The end of an era

Today marks the end of our baby-making and having era. Joe got the vasectomy he has been dreaming of for years :) He is quite content. I am quite brokenhearted. I only share this because it is real and honest and the sorts of decisions that many relationships face.

I was asked recently why it was that I was ok with a vasectomy before Fritz came along and suddenly was not. To be honest, Fritz came about after a few years of unexplained fertility issues. We tried for years to have another baby and nothing happened. We finally decided on a vasectomy because I just couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't spend each month wondering if it would be the month that I would get pregnant. I could look ahead in the future and think, "hey maybe I should register for that conference..... or maybe I will be pregnant!" I couldn't live in limbo anymore. It was time to just move on from the ghosts of all the babies I would never have. And then Fritz came along.

I had another baby, guys, and this has opened me back up to wanting more. Originally I wanted like a bajillion kids. I got pregnant and my heart melted and anything seemed possible again. Maybe I could have that bajillion kids afterall  or 5-10 of them. For Joe, Fritz coming along had the opposite effect. It made him feel content and finished. He knew for certain he was DONE DONE DONE having kids. 4 is it.

We discussed the crap out of it. Basically, Joe wanted me to agree with him that I felt done too and I wanted to find a way to talk him into at least 1 more. No dice either way. How can I say that I don't want to have that baby, the next one in line, the one that I am sure is meant to be in my arms? Yet,  how can I demand my husband help me make a baby he has no interest in having or raising? This is a situation that has no winners.

Joe and I met nearly 14 years ago. We get along really well. I respect him and I can respect the choices he has made about his reproductive health. They may not be the same choices I would make, but I can't blame him for being honest about being DONE. Even if we would have delayed the vasectomy until I felt more ready, it really would have just been me hoping to put off the vasectomy for long enough in hopes that I would get pregnant again during the wait time. That wouldn't be fair. Again, there are no winners here. Well, I would say that Joe won, but he is currently wearing a bag of frozen peas in his pants. We have spent most of the afternoon doing what we do best about stressful or hard situations, which is joke about it A LOT. Joe was saying some crazy stuff while half-naked on a table..... and on drugs. He makes me smile.

I am sure, in time, I will get to a place of content, but for tonight I will sit with a glass of wine and feel a little sorry for myself and a pretty big sense of loss knowing that our childbearing has come to an end.

Is my life really a giant joke?

I get quite a few messages and/or comments about the way that I write about life and how funny these things are. I am glad for that. That is my honest goal. I enjoy working on my story-telling abilities as much as I enjoy reading other people's stories.

The reason why my life usually sounds like one joke after another is that I have found when I get frustrated, scared, irritated, angry, or sad it is therapeutic for me to spend my time thinking of the funniest way to relay the story to others. It helps me wrap my mind around what happened, I process it, and then I am already looking to put a positive spin on things.

My husband and I were just visiting tonight about how I try very hard to not be "poor me" because we don't have real problems. A car breaking down, a kid throwing up, pipes freezing taking away my ability to flush my toilet.... these things are obnoxious, but are not real problems. Real problems are sick kids (like, REALLY sick, like cancer-sick, not just a cold-sick), being homeless, losing someone you love, having no access to medical care, being tortured, being extremely sick with a serious illness yourself, etc. I never want to lose sight of how freaking lucky we are as a family to not have real problems. I never want to fall into a pit of negativity so that I cannot recognize the good times when we are having them. Into every life a little rain must fall, so I know that we will not always be so lucky. There will be a day coming when our problems are real problems and will be something too painful to joke away or laugh about.

It isn't that I am not able to be serious when it is needed; I am able to be very serious when it is the right emotion for the time and place. I just prefer for most of my thoughts to remain rather light hearted. Actually, I would invite any friends who are finding themselves getting overwhelmed with life to do this little exercise: next time something gets a strong emotion out of you..... let's say your child has PISSED you off by.... oh, I don't know.... dumping a gallon of real maple syrup into your carpet, before you start yelling and getting angry and thinking about how you are going to punish that child to the end of the Earth and back, spend some time thinking of the funniest way you can share this quirky story with a friend. By the time you get the wording just right, most of your anger will be gone and you will be able to cope with life once again.

Happy Birthday Fritzy!!!

1 year ago today our sweet Frederick Sullivan was born! I think it is time I quickly write out his birth story before I forget it all :)

He was our baby who almost wasn't. We had decided after trying for a baby for a LONG time and not getting results to stop living our lives in that uncertain place of if we would or wouldn't have a baby come along. We decided it was time for a vasectomy and we would simply appreciate the family we already had while exploring adoption a bit more seriously. I found out just a few days after making this decision that we were already expecting. Thank you, Fritz, for slipping in there :)

I won't bore you with discussion on 9 months of pregnancy. Just know that I don't do pregnancy well. I was really sick. I lost 13lbs in my first trimester and felt like garbage. My body ached as I got further along and then I spent the last month of my pregnancy with a weird pinched nerve that made me nearly bed-ridden. Anytime that I really wish for another pregnancy, I just have to remind myself of that excruciating pain that would drop me to the floor and suddenly I am kind of over it. However, I really still did cherish and enjoy growing this tiny baby in my body who I was sure was my next little girl. While I don't do pregnancy well, I always appreciate the curves of my body while pregnant. I will never look better naked then I do when pregnant.
Here I am at 38 weeks:

1 week after my due date I was achy and cranky, like every other day. I went up to St Louis Park to a meeting for midwives being held in a birth center. There were a few jokes about how well they could take care of me if I went into labor and I joked back that I couldn't afford the fee for 15 midwives and the facility fee of the birth center. Throughout the meeting I was getting more and more uncomfortable and wiggly in my chair. A few times I got just flushed. I had been contracting for WEEKS, so those meant nothing to me. Finally, the meeting was over and I was relieved because my back really hurt.

