LITTLE BUT LOUD

Mediation and Meditation

2011-11-08T10:51:00.002-07:00

So far, I'm not getting into blogging too heavily yet. A big reason why is I feel guilty doing it when my basement is still a disaster and my garden is not ready for spring. Another great excuse is, I'm going to school. Yep! I'm taking classes to certify as a mediator. Why? That's just the way I roll. One thing leads to another and I find myself on a new path. Not that I plan on leaving the old path, but I'm branching out in an effort to have more services to offer and to learn something new. So this path started really a few years ago. I was interpreting in a trial and a witness does mediating, which had nothing at all to do with the case, it was just a side job this guy had. The attorney asked him what training he needed to do that job and it didn't sound like it was any more complicated than becoming an interpreter and that piqued my interest. I had already interpreted for mediations and I liked what I saw, and actually, it requires some similar skills to the ones I use to interpret. Then a few weeks later my husband mentioned that a guy that works for him was taking a mediation course and he thought I would be good at it. Plus, they need more people doing it that speak Spanish. It was too weird, I took it for a sign and spent the next year and a half trying to get BYU to let me sign up for a prerequisite course. Finally last fall I took that course. Due to the fact that BYU will do anything to make my life difficult, they no longer offer the mediation courses so I'm taking them at UVU. It took another year to get my records to UVU and get into the course. Now I'm fighting to get into next semester's course. Anyhow, it has been a fascinating ride so far, and I'm learning a lot of things that apply to life in general so it shouldn't be a wash-up no matter what.

Now the other thing I'm doing just adds a t- meditation. :) Sweet, huh? Why? Because I have had a lot of health issues and I figure the root cause of whatever is really going wrong (who knows) is that you can't live in a blender indefinitely. Eventually, the stress will make you sick. This is a way to calm and focus and relax my body and mind. I'm no sure how far I'll get with it, but so far, I'm liking it too. Which leads, in a strange sort of way to what I plan to do next when I get done with school. Take belly dancing classes. Because they help you relax and stay fit. I'm not planning to do live performances. It's just for me; it's really fun! My mom probably remembers that when I was really little I said I wanted to be a belly dancer when I grew up. I meant ballet, but now I"m getting back to my original goal- to be a (closet) belly dancer.

Too Amusing

2011-10-29T12:46:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the clarification.

2011-10-18T01:49:00.002-06:00

Just in case you were wondering what to do with those hangers, wire, and duct tape lying around your house....

My computer won't take these photos so I had to try saving them here on the blog. I need to stop locking horns with computers-I don't get enough sleep! BUT I WON!

Loved this One, Thanks Anna!

2011-10-15T22:30:00.002-06:00

I Used to Be Short

2011-10-11T00:19:00.002-06:00

Still catching up here. I have to save this story that happened a few months ago. I was with Thing 2 at the store and he happened to mention something about "Tom" aka Gigio, being pretty short. I said., "Well, he got that from his mother." Thing 2 stops short. "Wait a minute," he says, "You mean to tell me you were short when you were a kid too?"(Totally shocked here). I told him that not only was I pretty short when I was a kid, I was always the shortest one in my class. And I still am, I'm still very short. He was incredulous. He argued with me that I was not short anymore. I told him I was still short. He almost comes up to my neck already and he's only 9. He holds his hand up at an angle and says, "No, Your head comes up to that sign" Well, that's just an illusion I tried to explain to him. If he's looking straight up at me, the sign farther back appears to be right over my head. I saw a lady who was more like about 5' 7'' not far from us and asked him if he didn't see that the mommy over there was taller than me. No, she looked about the same size to him. So, there you have it. I used to be 4'10'' but now I'm 5'7'', at least in my baby's eyes. The End.

Stinky Locker Syndrome

2011-10-08T19:51:00.001-06:00

Good news, my husband found my patience! You'll never guess where he found it! And he gave it back to me. <3.

One other piece of good news. This year we finally qualified for reduced fee lunches at school! This tender mercy is probably why I'm not writing this from a mental hospital.

Almost three years ago, I bent over backwards to make appealing school lunches for my kids. See here. Which came from here and here. Now that you see where I was coming from, I will catch you up on what has transpired since then. I spent two years alternating between trying to teach my boys to make lunches they would want to eat and trying to make exciting things for them that would make them the envy of the lunchroom. No matter what marvel went to school with them, a certain person's backpack and the recesses of the mini van were often found harboring old rotten lunches bags in this child's backpack and under back seats of our vehicles. Strange lunch bills appeared from the school. I tried to curtail this activity every way imaginable without any permanent success. Things would get better for a little while, then the lunches would start appearing again. Then the last term of last school year we had the famous incident. The one I'm sure you're dying to hear about. You aren't? Too bad.
This will go down in the annals of history as the stinky locker incident. So, it's spring of 2011, and the uneaten rotten lunches are back. I am desperate. I send an email to the teacher in hopes she can help me come up with a plan. No response. Since parent teacher conferences soon followed,I asked about it but this was an IEP/PTC in a hurry because they all had a lot to do and they sort of brushed off that concern as unimportant.
Not more than a week after that, I get an e-mail from the teacher. There was an incident at school. It turns out no one wanted to go to their locker anymore. Everyone was complaining about a foul odor on that hall. So, they had each child open their locker to try to find what the source of this stench was. When they had Huck open his locker, what did they behold but a locker stuffed to the gills with rotting lunches in brown bags. No wonder they started showing up at home again, there was nowhere else left in his locker for them. I'm not sure why he couldn't just say, eat them each day or if he was going to refuse them, just throw them away. I guess that he somehow had my other admonishment to not throw away food emblazoned in his mind and heart, NOT the one about just eating your lunch.
So, I digress a bit. The e-mail went on to say that the stench was so awful, the lunches had to be taken out to the trash bin outside because the toxic fumes were making people feel faint and or nauseated. This was all such a shock to the teacher because she always assumed he ate school lunch. I mean, she'd never seen him with a lunch bag before the whole year. She also never read my e-mails or heard what I had to say about it in person the week before. Her proposed solution to this dilemma? "Could you please put something more interesting in his lunches so he'll want to eat them?" I consider it very fortunate that she chose this method of communication because if it had been in person or over the phone, I think it might have gotten nasty. As it was I could cool off and then explain why this was impossible. I did have a long talk with my son about his see food diet- I see everyone else's food, that's what I'll eat. We talked about the health consequences of some of these foods he was mooching off others, because he wasn't begging for their carrots. I let him know that everyone was going to be watching him now so he'd better start eating his own lunches. The last week of school I found out he was buying two milks a day. How? Turns out he convinced a friend to give him the money to help the other guy buy his milk for him and pay him back with one of the milks....ARRRGGGGGH! BUT! THE! SCHOOL! YEAR! ENDED! So I heaved a big sigh of relief and hoped the world would end before he started second grade. When it didn't I started suffering panic attacks.
Now thanks to our underemployment, we can let the boys just eat the hot school lunches for no more than we were wasting on homemade ones and one big huge daily burden was lifted from our collective shoulders. Of course, I can never quite relax. Who knows how much of the hot lunch gets stuffed into someone's locker? Sometimes I think I look a bit like Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus at the end of the Pink Panther, eye twitch and all...

Lost:

2011-09-09T15:03:00.002-06:00

Shellie's patience. She's always losing things, ask anyone who lives with her. So it was bound to happen sooner or later. She's misplaced it several times but it always turned up. This time, she really lost it. She is searching high and low but it is really lost. It might help her find it without the clutter of malfunctioning, belligerent computers and printers and disobedient, distracted, disorganized dis-interested students living under her roof. If things didn't take 400 times longer than they should, (slight exaggeration) maybe she would have time to finish fixing her files and paying her bills and mopping that kitchen floor that she so very very desperately needs to mop in order to not lose that one last thread of sanity.

Maybe, just maybe if the only fruits of a day without work and the kids in school could at very least be that she managed to print all the documents she needed to put in her class notebook, she would feel better about all the things left undone. But no, printing 8 documents was beyond the capacity of the combined capabilities of 3 computers and 2 printers and assorted flash drives. WHO PUT THIS CURSE ON HER?????

Only 3 F's

2011-08-11T16:50:00.005-06:00

Guess what? It's that impending doom time of year. Back to school. August 17th. Whatever happened to starting school in September? At least it's so sunny outside you can't believe it's real that all the joy in life is about to be sucked away from you. No more staying up late, no more letting kids sleep in, no more fun in the sun, vacations, picking tomatoes off the vine, lazy reading with kids, going out to do fun stuff, swimming and fishing and watching the whole Harry Potter series in a weekend...(oops, some of that we just barely got around to...). Back to getting lunches ready, cleaning out backpacks, doing homework, checking power school, not finding updated information on what is happening at school, and the dreaded GETTING READY IN THE MORNING! UGH! I can't get my kids up before it's time to get ready for bed, really.
We will just hope that the pep talks I've been giving people magically seep into their sub-conscience and this year things will be better. Last year,two boys known previously as Gigio and Carino turned into Tom and Huck. Yes, the magic of fishing bit, and bit hard! Ice fishing led to Wii fishing led to thawed out fishing and everything has been all about fish, fish, fish. At least I won't go hungry... Anyhow, Huck's track record in school had been sketchy at best and by the time the school year ended, I had thrown in the towel. I quit the BAHA, the EAR, the hope that someone would ever eat his own lunch, or that anything I ever say or do to him or his teachers could possibly have any influence on anyone's behavior or his learning. He would have to be a 6th grade dropout. School would not save his future. A friend asked him a week after school got out how school had been that year. He replied, "Not bad, I only got 3 F's!" (English, Science, and Math)(P.S. I am the proud parent of a child who get's A's in P.E., Art and overall Charm. He even flunked lunchtime) Clearly the answer to his future is to become an Olympic diver.
Their Papi got Tom and Huck into some great sports camps this summer- soccer, basketball, tennis, and volleyball, so by the time swimming and diving camp came around they had had it up to their eyeballs with camps because it was encroaching too heavily on their precious fishing time. So much for the Olympic dream. Except, now that it's past, Huck would like to go to that camp, so next year, my hopes might be fanned. Meanwhile, something will have to happen with school. I am not going to lose my sanity this year. I am going to find a way to make this work... Any suggestions?

