Blogging and My Life

Let's face it: I've been largely absent from the blogging world for quite some time.  (I know - you're all in rehab and going through therapy because you miss me so much; I'm sorry!) 

I'd love to be able to tell you that it's because I'm just too cool for school or that I'm working on something really, really big.  I'd love to be able to keep up with this and balance everything perfectly...

BUT the truth of the matter is this: Folks, I'm getting my ass kicked. 

Dudes, it's a struggle.  It's a beautiful, exciting, rewarding struggle, but there is no way I'd be doing anyone any good if I pretended it wasn't a battle.  When we found out we were expecting a fourth kiddo last year, I shrugged and said, "Meh... what's another babe? I'm already out-numbered!"  But now, a year after that announcement, I'm facing the reality that it isn't just the 4 kids... It's life.  It is simply life as an adult with mind-boggling mounds of responsibility that sometimes makes me feel like I'm trying to run in quicksand. 

Ya know?  It's the living-within-a-Nazi-budget thing because we're carrying two mortgages right now... it's the four-kids-who-deserve-my-best thing... the having-a-small-business-to-run-and-grow thing... the being-a-good-wife-and-household-manager thing... All of those.  And more.  Let me back up and explain a little bit - not because I want sympathy or am trying to bitch, but because maybe it'll comfort some of you to know that no, not everyone's life is smooth-as-silk all the time:

We just got full-use of our basement back.  After 20 weeks of dealing with the mold/water intrusion, we finally got it back.  We lost easily a couple thousand dollars worth of stuff to mold, not to mention the lost time, wasted opportunities, etc.  But that's better - finally!  However, we found out in August that the gentlemen who were renting our other house (which we were unable to sell in 2008 - thank you, economy) were leaving.  So we had to instantly pare down our budget and, while we've always lived well within our means, it has meant attempting to feed our family on $100 a week.  That has translated to added hours of pouring through grocery-store circulars, writing menus, compiling lists and coupons and trying to weigh cost-savings against healthy eating choices.  It literally sucks up hours of my week... However, that also means that I buy whole chickens instead of boneless-skinless breasts and nearly double my prep work for one dinner.  Lunches include apple slices that I have to peel, slice and soak in lime-juice instead of purchasing ready-made bags of them.  And that's fine!  I'm doing what I have to for us!  But that certainly doesn't leave any time for blogging... especially when that budget excludes disposable diapers and you consider the amount of laundry that goes into have 3 kids in cloth diapers full-time... And, let's be serious: we all know how I feel about laundry.

Jack, Jordan and Addie are in preschool this year so twice a week I am committed to getting them there and home.  And I have MOPS, a moms group at my church and also Jack's baseball practices and games to travel to and from, but beyond that, I have to have snacks prepared and packed, cups ready, diaper changes to consider, etc.  It's just a lot.  I'm keeping my photography business at a comfortable level, but as we head into the fall, it will pick up quite a bit (which is good! I love my craft!) and it will constitute even less free time.  Additionally, I have a few things on the horizon that are community-service related that include using my business to generate some income for some charity work.  Again, all of this is stuff that I dearly love and am happy and excited to do, but it takes time.

Oh, and we're raising four young kids.  Jack and Jordan are super active.  Addie has a speech-delay we are getting a treatment plan worked out for, and Peyton is exclusively breastfed with the appetite of a college football running back.   It is, at times, overwhelming.

Clearly this is just our normal.  It is not anything lamentable or regrettable, nor would I, for one hot second, assert that I have a difficult or bad life... Quite the opposite, in fact; I am happy and content and proud of where we are and I couldn't be more comfortable doing what we're doing with one another.