On my way home from the meeting, I called my husband and joked around, "I am having contractions every 3-4 minutes, should we have a baby today?" Again, I had been having regular bouts of contractions like this for weeks, so it was really a joke. I stopped off for some food to bring home and then finished my drive. I got home and shared some chicken nachos with Joe, greeted the kids coming home from school and looked over their report cards. I then took a shower (where I checked my cervix again... yep, still 5-6cm... why wasn't this baby coming???) and after my shower I collapsed on the bed. I was exhausted. Joe, at this point, got a call from his boss asking him if he would run a call 2 hours from home and I begged him not to; I was feeling needy and just didn't want him to go so far from home. Thankfully, he told his boss we had plans and he left the room. Shortly after this, while laying on the bed, there was amniotic fluid gushing everywhere. GUSHING. I sent Edie to get my doppler so I could listen to the baby and figured it would be good for Joe to call our midwife and let her know :)

Labor started immediately. Well, labor had really started weeks in advance, but things were very active very quickly after my water breaking. Joe worked on setting up the pool downstairs and I just hung out in our room either alone or with Edie. Every so often she would lift up my towel and announce that the baby wasn't coming out yet. Just in case I wouldn't know. Contractions were hard, like really hard, so Joe asked if we should call Rachel to start her hour drive to us. I didn't think so, but he was smart and could see that I was hiding behind our bed and clearly in labor land and doing a slight grunt-push with the peak of each contraction, so he called her anyhow.

Fortunately, the pool was ready to get in, so I could stop leaking puddles of amniotic fluid all over the power strips in our bedroom (seriously, I could have electrocuted myself with this move). Joe had the space all set up with some candles and music and the warm pool, which was far TOO warm, so I had to sit on the yoga ball while he put cold water in the pool. I climbed in just a few moments before Rachel arrived and it felt really good. When Rachel arrived I remember saying to her, "I am not having any fun!!!" and since she is a sweet friend and a good midwife, she simply said, "I know." Labor was hard and I felt so much pressure with my contractions.

This was only a few moments before his birth. Rachel seemed to just know that I needed some pressure on my back and it helped so much!

This photo was taken less than 10 minutes before Fritz's birth. Notice the smile on my face? I don't remember what I was laughing about, but obviously I was still in good spirits (just not during a contraction):

I will admit that I spent A LOT of time checking my own cervix here at the end. I was just so curious what was going on in there and I couldn't believe how fast things were going. My fastest previous labor had been 6 hours and by this point, I was less than 3 hours in. I remember feeling like I needed to push, but finding a huge cervical lip there, but within a contraction I felt the baby move right past it. This is when I told everyone, "It's coming!" Joe ran to the next room to tell the kids that they could come in if they wanted and he turned on the video camera. I could feel soooooo much head RIGHT. THERE. We were relieved it was head since he had been doing so many flips up until the last few days. The kids came in and stood next to the birth pool on one side and made some jokes about how it could just be a hairy butt instead of a head. Awe, my babies, always good for cracking some jokes and keeping the mood light.

His head came out and I couldn't move my hands away from him even if I would have tried. My husband did not catch. He wouldn't have had the option, because I wasn't letting go of this baby :)
(I love catching babies!)

 Restitution and the shoulders are now out!

Ta da!! An entire person just came into the world!

I was SHOCKED that I just had a boy. I was absolutely certain I was having a girl. I had really felt connected with this little belly babe who I thought of as Clementine Josephine. Nope. I was wrong. I was surprised, but not disappointed. He was so pink and warm and squishy and AWESOME.

I was also so surprised to be holding a baby already! It had only been about 3 hours from the time my water broke until this person was in my arms. I guess I had done so much prep-work in the weeks leading up to this moment that there wasn't much left to do.

Sorry for the quality of a few of these pictures, our camera was set on "low light." This is the point where Owen declared that he was, "So excited I could pee my pants!"

They all were pretty amazed by their new brother. They were a little nervous to touch him at first and concerned about the "vomit" in the pool. I had to explain that it was VERNIX, not vomit.

I birthed the placenta and then made my way over to the couch which Joe had made up with sheets since our bed was up the stairs. I crashed here as did Edie :)

Quick newborn exam to show how healthy and lovely he was. 8lb 6oz, my 2nd biggest baby. Amelia was comparing her pinkie fingers to his :)

Just a quick picture to show how clean waterbirth often is. Look, not a single drop of blood in this water.

Joe is such a sucker for babies. It was really nice getting to see him cuddle with this little one who we had been waiting on for so long. We decided on the name Frederick Sullivan. Well, I decided ;) Joe wanted Sullivan (Sully), but I just really, really loved the name "Fritz".

It is just crazy to me that it has been a full year. He went from being that lovely 8lb 6oz baby boy to being... well, he is still pretty little at 18lbs :) I am just amazed by him and in awe that we get to have him in our family. All the children ADORE him and now I couldn't imagine what our lives would be like if he hadn't come along. He really does make the family feel so much more complete.

Happy birthday, Fritzy-pants!

My office has a door!

I have been needing a door on my office since we moved in this joint. I have tried very hard to schedule most appointments for the daytime when everyone else is gone at school/work so that we have privacy. Now, that won't matter as much! The doorway is quite wide, but not quite double, so it was going to be difficult to fit it with a door or with french doors. Then, on Pinterest, I saw the sliding barn door! BINGO! We finally built one (and by we, I mean Joe did most of it and I just helped with the heavy lifting).