I Might Be Back

2011-08-04T17:48:00.002-06:00

So, my Young Women President days have ended as of Sunday! It was too short, but it's probably for the best since there are a lot of things that need to be getting done at home that I just wasn't fitting in. How did I manage to work my way out of a job in 9 months? The stake stole me. As of June I'm the Stake Relief Society secretary. They twisted my arm so I went. My bishop let me go on condition they left me in Young Women's till camp was over. So Sunday we reported on camp and they called a new Young Women's president. I'm free! It was sad, I cried a lot, but so relaxing. So far I'm using my free time sleeping. The last few weeks before camp I got an average of 4 hours sleep a night, and at camp the first night I didn't get any sleep, the other nights, more but that ends up being about 6 hours. Now I'm sleeping all night and taking a nap every day. I have so much to do, I'm like a kid in a candy shop trying to decide what to do when I'm awake. So, I will have to catch up this blog on the happenings, which were many, while I was away. For example, camp was the coolest thing! Better than my wildest expectations. But first, before telling all, I'm going to go make dinner....

She's Ba-ack!

2011-06-07T00:44:00.002-06:00

Bottom line: She had a lot of fun, learned a lot of things, made friends, and worked in an burned out area. Half of her group came home, her included. Now back to trying to get jobs and hopefully very soon having a Nevada license and working somewhere at a great job. Meanwhile, she's going to do feather extensions at my young women yard sale slash fair!!! Come if you're in the area. Trinity Mission Health and Rehab lawn, 1053 W 1020 S.Provo, UT Saturday, June 11 · 8:00am - 2:00pm (This is to earn money for the Young Women's Camp : There will be new and used items, crafts, and games for children, soda pop, popcorn and hot dogs! Invite everyone you know and join us! We have lots of clothes, all sizes, tv's and other electronic items, breadmaker and other kitchen appliances and items, games, toys, books, videos, music, home decor, furniture and more! we will have 2 beauticians doing feather extensions and face painting too! Craft table for children, and more games. Doesn't this sound fun?! As long as you're not the one responsible for making sure it all happens...
I'll be back sometime.

Tying Up Hanging Threads

2011-04-30T13:47:00.001-06:00

I think I can just make another excuse list. Then you will know the continuing saga of our lives. Sort of. Reader's digest version:
No grip on time yet. None.
Still afraid of early onset Alzheimers.
I cannot keep up with Enigma. Her life plans change on average every 6 days or so. Still working on getting a Nevada license. Meanwhile, she must wait for next hiring event in June. Meanwhile, she finds out about an esthetics school that just opened a new campus near us. We check it out, we get great pedicures. She decides to sign up if things don't pan out in June. Life is set. Except she has no money. Except she owes money. Except every plan costs money. I spend too much time and energy trying to convince her she needs to really amp up the job searches and make as much as she can before May. I annoy her to death.
So, she goes to a job interview in a sketchy place and doesn't come back for hours while her mom imagines all her police shows are coming to life. Then she shows up all thrilled that she has a job. Oh yes, she is going to sell security systems in Alaska for 5 months. Mom didn't jump up and down for joy. Mom remained calm. Mom simply started to ask her a few questions about possible concerns and what about the hiring event/school in June? BUT, WHO CARES if you can pay off your loans in 5 months??(of misery)(possibly, if you sell anything)(that was the mom editing in case you didn't notice) What on earth is wrong with this insane mother who isn't thrilled that her daughter finally did what she had been nagging her to do.? GET A JOB!! Moms are just never happy. Moms are impossible. (I have been too impossible to write. Awesome excuse, right?) NO, so off the wonderful misunderstood sales person stomped in a huff.
So I'm looking on the bright side. She'll get lots of sunshine and exercise. It's probable that the friend who helped her get this job and is going with her has matured a lot since she rolled a car on the highway on the way to Las Vegas years ago...Before she got her license-In order to save her boyfriend who didn't know how to drive from killing himself while trying to drive anyways because he was determined to run away to visit his dad. That's where I had last seen her, when I drove my not yet licensed daughter up to the hospital to visit her. She was hospitalized a long time. Apparently in the meantime, she has dumped the boyfriend (good) Graduated (good) worked selling security systems (at least it's working for her...Maybe they will do ok?) has given her mom a new car, paid a ton of medical bills (they have no insurance) and is saving up for her remaining reconstructive surgeries. Sounds decidedly more mature. We'll see how it goes for Enigma.
So they got to practice in Idaho first. I got a lot of calls. Idaho sucks. She survived. Meanwhile, the job location got changed from Alaska to Austin. Big change. Enigma doesn't do heat. (????That's all her mother does.) She is freaking out about the heat. Oh, but since she is leaving home she had to waste some more loan money on a computer. And she had to get a new phone for her job too. Then Papi's phone disappeared. He finally gave up and went to get a replacement, a "simple regular phone" He comes back with a touch screen thingamaIdon'trememberthenamedon'thatemeTmobile, which means our phone bill isn't getting any lower. Too bad he doesn't live in Austin where Enigma could bushwhack him into getting a security system. Not that there is anything wrong with security systems, it's just he's a pushover.
SO, Enigma is now in Austin. (There are no mountains. There are whole aisles of just wine at the Walmart! It is 90 degrees F. The ward at church has like 30 members! Yes, Toto, we're not in Utah anymore.) Wow.
Cool thing, her uncle lives 8 miles away from her. Pretty sweet, huh? I'm so glad. Especially since the first thing she did was get sick. And she needed a ride to the Dr. because of course no doctors at the complex across the street could see her. The apartments are nice, (that doesn't keep bugs out of your sink) She already found her bank and lives within walking distance of the ER. Sweet. She has ALMOST sold a system every day. Hope today is her lucky day.
The irony of all this is she comes from a long line of people who simply are not sales people at all. I have said it before and I'll say it again, I couldn't sell Salvation itself in a #10 can for half off to my own mother. Not only are we not sales people, we have a reputation for being a door to door salesman's nightmare. When we get together my uncles tell stories about the mean things they do to sales people. I watched myself once as my aunt egged on a vacuum sales man that she bet his machine couldn't clean one thing or another until he had the whole house clean and then told him she didn't need it. I have been less than charming myself to sales people. I just don't like to make split second decisions about things so I make it a policy never to buy anything on the phone or at the front door. But since I think it would so suck to have their job I try to do it kindly but quickly so they can move on their way, especially since the day a travelling door to door saleslady helped me remove a pair of boy's underwear off my ceiling fan.
So, sending a child off into the big bad world they are so unprepared for is hard. Really hard. So hard, I felt like apologizing to my mom for making her let go of me so I could go join all the other missionaries who had said goodbye to their moms before and moved on to enter the Training Center a good five minutes before me and she was still hugging me. I felt like apologizing for ever leaving home. But that seems a bit silly 27 years later. I don't think she wants me to come back home now... Maybe I'll stop making fun of her and telling that story though. Definitely.
To be continued....

Poor Neglected Blog

2011-04-24T00:33:00.002-06:00

Hi there little blog. I miss you! Blogs are so much more filling than FB but they take so much longer. Truly, they are worth the time, but I still have issues with time. Just don't think I forgot you or all your other friendly buddy blogs out there. You look so sad without more posts. Your friends look less cluttered without my comments. You're missing all these fun and exciting things going on that I should be keeping in writing. I even started a post, but I have to keep updating it. sigh. I hope I get back to you soon.

Amazing

2011-03-17T18:33:00.002-06:00

Apparently a storm front is coming in but I have never seen the sky look like this before. Pretty amazing.

Too Busy to Blog

2011-01-26T11:07:00.011-07:00

What can I say? Life has not slowed down one little teeny bit. I have great excuses for not posting, and they are way better than "the dog ate my post." Here we go:

1. Enigma got appendicitis. So, she had her appendix removed. I was too busy taking her to assorted medical specialists and having a lousy bedside manner ( I accidentally dropped my bag on her tummy) to think about posting.

2. I was focusing on trying to get an A in my psych class. My boringest paper of all got the best grade!

3. Papi got a kidney stone. For all we know, it's still in there somewhere. Men take a lot of time when they are sick, so I couldn't write.

4. I was otherwise occupied because I decided to finally make time to figure out our average income and expenses, now that we are both on fluctuating pay for the last year and a half. It is not pretty. I'm not surprised.

5. Papi gets dizzy a lot. See excuse #3.

6. Our oven died. It takes even longer to think of what to make when you take ovens out of the picture, and all baking projects get put on hold. Or you have to be really creative, or beg for the use of someone else's oven. Very time consuming.

7. Papi's truck broke down. I was busy trying to juggle cars and people.

8. Our microwave died. So I had to get creative about thawing things out and reheating things too. It just takes longer to do these things the old fashioned way.

9. I was trying not to ignore Christmas, which is so time consuming. Christmas came and went. Thanks to the boys, the tree went up and we managed to get some presents under it. Papi wasn't in excruciating pain that day, but wasn't at his best either.

10. I was delayed from writing on New Years while I made pasta and heated a precooked fried turkey in the toaster oven. Papi was still trying to feel better.

11. I couldn't write because some people need constant vigilance and shadowing to get their school work done and write their papers. How can I write while helping to write something else? The some people who need supervising would be most of the people in my house, by the way.

12. I was distracted from writing because I had to make sure the Young Women got their YW in excellence program by year's end. It turned out nice, thanks to lots of help.

13. I forgot to write because I was trying to get into my next class, but it got full before I could sign up for it. Maybe next semester. Just as well; keep reading my excuses.