But it is because I love my life and am so happy with the decisions we've made and the paths we've walked that I find it impossible to put off any of my responsibilities in order to spend more time blogging.  Don't get me wrong - although I am content and blissful, I do spend some time every day struggling with frustration, stress, fear, uncertainty, doubt and anger.  (It would be entirely and freakishly unnatural if I did.)  And that fact is what this blog post is really about for me, and hopefully for you as well: it is for me to tell you that it's okay to feel the full spectrum of emotions - good as well as bad.  I just set about each day with the hope that if this is my last day on Earth, I may look back on it with no regrets.  That I might stand before the Lord proud of myself as a wife, mother, sister, daughter, friend and child of the God... that I might only need to pray for thanksgiving and ask only for the strength to live the next day as the one before it, should I be given the gift of tomorrow.  More often than not, there is at least one role in which I do not perform the way I'd have wanted to.  More often than not, I find myself praying also for forgiveness for my shortcomings in at least one area of my life and begging for just one more chance to do better. 

Either way, the result is always me waking up resolved to glorify God and serve my family, friends and brothers and sisters to the best of my mortal ability.  Rarely does that include blogging, but as it does mean I need some time to myself - to vent, to connect, to reach out, I'm not giving up on blogging because I do love it so much.  It's just that I'm asking your forgiveness for not having a post up every couple of days so that I can focus on being the person I know I am and making myself better each day.  I guess it also means I'm asking for your support and maybe a prayer or two to help me in that journey.

Thanks for reading and for sticking with us through everything!  I promise I'll be my witty, funny self next time!

Getting Settled

I've got all the boxes in the house unpacked (the garage has some work we need to do, but we'll get there) and things have a home.  I'm reluctant to start hanging pictures because I want everything to be perfect of course, but we're getting closer.  Blinds are all up and I've got the curtains in Jack's and in the Girls' room hung.  But we're settled in as much as I wanted to be before the baby gets here.  She's going to sleep in our room in the Pack 'n Play for a little while - we're going to buy the girls big girl beds soon and transition them in the next few months so littlest one can have the crib when her big sisters are done with it.  But I'm happy with the progress!

  

See?  No denying this is my house.  A giant pile of laundry - it's as essential as a toilet.

 

The cube-system's purpose is supposed to be to stem the flow of toys from the playroom into the living room... So far, I don't know how well it works.  I think it does okay but the toys still invade.  Always with the toys.

 

I LOVE the guest bathroom!

We're loving it so far!

Catching Up... With Photos!

It is no secret that this time of year is absurdly busy.  Three kids, pregnancy, a house under construction, and family visiting only compounded that.  However, please don't mistake that statement as a complaint - it has been wonderful!  I just regret that I don't find more time to update here because I'm seriously beginning to miss everyone!  So I'm going to try to get caught up and stay on top of things a little better... call it an early 2011 resolution, if you will...

Anyway, here's what we've been up to: 

Lots of playing and laughing and spending time together...

...picking stuff out for the house... Jack and Addie were helping me with siding choices here.  We've got our cabinets done, appliances done, granite done, tile done and I need to hit up the fixtures place (bath and lighting) and hardwood floor place this week and paint soon...

We had lots of good food to eat; I made a turkey dinner when my Dad came into town - Addie was happy and satisfied after a heaping plate of yummy stuff.

The kids all came down with a cold, and foiled several attempts I made at a photo session for our cards this year.  All I got for my efforts were goofy faces...

...and pouting.

So I gave up. 

... and let them watch a movie instead.

....Which made them all super happy.  And made Mommy's heart swell.

We built a lot of train tracks...

....to get ready for our ride on the North Pole Limited with my Dad and his friend Linda when they came to visit!

... It was super exciting!

We got to ride the train to the North Pole, munching on gingerbread cookies and sipping Yoo-Hoo on the way, listening to "The Polar Express" and singing Christmas carols.  It was a fabulously good time!

Addie was amazed by the beautiful Christmas light displays along the way to pick Santa up....

And Jordan was delighted by the singing and laughing!

And although both girls weren't big fans of Santa, Jack was happy to tell him what he'd like for Christmas...

...even if he did pout just a little when Santa told him he'd have to listen to his Mommy.

Then, we had an early gift exchange with my Dad and Linda on their last night here. 

 

And Addie was amazed by the gifts under the tree!

Snuggly bears and dress-up shoes for the girls...

...and remote-control backhoe and dump truck plus Thomas trains for Jack!

It was a wonderful time and we're already looking forward to the next time Grand"ma" (as Jack calls him!) Jim comes to visit!

