If you wanna feel better about your family, just read about ours...

Starring: a dad, a mom, a son & daughter-in-law, a daughter & son-in-law, another daughter & son-in-law, 1 teen, 1 grandson, 3 granddaughters, 4 dogs, and a whole lot of love.






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Thursday, January 31, 2013

I Am Woman...Oh Gosh.

I thought this was supposed to get easier.  Truth be told, I never had it that rough to begin with.  Even when my kids were young, I made a conscious effort to be not busy.  The most chaotic time that I can remember was when I was juggling 3 kids under the age of 10 while studying my way through Massage School 9 years ago.  When I graduated, I vowed never to be that busy again.

I've spent the past few years making sure to schedule my days with plenty of stress-free time.  Happy Mommy; Happy Home, right?  Maybe I was doing something right, or maybe I was doing something very wrong.  Whichever the case may be, I find myself completely frustrated by my ever shortening days when my oldest is graduated and my youngest is in all-day-every-day Kindergarten, which should mean that I can go back to bed until Noon and still have plenty of time before they get home.

What I didn't bank on was having a sudden change in standard on some things that didn't used to take priority.  Take house cleaning, for instance.  When the kids were little, I didn't even bother.  Suddenly, with the help of a dear Sis, I've broken my home down into sections and days and I'm on a strict cleaning schedule.  When in the heck did a clean house become a priority for me?

Next up; workouts.  Although my involvement in events requiring extreme physical training seem to have stayed in 2012, I've grown accustomed to these size jeans and I'm not yet willing to let myself go.  (Yet.)  Therefore, daily workouts are non-negotiable.  Then factor in my regular home-clients, recently accepting the Massage Therapist position at the local Salon and my occasional writing projects and suddenly I have a scheduling situation on my hands.  And that's not even counting doing the Wife/Mom thing.

The icing on the cake was beginning a Beth Moore Bible Study with my closest girlfriends.  Gone are the days of casually sitting down with my bible and latest workbook at my leisure.  No, suddenly, I'm being held accountable and although it's exactly what I need, I'm not used to it.  This past Sunday night was our first meeting with the assignment to have the first 2 Chapters done.  Guess who skipped the 2nd half of the first Chapter and was still unable to complete the entire 2nd Chapter on time?  Yours truly.  By Tuesday I realized I was already behind schedule on chapters 3 & 4 and became increasingly angry every time C would interrupt me during the lesson on the importance of being slow to anger.
Yes, God has a twisted sense of humor.

I'm starting to relate to the chaotic schedules I hear so many other moms talking about except I don't know how to handle it yet.  What I do know is that a change is in order and today was Day 1 of being on a very strict schedule starting when the girls walked out the door for school at 7:30 and it's been non-stop all day.  Part of me is feeling completely exhausted and ready for a nap, but the other part of me is feeling a little Proverbs 31'ish...minus a few things like 'buying fields, planting vineyards and bringing food from a-far'...I bring food from a-Walmart, but considering where we live, it's kinda the same thing.

Unfortunately, the thought of doing it all over again tomorrow has me completely depressed.  But if the Proverbs chic could do it, the least I can do is follow through with this experiment till the end of the week.

That means I have one more day to teach my children to arise and call me blessed.
Oh, it's gonna happen...


Saturday, January 12, 2013

Peek At A Week

It's been another one of those weeks that makes me look back and shake my head.

Last Thursday I got the flu.  The kind where you have a moments notice to decide which end to put against the bucket and which end against the toilet.  The last time I got that violently ill was the day after Thanksgiving of 2008.  I remember exactly because it was Thanksgiving morning of 2008 when I made the fateful decision to abuse an over-the-counter Fat Blocking pill and took one right before dinner.  Oh, it blocked the fat alright, and I spent 48 hours ejecting the fatty meal out of every available opening of my body.  Those pills have since been taken off the market.
I can't imagine why.

Fast forward to last Saturday when I was waiting in line at the DMV to renew my expired driver's license. I was number 17 and they'd just called number 8.  Get comfortable.  I settled myself with my cup of coffee against the wall because all the chairs were taken by able-bodied men.  Don't get me started.  I was religiously following the "NO CELL PHONE" rule, because the last time I was in that particular DMV was when Z got his driver's license and in a moment of excitement I took out my cell phone to take his picture and you would have thought I'd just pulled out a gun because all hell broke loose as the man repeatedly demanded that I "DELETE THAT PICTURE!!"  I obeyed because I got the feeling that if I didn't, the next step would be the swat team crashing through the windows on ropes and taking me into custody.  So now I treat the DMV like the 'Soup Nazi' episode of Seinfeld.  I quietly step up to the counter while avoiding all eye contact and state what I need. I was already screwed because my license was expired and expected nothing less than a formal reprimand, if not slammed against the wall and thoroughly frisked.  When they finally called my number, I walked toward the counter and was met with the "Stop" hand and the employee dramatically said, "Do not approach this counter with a drink."  Oh that's right...I forgot about that new strand of terrorist who's main goal is to throw luke-warm coffee on the DMV employee and then run away.  I can see where I totally fit the profile.

That brings us to Show and Tell.  C was 'Student-of-the-Week' in her Kindergarten class.  Thursday was her Show and Tell day and she wanted to take one of our dogs.  Certain the answer would be a solid NO, I text her teacher and was shocked when she told me the school approved it as long as it was a dog "the size you can carry."  Well technically, I can carry our German Shepherd so the school might consider being a little more specific, but I digress.  C wanted to take Quincy, our 15 lb LlassaPoo.  A perfect choice except for one thing.  The night before Show and Tell, she broke out in an ear infection so bad that her ear was actually raw and dripping blood.  Crap.  I looked at our other 2 options:  Summer, the high strung Dalmation-Beagle who hacks up white froth when she gets excited or the German Shepherd who  hates strangers and is named Axel, pronounced "A**hole" by Caymen.  Bloody ear won.

Needless to say, I was ready to see Friday roll around this week.  The main project for the weekend was to paint our kitchen so we planned a date night / Lowes trip last night, but landed in Urgent Care when C announced her ears hurt.  One positive Strep Test later, we were home scraping our walls preparing to paint when my husband made a discovery and angrily said, "Who painted these walls?!?  It looks like somebody started peeling wallpaper off, but got mad and just painted over top of it!!"

Then he stood there glaring at me.  First of all, I technically don't remember doing that, so let's take the accusations down a notch.  Second of all, getting mad and impatiently painting over wallpaper?  Nope.  Doesn't sound like me...