14. I was too busy having a nervous breakdown. Papi went out and bought a new truck. I think it will get repossessed.

15. I was too entangled in the fiasco of Carino's surgery getting delayed again, due to the fact that we couldn't make it to the pre-op. There was a huge storm that buried us in snow and it took nearly two hours to get out of our driveway and past the 2 houses between us and a paved street.

16. I had an emergency. My bedroom exploded. I had to remove everything that didn't have to do with bedrooms out of it to make walking space in there again.

17. I was too busy taking Carino to get a filling fixed and they found another tooth was abcessed to the root. Dentist doesn't think even an endodontist could put him under and operate in any way shape or form till his jaw is fixed. The dentist put him on an antibiotic.

18. I was busy helping bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics. Had a lot of help on this one too. Carino's antibiotic turned out to be the old fashioned 4 times a day kind. We finally managed to have him take it 4 times a day on the last 4 pills. Not for lack of trying on my part.

19. I had to drop everything immediately after seeing the dentist and get Carino in to see his plastic surgeon. He is going to have an operation, if they ever decide how to do it. We had a CT scan a few days after that appointment. All in Salt Lake. Fun, and might I remind you, time consuming.

20. I was too busy doing other exciting things to write, like making another trip to Salt Lake for a boring bureaucratic but essential training session on our new invoices at work.

21. I was busy trying to convince someone who's 19 that you actually have to have money in order to move out and go to school in California in March. Your parents can't so much as pay your gas to drive out there. Some people don't like reality.Did you know you can get old at age 19 if you wait a year or so to get a job and earn money first? Old and terribly behind the game at age 20, how sad would that be?!? We must not let that happen.

22. Papi and I have been spending quality time with Gigio. He is sad all the time. Can you imagine in all this mess he feels like no one even notices him? He needs more quality time. So he is getting it. Obviously before this blog does, which should make him feel better. Next the Things will probably need the same thing. Can you believe they haven't caused all the work around here? Life has changed so much. I guess it's just easier when they go around saying things to amuse you and entertaining themselves. The only reason I can't use them as an excuse is that I haven't gotten around to finding their bedroom floor again yet. That will be time consuming. Thing 1 had a play date with a girl over Christmas. Too cute, she adores him. Me too. Thing 2 makes awesome artwork on his homework, but thanks to Concerta, he also gets the job done! We went from me pulling teeth and losing my mind trying to get him started on homework to the biggest problem being getting mom focused enough to help him when he has a question. I catch him doing hoemwork all on his own, and it feels like a Sylvan Learning commercial. Now that I snuck the Things in on #22 with Gigio, he will feel lost in the shuffle again. That's what happens when you're a child in the middle. I survived, hope he will too.

23. People need to have a science fair project done before February 3. Need I say more???

24. I have been in great demand. Every dang week you need to make sure something is ready and runs smoothly with YW, every flipping week! Plus, also, there are way too many meetings. Presidency meetings, Laurel presidency meetings, correlation, bishop's youth committee, stake trainings galore, stake camp meetings, ward camp meetings. Camp is this huge thing. How could 5 days involve so much to know about and plan? I think somebody ought to simplify it. Also, girls need lots of TLC, so do their moms, and getting them working on Personal Progress and following through on assignments for activities just takes time. Not complaining here, just a fact. My Second Counselor just moved away. She was so awesome. Sigh. It's actually going quite well, all things considered. The girls are fun.

25. I was just about to think about writing again, except I couldn't get on the computer even if I had managed to get the beginnings of a thought into an idea of starting a post. First, our internet service kept going out. We have that problem almost fixed. Enigma was busy getting an e-mail from a high end salon in Las Vegas saying they were doing interviews Monday. She read it late Friday night. About a week after she got it. She decided it might be way better than going to school. So, we found a room and I rode out with her Sunday night since she's under 21 and can't get a room there on her own. And what if the car broke down on the way? We slept a little and got her to the place on time that a.m. They will have her come back to spend a day in the salon working to see how she operates, just as soon as her license can be transferred to Nevada. Could take weeks, could take months. What to do? Drive back home Monday night so mom can be to work Tuesday morning. Her life is in an upheaval. What if she puts everything on hold and then doesn't get hired? Of course, if she worked between now and then, her original plan would just be delayed, and she might be able to afford it. Maybe getting old isn't such a bad idea. If only she will find somewhere to earn a paycheck between now and then! Anyhow, hopefully she fits in and is ready for this opportunity. It would mean abject poverty the first year but things would gradually improve and turn into something good from there. It's like practical mentoring in real life work while actually being paid for it, and a chance to not only go through intensive learning but do many things she's interested in doing. It could open more doors than school could and I think she would be really happy with this company; the culture is very positive-very Paul Mitchell. I know she could do really well there; she was such a go getter in school. We shall see. If nothing else, it has opened her mind to other options. And made her realize it might be wise to pay off the loans to one school before doing the next, so as not to spend your whole income on student loans. Or end up moving back home. I think her frontal lobe is developing right before my eyes. See, I learned something in psychology.

And now, I need to stop posting because I have to get ready for Young Women's New Beginnings which will probably fall right on the same day as Carino's surgery. Plus, all the adults in this house need more work so as to afford life, so we need to drum up work. I no longer have my over the phone contract as they went back to set schedules, which would make it impossible to do hardly anything at court, and seeing as how court pays infinitely so much better, reluctantly, I had to let my fill in the gaps job go. Now I need a new fill in the gaps and quite frankly, my gaps need to be bigger so we are back to the old time management issues, which as you probably know by now are gigantuan in my life, so truth be known, that is why I never post to my blog, or visit others: I haven't learned how to manipulate time in my favor yet. The End.

Let's see if I can leave you with some pictures of some of Erika's photo shoots. She has more. Anna's photography blog also has a post of some other shots. This one was inspired by the book Speak, by Laurie Halse Anderson.

This is a sci-fi shot; she did these shoots all on her own away from school, got the photographer, did the head piece, everything on her own steam.
This one was at school for a Halloween shot. Think dumb scary movies about killers slashing all the character's throats by the end...

This next one, her teacher did the makeup and she did the hair with the chandelier in it. She was so proud of herself that day that she had figured out how to do it.

This one was another one she did on her own with a photographer.

This is just the start, she'll be doing things that are even more amazing. I think she should do one that focuses on an awesome cut she's done. Like mine, if I can ever sit still long enough for her to be able to do it. She has colors and everything just waiting for me.

Random Books and Goats and papers and things...

2010-11-30T20:36:00.004-07:00

The goat stories will never end. Engima went to visit her goats. They are both going to be daddies! And they still remember her. Their wives are a little stand offish. The new owners love our goats. They say they are very well behaved. Most goats aren't as obedient and friendly. But then again, most goats weren't raised like they were dogs. :) But, it just goes to show- if you treat someone or should we say some being in this case like they are goats, they will act like it, but if you believe in them and give them love and expect them to act like pets, they will live up to your great expectations. :)

Moving on, Enigma went back to the dollar store where I got the last 2 hand puppet pigs and found the last 2 elephants in the hand puppet bin. Score number 2! So, now you are asking yourself why in the heck we wanted elephants. Or pigs, but if you just go back a few posts to Halloween the answer to that question is there. As for the elephants, Thing 1 has found some early readers he adores. They are a series of books about 2 friends Piggie and Gerald (the Elephant, who wears glasses). They are by Mo Willems and are as entertaining as Dick and Jane are stupid. I actually like these books. So Thing 1 has loved his Piggie to death and wanted a Gerald to go with it. Of course, Thing 2 didn't want to be left out. Enigma even made them glasses. But, they got lost in the great bedroom purge.
Side track: I have the most wondiferous friend who has decided it is her therapy to de-junk my house. Do you hear the heavenly angels singing? We have made some real progress. Mostly she has made some real progress but I am fighting to keep it that way.
And now, back to the books. So, since the boys were enjoying Mo Willems I looked for more books by him and found one with the best title: Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed. People, it doesn't get much better than that. Except, it can get even more bizarre. I hurriedly grabbed some books with covers that looked appealing to the boys last time I was at the library and later I noticed the title of one was Introduction to Animal Autopsy. I'm hoping no one actually reads it.
Now for my last book review, we have Moxie Maxwell Doesn't Like Stuart Little. This is a charming book, whose pages came alive over Thanksgiving as I forced Carino to actually read it. It's about a girl who puts off reading Stuart Little. But ends up liking it in the end. Sort of the same plot as real life. Check it out.
Do not read my last paper for my Psych 111 class. It is as boring as Dick and Jane are stupid, Gerald and Piggie and Naked Mole Rats getting dressed are entertaining and as Charming as Moxie Maxwell leading a parallel life with Carino are. Because we were specifically instructed to make it boring in great detail, with no room to squeeze in anything that even went beyond superficial. Just as long as we backed it up with references to peer reviewed journal articles, that's all that mattered. I was interrupted every two words I read or wrote and every time someone bumped the cord on the computer it died and let's just say that it was a less than positive experience and I finished it at 2:30 in the morning and have no idea if it makes any sense at all. Why am I taking Psychology classes? Didn't I finish school? I did. Then a funny thing happened a year ago last spring or so. I was interpreting for a trial and one of the witnesses said he was a mediator for the courts and they asked him how he became one, and truly it is not a long and drawn out process. I have interpreted for mediators before and it's actually a cool job and has a lot of common characteristics with interpreters. I thought, hmm, I should look into that. Then like 2 weeks later, Papi says he has a student working for him who just took a mediating class at UVU and this student, who I met once, thought I would be a good mediator and I should go take the class. Click! It just all fit. I contacted the teacher and he told me what I needed to do. So, first I have to have this Psych class. It only took a year and a half to get approval to take it at BYU where it is free for me. Of course, the mediating class is no longer offered since 3 different departments offered it and were duplicating each other, they apparently all decided to cancel it. Finally, however just in the nick of time, I got approved to take my Psych class this semester. SO here I am, whining about homework all the time. It's a very fascinating class, but I almost forget to go to it all the time because I'm so used to not being a student. So far, I'm getting a solid A- or B+ or something like that. Considering the circumstances, I'm thinking that's not too bad. Now I just have to find out how to get myself into the next course. Maybe it won't take a year and a half. Or maybe it will. I would say stay tuned but no one has that long an attention span.
Gotta go do everything I should be doing instead of this. Chao!