...especially because my house is out of control!

You Know You're a Mom...

I should be cleaning.  I really should be.  But we all know how that goes for me.  I knew this was how it was going to happen... I'd procrastinate and delay and make excuses until I'm facing a crunch that'll be fueled by 3 cans of Coke at 11 pm and I'll whip the house into shape after everyone goes to bed.  It's like being in college again, but with Lysol and poop smears instead of FDR and the New Deal and my highlighters and note cards.

But my kids are being absurdly cute.  And they're sitting in their highchairs and we're singing songs while I blog.  And I don't really want to be anywhere else.  The simplicity of talking about where our noses are and playing peekaboo behind the laptop screen between sentences is so peaceful.

Before they woke up this morning I was looking at some of our pictures from the weekend and they made me miss my kiddos.  So I woke them up instead of squeezing in a few toilet cleanings.

I think I'm truly a nut case... I go between being so frustrated that I can't accomplish housework because they're mini tornadoes and being so enamored with them that I don't want to waste a single second with them by scrubbing soap scum.

Though, I guess I'm a little entitled to having a bit of a split personality since I'm fairly certain all kids are at least mildly schizophrenic, right?  One second (like, two paragraphs ago) they were being cute and babbling at me about noses and asking about their other facial features and now they're throwing french toast sticks at me and thumping their be-Tinkerbell'ed chests like wee monkeys because they're apparently quite finished with breakfast.

Geez, girls.

Crazy is just part of my life now.  I've kinda accepted it, totally embraced it, and freely admit to it.  It makes it a little easier to laugh when I find the twins pretending to be little Monet's by "painting" the couch cushions with their bottles of milk or systematically crushing animal crackers and dropping them down the air ducts while I'm busy cleaning up the "soup" Jack made by mixing cream of tartar with salt and green sprinkles in a bowl full of water and then spilled when he tasted it and violently recoiled with disgust.

I mean, what kind of lunatic gleefully flounces out the door at 9 pm to go to the grocery store, sans offspring, and feels like she's been granted the vacation of the century as she peacefully picks produce and compares prices in silence, meandering down aisles that even contain toys and candy with reckless abandon because, unencumbered, she knows she does not have to barter, bargain, bribe or plead in order to escape without either a fight or an acquiescence.

A mom... that's what kind.

Hit up my girl Arizona Mamma's blog for more camaraderie!

Ya Know...

I have absolutely nothing to post. 

Wow - that's a heck of an opening line, right?  Talk about grabbing your attention, eh?  High school English teachers the nation over are clutching their hearts, aghast at my utter dearth of creativity.

I've just been feeling really blah. 

The girls are teething up a storm so I don't have any cute pictures of their faces because they've donned permanent scowls and established "whine" as their primary language.  We've been spending a ton of time outside at parks and walking on nature trails and looking at land to buy in the area, which only compounds the girls' general bitchiness since they love nature about as much as I love scraping corn-y poo out of cloth diapers. 

And don't even get me started on the state of my house.  I essentially gave up on cleaning after this hot mess, but my dad is coming to visit for the first time in FIVE years, so I'd like to put up this front of "having it all together" for at least the first few minutes of his visit.  HOWEVER, teethy/whiny/snarky/screechy/butt-crawly-upy kids are not making that possible.  In fact, right now, I'm icing my hand because I was so angry with the fact that I vacuumed, paused to change a diaper, and came out of the girls' room to discover that the other two had discovered how to take the thingy out of the vacuum cleaner and were working on replacing the filth on the floor (where it clearly belongs) that I ended up shutting myself in my room and punching a pillow, only to miss the pillow about 3 swings in and crush my knuckle on the bedpost. 

Joy.

So I have a ton of pictures in my August folder of random patches of land...

...and of Addie hating the Great Outdoors...

...and of the back of Jordan because I'm often afraid to look her in the eye when she's in a Mood for fear of being turned to stone.

I mean, I love my kids.  But woah - these last few days have been challenging. 

Anyway, here's to the weekend (and maybe 10 minutes of peace... dare I hope?) - hope yours is great!

