I’m realizing that basically hubby and I spent the entire day (from 9:30am until 6:00pm) working hard but getting nothing accomplished.  We didn’t have the right tools to do the job efficiently.  Once we did … LOOK OUT!

I wish I could see this in other areas too!  I talked the other day about my love of lists, but I equally love the idea of being organized - if I could actually GET organized that would be lovely!  Here’s another great result of organization … efficiency!  Getting something done quickly, easily and a job well done!  I love that feeling! 

I just hope that the inability to be productive will not follow us for the rest of the weekend! 

To Do List

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008
to-do-list

Do you ever find yourself making a To-Do list that never ends?  I was an avid list maker all through my teen years and even into adulthood.  My mom was always commenting on my lists and my family all knew I kept them.  To this day if I sound like I’m out of sorts or confused my mom tells me to “make a list” LOL!

I still have many of the lists I made when planning my wedding.  Amazingly there are even small shopping lists from before the wedding that my sister and I were laughing about when we stumbled upon them as we were cleaning one day. 

Let me share one with you:

To Do

*Get marriage license stuff from apartment and take to church.
*Go to bank & deposit money.
*Go to drug store for eyeliner.
*Purchase shoes.
*Fix wedding program at work.
*Be at work for a meeting at noon.

We seriously laugh at that list now.  Oh, to be that organized again … that would be amazing and miraculous.  The details I kept as I made the list - I’m surprised I didn’t schedule in potty breaks as well LOL.  And for Heaven’s sake WHO ON EARTH ONLY GOES TO THE DRUG STORE FOR EYELINER?????????????

Good grief!  This was my life.  Even after we were married I kept lists, the house was always tidy, there was fresh baked bread in my hubby’s lunch every single day!  Seriously! Wow!  To be in that place again!  But the craziest part of all is that the list above is so super short even though it was made DAYS before my wedding day!!!!!

Now my To Do list would look a bit like this:

To Do AM

*Make Granola, Get kids up, rush them through showers, make their lunches, get them out the door for school.
*Find something to entertain the twins so they don’t kill themselves, all morning long.
*Do 3 loads of laundry.
*Feed little three lunch
*Get little three down for naps

To Do PM

*Clean kitchen, fill and run dishwasher, wipe down table, chairs, windows and sweep floor.
*Do three loads of laundry
*wipe down bathroom (boys miss … need I say more?)
*Get little three up from naps to cuddle for a bit.
*Big boys get home, start dinner.
*Prepare dinner, while filling the dishwasher again and folding another load of laundry.
*Create menu for following week and shopping list.
*Serve dinner to family and make sure no one has an event that evening
*Check all homework, clean up dinner, run dishwasher again, do another load of laundry
*Get kids to bed, work, blog and answer 50 emails.
*11:30pm - get to bed!

Sadly that doesn’t completely cover everything I really do.  Throw in there that I check email in the morning and work on design and blogging projects during naptime while I do several loads of laundry and then you’re getting a little closer to the reality of ONE DAY in the life of this mom.  Each day that list could change, but instead of getting shorter I forever seem to be adding more and more tasks to it. 

I am in the process of getting a more organized cleaning schedule under control.  I have it printed out, just haven’t posted it yet, and as we all know if it isn’t posted somewhere very visible … it doesn’t exist!  So onward I trod, not looking back … except for today when all of you hopefully got a good laugh at the carefree To-Do list of a young woman.

Two Sisters, A Mattress and A Sled *UPDATED*

Friday, May 16th, 2008

*I’m updating this post to add a little note that my sis left in the comments - I think it should go here to round out the story LOL.  Scroll down to the bottom of the story for her little note!*

Not just any old mattress either … nope … a KING SIZE MATTRESS.  But I should start at the beginning ………

As many of you know we are trying to get the house organized, clean and otherwise prepared for the possibility of putting it on the market.  The problem is that in order to do that we have to overhaul our little house.  It was so bad I knew I had to enlist some serious help.  That help came in the form of my next younger sister who really is great at organizing and purging.

She’s been here many times, but one of the biggest projects was to switch our bedroom and the other front bedroom that housed 4 of our boys.  We had put this mammoth task off, and finally had to face it.  So we began, moving cribs, a dresser and a set of bunkbeds (plus all of the various oddities contained within and underneath) out into the living room - completely blocking off access to the kitchen and bathroom in the process, but oh well (LOL). 

Then we headed into the “Master” bedroom - oh BOY!  The fact that our bed never did fit in the room right and was crammed up against a wall with the door barely able to open on the other side was just something I had gotten used to.  Also knowing that 3 years of “stuff” had accumulated under and around the bed in unreachable areas was also something I knew existed.  I warned Sis … “remember, I cannot guarantee what we’ll find under here.”  She just looked at me and smiled.

We had to begin with the mattress … 2 women with 1 king size mattress that was truly almost bigger than the room.  Not only was it nearly impossible to get it off the bed, but how on earth were we to contort it to the point where we could squeeze it out of the door????  Well, with much craziness we did.