We used 8 foot long car siding to build the door. Joe fastened 7 of them together and put supports on the back side of it. Then he had to trim it up quite a bit because we live in a short-person-house.

We got the sliding track and hardware from the local farm store.

Ta-da!!!! Privacy in my office is now a possibility!!! We plan on adding a handle and a latch, but I am thrilled with it for now. We are also going to live with it for a bit before deciding if we should paint, stain, distress, or just leave the wood how it is.

 Edie was very excited to be the first to actually use the door :)

This also can count towards my New Years Resolution to complete 5 pinterest projects this year :)

ETA: This entire project was only about $150. Not too shabby!

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.

SOAP!

For those of you who don't know, I used to be a hard core soapmaker. I learned it as a hobby in early 2001 and then I started a business in 2002 so that I could work at home while taking care of Amelia (and then the other two who came shortly after). I would spend every weekend during the spring/summer/fall at farmer's markets and festivals selling my soaps and lotions and other various bath products.

I had always said that if it didn't feel like fun anymore then I would quit. I ended up getting pretty burnt out on it, so I did eventually quit. Much to my husband's dismay, I also stopped making it for our personal use. I, finally, just felt like making it again. Tonight I did!

Keep in mind that I am not showing you these photos as instruction on how to make soap (there are better websites that do a more thorough job of that). Also, I should technically be wearing gloves and goggles, but my glasses are huge and work like goggles and I don't like to wear gloves. Lye burns like a MOTHER, but I prefer to feel when I have gotten it on my hand so I can wash right away rather than having it on my gloves and then accidentally brushing it against my face or something. So there. My disclaimers.

My supplies involve several kinds of fixed oils and lye. For this batch of soap I used for oils: olive, palm, coconut, and avocado. It was strange using 7lb bottles of oils instead of 50lb pails like I used to!

Here is my mold that holds a loaf that makes 12 HUGE bars of soap (they end up being 5-6oz each)

My lye and water are set carefully in the sink. This is so that if it gets knocked over some how, the mess is contained to the sink. Lye is nasty to work with. I was only willing to whip up soap because Joe was home to wrangle children and be sure none of them would get hurt.

So, the lye mixture cools to about 100 degrees and then I had to heat the oils to about 100 degrees. Keep in mind that I did this for years and years (in huge quantities, many times per week), so I have gotten pretty comfortable working without a thermometer and just using my hands to tell me when the temps are right.

When the temps were right, I started mixing. I could just use the spoon, but it takes a few hours of stirring. A stick blender makes it MUCH faster. In just a few minutes it goes from looking like this to looking like pudding (called a "trace")

See? Here I am being all dangerous without safety gear!

This is what a trace looks like:

The fragrance oil is added at trace, and this fragrance oil made it start to set up quick, so I had to run it to my mold.

Edie snapped a photo of me slapping it into the mold (which I lined).

I covered the mold with a towel to help retain the heat. It will stay in the mold for 24 hours and then I will take it out and cut it.

Here the soap is starting a "gel stage." After it is removed from the mold and cut, it will need to "cure" for approximately 4 weeks to make sure it is nice and gentle.

4 weeks is an awfully convenient time for Christmas gifts ;) This batch was scented with Dragon's Blood fragrance oil, which is AMAZING. It is like a spicy incense. Yum.

I am excited to have enough oils to make about 6 batches of soap. Of course, I also bought the supplies to make lotion bars and I am thinking sometime this weekend making my oldest child do that with me.

So much to be thankful for

Today, like many of you, I am thinking about how much I have to be thankful for. 2012 has brought a whole lot of good things our way! I am thankful for:

• My wonderful husband. 2012 has been a year of building towards our future.
• My gorgeous children! 
• My children are all doing well in school.
• Fritz joined us this year and has been an incredible blessing. I am so glad he is here.
• This year we purchased a home. It is far from a dream home, but it is our future. It is currently saving us a ton of money by having a low mortgage and has a huge lot where I intend on growing our family food. It was a house and it is becoming a home.
• I have job that I feel.... well, I feel a lot of things about it. At times, it is overwhelming and so difficult and at other times it is easy and fun.... overall, it is important to me and I feel good about what I am doing.
• Joe started a new job this year. This job came with better benefits and better pay. Much, much better benefits. He enjoyed his previous job and we are thankful for that job as well! He worked there for 3 years and met lots of really good people. Now he is settling into this new job and meeting more good people and just enjoying life. Good stuff.
• We have amazing friends. Some of these friends live close and some live far away. I get to go out for drinks with some and others are a phone/coffee date away. We have these lovely people in our lives who happily help us with a wide variety of things and are up for a crazy corndog-based party..... what more could a gal want from her pals?
• I have a wonderful family. Not just my husband and kids, but parents and siblings as well. We are lucky people.
• I am thankful for the health of my family. There has been times in the past where this health was much more shaky and I am thankful (so. insanely. thankful.) that my loved ones are healthy again.
• I am thankful for the new person who will be joining my extended family very soon!
• I am thankful for my health. This last year I had a melanoma scare that has left me with only half my belly button, but there is nothing like a huge scare like that to make you appreciate the health you have.

I know there is even more that I have to be thankful for and will likely think of many things as soon as I hit "publish," but here is my list for now. Life is good!

What I will not be doing on Friday.

I will not be participating in any Black Friday deals this year. Not at all. Not online. Not in store. Nope. Nada.

Over the last few years I have become shaken by what this day has become. People have been trampled TO DEATH so others could get a cheaper television or toys. This disturbs me to my core. That person's life was worth soooooo much more than that. I am also soooooo bothered by the fact that retailers are starting their Black Friday deals on Thursday morning! All those minimum wage employees now not only have to deal with being trampled on Friday, but they also have to miss out on family time on a holiday. I have never been a huge fan of shopping anyhow, so maybe it is just easy for me to give up the good deals and standing in lines for HOURS.