You Know You're a Mom...

My girl Arizona Mamma does "You Know You're a Mom When-sDaze" and I absolutely love participating because every single post without fail has me nodding my head along with her and either laughing or crying because every mom can relate on at least some level.

Sometimes, that's great!  Other times, uh, not so much.


We, for instance, have had a particularly rough start to the week.  Sweltering weather has kept us cooped up inside and I'm trying to get the house ready for the grandparents' visit (yay!) at the end of the weekend, so I've been trying to do too much and maybe not doting on the kids to the extent they'd like.  The result?  A big, hot mess.  I'm a hot mess, the house is a hot mess, the kids are a giant ball of hot mess.  Hot.  Mess.

At this point, I think the cleaning and organizing I'm trying to do is actually making the house worse because the kids are trying extra hard to un-do my work... and then some.

So, you know you're a mom when you try to put laundry away and you see this:

and you think, "I should stop them..." and then you think, "but I should put these socks away first and they'll leave me alone for a second..."  so you let it continue for another minute.

Then you realize that they've dumped 4 books in the tub and you didn't see it at first.  One of those books was a library book.  Due yesterday.

So you come up with a solution:

...because you need to turn that book in when you run errands later.  And while you're waiting for your book to dry, you determine you should clean the bathroom, but in your haste to put everything back before the kiddos realize what you're doing, you end up with this:

...which results at 11:49 pm in a big, disgusting mouthful of diaper cream.  Yummy.  See?  Hot mess.

Anyway, while you're quickly putting stuff back on your bathroom counter, ignoring a 3-year-old's insistence that your betta fish needs a friend, you've left them unsupervised in the living room in front of a tv show, so it should be no surprise to see this:

... and now that 3-year-old logic makes sense.  Plastic fish, real fish.  Real fish, plastic fish... it's all the same, so why not cohabitate?  Awesome.

Jordan had also, in this time, removed her diaper, peed on the kitchen floor and had then occupied herself by dropping Cherrios into the air vent, and Addison had discovered Jordan's puddle. 

So, the net result of my cleaning?  A dirtier, more chaotic zoo of a house, kids who needed sanitizing, a load of wet laundry that needed to be re-run because the dryer was being used for a book, and a late start on our errands, leading directly to Car Nap Syndrome and a ruinous evening, not to mention the distinct feeling of zinc diaper cream slathered on your teeth and tongue.  Our hot mess has become hotter and messier.  What?! That's only possible if you're a mom... or maybe someone who has lots of unruly cats and dogs and a few ferrets... maybe.

AND, wouldn't you know it - this post also eeks its way in as my first entry for

... a super-nerdy, super-fun meme you can check out at THIS spectacular blog!

Parent-Proof Child-Proofing

We moved into a cute little house with a split foyer.  Really, cute house.  Not loving the split foyer thing, though, because it means we absolutely had to install a top-of-stairs baby gate. Okay, simple, right?

Well, not so much.  It was an $80 gate which ended up costing closer to $150.  It said it was a simple install, but it took us 5 days.

We have several extra pieces of wood attached to stuff and a banister with countless extraneous holes drilled in it, as well as several pieces of shrapnel embedded in it.

We have a 3-year old who knows a couple extra swear words.

But we do, luckily and finally, have a baby gate.

Now, normally, the way this works is this: you buy a gate and read the instructions and install it with the supplied hardware and you're good to go.  With us, however, we had problems from the very beginning.  We started down the path of failure by purchasing a gate that was not wide enough for our opening, necessitating a return trip and ordering a 2nd gate online.  Once it arrived, we meticulously read the instructions and discussed our plan of action (i.e. that we would install it while the kiddos napped one afternoon) and amassed the requisite tools: tape measure, tape, pencil, drill and screw-driver.

Essentially, the first step for us was: mount the brackets directly into the banister on one side and into a stud on the opposite wall, being sure that the gate would not be more than 3 inches off the ground.  Well, we busted out our stud-finder (insert husband-jokes here; and try to be creative as I've made probably every single stud-finding husband-related joke in the universe) and realized that it didn't work.  I told Justin it had never worked (keep the jokes rolling, here, folks) but he said it just needed a battery.  So, off to the grocery store I went in search of a 9v battery.