Time for a Change

2010-11-11T10:03:00.002-07:00

As we all know, my blog all but died when I became a Relief Society president. Somehow, I just couldn't keep up with the husband, kids, home, work, school AND 70-80 other women and their organization. Let's face it, if all I had to organize in life was myself, I'd do a fairly interesting version of OK. So, things had to go. Like my mind. My brain feels like an autumn leaf, being blown away on a blustery day and I just can't catch it. So my body swims around like a shark in circles trying to chase what it was I was doing and never actually getting anything done. Maybe I just have a tumor the size of a baseball in my head and that's why I can't think straight anymore. Who knows?
Now, I will stop whining about my brain and get back to the story. It's kind of sad in a way that writing should fall by the wayside because so much was happening that I wish I could hold onto and preserve and come back to. As it is, I guess I'll just have to sum it up as one whole experience. A crazy thing happens with a job like this. It isn't like most other callings. It's like you are suddenly shouldering a portion of the responsibility of the bishop- a portion of the portion of watching over the women. And watching over the women is huge because the men and the children are depending on the women. The minute you are handed the job, you're no longer completely you anymore. The Savior is sitting on your shoulder 24/7 telling you to do this for them or that for them. When you interact with the sisters, you don't just see them as you saw them, you see them as He sees them. The enormous faith in them, compassion for them, awareness of their strengths and their weaknesses, their challenges and their blessings. You see and feel so much. Everything is magnified. The best way to explain it is, they're like your child. You see the whole picture and you love them so much! You also ache for them and worry about them and try to help them and are so proud of them at how they face things. It's so intense. I am so amazed at how huge the love is, it just blows me away. I understand the Savior's love for us better than I ever have.
The hardest part for me has been having to share this experience with the same part of my life where I had so much else on my plate at home. I have struggled so much to find the balance, have ached for my own family and how much I drop the ball at home, and gotten frustrated at their incapacity to pick up that ball. At times, they have been resentful. At times, they had good reason. Other times, not so much. As a Sister, I feel like so often I show up too late or have too little to offer. The anxiety of knowing I need to visit about 10 people any given week and knowing some weeks I will be lucky to squeeze in one is excruciating. You get to hold people's hands through all kinds of challenges-job losses, illnesses, deaths, mental illness, as victims of crimes, with marital problems and parental problems, housing problems, with challenges in education, in language, in spiritual growth and understanding and on and on. It's HUGE!!!!
Meanwhile the organization and activities need to carry on. A few big activities a year, most months a smaller one, a few special classes here and there and the never ending visiting teaching thing- encourage, call, try to get reports, rearrange when people move in and move out, it goes on and on. 90% of the time I've had to do this with NO visiting teaching leader or district leaders. With limited help for my counselor over activities, with NO compassionate service leader. Because it just takes time to get a whole ward organized and functioning when everyone's lives are chaos.
Anyhow, a couple of times lately I have come very close to going to the bishop and saying I just can't do this anymore. But I stopped myself. For two reasons. One, that would be so rude to the bishop. He's even worse off than me. Two, everything I have done for the sisters- every lesson I prepared, every weekly goal I gave them, every visit every activity, every act of service helped prepare me for something that was about to happen or teach me something I needed to learn to help me at home. So, I didn't dare. What would I do without that parachute? Plus, as I have told my sisters a number of times, I don't ever want to stop feeling the love that you feel in this calling. I've prayed for it to never go away. So I prayed to find answers, for how to make it all work. I prayed impossible things like sanity and more hours in the day. Basically, I came away deciding it was time to buck up and rework some things and get ourselves going on a better path as a presidency and get way more visiting done. So I started making big plans. But mercifully, I didn't have to go through with all of them.
I turned 47. And it was a Monday, just an ordinary work day. I got a text from the bishop that we needed to talk about something. This happens. A lot. Now what? There has been a sort of tidal wave of challenges recently. Who's in trouble now? It turns out, when I show up, he tells me he needs to release me as the Relief Society president. I was stunned. For a second, I felt lost. Then I was just starting to think, "Hooray! I may actually have time now to find the twins' bedroom floor under all the clutter!" but I didn't finish the thought because the bishop was saying...however, I need you to do something else-I need you to be the Young Women's President. What?!? What the... I was stunned. I didn't know what to think. I didn't know what to say. People can say what they want about my bishop, but one thing I have to say, he's one of the few people on the planet who can get me to stop talking. Once he gets released, he won't be able to do that anymore.
Bottom line, the twin's floor is still a mess. It IS better however. For the last 3 weeks, I've been Young Women's president. One of my old counselors is the new Relief Society Pres and thanks to people moving in, we each have a presidency and most all our people working for us now! Awesome how things work out. The other thing that was amazing was to watch the mantle fall on the new president. She feels just like I felt. The power of the Priesthood is real! It's so cool!
So, do I miss RS? Yes. and no. I still love the sisters and I love them unconditionally and I care about them, but the weight is gone! I feel so light I could fly! and it's also incredibly sad to not feel the Savior sitting on your shoulder 24/7. But, much like a full time mission, I wasn't sent home, I just changed areas. And in my new area, I have a lot of support. I love those girls already! I know this isn't going to be a cake walk. Girls age 12-18 are NOT easy to deal with. But, I'm not alone. I already have a stronger team behind me-great people really willing to work- 2 counselors, a secretary, 3 advisors for the girls, a camp leader, a personal progress assistant and 3 nearly complete presidencies of the young women classes themselves. And the biggest thing of all, is all the girls have moms, so I am really not shouldering as big a burden as I used to shoulder. Plus there are only 22 of them. Luckily we got called the very day of a leadership training by the general auxiliary leaders for the Spanish congregations. The next week was our stake training. So we're super trained. Then the youth leaders and I met with the bishop. The older girls, the Laurels are my responsibility and we met on Sunday for our meeting. They are so much more entertaining than grownups. And I'm going to learn a truckload from them too, I can tell already. I'm still going to struggle with all the same challenges I did before, but it is going to be a bit more manageable. I feel at home. Yippee!
Stay tuned for my next tome-changes in the workplace! Or will it be Enigma graduates? Depends on when Enigma gets her pictures to me. And there's more! I got other presents for my birthday.

The Saga of Buckley and Hurley

2010-11-04T21:34:00.003-06:00

When we left off, our cloven hoofed friends' future hung in the balance. I put out an ad. No response, so I put out an online ad and got a few responses, but I was very nervous about them because they really didn't seem to have a realistic idea of what caring for them would entail, and quite frankly, I wasn't so sure they wouldn't end up on their barbecue. But, their charm saved them. The family who was housing them decided to buy them and do a little switcheroo with some other people they knew so each would end up with a billy goat and a nanny goat. They were going to do that in October because if you let them breed earlier their babies are born earlier than optimal for the weather and they often don't make it. Meanwhile, once they decided this, I got a flurry of calls for the goats and some were not even hiding that they wanted those goats for dinner! But instead of being the center of an awesome barbecue, they are now pygmy goat studs, or newlyweds, however you want to look at it. If you go to Paul Mitchell the school, and wash the goat's coats with Paul Mitchell pet shampoo, you think of them as newlyweds, and if you are a farmer, you think of them as breeding machines and don't use any kind of shampoo on them at all! We miss our little guys but we are so happy they got a great ending! The End!

Patchwork Post

2010-10-30T21:48:00.005-06:00

S__-__-__ in Utah
You would think that now that that nasty S word hit our state, the air conditioning would go off in places of work and worship, but so far, I haven't had too much luck with that. I have felt super cold all summer so I'm dreading this winter.

The Weather Was Nearly Balmy for Halloween
... except for that massive rain shower right after trick or treating time began. At school the boys have to dress related to the books they are reading this year so I made the things a Charlotte's Web costume. The day before I found the last 2 pigs at the dollar store! What a score. My pictures didn't turn out all that great, they reflect a bit, so you don't see it as well as in person, but I bought long sleeve black shirts and sweat pants for cheap, then I painted a spider web on the shirt with silver paint, as if it were the top corner of the barn door and each boy's web had a word in it- Thing 2 was terrific and Thing 1 was radiant. I had a little spider hanging from a string off the web below it but you can't see it too well in the picture. Then I pinned the pink pig hand puppets to the leg of the pants as Wilbur, under the web. Here's the pics.
Random Halloween decoration-some things just never change!
We managed to get some pumpkins decorated but nothing too exciting. Carino was a Roman and Gigio only went as a camouflage guy to his jr high dance. I didn't take any pictures cuz they were too rushed. Of course, the Things managed to put holes in their new pants with the pins, but i guess holey pants is just their style.
For Halloween Carino took a nap, Gigio escaped and trick or treated for the two of them, and Enigma took the Things out while I cleaned house. We didn't go visiting or anything because the older boys were being horrid this afternoon and I just couldn't leave my house another day in the state it was in. We missed you Grandparents and cousins, maybe next year!

