My Resolutions for 2013

I know making new year resolutions is a bit cheesy, but this is my blog and I will do what I want.

I am hoping that my resolutions are things that are beneficial to myself and my family.

1. Take a vacation. With my family. Without electronic gadgets that distract us from one another.
2. Read more books. I am going to try to read at least 1 book per month. For fun. Or at least listen to an audiobook while working out.
3. Take my kids camping at least 1x this summer. 
4. Teach my oldest child how to use my sewing machine.
5. Complete at least 5 of the projects I have pinned on Pinterest. Make sure some of these projects are ones I can do with my kids.
6. Maintain my weight. Yes, I would love to lose 10-15, but maintenance after a major weight loss if often hard enough.
7. Bike a minimum of 500 miles once the ice clears off the roads. Fritz will be able to ride in a trailer or a bike seat this year, so this might become a possibility.
8. Learn more patience and communicate more effectively with my kids, even when they are ticking me off.
9. Swear a bit less. Gain a new favorite word.
10. Hug more, yell less.
11. Eat at least 1 serving of vegetables every day.
12. Drink at least 2 qts of water a day.
13. Meditate more.
14. Go out with my husband and no children at least once a quarter. We have a great relationship and I want to be sure to nourish it. More "special married people time" too.
15. Get better about making self-care a priority: annual physical, skin check (due to the cancer scare),  hair trims, dentist, eye appointment, etc.
16. Start caring for my skin nightly.... this face ain't gettin' any younger.
17. Play more games with my kids. Edie kicked my butt in Yahtzee the other day and it was FUN.
18. Watch all the Harry Potter movies with Amelia. She would love this.
19. Pay off the credit cards. I hate wasting money on interest payments. That is money we could be having fun with.

I think this is a good start. There are millions of ways that I can improve myself, but I will start with babysteps.

A Visual Display of our Bohemian Lifestyle

Often, when we say we move a lot, people will say, "Oh yeah, us too! We have moved 3 times in the last 15 years!" Umm..... that isn't really what I mean. Joe and I got married in June of 2000. We are now living in our 15th home since that day. 15! The funniest part about it all is that Joe and I were both born to very stable homes. Our parents still live in the homes we grew up in. Another funny is that I tried, in the beginning, to talk Joe into living in a VW bus, but he wanted more stability than that. The bus would have been easier.

Sorry for the quality of the photos. Many of them were snapped from my car while trying to not look like the weird lady who drives up and takes a random photo of someone else's home. Other views have been lifted from the interwebs.

Home #1:
33rd Street in San Diego.
This place was cockroach infested and was my very first apartment! My BFF and I moved from MN to CA and rented this 2 bedroom apartment. This place wasn't super safe. One morning I woke up to find that I couldn't go out the back gate as the alley had been shut down for a homicide that took place there overnight. My mom would have been having heart attacks to know I was walking around in this neighborhood, alone, at 3:00AM when I would get off work at the coffee shop a few blocks away. I got married only a few months after moving out to CA and then decided that Joe and I should really get our own place. We moved a few months after we were married.

Home #2:

Cherokee Ave in San Diego. I couldn't find a photo. 

It was a little duplex parked behind a house. This was still situated in Normal Heights, South of Adams (where the crime is). Bonus was that we didn't have cockroaches! Although, we did have crime. We lived here until Joe finished his time in the Navy.

Home #3:

Haunted home in Neenah.

We moved into this beauty completely sight unseen as we were moving from San Diego to Neenah, WI. It was a 1 bedroom house with a backyard that allowed for our dog! We were so excited. All of this for only $450 a month! When we moved in, we were so excited to see the bedroom had fresh paint and new carpet. Weird things began to happen here and even my husband who "doesn't believe in ghosts" agreed that this place was super haunted and we had to move out. You know that new carpet and paint? We found out after we moved out that was done because the previous tenant had shot himself in the bedroom. Apparently  there had been another suicide in the basement just a few years prior (our dog REFUSED to go anywhere near the basement). 

Home #4:

Cold Spring Villas, Neenah.

We found an apartment that allowed for our dog and was new-ish construction. This is where our oldest child was conceived (ahhhh, memories!)