Nope, it wasn't the battery.

Off to the hardware store I went, in search of a stud finder.

Lo and behold, there is no stud directly across from the banister.  Womp, womp.  Back to the drawing board...

We determined that it would probably be okay to find a board that we could anchor into a stud and then mount the gate to THAT.  So, I went back to the hardware store to procure a board and screws that were long enough to go through the board into the stud and make us feel warm and fuzzy inside.  By this point, the kids had woken up and were VERY interested in what we were doing.

So, our next step was to drill holes through our board and into the stud, then use screws to attach it.  Well, we ended up stripping the screws to the point where we needed pliers to back the last one out and start all over.  (Who knew brass wasn't a good material to make screws out of?  I mean... why sell brass screws if they're wussy screws?)  Yikes... back to the hardware store I go for new screws and, while I'm at it, a new screw driver in case that was the problem to begin with.

At this point, we are thoroughly sick of this project and we've only just attached our anchor board to the wall and measured for the holes on the banister for mounting the hinges.

Next, we have to attach the hinges to the banister, so we measure the holes based on the instructions and start drilling.  Since Justin was sick of this (and we're on day 2 of the project) and I happen to enjoy my power drill, I volunteered to make the holes.  The top one went fine, but the bottom hole did not.  In fact, as I was backing the drill out of the hole to clear the sawdust off the bit and start in again, I realized that the drill bit that came out was significantly shorter than the drill bit that went in.

Doh.

The bit broke off inside the banister.

How does that even happen?!  Durr.  Back to the hardware store; this time, for a new drill bit and wood putty to fill in the holes.  Since there's now a chunk of metal in the banister, there's no way a 2-inch screw can go into it, so we have to move the whole thing over half an inch and start all over.  Ditto for the wall-board on the opposite side.  So we hung  up the tools for the day and went on to day 3...

This is where the next bit of fun comes in.  We've now realized that the square parts of the banister are too far apart based on the dimensions of the gate and locations of the hinges.  Those hinges must be mounted to SOLID wood, which isn't possible based on the distance between the two pink arrows.

Super.

So now we need to build off our earlier solution and create a piece of solid wood to mount to the banister to bridge the gap between the top and the bottom.  Back to the hardware store.  We purchased some wood, some stain, some sand paper and more freaking screws so that when we mount the gate's hinges, the whole 2-inch screw will be sunk into the solid wood that we need to mount to the banister.  At this point, we've got the holes all measured and drilled and things are going well.  I went to change a few diapers and came back to find Justin pouting in a corner and Jack dancing around singing an expletive-laced song about broken tools.  Confused (since things seemed to have been fine - with a new drill bit and steel - not brass - screws) I asked what had happened only to be told that Justin, in his studly manliness, had torqued the head of the top screw off.  With an inch of it embedded in the banister already.  Leaving a small amount poking out of the wood.  Not enough to get ahold of with pliers and not enough to keep the thing secure.

Sigh.  We can't win.  We have no idea how to get the screw out... it seems that it's just plain stuck there until we take the whole contraption down.  (...at which time I'm sure there will be yet another post about our continued epic failure.)

Oh, and did I mention that this is a rental house?  Because it is.  Otherwise, I would have given up long ago and built a brick freaking wall at the top of these stairs.

Isn't this awesome?  So, at the conclusion of the 4th day, we figured we'd won a small victory in that we were finally able to assemble the gate itself and begin looking at the hardware to hang it.

Turns out, that part wasn't too horribly difficult and by the end of day 5,

all systems were a "go" and we had a functioning gate.

So, that's what 34 years of combined education, 3 college degrees and 5 years as a nuclear engineer will get you: a total inability to function when faced with a 10-step instruction manual for a product made in Indonesia.  Now, I have no idea what made that banister so absurdly difficult to work with.  Maybe it had a metal core that we didn't realize was inside.  What I do know is that it will survive a nuclear holocaust.

At least our stairs are parent- baby-proofed now!