Carino and the Ear Saga

So, within 2 months of wearing his ear, Carino had worn the color off it, peeled the base back some and lost it- luckily on the day we had to go back to school for parent teacher conferences. Luckily someone found it. Unfortunately, it had suffered a puncture wound. The prosthetic guy is going to get to know us really well... He's already fixed all the damage. Even though I put off the idea of a prosthetic for a long time because I figured he would lose it and hole punch it and all that, we have decided it really is the best option. This part is to look normal and it looks much more normal than any of the surgical options without all the 40000 risks and nearly insurmountable challenges to get the surgeries accomplished. So, the only thing Carino doesn't like about the ear is the gluing it on part, which frankly is my attitude too, (except I also don't like having to go looking for missing ears and hoping someone didn't think it was a Halloween prop and take it home from school with them). It does kind of crack me up to hear all the crazy things you find yourself saying such as, "Where did you put your ear?" or "You'd better go get your ear on right now before you make us late!" or "Your ear is right here, I'm holding it in my hand." or "Will you listen to me??? Where is your ear?" Out of context, they sound like something that you'd read in a Mad Lib. SO, back to my point, we are planning to get a bone anchored post for him to snap his ear onto. In September we already sent him to surgery for a bone anchored post for his BAHA (sound conductor). But, I got sick the night before and there was no way that I was going to be able to drive to Salt Lake so Papi had to take off work and go with him. Then they call to tell me they weren't able to operate. They put him to sleep but couldn't get the breathing tube in at all because his bite is so small, so for security reasons, they canceled surgery. They still took ALL DAY and I had to reschedule an appointment that Papi had that afternoon for HIS ear. Someone was supposed to call us the next day to schedule an appointment with the doctor to go over our options for the surgery. Possibly to see doctors about his jaw or to just do the surgery at Primary Children's where they are equipped for tiny mouths. No one called. So, the next week I called. They said they'd check with the doctor and get back with me. About this time we were fixing the ear and decided this was all for the best as we could just request that the bone anchor be done for both at once- a two fer! No one called back. So, on my list of 400001 things to do there was an item to call them. Didn't get to it yet. This week he had a sleep study done at Primary Children's. The day before we get a call to tell us his surgery time. SURGERY? WHAT SURGERY?! They just rescheduled the surgery at Primary's for this Friday and didn't bother to let us know. So now it won't be till January, because they made special arrangements due to the circumstances, but now that they didn't bother to tell us, it's our fault and we can just wait till the next opening. We don't know the results of the sleep study yet, except that I can't sleep without my husband making me go to bed. He went again this time because I had a meeting that night. I also had the fun time of taking Carino to have a neuropsych evaluation. All these studies were ordered by the craniofacial team to make sure we're not missing something. Now that he's 11. Sort of overdue, but it's nice to lay some concerns to rest. Luckily, most all his issues are just mega ADHD. That and anxiety. He's too anxious. So anxious that it took two appointments instead of one. So we got some info to help us work on his executive functioning (which is a 7 fer since the whole family needs that one,) and recommendations for counseling and speech (again, to help him spit out what in the heck he wants to say) . I'm not too excited about that one, because it took me a year to get the last therapy session covered by the insurance.

Now I need to stop and go get people including myself to bed before my boss gets mad at me, but this is just the beginning.... WHy are there so many changes in Shellie's jobs? WHat happened to the goats? Stay tuned!

Pics

2010-08-29T17:39:00.006-06:00

Here he is! The two eared Carino! Isn't that amazing? His prosthetist, Paul Tanner, of the Huntsman Institute up at U of U is really awesome. He flew into town the night before our appointment and stayed up all night doing this ear and another lady's job so they could go back to school with them on time.
Here are the goats, 6 months old, and all grown up with beards. They are peeping toms, I catch them looking through this window when Enigma is in that room and they run away when they see me! Too funny. Aren't they handsome little guys?
And now, a sad tale. Yesterday the goats figured out how to get out of the yard, so they could go munch on somebody else's delicious grape vines, because they must be Greek they love grape leaves ever so much, and our vines are trimmed to as high as they can reach. They got busted by the police. And we had till Tuesday to find them a new place to live because they are not allowed here. I think it is very discriminatory-they are way better than cats or dogs. But since we were going to have to find a new home for them anyways, this just put the lead on it.

Some goodbye hugs.
even Papi says good bye. Enigma's grandparents have a farm just over their backyard fence. They said they could keep them there, so off we went. Here's Buckley with a big goat! Head butting is a favorite activity.
However, as soon as we tried to leave, the goats left with us, escaping through the fence at a spot big enough for them to squeeze through. We chased them down the road a ways till they let us catch up with them, then we went to plan B, some other neighbors with a pygmy goat proof pen. They were very gracious to take them at such short notice. I'm sure they'll have fun there, but we need to find them a permanent home now. One with girl pygmy goats. Know anyone breeding pygmy goats in Utah? We've got an offer they won't want to miss out on.

Catching up

2010-08-16T07:35:00.003-06:00

So when you don't find time to blog for 3 months, there is NO catching up. Apparently this is the quarterly blog. I will be catching up on you all yearly :). I will try to give a Reader's Digest version of life here.
I tried to write more about the twins, so I'll just paste it on here and then work my way up the family.