Home #5:
Reed St. Neenah
Being pregnant with Amelia, we found ourselves nesting. Our lease was up with our apartment and so we went house hunting for our very first home to purchase! We found a small, 3 bedroom, 1 bath home that was in our budget. We moved in and lived here while Amelia was a baby. Joe fenced in the backyard and put in central air. We painted every room in this house.

Home #6:
Evan St. Appleton
Our home on Reed St was less than perfect. I had started a soap making business and had no place to work or store my stuff. Our home didn't have a basement. The housing market was great, so we decided to put our home on the market and buy a new construction home. This house was awesome. We loved it so much. Owen was even born in this home. See the tree on the left? That is the tree we buried his placenta under :) That fence? Joe built that. Owen took his first breaths in this home, in the dinning room and Amelia took her first steps in this living room. We thought we would live in this home forever.

Home #7:
Beaverton, OR
What? Oregon? How did we get here? Well, one day Joe and I were swimming in the backyard and we discussed how we were going to make our dreams happen. I wanted to go to a school out in Portland and he wanted to get back into the Pacific Northwest. We decided that it was now or never. We had 2 little kids and were growing more comfortable by the day. this comfort, we felt, would make us likely to settle for a life that we hadn't been planning on. So, we put Evan street on the market and it sold QUICK. We were off to Oregon just a few weeks later. We moved into a 3 bedroom condo. Edie was conceived here :)

Home #8:
Barnesville, MN
Yep, I said Minnesota. Oregon didn't work out so well for us. Joe wasn't making enough money at the job he found, my soap making business was suffering due to moving to a whole new place. We were out of our element and away from our support system. I was pregnant with baby #3 and this meant I wasn't going to be able to attend the school I had applied to. We were overwhelmed and the sun never seemed to shine. We realized we had been hasty with our decision to move. So, we headed back to the Midwest. Joe got a job in Fargo and we bought a new construction home in Barnesville (about 25 miles away). I still don't know what we were thinking in buying this home. It was more than we could comfortably afford, but something about nesting during pregnancy made renting seem horrible, so we were dumb and bought a house that stretched our budget to the MAX.

Home #9:
Cold Spring Villas, Neenah, WI (again)
Barnesville wasn't really our style and Joe was offered a position back with his company in Wisconsin with a raise! So, he moved back and stayed with a friend while we put our home on the market. This was in late 2006 when the market was starting to crash. Finally, we decided we couldn't be apart. I was living with 3 small kids (ages: 4, 2, and 4 months) and my husband was several hundred miles away. So, we moved into an apartment together in Wisconsin while we waited for our MN house to sell. It took months and cost us a ton of money to sell it. At least we were together again!

Home #10:
Berryfield Ln, Appleton

Having taken a bath on the sale of our home, buying a new one wasn't going to be an option for awhile. We needed out of the small 2 bedroom apartment though. We found a duplex to move into. It was nice and HUGE. This is where Edie took her first steps. I have fond memories of the kids playing in the snow in the yard.

Home #11:

Marquette St, Appleton

The place on Berryfield was nice, but it was pretty spendy. I had started my education and so we were broke most of the time. We needed to find a way to live more within our means. We found a small duplex that was about $400 a month cheaper, so we packed up and moved again. This place was great. It was only 1300 sqft, but was laid out so well that it completely worked for our family of 5. We also had deer that would come into the backyard and a groundhog that lived under the shed in the backyard. I finished my education while living here and so it was time to pack up and move to where I would start my career.

Home #12:

Townhouses in St Peter, MN

We moved into a town home in St Peter, MN. This fit our needs very well as it was 3 bedrooms, a decent price, and allowed for dogs. I can't complain about this place at all. 

Home #13:

Blue house in St Peter

We had no problems with the townhouses, but we found a single family home we could move into for about the same price! So, we decided to move off the hill and down into this rental home. It was such a nice place to live with a lovely backyard. This is the house we were living in when we found out that we were not going to stay a family of 5 :) We would have stayed longer than a year, but the owners decided to put the house on the market. (I know this photo is copyrighted, but it is actually a photo that I took, so it is weird to see someone else has copyrighted it. I guess I will take it down if it is a problem.)