I saw something on Facebook a few weeks ago that stated if families just spent a little bit ($64) of their Christmas budgets on products made in the USA, it would equate to 200,000 new jobs in the US! That got me started thinking. Why wouldn't I want to support more jobs here? And that led me to my next thought, which was trying to support small businesses.... work at home mom style businesses. Make sure that the money and job security gets to the actual person doing the hard work rather than to a large corporation with fat cats sitting at the top. So, we are trying hard this year to purchase handmade, local (or local-ish.... for sure from the USA), and ethically made items for our Christmas gifts. We have decided that local services also are ok (gift certificate for a pedicure or some such thing) and that thrift stores for certain second hand items (books) are ok, too. I am considering making coupon books for the kids that will have coupons they can cash in for special time with either of us.... like maybe each of them will get a coupon for a date and dinner out, or a slumber party with a parent (movie and junk food and staying up way past bedtime), or..... I am not sure what else, but this is something I am working on figuring out.

This is making shopping into a unique challenge this year! I, for the life of me, am struggling to figure out what to buy for an 8 year old boy that is handmade. This kid only likes legos and Star Wars. However, it has made me realize that it doesn't really matter. We live such an abundant life! I will find some sort of trinket of this abundance to gift him for the day, but I don't want to gift him some cheap piece of plastic that a child in a foreign land had to make, knowing that we will be throwing out next year when he outgrows it. There is nothing that we actually NEED. We have everything we need.... clothing, shelter, food.

I want my children to understand how fortunate they are. It was not so many years ago that I remember going to Aldi with our last $12 to buy groceries for the week. It wasn't that many years ago that I needed my parents to purchase winter coats for the kids because we couldn't afford them. We are still not wealthy, by any stretch of the imagination (free and reduced lunches at school? yep, we qualify), but we are able to pay our bills (although sometimes the student loan number shows up on our caller ID). I was able to buy all the children winter jackets. We bought our crappy little house this year which provides us with warm shelter (and hilarious adventures). We have vehicles to get us around. We have the basics AND extras. When I really think of what it is to not be able to afford food, I am struck by how absolutely ABUNDANTLY we live. So, I want to somehow share that with my children and not shower them with so many gifts that they can't even remember they should be thankful.

I promise that I will not judge you if you are shopping on Friday. I will not judge if you spend a small fortune on Christmas, really. I realize that my ideas are not perfect. I feel like it is a start. And it gets me out of having to brave the crowds on a day that I would rather be hanging out with my kids at home.

Just holding on for dear life

I try very hard to look for the positive and to always remind myself of how much worse things could be, but lately I have been a bit overwhelmed. This week has been hard. This month has been hard. There are days that I feel it has swallowed me whole. This month:

• Head gasket in my car went out, so we had to buy a new one, which while fun also means we have a 2nd car payment again
• Fritz has been teething and so I don't really sleep
• Fritz has been teething so he has been blowing out his diapers 1-2 times a day with poop that goes up his back and down to his knees
• He also likes to poop in the tub while I am cleaning him up
• I had to give up roller derby due to family conflicts
• We nearly blew ourselves up with our furnace and then had to spend a good chunk of change to get it fixed
• Kids have been on edge and fighting a ton
• Owen lost his glasses ($$$)
• I tried to get into a confrontation with a guy who thought it was funny to act as if he was going to run me over while I was out for a run. What was I thinking?
• I had to run Fritz to the ER when he got stung by a wasp while we were out for a walk.... his hand became very swollen and some of his fingers turned black. I am still waiting to see the bill for that one.
• We were supposed to be on a Disney vacation this past week. However, Joe started a new job less than 2 months ago and so he doesn't have the vacation time to do that. So, it kinda sucked to see this time come up on the calendar and here we are still at home.
• This week 3 of us got the stomach flu. Lots of vomit. My stomach muscles are still trying to recover.
• This week, child #3 proved to have a head full of little friends.
• This week, we found evidence of mice having parties after we go to bed.
• This week, child #4 found a mouse in a trap and was swinging it around by the tail and just having the best time with his new (dead) friend
• We failed our lead clearance test (I am certain that will cost us more $$$)
• We had a bat in the house
• We have had eleventy-bajillion wasps in the house
• Signs of my fertility returned, including a week of the WORST PMS EVER. But, I didn't realize it was PMS, I thought my family was just being a pile of asshats. Sorry, family.
• I appear to have developed an ulcer. So, I have had to reduce my coffee consumption, cut alcohol, and start drinking cabbage juice. Having a burning gut is not exactly a good time. 

There are just some months in life that are harder than others and I hope this is just one of those bumps along the way. Some months it would just be easier to roll with all of this stuff, but it is getting to me right now. I often find myself fantasizing about running away :) 

Here are the things I can be thankful for:

•  My car died on the way HOME from a birth rather than on my way out to one
• My new car is pretty awesome
• We have heat and did NOT blow ourselves up. I am very thankful for that.
• The wasps are starting to slow down as the weather gets colder and colder.
• Only 1 kid out of a family of 6 got head lice.
• That nasty PMS episode means that my family is not made up of a bunch of asshats, but are instead pretty awesome people who love me even when I am a hormonal monster.
• We caught a mouse.
• The bat was safely ushers out of the house without any bites or any need for rabies shots.
• Joe started that new job, which long term the benefits are soooo much better. We will miss this one vacation, but make up for it in many other ways.
• I am thankful to have the abilities to take my children to an ER when they have a scary reaction. There are people who do not have easy access to medicine.
• Sorry, I just can't think of anything to be thankful for on the ulcer side of things. This one just sucks. I am not at ALL happy to be giving up coffee and wine. I am not at ALL happy to be drinking cabbage juice 4 times a day. 