My babies were baptized in May. I wish I could remember all the crazy things they say. As I was asking them questions about baptism, they said some interesting things. Like comparing the Holy Ghost to the ghosts on "Ghost Whisperer", sometimes you can feel Him touch you.. Or comparing Jesus to Superheroes. I thought their baptismal interviews should be pretty interesting. Thing 2 hid behind the desk and stuck up his hand to answer the questions for the bishop, moving it like a mouth. When the bishop asked Thing 1 to tell him about Jesus, he said, "He has powers!" Oh, boy! Here we go... but then he said, "He died for us". The bishop started to ask him something else and he interrupts, "Wait, there's more! He's the Son of God!" Too cute! Their baptism day was fun, they were their own nutty selves, but it went well. Thing 2 has decided to leave the dark side and follow Jesus instead of "Decepticons"since then. Erin gave a good talk and Tim and Emily sang, with Erin accompanying them. I interpreted, we had another Chilean girl getting baptized so we had a need to interpret both ways. Their dad baptized them and we had Grandpa and uncles to help with the confirmation. I forgot my camera but uncle Nate and aunt Rachelle helped out there. Now I just need to clean up my computer so I can put them on here.
They are working on Spanish this summer. It's so hard for them, but it is coming along ever so slowly. Enigma gave them haircuts that make them look so much older now. I'm realizing soon I won't have little boys anymore. They will start getting tougher and stop talking so cute one day. Thing 2 has already made a habit of saying "That's just stupid" for anything he doesn't like. Soon they will lose all the baby-ness. Gone will be the days that computers are "peeters" and marshmallows are "smishmallows" and hand sanitizer will no longer be "hanitizer" and so many other expressions I wish I could remember them all! So I'm savoring how nutty and cute they are now. I just loved overhearing a snitch of a bedtime prayer the other day. Thing 2 was saying, "Thanks for making us and for making the Earth, it's really cool! I like it here!" It made me smile. Glad he's finally acclimatizing here on planet Earth.
Recently they caught a dragonfly in their room (window open, I imagine) and it laid eggs on a paint stick sitting in a cup of water. They have since taken it upon themselves to take care of the eggs because the dragonfly obviously chose them to be the guardians. Does anyone know when dragonfly eggs hatch? Or if they fertilize their eggs before or after laying them? Because this could be a REALLY long project if we don't find out. I convinced them to keep the cup outside, since that would be the natural habitat. Such fun. Why was the cup in their room with the stick? Apparently it was the home of a poor water beetle until he died. I readily admit I'm just not up to keeping on top of their room. I had them keeping it clean for a while, but it requires constant vigilance, and we all know how good I am at that. So I continue to learn to walk on Lego pieces.
Now the twins are in 2nd grade, in separate classes, which they are doing just fine with, but it doesn't seem to help them stay on task too very well, so it should be an interesting year. Probably I should just buy stock in Concerta.
The other twins are decidedly fraternal. Buckley has much longer legs than Hurley, enough that I wonder if he's part regular goat. They have gotten so big, they now have beards and Hurley has a lot more spots, brown around the black, it looks real cool. Buckley has a mohawk from his head on down his back, but lately it's flattening out and parting in the front. They both seem to be growing their horns back. They are the biggest nuts. Papi finished the garden fence, but all I got planted was tomatoes, bell peppers and potatoes. I'm cultivating tons of weeds, not to mention manure for the compost pile. Hurley nibbles on everything, and devours anything to do with berries or grapes plus they reduced our fig to a stick in the ground. Papi is done with them, but Enigma loves them so much, she wants to take them with her when she goes. Too bad they can't live in an apartment. We are concerned about winter with the lack of adequate shelter so we hope to find somewhere nearby that would be suitable for them soon. Enigma taught the goats to teeter totter and they are just crazy animals who climb on anything and everything.
One day we woke to Buckley crying. It sounded like an elephant in labor. He had jumped from a table to a tree and got his front hooves stuck in the crook between the two main branches where they meet at the trunk and he was just hanging there, so I had to run out and try to dislodge him. Enigma maneuvered the last hoof while I hefted him up. His foot was pretty lame so we had to take him to the vet. He already visited them the beginning of the summer for ear mites, this time he had to have x-rays and get pain killers.. Luckily, since he's still young, it was just stressed along the growth plate but not broken. The vet told Enigma if he went jumping around he could still break it so to keep him mellow for a few days. How exactly we were supposed to do that,???- but we managed and he seems no worse for the wear.
Carino is in sixth grade and has lots of news. He fell out of a tree at our church and somehow landed on a lower branch before falling to his death. He has had scratches all up and down his stomach since then. He also has been working on Spanish and he and the twins went to summer school. He finally learned to like science. He did baseball this May/June. He was the star of his team, but it was quite an underdog team. He wowed his cousins with his break dancing skills this summer, and in general played hard. Meanwhile, I spent all summer trying to get him in to see some doctors but I guess if I was hoping to get that done during the summer I should have started in January. In any case, just in time for school, he got a prosthetic ear. It is amazing! Now if I can just get him to stop playing around and taking it off for people to see that it comes off, (and stop playing with the glue) maybe it would stay on all day... And in September he is having an operation to get a post put on his head to attach his BAHA (hearing appliance) onto so he won't have to use the band. If I can just get him to change that batteries and keep it on his head and adjust it as needed, that should be great. He's also going to need to keep the post area cleaned every day so we add that to our routine. This is a kid who can get distracted and take 15 minutes to actually get in the water after turning on the shower, or to start combing his hair when he means to start, so adding all these routines is stressful. It is very nerve wracking every time he misplaces these two very expensive items, but I think this is better than any other alternative for now. Also, he is getting an evaluation to see how we can help him more in school. His jaw is a mess but we are in a holding pattern because most people think it would do more harm than good to operate again before he is fully grown and needs to have a final operation. Eating and cleaning his teeth are not that simple. If that isn't enough, he needs glasses. Initially, I thought we would have to do contacts, seeing as he didn't have an ear to hang the glasses on, but after I tried contacts and didn't have the patience for them, there is no way I can see him doing that too, so glasses it will be, but I'm going to hold off till after the operation so we can pick glasses that don't interfere with the BAHA.
Gigio is in 7th grade, and handling it just fine. Apparently it doesn't matter that he's half as tall as the girls because 5 of them have already said he's cute or have a crush on him. He just turned 12 and will get the priesthood on Sunday. He gave a testimony two weeks ago and it was amazing. Who'da thunk that pestery kid was a deep thinker? Last week he went to his first Young Men's activity which was combined with the Young Women and they went somewhere that had a ripline and a creek and some kind of bungie cord type thing. Later the girls told me he's crazy, he was a human slingshot. O.K.... He didn't weigh enough to lower himself and it took awhile to get him back down and somehow he got a rope burn on his arm, but he had a really good time.
Enigma just got back from her cousin's wedding which sadly I had to miss, (but I had fun taking care of my nephews) but she had fun, after MUCH drama, but that's par for the course. She was also in an accident in St George with a friend when she went on vacation so just stopped seeing the chiro for that. They were rear ended and her friend's car was totalled. The week before she was in a fender bender with a friend and the other guy was a jerk, she stuck up for her friend and got the police out there, and the guy got arrested because he had warrants out for other stuff. Kinda creepy. She has been doing photo shoots and is now in the salon area of the school plus is mentoring the newbies. She's going to start going nights too so she can finish in November. She recently did another makeup workshop and she's hoping to get financing to learn to do eyelash extensions and to go to Makeup Artistry School in California in January. Everything else about her life changes on a dime so I can't really say much else or it won't be accurate anymore. She's had migraines and is learning to deal with that. Has a small pharmacy now.
Me? I'm thinking I should have gone into the pharmaceutical business. All my money is going into meds and ER visits. Our whole family had fun with my extended family when we got together for a family reunion in June. Good times. Just wish we could have spent more time together. In July I went to Las Vegas for an interpreter training that was really good and had fun with the other interpreters. We went to see the Phantom of the Opera there, It was AMAZING! The special effects were the best. Then when I got back we had a major activity in Relief Society, a LUAU- social/visiting teaching conference. We had a blast! We had a spoof of Johnny Lingo called Juana Lingo and a girl in our ward that does Tahitian dancing did some number s and taught us how to dance. We also did limbo and hula hoop contests, and of course ate lots of yummy food and we put together a video of the sisters and had a little program. We had it all set up outside when a storm blew in so we had to super quick like move everything inside. Fun, fun. Relief Society has been a lot of work, there is a lot of drama in people's lives and tons of work to do. I just do what I can and somehow so far it all works out even though I stress out about it all. I keep trying to do things to help everyone else and then it ends up teaching me something or helping prepare me for something and so I've realized this is all out of my control anyway and I'm just trying to go with the flow.
Not only did I miss my niece's wedding this month, I missed my Uncle Fred's funeral, who finally no longer suffers from lung cancer. I heard it was good and wish I could have seen my relatives in Arizona and been there for that, but I couldn't get away. My cousin's daughter was married here the same day as my niece, but I was so busy with the boys and trying to keep the house (which had been neglected while I spent too much time in Salt Lake at appointments) from being condemned, that I forgot to go to that till it was ending. Probably it was just as well because moving the 6 boys playing Star Wars into her reception just might have been disruptive. Maybe.
I am sick of school, which is too bad because it only started a week ago. It is KILLING me. Just the getting everyone ready and there on time, back home and ready for the next day, and all they have for homework so far is reading, and stuff they didn't finish in class just wait till next week when math gets going. I can't even go into all the details because it would be a page in and of itself of the things I've had to deal with between the four boys since going back. Add to that Papi is supposed to be doing 2 online courses and is starting classes next week and I am also taking a class. I might just die. I'm taking a class to start working towards certifying as a mediator. Should be fun but, the time? Not sure where I'll get it from. Have you noticed the story about the miners trapped in Chile? We can't miss it here since we get the news from there on a big screen in my living room. Amazing, and it totally creeps me out to think of being trapped down there. I sure hope they get out sooner than they think and get out OK! I'm reading about Inez de Suarez right now too. Totally amazing woman. Another sad sad tale here locally is a couple of women died in a plane crash in Nepal. They were going to climb to the base camp of Everest. My daughter called to tell me because one of the husbands was her teacher in high school and his son is her friend. Turns out the two women work at one of our law offices locally and the other husband is one of our prosecutors so I feel really bad for all of them. It is so very sad, my heart just goes out to all of them. And speaking of my heart going out to people,
Papi has also had an operation on his knee again, and he is almost back to speed from that. But, he's having a lot of problems with his ears lately and hasn't felt good at all-emotionally or physically, but he hasn't seen a doctor yet, mostly because he's being a grumpy old man. Hope he gets over that sometime soon. He does have an appointment soon. Other than that he's been busy at work and at church and taking the boys to scout camps and all that good stuff he usually does.
Yesterday (just to bring this current) we went to 7 Peaks and we had a blast. The boys loved it! We got passes from school for their reading and they were about to run out. We ended up getting a real good deal but I probably shouldn't publicize the details since I promised not to tell. That is the story of my life lately, too much of it is confidential so I have nothing to say and what I can say, I don't have time to write, but hopefully somehow I will keep this blog from totally dying for good. Maybe I'll even say something funny next time, since I was too busy trying to remember what I don't want to forget so I could say it here and preserve the bare bones of the last 4 months or so to think of anything entertaining to say or to even say it in a very entertaining way. Such is the life of an overextended forty-something scatterbrained person. My plan for next time is to post photos. Then, I hope to someday write some things about what I think about our society at large. Because if I don't say something, I am being complacent. And someday maybe a great granddaughter will read it and it will answer the question she had been dying to ask me but obviously couldn't because I will be long gone by then, just like happened in reverse to me when I was reading a book about one of my great something grandmas and something she wrote just jumped out and answered what I wanted to ask her about. Not that I wouldn't have about 400 more follow up questions if she were here, but it was very very cool to read that. But I digress. First, I need to finish taking my pictures so I can post them. So, Off I go!

Memorial Day

2010-06-03T17:00:00.003-06:00

We like to spend the summer barbecuing in the back yard. First time we tried with the goats, we found they like to jump up on the chairs and check out the table, or hop on the tables or climb on the guests. So, this time, they got put on a leash. Apparently, the conversation was a tad too boring for them.

Bionicles vs. Bakugan

2010-05-12T14:55:00.007-06:00

That was the theme the Things picked. A few weeks ago we had a birthday party for the things. We sent out invitations. Then realized we might need to get ready! 5 day whirlwind. The whole time it was raining and snowing, forecasted to last a week more and all we had planned were pinatas. If everyone invited came, there would be 40 kids! Inside! In my messy uninhabitable house! And my husband had to work from sunrise to sunset that whole weekend! I was freaking out. Me, no adults, 40 kids, hazardous house. Snow and rain. Nice, just nice. A very wonderful friend I owe forever helped box up a bunch of stuff downstairs and clean my kitchen so there would be no hazards. Luckily, by halfway through the party, the skies were clear and we did the pinatas and played outside! We also had some balloon brawls and a scavenger hunt to find missing Bionicle pieces and Bakugan. The boys wanted a cake with ice cream sandwiches on it. I covered the sides in chocolate whipped cream because one wanted chocolate frosting. It was runny. Not an elegant cake, but it was so yummy Carino asked for one just like it for his birthday. Here's some of the fun:

Then when Thing 2 comes up to bat, I see in some moment he changed clothes. Adorable outfit, wouldn't you say???

Here's the messy yummy cake:

And the boys after the party with their loot:

The next day, we caught the goats under the pinata shell, one on each side, staring up at it, and obviously wishing it were lower so they could get at it. I ran for my camera but was too late for that shot, but got Buckley (the goat, not the fiance) jumping to try to reach it. They are silly. And I don't have a fiance, my niece Anna does, so now we got two Buckleys in the family in less than a week. What are the odds of that???

Hopefully I will catch you up on our other great adventures soon. Till then, take care, all!

The New Twins

2010-04-22T19:24:00.005-06:00

My daughter Enigma has adopted twins. Here they are:
Hurley

and Buckley

Twin pygmy goats. Aren't they cute? She's getting them settled in now and bathing Buckley
And exploring with Carino- sorry it's fuzzy.
Just like me, she still didn't get a girl. She was going to, but someone else got it. So we got twin brothers. Buckley is definitely the more high strung of the two.
So, what brought this on? Well there was a classmate who's boyfriend gave her goats but now that she is graduating and moving to Texas, the goats had to stay behind. Her parents didn't want them, and I guess it wasn't worth paying to fly them home anyways. So, Enigma fell in love with them and decided she just HAD to have them. I tried to reason with her, and got tired of it and said it wasn't me she needed to convince, it was her dad. He wanted nothing to do with it. Afterward, we had a big discussion in which we both agreed on the 401 reasons why having goats right now was not a good idea. Maybe someday when we have an empty nest and retire. As for Enigma, her life needs to settle down first too. The next thing I knew, her dad was telling her if she could get them for cheaper, she could have them. What?! This is the man I married. He is crazy. But, since he buys into all my crazy schemes like adopting babies, I just go with it. Life is an adventure with him. A freaking roller coaster. Well, since the classmate was going back today and was desperate, she got them 2 for the price of one. Unlike my twins which were buy one get one half off on the OB bill, but the nursery didn't even make any deals like that. Now we quick like need to get their "house" in order and the yard cleaned up for them, and the GARDEN fenced off. I told Papi that soon he will understand why we call children kids. Let me tell you, they are as hard to photograph! But, they are charming. Never a dull moment.