Home #14:

Park Row, St Peter

I don't have a good photo of the outside of this beautiful home. We were able to find another home to rent and signed a year lease. This house is beautiful with the most gorgeous woodwork. It has such a good "home" feel to it. (P.S. this home is for sale!) This is the house where Fritz was born. Right in the office, our little boy came into his body and became a member of our family. 

Home #15:

The project home, St Peter

We are hoping that this is our FINAL home. Just writing this blog post about all of our moves has taken 2 hours. We are DONE. DONE. DONE. DONE. We decided to leap into home ownership again once we stumbled upon this foreclosure that has a 1/2 acre lot. We were really, really comfortable in the last house we were renting, but how can one argue with a huge lot and a home that is soooooo cheap. We have come full circle from our starter home and then 2 new construction homes, and then this piece of work that is actually the cheapest home we have ever owned. Most people try to move up to bigger and more expensive and we have gone the opposite direction. This home is where Fritz will take his first steps. This is where our kids will get ready for their first proms and bring home their children and partners for Christmas. We plan on mending broken hearts while sitting around our table and having plenty of mint juleps on the porch while sitting in our rocking chairs.

So, there. Those are our moves. It has been a crazy 12 years. Joe is really regretting not listening to me about the VW bus now. It would have been a lot cheaper and much easier on the body. Moving everything you own this many times is a whole lot of heavy lifting :)

The dressing of preteen girls

When my first born child was a baby, I thought decisions were hard. Breast or bottle? Jarred baby food or make our own? Spoon feed or finger foods? Crib or co-sleep? I am realizing now that she is much older that those decisions were the easy ones. I had a pretty good control over her world and her life. I was able to keep her safe and sheltered. I didn't do everything perfectly, but I did things out of love and in the way that I thought was the most beneficial to her. I was also smug (at times) because I was doing everything "right." We delayed all the allergenic foods, we cloth diapered in diapers that I and one of her grandmas made for her, I carried her in a wide assortment of baby carriers so her little butt would never need to sit in a STROLLER. I am beginning to realize that so much of that just really didn't matter for the long term. It isn't that it didn't matter, but more that our kids weren't going to end up in prison if we used disposable diapers instead of the cloth. All these early decisions were really just training for the bigger ones to come.

Now, my oldest child is a preteen or tween or whatever you want to call this age..... old enough for puberty but young enough to still act all sorts of insane and still, at times, very childlike. Holy cow! I am struggling with this so much more than I thought I would when I was feeding her an organic smoothie with berries that I grew myself and just the right balance of tofu and full fat yogurt for her brain development.

We needed to go shopping for a dress outfit for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, we always head to the candlelight service at my home church with my parents. I just don't want my kids to look like they just rolled in from a game of flag football. Nothing too fancy, but clean and like there was a touch of effort put into dressing for baby Jesus. I decided to take my oldest child with me to shop for these outfits. I figured that with her being in 5th grade, she is likely getting some more opinions about how she wants to dress. I was right. Shopping was painful.

We have reached this time where she can fit into the largest size in the girl's section or the smallest size in the women's section. Of course, her knowing this means she certainly doesn't want to shop in the girl's section! Off to the junior's department we go. From there, she picks out only things that are WAY too mature for her (at least in my eyes). Lots of lace, strapless, short skirts, etc. I, on the other hand, find things that are far too "babyish" with long sleeves, full skirt, and drop waist (maybe the fact that they came with a matching doll outfit could have tipped me off that the dress was a bit too young for her liking). The fact that we were essentially on different continents when it came to our ideas of what was appropriate for her to wear made for difficulties in communication. I was still trying to dress her like I did just last year and she was trying to dress like what she will be allowed in 5 years.

I became so frustrated with this entire process and then I had a moment of clarity where I remembered being her. I remembered this pair of jeans that I bought for myself when I was in 6th grade that were open on the sides all the way from ankle to hip. My mom had a fit and I was only allowed to wear these jeans if I wore leggings under them. That pretty much ruined the look, but now I get it. There is a fine balance to be found in all of this. I want my child to be able to express her individuality and the fact that she is maturing, but I don't want her to be oversexualized at this young age (or ever). It is hard to raise girls when there is more pressure for them to be pretty and sexy then there is for them to be interesting and cool. The choices in clothing were really just symbolic of everything we will have to work through together as we navigate the rough waters ahead. Well, to me they were symbolic, to her they were really cool clothes that her really mean mom wouldn't let her wear.