So, I am just holding on through this bumpy ride and reminding myself to reconsider all the "bad" things and turn them into good things. Life can suck. Sometimes, you can make life suck a little bit less by simply considering all the ways you are fortunate. I could focus on the bad or I could choose to focus on the good. I am trying, people, I am trying hard.

Creepy crawlies

There are times in the life of each person where the universe seems to be laying on the drama nice and thick. Of course, there are times that the universe layers on the good stuff too, but we often forget that or just think of that as normal life.

Last night, Joe was supposed to go out to the bar to play trivia with friends. I will admit, I am still a WEE bit pissy about that. Yes, he deserves to have fun. No, I don't think it is too much to ask that he get 1 night a week to do what he wants to do. HOWEVER, I had to give up my activity (that took up 1-2 nights a week) because it didn't work with our family. I often look at him with jealousy anyhow because that man gets to poop all by himself! I don't get to poop alone! I don't get to shower alone, eat alone, I don't get 15 minutes all by myself in the car, etc. So, I NEED an activity ALONE. OMG, yesterday I demanded a shower while everyone was home and that was the first time I had been alone for 10 minutes in over 2 days! And it didn't even last because the baby crawled to the bathroom door and stood, hitting it, and crying for me to come out. Anyhow, back to the story.... 20 minutes before Joe was set to leave and we were trying to get laundry folded. In walks Edie, scratching her head, talking about how itchy it was so I tell her to come over while I take a look........ <GASP, SHUDDER> yeah, you know what I found.

So, I had to inform my husband that there would be no trivia, but there would be laundry and a trip to the drug store in his future. There may have been a good amount of pouting. Followed by some Facebook time while his wife nagged him. However, he pulled it together and had to care for a cranky baby who only wanted me while I shampooed with that chemical stuff that will kill a person (mayo and a shower cap wasn't going to cut it.... this was BAD, guys) and then I spent nearly 3(!!!) hours combing her entire head out with the tiny little comb. Thankfully, it appears that only 1 child has lice. Everyone else was free and clear. Joe and Fritz folded a mountain of clean laundry during this 3 hours, so BONUS!

Now, this morning, we are still catching up on lice laundry and our washing machine starts acting up. Crap. We are a family of 6, so we already make a lot of laundry. We cloth diaper, we use cloth napkins, Fritz blows out his diapers 2-3x a day, he pukes on me another 2x a day, etc. Mix that with having to wash all jackets, towels, clothing, and bedding on hot RIGHT NOW to be sure we get rid of our tiny friends and I have no patience for a machine that is acting a fool. From what I read online, it might just be a sensor that Joe could easily fix. But, for this moment, there is a big pregnant pause in all our cleaning activities. yay.

It hasn't been an easy week between the stomach flu that came to visit, Edie bringing home her little friends, and now the washing machine. However, I am hopeful that things are going to turn around soon.

Why are you so cranky?

Yesterday, I scrubbed my house. I washed, dried, and folded 6 loads of laundry, I did the dishes, I bleached out the sink, I made pizza crust from scratch and got dinner on the table by 5:30PM, I vacuumed up the dead wasps in my home office, I picked up some of the trash outside on the yard, I took out the compost, I cleaned dog poop up out of my son's room, I lit incense to take care of the dog poop aroma, I bathed the baby, I cleaned up after the baby played in the toilet and got pee water all over the floor, I swept the stairs, I scrubbed the kitchen table, I got insurance billed for 1 client, I brought down all the dirty laundry from the bedrooms, and all of this was while caring for a baby who clings to my legs and screams at me because my breast is not in his mouth.

Would you like to know what followed?

"Oh, honey, the house looks great and it smells so good and I am very excited for this homemade pizza with from-scratch crust! Let me give you a foot rub and why don't you soak in the bath while I take the Girl Scout out for her door-to-door solicitations. And by the way, I can tell you went to the gym... you look amazing."

"Wow! Mom! Thanks for washing all our clothes so we have clean underwear! Thank you for cleaning up the dog poop. Dinner looks great! How can we help keep the house clean?"

"Mommy, I know I am a needy baby who demands to be nursed and snuggled 24/7 and I haven't been letting you sleep, but I just want you to know that you are the best mommy EVER!"

Umm.... yeah... no, this is the real world. Not one single person mentioned that the house looked nice or smelled nice. No one thanked me for the mountains of laundry I took care of. They did complain about needing to put them away. I am pretty sure my husband did not even notice that the house had been cleaned.... he asked me where the low mein noodle was that I was complaining about on Facebook.... dude, I cleaned it up. <sigh>

I did, however, get asked why I seemed so cranky.

Open letter to the mothers who are far better than I am.

You know who you are. You see me as a parent and it brings pity into your heart for my small children.  You can't help but come up to me and let me know the errors of my ways. Last night, you let me know that you felt my baby was dressed inappropriately for the weather. I laughed a little and said that I was just trying to make my baby prepared for when the windchill takes this b*tch to -50 (ok, I didn't say the b-word, but I was struggling not to).