Found

2010-04-22T15:16:00.002-06:00

Commercial break before announcing our big news: This book by Margaret Peterson Haddix is a real FIND. The first book my Carino has ever picked up and read on his own because he wanted to, because he was hooked. He was reading it on the way to school and took it with him for reading time. If you have a child you have struggled with to get to read and understand, you must know how absolutely THRILLING this is! Plus, it is helping us have some great discussions about adoption, just when he was needing it. Thank the Lord, AND Margaret!

Twins

2010-04-22T10:55:00.004-06:00

Eight years ago yesterday, we had twins.
Yesterday we celebrated a bit.
Today we are getting another set of "twins". Our whole life is about to turn upside-down. Stay tuned....

If I were a Poet

2010-04-15T16:10:00.006-06:00

I would have written a poem called "I love Rain Because it Isn't Snow" a few days ago and today I'd write one called, "I Love the Sun So Much More Than the Rain". But I'm not. I've been so absent, and all the great stuff I would like to write, I don't have time to write.
But, there's hope.
If I can get my new people we finally got called to help us out in Relief Society (after 6 months, whew!) trained and doing their jobs, I might start to have a more normal life. If you could call my life that. Or, at least, I'll probably get more done of the things I'm supposed to be doing, so I'll at least feel better about the chaos. Even with the insanity, and the awful feeling I'm not doing other things I should be doing more of, so far it's been pretty rewarding. I need to stop getting myself into these situations where I am doing labor intensive work at night so things will get done in time for whatever. Then I can't keep track of time at all, and it seems to slip away when I most need it. I get way too frustrated with myself and by the time our activity rolls around, I think I should be on Prozac. Then it all works out great and everyone loves it and I feel better.
Except, it never ends because for example, we did an activity yesterday on using church resources to teach the gospel in the home, do better family nights, and help children be more reverent at church. We gave out a lot of information packets and instructions- 20 sets of 4 presentations, as well as some booklets and CD's and cardstock posters for all the moms with Primary age children to use to help their kids with the primary scriptures and songs- 40 sets. We also cut and separated packets of 10 sets of materials each for making quiet books and pillows. I was worried about no one showing up so the Primary presidency called all their moms to tell them they needed to come get their gifts from the Primary/Relief Society combined effort. We had about 30 people come, and a lot weren't even primary moms, so we ended up coming up short and we have to make about 10 more copies of everything. We have used up all the toner and paper in the library, so first we have to hunt down more of that. Sigh! Such fun. BUT this time, I'm going to make my secretary do it all. :) And next month we have a committee to help us :) :) :). I'm bowing out, plus I'm already getting too involved in our LUAU coming up in July, even though I'm only going to be worrying about the program because it's top secret :). See, I'll never learn, never never learn to keep myself out of trouble.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, laundry is piling up, ironing is piling up, STUFF is piling up EVERYWHERE, paper has exploded all over as if 10 ticker tape parades just went by, kids have school stuff and scout stuff and baseball is about to start, the THings are getting ready to turn 8 and get baptized and have some kind of party, Carino is going to have a birthday too, Enigma is doing makeup and hair for photo shoots, plays and movies, Papi is working and trying to dig us out of our financial hole, and guess what? It's tax time! But thanks to tax time I was FORCED into doing what most needed to be done, namely tame the paper dragon and find all the tax related paper so we could file this year. Now the paper is only semi out of control, and I found my Christmas newsletters I never sent! One less thing I need to find. I'd almost feel like I was getting caught up on things if it weren't for the fact that ITS SPRING! Time to dump the messy house and go out and garden! Maybe I should just ignore the house till fall, but then I won't be able to invite people over. And I decided I need to invite people over a lot more often, seeing as how if I even leave my two oldest boys alone for a half hour to go see someone, they manage to play with my phone and call 911. And then hang up and not answer when they call back. At least they opened the door for the police. I guess it's theoretically OK to leave 10 and 11 year olds alone on a Saturday afternoon, at least I didn't get in trouble with the police for that one but it makes me leary to leave them. I had the 7 year olds with me because they wouldn't be a problem at the house I was visiting, and I thought the oldest would go play at friends. Right. I also made a trip to the doctor with two kids to get things taken out of their ears. Thing 2 tells me one night that Thing 1 can't get an eraser out of his ear. It was too deep for me to dare try, and then as we are discussing this, Carino mentions that oh, yeah, by the way, I have tape stuck in my ear, (his only ear), and it's been there for like a month. Sigh. I wish I had that little instrument the doctor used to remove it. Of course, I wish I had a taser gun too. Life is full of little things we'll never get.
Somehow in all this chaos, I'm trying to teach my offspring to be more independent. Making a PB sandwich and filling yourself up but getting 3/4 of the jar spread all over the kitchen isn't my idea of independent. Needing constant monitoring isn't either. Our new plan is to get ready for bed when we get home from school. A bit drastic, but it's working. We review the routine on the way home from school. They walk in and are supposed to hang up coats, belts and backpacks, put shoes in the bench and make a beeline for the laundry room where they must strip off their uniforms and then find play clothes to get on. Then they are supposed to go make their lunch for the next school day and make their snack, then clean up after themselves while I get the wash and dinner going. Next we move on to homework, and if they manage to get that done quickly and do their one chore, I will read to them and/or then they can go play. Whew! The cleaning up after themselves is still not sinking in much, so I have plans for that. Plus, I got ALARM CLOCKS today so they can start working on getting themselves up.
Freak, this is getting really boring! It almost sounds like I'm turning into a responsible adult. Except that not keeping the house clean thing. Plus, I keep hitting up on the ward clerk (Good thing he's my husband.) As you can see, I'm still alive. I hope to someday make it back to read everyone's blogs and write something funner here! But it won't be today, not even if I write about our Spring Break that involved a lot of snow and barf. I'm off to do a million other things. Take care and hope to be in touch soon!

Anniversary Day

2010-03-17T11:52:00.004-06:00

Twenty one years ago today I got married. I'm still glad I did it.That was then,
This is now. Before we went riding off into the sunset those many years ago, my dad said to my husband, "Good luck!" Guess what? It takes more than good luck. It takes commitment and a willingness to accept the other person as they are and let them grow. It takes a lot of sacrifice and patience and love. And it's so worth it if you do it that way! Thanks Papi, for being such a great husband. Me saque la Polla Gol contigo.

Penco-Oh Bring Back My Chile To Me!

2010-03-10T14:16:00.003-07:00

My friend Mary lives in this town- 3 blocks from the beach. Unlike her neighbors, her house wasn't washed away, but it is wet and uninhabitable. The aftershocks are earthquakes, big ones, daily. Yesterday right before their new president was inaugurated they had a 7.7 quake. I was just chatting with my friend Mary who is staying with relatives. She signed off because the conversation kept getting interrupted by one big aftershock after another. What a way to live- it must be impossible to get any sleep at all. This is so much worse than 1985. Really, I would like it to stop shaking and leave my Chilenos and this beautiful land in peace. Soon! Please, God, Preeeeety Pleeeeeease?

Oh, Great!

2010-03-02T22:46:00.002-07:00

More bad news about the earthquake. If we're going to change the length of our days, why not give us a few more milliseconds instead of losing them? Seems God is still answering this letter.

Impotencia

2010-02-28T23:31:00.002-07:00

This is the frustration you feel when there's nothing you can do. Nothing but pray and wait. Most family is accounted for, in the Valparaiso area it was 7.7 on the Richter. They're all, including his uncle who was visiting for the Music Festival in Vina, piled up in the safest house, an aunt's where they have electricity and water now and they are all on one floor instead of on the 26th floor. When Enigma heard that, she voiced the same thing I thought. If the earthquake didn't kill them, they might kill each other if they stay together like that for too long. We haven't heard from Papi's biological family but they probably won't have access to a computer or anything for a while. But, we have many friends in the Concepcion area, some of the hardest hit towns. We can only wait and see how they fared. It's really hard to get through right now on the phone, circuits are busy a lot. We have night owl friends who called and woke me up on the one night I finally got to bed before midnight. One thirty a.m. We have the national Chilean station so we watched. The first daylight images coming out of there were pretty similar to what I saw when I was in a 7.7 quake there, but the area with that kind of damage was more extensive. But as more images come out, it just gets worse and worse. And it did get worse and worse as tidal waves hit many places. It's just sickening to watch the death toll climb and the people starting to get more desperate as they go longer without water, food, etc. And all we can do is hope the assistance they need gets to them soon. We were watching one segment-this reporter is too over the top, but wow. Enigma was saying how much the people looked like her dad-yup, they're not related directly, I told her but these are your people! If there were just a way to go pick up the rubble and help the little girl who was injured some but her house was ruined, and all she wants is for someone to come help dig out her toys. Or help the young man who hasn't seen his mom, she was at home at the time, he was not, and the home is gone...They have awesome teams there helping to dig out people and reestablish services, but it will take a very long time for some areas to be anywhere near back to normal. Here's the clip I was talking about-this is where tidal waves followed the earthquake and there is one spot where you see a ferris wheel, still standing-350 meters from where it was before, practically on the highway. Crazy! Big hugs, lots of prayers and money heading your way Chilenos! We love you!

Happy Val

2010-02-20T15:29:00.011-07:00

I was so excited to see Spanish conversation hearts in the store this year. Imagine how disappointing it was when I got home and opened the bag. Apparently the only way to get these workers in New York to do the Spanish hearts was to offer them a bottle of tequila for the extra effort. Unfortunately, tequila and candy making don't mix.
It gets worse, apparently it's hard to aim when under the influence. It would make sense, if you can't keep a car on the road , how can you be expected to line up some teeny words on a little heart?:
FYI- LLame me means call me, but LAME ME?...means lick me. Another little Spanish lesson: Amiga means friend, but MIGA means crumb.
This one we can at least use in a spelling lesson- words ending in -ota
Did they mean to say "mi bota?" My boot? Or "Mi idiota"- my idiot?