Each day as a parent gets a bit more challenging because I have less control and yet, her decisions mean more. There is a greater impact from the sorts of choices she makes today then there was when she was 2. I can remember kids who started making some really poor life decisions in middle school. Some of these people bounced back up and some did not. I have watched, with great interest, one of my close friends raise one of her kids up to college age now after having gotten to know them when this child was the same age that Amelia is. I can see that the decisions as a parent don't get any easier because the stakes keep getting higher, but the rewards appear to get a bit bigger as you get to see these kids become really awesome people. I am just hopeful that I can help guide these kids of mine the right way.  For now, we found an outfit that was a compromise between our two worlds as it is cool and grown-up without being the least bit sexy. I am happy and she is.... well, she is too moody to be happy, but I am getting used to that.

TGIF! What a week!!!

This week has been more chaotic then I enjoy. I mean, I love excitement as much as the next guy, but I also have a special place in my heart for boring. This week has not been boring. This week has also been quite expensive.

So, it all started Monday. Monday the phone rang at 5-something in the morning. It was the automated message stating that school was going to be 2 hours late. SCORE!  Of course, answering the phone meant I had to pee. I padded down the stairs in bare feet and thought, "Damn! It is cold out of bed! Joe REALLY is trying to save energy." and then I crawled back into bed and fell asleep under my flannel sheets, blanket, and down comforter. I woke up again about 1.5 hours later to Joe telling me that he couldn't get the furnace to light and he couldn't figure out why not. Keep in mind that school was 2 hours late because it was sooooooo cold! Joe lit the fireplace so at least the chill was taken off the livingroom and my office. It was in the 50s, which is still pretty chilly. He was able to get someone out to look at the furnace and fix it, which was great. It sucked though because it wasn't that long ago that we had someone out and put a few hundred into it already.

Joe headed off to work after the furnace was fixed and then I stumbled into the next problem. I took a shower and then headed into the basement to pull some canned goods to make dinner. I head a noise that made me jump and scream. I was absolutely certain it was a snake rustling through our veggie bags. Umm.... no.... silly Erika, it was simply water running down the pipes and shelves and hitting those bags. Crap! Water! So, I start exploring to see where the water is coming from and I start sending Joe pictures of it. This is right under the bathroom and since I just hopped out of the shower, I am pretty sure this water is from the shower. Anyhow, Joe ends up putting in an entire whopping 80 minutes of work for the day and then heading home to help me with this situation since I was at a loss as to what to do next. We figured out where the water was coming from and how to fix it. Yay for teamwork!

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty boring, which I was thankful for. There may have been a blow out diaper or two, but just a typical day in the life. I did run and get a haircut on Wednesday night. I put off haircuts like I put off trips to the dentist. I just don't really enjoy people touching my head that much and making small talk with me while I am completely blind after shedding my glasses. I brought in pictures on pinterest of what sorts of cut I was looking for. I was having a hard time explaining what I wanted so at one point I even said, "make it a reverse mullet, I want all the party in the front and the business in the back."

Here is what I showed her I wanted:

Here is what the hairdresser heard:

I guess when she heard I had 4 kids, that was kinda the same, in her eyes, as having 8. Yep, Kate Gosselin and I live pretty much mirror lives.

Well, whatever. It is hair. Once I styled it myself (OMG, WHY DO THEY MAKE IT SOOOOOO POOFY?!?!) I found that I didn't totally hate it. I can work with this hair.

So, then this brings us all to Thursday. I had some things I had to do in the cities. For those of you who are not familiar with the geography of Minnesota, there are 2 locations: The Cities, and Up North. The Cities is really anything big enough to support a Super Target. So, I went to the cities for my stuff. I decided, as I often do when I find myself in the metro area, to pick up Thai food on my way home! I am all excited about this Thai food and driving along a major highway when the SUV in front of me slams into the back of the truck infront of him. I slam on my breaks and realize..... shit...... I am on ice. One little patch of ice on an otherwise totally clear interstate. My antilock brakes are going bananas and I realize I should just brace for it because I am not coming to a stop. My very first car accident as a driver! Fortunately, the drivers of the other 2 cars involved were really nice guys and everyone was very polite and orderly about the entire thing. We exchanged info and made sure everyone was ok and then went about our days. I was not thrilled with myself as this was my new-to-me Subaru and I broke my bumper, one of my lights, and my grill. Fritz slept through the entire thing! Go figure. Not a peep out of him.