What I really wanted to say:

I am glad for your child that she has a perfect mother. That is simply not my kids' lot in life. They got me. I mess up..... daily. I swear too much, I am sarcastic, I sometimes get snippy with them for no good reason, I don't check the weather report before we leave the house for an hour and so I don't realize that it is going to get chilly, I often don't travel with snacks or an extra blanket, I will forget about my kids needing drinks but will remember to bring my own cup of coffee. At times, I can be extremely selfish. At this very moment, I have put apple juice and water into my baby's sippy cup in hopes of keeping him off the breast for 30 freakin minutes so I can write this post, throw in a load of laundry, and just *maybe* get to put on some make-up before I leave the house for work. I listen to my baby cry each day while I shower because he is terrified of the shower.... I know that I would be a better mom if I showered while everyone was still home so he wouldn't have to be scared, but that would require me waking up at 5am and I am just unwilling to do that. I don't make my kids eat nearly enough vegetables and sometimes they get to drink soda. They eat food colorings, gluten, dairy, sugar, hydrogenated oils, and high fructose corn syrup. My poor kids got this imperfect creature as their mother.

However, they know that I love them fiercely. Your hurt one of my babies and I will run you over with my car without even blinking. I try to be sure they all have clothing, housing, food in their bellies, and plenty of sleep. I try to have good conversations with each of them daily about what is happening in their lives and I don't even roll my eyes (at least not while facing them) when we are talking about Star Wars or Harry Potter..... AGAIN. I laugh at their jokes and delight in the people I can see them becoming. I praise my child who struggles with her emotions when I can see her trying REALLY hard to react appropriately to situations that come up. I point out the awesome and quirky things that I see and I never try to turn them into people they are not. I giggle when one is supposed to be playing football and is instead taking down his teammates with his invisible light saber. I love how that child still lives in his own little world.

So, you caught me. I didn't have a blanket for my baby and clearly I suck in many ways. I think I am just giving my kids some character though :) They will have stories about how imperfect their mom was that will make them laugh some day. Or, maybe I will just have to spend my retirement fund on therapy for the lot of them.

Sorry for the lack of photos.....

We have still been working on this home, but I have no photos to share. You can thank one of my children (the one named "Not Me") for that. Said child took my awesome Canon Rebel in automatic mode and twisted the lens hard and broke my lens. I am thrilled. <sigh> Oh well, they go back to school tomorrow!

This weekend we have managed to get all the smoke detectors hung up! Don't worry, Mom, we had them out of the boxes, but just not up on the walls yet.... we were kinda protected. We also finished changing all the outlets and light switches. We still have one mystery light switch that we cannot figure out what it controls. Joe fixed the downspout above our side deck so that the water won't rot away all his handy work. We have also just been preparing for the school year, cleaning, hanging up pictures, etc. Joe is also preparing to start a new job this week, so that is very exciting!

We have been selling stuff, too. Rather than doing a garage sale, we have just been selling stuff on craigslist as we haven't needed it. This is a smaller home with very little storage space and Joe tells me that we are done making babies (BOO! HISS!), so we are just clearing out as we go. So far, I have sold off some cloth diapers and Joe sold our old electric dryer (love me some gas dryers... so much faster!). I still have a few baby toys listed that Fritz just outgrew, prefolds, a book shelf that is too tall to fit in our short house, and a futon that we have no need for. We might, eventually, get our garage back :)

Just a funny from the other night. A friend was asking our 6 year old if we have had a busy summer (she knows all about this house, work, etc) and Edie said, "Nope!" When pressed on it further she told our friend that we spent all summer just playing on our computers. That child CLEARLY doesn't remember what this house started off looking like :)

Our 11th weekend

Seems crazy that it has been 11 weekends of fun since we bought this house :) Things are going well, but I will admit that I am starting to miss lazy Sunday mornings of coffee and looking at each other while saying, "hmmm.... honey, what would you like to do today?" Now it is much more, "Honey, what project MUST be done today?"

Joe got the deck all ripped off on the side of the house and has half of it laid again!

The funniest part of this was the way he sunburnt while working. He calls it his "tramp stamp sunburn" :)

It was supposed to be nice out today after some rain this morning, but it is now the afternoon and it has still not stopped raining. So, we ran to Menards and got more deck screws, ran to the grocery store, and got some projects done inside the house. These projects included getting the boxes emptied in our bedroom. Oh, so nice! Now our bedroom feels like a bedroom and not a room with a bed in the middle of boxes.

We got some curtain rod action going on:

Above, you can also see that Edie got a new bed on Friday! She is no longer sleeping on the floor. We picked up a bedframe and mattress and Joe got the bed all put together Friday night. The mattress that she was on went back onto the bunk beds in Owen's room and so now we have a spare bed for when the kids have friends stay the night. The curtain in the girls' room is one of the two that I sewed for them :) They need to get more stuff on their walls though, this curtain hanging is making their room look even shorter than it already is!

We finished laundry, which I won't bore you with a picture of. Although, if you look at our bedroom photo then you can see some of the clean clothes folded there and ready to be put away!

I am quite excited to have also meal planned for the week and cooked. It has been hard to do that because of all the projects and time constraints and general life disarray. We will be using the crockpot a lot this week, which helps. And then we can eat for the whole week on about $75 instead of $35/meal when we go out. The kids and I are all sick with a cold, so soups and crockpot oatmeal seems right up our alley for this week. This illness factor has also slowed me down quite a bit this weekend. Here is proof of Fritz being sick. He does not normally lay down without touching my body and yet here he was too tired to care that I got up to take a few photos:

The other thing that slowed us down this weekend was the fair (in this case, it was good to be slowed down a bit). The kids are involved in 4H and 2 of them had rabbits to show. Amelia got a blue ribbon on hers and Owen got a participation ribbon (he is a Cloverbud, so that is what all the kids in his age range get). Edie would have had the guinea pig in the pet show, but he passed away this last week. We will have to get her a rabbit to show next year :) Joe and the kids also worked the 4H food booth last night while Fritz and I just wandered around looking at 4H projects and such. I am very proud of my big three kiddos and what sort of people they are becoming. It is a long process to raise people, but I feel like we are on a good track :)

And just because I know that my friends enjoy a good ghost story, today Owen heard someone walking in the bathroom when he and I were the only ones home. I heard it too and promptly reassured him that it was nothing..... old floors creak and groan, right?