OK, Now what do we do with it.  Originally Sis had decided that we simply needed to find a place to stash it until Hubby got home.  Making sure that it was located where he would have to get it out of the house, but that we were still able to function for the rest of the day.  Apparently she had decided this was no longer an option - that we must get the mattress to the garage ourselves. 

Our garage is detatched … many feet from the house … down a grassy hill.  Do any of you have a clue how much a King size mattress weighs?????  Two women absolutely cannot lift one, we could push it but NOT lift it.  So how on earth did she plan to get it down to the garage?  Well, as we had been hauling other things down to the garage, she had spotted two of the children’s plastic sleds. 

Being a very original and creative thinker (she didn’t want to learn to drive because she was afraid she’d be driving down the freeway and see a bug on the guardrail and wonder if she could hit it … yup), she had decided that these two sleds were exactly what we needed to accomplish the monster of moving this mattress.

She entered the house with those two sleds in tow and I asked her “what on earth?” and laughed when she told me why.  I didn’t think she was serious.  Honestly.  This would NEVER have occured to me - too creative.

So, we drug the mammoth mattress over to her nicely placed sleds and heaved it onto them.  It was a little crooked and very cumbersome, so I began to have my doubts.  We slid it out the door - I was in front and Sis was in back.  I began to heave it down onto the grass from the front porch and suddenly it wasn’t moving anymore.  That’s when we ran into our first “glitch”. 

The mattress was stuck between the porch flooring and the roof covering it.  So we began zigzagging this lovely mattress to try and un-stick it :) .  Finally out it came and almost went down too!  With Sis hanging on for dear life to one side and me hanging on for dear life on the other, suddenly we were losing it.  The mattress was sooooo very heavy, it kept sliding off of the sleds and we still had at least 100 feet to go - OH BOY! 

We pushed and we pulled and we lost one sled along the way and were laughing so hard half way there I thought we’d never make it.  I mean the doubled over-laughing so hard you’re crying kind of laughing.  I can’t imagine the thoughts of the few people who drove by - “Oh my word those crazy women …” LOL!

Finally, still laughing we made it down to the garage.  We had one last tricky little maneuver to make though since the garage is about a foot lower than the grassy area (don’t ask :) ).  So we skipped it over the edge and onto the concrete floor of the garage.  Thankfully once it was there it was a breeze to slide into place. 

Shortly after we got the Beast into the garage, my sister made the comment (as we’re still laughing and crying), “Why do I get the feeling I’ll end up as tomorrow’s blog post?”.  I stopped short, looked at her and said “Sure, I actually hadn’t thought about that”. 

Now, the problem here is that my sister and her ultra-creative-I-thought-of-the-sled mind would have been the perfect person to re-tell this story.  But since she isn’t a blogger and didn’t take me up on my suggestion to be the one to write about it, she will now have to read this post and think of all the funny and interesting things I left out.  Well, I did my best :)

Just a word of warning though:  If you are a down-to-earth, logical type woman and happen to have a creative-thinking-off-the-beaten-path sister, DO NOT ASK HER TO HELP YOU MOVE A MATTRESS!  You could wind up in a pickle!

*A Note From Sis*

You did, as always, an amazing job retelling the story but you missed one little point. As the cars were driving by you actually said “maybe someone will stop and help us” and you sounded HOPEFUL!

I was mortified hoping and praying that we somehow blended into the landscape, or came across as 2 perfectly normal women doing a little moving. Not you, you were ready to flag down a innocent passing motorist. Have you no PRIDE?!

This experience has taught me two things; first, a kingsize matress has no backbone to keep it standing up straight on two sleds (the one flaw in my otherwise brilliant plan). Second, there is no one I laugh harder with than my sister! love you!

A Schedule

Monday, May 12th, 2008

I’ve been in a rut for a while now, desperately in need of activities for the little three and a schedule for our day!!!!  I have the activities figured out, thanks to the Parenting Zoo (I highly recommend their parenting toolbox, it’s only $10, I blogged about it over at Froggy Reviews), I just need to get a few supplies, but the schedule - ARGH!!!!  Seriously!

I need to break up the day into short increments - but what??? Every 15 minutes, every half hour, a little of this and a little of that???? HELP! 

The twins are definitely ready to do activities, crafts, and have some structure.  Here I am every day trying to figure out how to balance three children at home (six during the summer), the laundry, the housework, blogging and designs - I know I’m not the only one!!!  It is a full plate, but I know I can do it better. 

The twins are simply bored.  As I type this they have been busy doing a little project that involves sticking “foamies” into coloring books, but I see Monkey walking around the room with about 6 stuck to his bottom LOL!  These are great activities, but they don’t last forever, so I need several of them throughout the day.  They aren’t great at independent play, but can handle it for little bits of time (whether they think they can or not) so I have to incorporate time for the individual areas of my home and work. 

The trick really is finding something that will work for us.  I have used many different planners and schedule ideas, but they ultimately were either too difficult for me to manage or just didn’t offer enough flexibility.  I’m not a schedule person … I know I should be … I try, really I do … but I CAN’T {Yes I’m Whining!}.  So as I work this week on putting together a schedule for my kiddos, feel free to give me ideas, suggestions, things not to do even.  I have tried many things before, but I’m always open to hearing what works (or doesn’t) for other mommies!