On my way to my original destination I had noticed I was getting low on gas. I planned on getting some on my way home. Now this fact becomes important to the story. During the exchange of information I left my car running. I also left the car running while getting Thai food... don't judge me, you know you do it too. My baby was in the car and it was cold out. Then I hit traffic that was stop and go.... mostly stopped. Oh no. Now my situation, I realize, is getting desperate. My car is so low on gas that it won't show even the "empty" block on the gas gauge. It is making an occasional "glug" noise and I am still 1.5 miles from my exit. Traffic is still mostly stopped and I am now sobbing as I call my husband because I am in a panic. He was 60 miles away, so it wasn't like he could do anything other than talk me down and listen to my panic. I just knew that I was going to run out of gas on the highway and then have to leave my freshly crashed car and walk with the baby to the gas station to get gas. Did I mention that my baby didn't have a winter jacket? Nope, no jacket, because jackets aren't supposed to be safe in a carseat and so I just had a quilt with for him. So, I am picturing walking with my baby (not in a jacket) to the gas station, getting gas, walking back (still with the half-naked baby) all on a Minnesota winter day. Awesome. FINALLY, I make it to the exit, get across the road and to the gas station, I am coasting in on fumes. As in, I apply my brakes in the gas station parking lot and my car dies. It ran completely out of gas. Hey, I am actually at the gas station though!! Whoohoo!

Joe and I spent some time trying to figure out if I was really lucky or really unlucky. Sucks to get in a car accident, but no one was hurt. Sucks to run out of gas, but it rocks when you happen to be AT the gas station when your car finally kicks it.

I decided I was unlucky because my amazing Thai food got really cold during all this drama. AND they used green peppers in my curry that normally had red peppers.... I freakin hate green peppers.

Anyhow, I am glad it is Friday. I am ready for a weekend.

My challenge to myself this week

I have been struggling this fall/early winter with exercise. I just haven't been getting nearly enough of it.  It is the baby's fault. He is a handful and i am often exhausted by the end of the day. Ok, it isn't really his fault. It is just all the normal stuff that makes it hard for anyone to keep up with fitness: kids, work, lack of sunlight, short days, work, kids, cold weather moving in, work, kids.... did I mention kids and work? Going to the gym can be a challenge with the cost of gas and the time it takes between driving (20-ish minutes each way), dropping off Fritz at the childcare, working out, picking Fritz up, and then driving home. I need to be home again before my kids get home from school and so it basically has to be a day that I am not working in order for me to have enough time to go. None of this is new to anyone who has ever struggled to keep workouts happening. It is hard. It is hard for nearly everyone to fit all these things in.

The last 3 days I have managed to work out every day!! Whoohoo! I have decided to challenge myself to continue this all week long. At least SOMETHING everyday. Even if it is just walking around the track at the community center or doing a yoga video here at home. I know that if I do it every single day, I am more likely to keep it up. When I take a few days off, it is that much harder for me to motivate myself into doing anything.

Why is it so important to me? Exercise makes me a nicer person. Go ahead, ask my kids... I am much calmer and have a much longer fuse when I have recently worked out. Also, my jeans have been getting tight. This is not good. It is so much easier to fix a problem when it is a small problem then letting it become a big problem. Much easier to lose 5lbs than 125. I would say that exercise is the only "me" time that I ever get. Fritz even stays with me the vast majority of the time for work, so it is a rare, rare thing for me to be alone. Not that I often get to be alone for exercise either, but at least some of the time I do :)

Hopefully, I can pull it off this week. I am not off to a great start this morning since SOMEBODY (not naming any names... Fritz....) has an upset tummy and so I can't take him to the Y or drop him off at childcare. I will not inflict these diapers on anyone.