Just pouring money down the drain

We aren't really pouring money down the drain; it is all going into our house.... our home. However, it feels like it is just non-stop at this point. Now Joe needs to fix the garbage disposal since some small people dumped things down that side of the sink and it is all clogged up. We also need to go to Menards and buy some adjustable screens because the weather is supposed to be decent and we would love to turn off the air.... especially since our windows are SOOOOOOO bad that I am sure the utility bill is going to make me vomit when it comes.

Right now, our bank statement for use of our debit card looks something like this:
Menards
Home Depot
Lowe's
Menards
Panera
Menards
Ace Hardware
Menards
Menards
MGM Liquors

Ok, I made that last one up.... but it SHOULD be on our list to help us cope with all the trips to Menards :)

We are still catching up from the double housing payments and double utility payments from when we owned this home but were still living in the rental. That might take us several months to recover. And otherwise, it is just constant small amounts trickling out to help make this place comfortable and appealing.

I swear, I am not complaining. I am just sharing in the honesty of our current situation. Our mortgage is VERY affordable, but it might be awhile until we feel that affordability due to the $$$ that is constantly pouring out to fix stuff up. Old homes are a money pit, right? We are still very happy with our decision and we understand that the long term benefits will outweigh the short term pocketbook pain :)

Great news: Joe got the light fixture up in our bedroom! Now we have a light!!! If only we could find our television remote, our bedroom might take the lead for my favorite room in the house :)

I am tired

I am not going to lie.... I am exhausted. I am burnt out. I need a vacation. I am not feeling very joyful and positive about life right now. Instead, I am feeling like I am being worked to death. Obviously, we have had a lot of work to do around here. That is just what it is. It is these beautiful, interesting, creative kids of mine that will be the death of me!

Today I banned cinnamon sugar from the house. I am SO. FREAKING. SICK. of cleaning up a mixture of cinnamon and sugar off the counters, table, and floor. It is the messiest creation and has no nutritional value at all. I have banned it in the past, but somehow moving made the kids feel like they should start making it again.... and that I should start cleaning it again. I am about to ban shoes. Yep. I am going to take away shoes forever. Why? Because we have a no-shoes-in-the-house policy and yet I keep finding shoes EVERYWHERE and dirt EVERYWHERE! Apparently, I am the only one who understands how to work a broom. <sigh> I am just going to ground everyone from everything for ever and ever. Everything will be banned. Can you tell that I was up pretty much all night with a fever baby? Soooooooo tired.

Anyhow, in the midst of all of this cleaning and sick baby crying and me not feeling my best, middle child comes up to me and says, "Mom, I am pretty sure you owe me $40 for unpaid allowances. You need to pay up!"

<blink, blink> Do I live with a small thug? As I was looking at my child who hadn't yet showered or brushed his teeth, who hadn't cleaned up his own breakfast dishes, or picked up his dirty underwear off the livingroom floor (who takes off their underwear in the livingroom???), I found it very hard to stay calm. The reason we decided to start paying the kids an allowance was because I gave up my office outside of the home which requires our home to stay extra clean. Instead of paying a cleaning lady, we thought we would give the kids an opportunity to earn a little extra cash by helping keep things clean. They haven't done any of this sort of thing (other than move-out cleaning, which we compensated them for) for WEEKS. So, I am trying to figure out how in the world my son figures that I owe him 8 weeks of allowance for eating the food I buy, using the utilities I pay for, living under the roof I provide, and doing pretty much nothing else. I would have been paying him for turning my house into a pig pen.

I am very much looking forward to the school year starting up again. I also need a break. I need to do something that does not involve any of my children. They are constantly with me and I adore them, but I never get away from all of them. I think I am going to sign up for roller derby.

What is wrong with being average?

Here is a post that will have nothing to do with our home renovations :) It is something that I have spent a lot of time considering while painting. My kids are average. They are not exceptional athletes or of incredible intelligence. I accept this as perfectly ok. Yet, when I am surrounded by mothers who are bragging about their kids and I say that mine are just average, I am looked at like I said that I hate my kids.

I appreciate all the unique and quirky things about my kiddos. However, I understand that they are special to me, but not really all that special to the rest of the world. I feel like I would not be doing them any favors to pretend differently. I think my kids are funny, weird, interesting, and lovely. I point out to them when they say or do something that I think is great, but I don't gush on and on about how exceptional they are to the greater population or how much better they are than the average kid. To the rest of the world, they are just normal.

Would it help them out if I were to tell them the lie that they can be or do anything they want with their lives? Should I tell my child who has less than perfect pitch that she should definitely continue to pursue her dream of being a professional singer? Or is it kinder and more realistic to encourage her to continue singing because it makes her happy, but to realistically consider doing it on the community level? My children, in all their average glory, will be able to have wonderful careers and enriched and beautiful lives. They should not expect to be famous, but they will be able to be proud of their accomplishments some day. I expect my kids to go to a state school and  work hard and get normal sorts of jobs.... teaching, social work, middle managers of a paper mill, working in admissions at the local college, nursing, etc. Again, I think this is ok. I think it is great. My kids won't be the president of the United States. So what? Am I a bad mom for realizing this? Am I a bad mom for stating this?

We also have had to have many discussions about when others are better. I know many parents, when their child is passed up for something they want, will cut down the child who got that solo for the concert and will tell their child that it should have been them because they are so exceptionally talented. I refuse to do this. My oldest has experienced be passed over quite a bit in the last year. It is hard to see her be so disappointed, but I really try hard to teach her to be happy for the child who did so well and is getting recognition. We won't all be the lead in a play or the star basketball player on the team or the artist who is featured in the school newsletter. I won't even tell her that her day is coming for these things, because it may not be. There are only so many lead roles, only 1 star basketball player, and only a few school newsletters and there are many, many children who aspire to take on these spots.

I have been trying to get my children to embrace being average.... and even sometimes less than average. I tried to teach Amelia how to play tennis, but since she wasn't instantly amazing at it then she decided she never wanted to play again. I keep encouraging my kids that they can suck at something and still do it for fun. The average person doesn't just pick up a tennis racket and immediately rock the court or strap on running shoes and run a 5 minute mile. The average person wants to cry after their first run because their lungs hurt and their legs ache. What builds character is going out and doing it again and again and trying to enjoy the things you aren't so great at (says the very slow runner).

I don't know, maybe someday I will see that I have gone about this parenting business all wrong. Until that day comes, I think I will just embrace and love my very average family.

New skills and solar camp showers

I got 1 more coat of paint on the kitchen cupboards today. 1 more tomorrow night should do the trick! I worked on that with the kids in tow, which was not easy. They all get whiney pretty quickly and start fighting. Joe picked them up towards the end of my painting and they all got dinner made and the house picked up. I walked into a prepared dinner and set table. I could get used to that ;)

I was super excited after we went back to the house tonight. Joe taught me how to replace electrical outlets! Not just the covers, but the actual outlets. I felt so handy :)  Then we talked and joked about how much our communication with one another has improved with all these years of marriage. When we were newlyweds, Joe tried to teach me to drive stick and that was a nightmare. His mother had to teach me (thanks, Karen!) because him trying to teach me was such a bad thing for us. Now, I guess we just know one another well enough to know how to teach things in a way that the other can learn. We still have a few more outlets to get changed out, so I believe I will get to continue to practice my new skill :)

We are beginning to get nervous that our bathroom won't be complete before it is time for us to move. Our contractor is a hard and good worker, so it isn't his fault. It has to do with the kind of loan we have for the home and the home improvements. The type of loan doesn't allow for the contractor to get any money upfront, but they can get paid certain percentages during the process when draws are done by the inspector and paperwork is submitted to the bank. Unfortunately, our inspector has gone AWOL, which means no draws with the paperwork are being done, which then means no money for the contractor. He has done all he can do until he gets paid for what he has completed so far and I don't know how long that will take since the inspector guy won't return any of our phone calls or emails. As of right now, we still don't have a working bathroom. We began to feel stressed about it, but then I really had to adjust my mindset about it. There is nothing we can do about it if that is the way it is going to shake out. I guess we will have to get one of those solar camp showers and shower in the backyard. There is a port-a-potty across the street until softball season is over. I guess then we might just go old school and dig a hole in the backyard (I kid, I kid). It is an interesting journey, this house. It is an excellent teacher of the lesson of letting go and becoming a bit more zen.

Full workday

This morning we awoke with the solid beep-beep-beep of my alarm that becomes more frantic the longer you let it ring. Since the hot weather was coming we decided it would be smart to get to the house as soon as possible and try to work before the heat came. We don't have central air up and running over there (we aren't even sure if it works), so we need to make the best of the cooler mornings.

Today we were able to get our living room, kitchen, and dinning room primed and ready for paint! Joe also got the ceilings in the living room and dinning room painted. They look so nice all fresh and white.  After a lot of discussion we also chose to pull out the dishwasher. Nothing in this house has worked and it looked pretty old. We figured it probably was in line with everything else that was broken and nasty here. We took it out and that was our first time removing a dishwasher, but we did have an ooops and accidentally chipped a bit of the counter top. Oh well. I took photos of these things to put on Facebook, but I spared everyone the photos of me dry heaving with the lovely aromas that came piling out Joe detached the lines and stink water came pouring out. Sooooooooo gross.

We were finally done for the day around 3pm and so then it was time to do the other fun stuff of running to Lowe's and buying our new range and dishwasher. Our kitchen is going to look so nice when we finally get it all painted and get the new appliances in. We also treated the kiddos to frozen yogurt, some new pairs of shorts from Target, and then topped it all off with dinner at a Mexican restaurant. They were a little bummed that I wouldn't let them get cheeseburgers, but I feel strongly that if we are eating at a Mexican restaurant then the kids should try out some Mexican food. We really indulged and let them get special sodas and even split a fried ice cream.

I am actually not sure why we pampered them after some of the behaviors we have had lately. Our oldest..... oh... she is just..... Amelia. She started complaining to us about one spot in her room that needs to be touched up and how it "bothers" her to have to look at it. Really? It bothers you to look at? Oh, bummer. She then went on that she has been telling us about this spot for 2 weeks. Well, you can see all the stuff that we have been up to for the last 2 weeks and how touching up some paint wasn't our top priority. We explained that we would be doing the touch ups after everything else is done. She also then complained about how we don't do nearly enough fun stuff. True. However, she is on summer break, but Joe and I are still working very full time. I am sure all working parents deal with this.... there is only so much we can do. I don't care what she sees on television, most kids are not partying it up every single day of summer vacation. I can't complain too much about her, she helps SOOOO much with Fritzy while we are working. She often will put him in a sling and carry him around for hours :)  The middle two children decided that the slug bug game isn't violent enough. They no longer wait for a VW to pass by to smack one another, they changed the rules so that now they punch one another anytime they see a yellow, purple, or red car (of any variety). It makes riding in the car with them a bit loud.

Life with kids and home renovations.... it is everything I thought it would be :)