It would seem the last batch was the orange ones, they had almost passed out by then:
All this wouldn't be so bad if these were just strays in the bag, but the whole freaking entire bag was made up of hearts like this. Whatever happened to quality control? Oh, I forgot, they were all passed out by the time it came to that. The most disappointing thing of all was there were no pink or white minty hearts AT ALL! Sigh!
Then if that weren't enough, one of the Things freaked out when he found out he was going to have to give away his valentines. Imagine that, give them away! He's been doing that for the last oh, 3-4 years but this year it was a total surprise to him. Of course so was the note I found in Carino's backpack at 9:30 the night before asking for us to donate something to his party. And even though they supposedly got the valentines all ready on Monday, come Thursday night bedtime, none of them had been addressed. And Gigio informed me that since now they don't do Valentines at his age in school, he really should get a bag of Valentine candy from his mom to make up for it. Someone just might have heard me yell something like "Bah humbug, I quit Valentines Day." Of course I forgot about that by the time I made it to the Valentines dance with my sweetheart some 20 hours later. Maybe it should be a parent's only day? Anyhow, next year, I think I'm sticking to English hearts.

Discoveries

2010-02-09T14:40:00.003-07:00

Recently I discovered that the temperature for hard crack is exactly the same temperature that my stirring spoon melts at. Too bad I can't use that knowledge again to make candy, seeing as how candy with plastic swirls in it has to be disposed of more carefully than I did it. This is especially sad for someone who has to replace the candy thermometer every time she makes candy because I never have managed to make 2 batches in a row, so some offspring or another breaks it before the next time rolls around. However, on the upside, if you pour hard crack hot candy down the sink and then try to wash it down with water, it is nowhere near as bad as pouring a can of dried potato flakes down the drain and then trying to wash it down with water. I only needed a husband to fix this mess, NOT Rotor Rooter. And don't get mad at me, You Know Who, they will never know you did it, they will just think I did it instead.
P.S. Self, remember to buy a wooden spoon sometime!
P.S.S. I bet you never knew Voldemort even had a kitchen, did you?

MIA

2010-01-19T12:25:00.009-07:00

I've been gone for a long time. I've missed you all. Hope I catch up on everyone's blogs sometime soon. The time has come that I am going to have to do something to clean up my computer if I ever hope to be able to put any photos on it, or pretty much breathe in it's general direction. Guess what? I hardly have had a moment to get near it, let alone fix it. The big problem was adding a new camera software to it because Papi got me a digital video camera for Christmas. I know that Christmas and it's crazies are long since past, but with some technical help, here is one last photo: It seems Joseph was naughty this year and got put in time out.

What's been going on? Well, we had a fabulous Christmas eve dinner, and we did our traditional late night present opening, etc but then on the 25th, Papi set off to give his family a Christmas surprise. Yep, he flew to Chile. He got a great chance to go for very cheap and so he took it. The rest of us spent the day at my parent's house. The exciting news is that nothing big happened while we were alone, not one basement flooding! Now that's what I call progress. A friend came down from Idaho with her kids and we spent the New Year's week together and went to our ward's party, so we all kept busy. I could have been miserable New Years since I got engaged on New Years (Oh, not this New Years, that was 1989, or else Papi would be miserable and I would be working on my plan to get a divorce from my second husband before I got charged with bigamy and then try to dupe him into child visitations on weekends, thus leaving me free to get lots of things done!) but I figured, why think about it and be miserable? I used my talent of being distracted to distract me from missing Papi too much. One great tactic was to take out my energy on the kitchen which desperately needed me to clean and organize it and sterilize it so as to get rid of the cupboard moth invasion. (Some stragglers are still alive, and it's making me nervous, plus, I've become a total moth assassin.) I was up till 3 am most nights. Seems I don't know when to stop when someone isn't there to tell me. I forget to eat too, and all my pants are loose now. My other great tactic during "solitude" (if you can call being alone with 5 kids solitude) is to rent movies Papi would never watch and eat all the food he hates but I love. Having too many people to take care of probably helped too. And the fact that I could talk to him over the phone almost every day helped too. But, by the end of 3 weeks we were all ready to have him back and I was ready to give my kids away to anyone who wanted them by the time I got them to church that last Sunday after one jumped out the window and climbed on top of the shed, everyone went every which way and fought like cats and dogs, put their clothes on backwards, and in general acted like maniacs. But then, Papi couldn't get a flight out. That was depressing. Then, he finally did. Next, he got sick. Meniere's and international travel do not mix that well. He's spent half the time he's been home too dizzy to do anything. Currently, we're trying to get him in to see a doctor. Not that it will help much, but what else can you do? We are trying to get people really done with their science fair projects and a civil war project before next week because we sort of forgot to finish those projects over the summer. I'm behind on lots of Relief Society stuff too, but I guess most of those problems aren't going away, so I can still get to them. Plus, if I go too many months without getting in visiting teaching reports, probably they will get the hint and call me a visiting teaching leader. Enigma has been super busy doing a photo shoot which also required some help getting a costume ready from me and her grandma. Now she's getting ready for her training in Vegas. Wow, see how fast you can update a month when you get old and your memory gets fuzzy? It's great! Except when you realize you made a Christmas newsletter but never sent it and not only is it a month and a half late being sent, but the registration on your car is expiring in 3 days and one of those days is Sunday. Then that reminds you your car's steering went out too, and you didn't even write about all that fun, but you decide not to and opt to do something more responsible like work so you can buy groceries with the money that will replace to your bank account the money you paid for the repairs. I'll try to find some time to get on more often and share more of the nonsense or common sense going on around here. Take care should I not make it back for another month!

That Explains It

2009-12-28T21:05:00.002-07:00

My littlest one, Thing 2, has just informed me that he thinks I've been brainwashed by aliens. I guess that could explain a lot about me...
More to come, I got a digital video camera for Christmas, so possibly I will install the software and upload something someday soon. And, I'm waiting till after January 11 for some of our updating.

It is NOT Good to Run Out of Scotch Tape on December 21

2009-12-22T15:12:00.009-07:00

At least there was matching Duct Tape lying around...

For more Christmas Crazy, see Burgh Baby.
For past Christmas Crazy at my house why not start here?Or here would be great too. Or way back here.Or even here.
My tree looks almost normal this year. Only an occasional bionicle makes a call. I'll try to add pictures before the season's over.

Talent? Show Folleys

2009-12-19T16:38:00.008-07:00

Last Friday we had a Ward Talent Show. It was pretty much thrown together at the last minute. They asked each organization to prepare 2 numbers. None of us in the presidency planned on performing, but it took forever to get people to come practice and in the end, most of us had to perform. It would have been much better with more practice, but we had a lot of fun and everyone loved it. We know better for next time, we'll immediately call someone and put them in charge of the numbers! We did a sketch based on a video a friend put on her blog. We were a team of synchronized swimmers. The funny thing for us was, we never practiced with the goggles, and didn't realize they steam up and you can't see what you're doing. Plus, after each step our minds would go blank and we'd have to remember what came next. I think we laughed as hard as the audience. Since I have no shame, I will add it here. Beforehand we had the announcer say that although everyone knows we have a volleyball team, few know the Relief Society also has a Synchronized Swimming team which has been practicing clandestinely in the baptismal font. But, now that we are headed to the Olympic trials, we decided to do our debut performance for the ward.

Don't miss the Grand Finale!

The bishop said he never imagined in a million years we would come up with something like that. I told him we're just getting started...next time our rhythmic gymnastics team will be ready...haha!
Then my Carino also "prepared" a break dance for the Primary. They could never organize a rehearsal, so he and another boy talked about what they would do and just got up and did it without really practicing more than 5 minutes. They cracked us up, they are huge hams! Here's a big chunk of their performance:

Our second number was a dance, la Pollera Colorada but due to technical difficulties, I can't get it to upload. You're probably sick of videos by now as it is. There were some other really fun numbers, we had some great Tahitian dancing among other things and we all had a fun night. you would think what with all the jumping around making a fool of myself and dancing, I might have gotten an injury doing those numbers, but no. Since I'm truly talented, I got injured making Christmas cards at the church a few days before. It takes talent, but I was up to the task. I had my bag set off to the side and my cell phone went off. I ran like a ninny to go get it and realized there was a car seat in my way and tried to jump over it and got tangled in the handle and wham! Down I went right on my right front tooth. Luckily, it is strong and stayed in it's place. I did get a nice fat lip, but with ice, it ended up looking like a botched collagen injection job. Who'd a thought you could get a lip job for so cheap? I'd have a great picture of that except I don't know where it disappeared to. Maybe I'll add it another day. That's all for now, we're getting ready to sub for Santa among other things. Hope to catch up on all of you soon!

What's a Mother to DO?

2009-12-18T00:34:00.003-07:00

There are two kinds of moms in the world. The kind that is going crazy because their home is decorated in Early Food Fight, and those who swear," Oh, no! I never EVER let anyone eat outside the kitchen!" They always leave out how they manage to accomplish this. Those of us in the former category (Does that shock you that I'm in the former category? No? Just that I would ask? Very well, then!)-AS I was saying, FOR the RECORD, those of us whose homes look like they were painted by a dispose-all do not LET our offspring eat outside the kitchen. No. We do NOT say, "honey, here's some peanut butter and jelly, go run in the living room to play with it and eat a bit of it!" I willingly admit that some of these morsels get by me because I'm an airhead, but I bet if I hired guards at the entrances to the kitchen, occasionally, even they would get duped. We are once again at that stage where I long for a new decor. So, I decided I needed to make a clear simple rule and follow through. I told my kids that every time I found any food in the same room as the Wii, NO ONE could use it for a week. If I found food in the vicinity of the computer, no computer for a week. If I found food within a 20 foot radius of the TV, no TV for a week. No one can use the Wii till Saturday. No one can use the TV till Monday. There's just one problem. Now I keep finding crumbs and leftover food in the bathroom. Some wars you just can't win. How can I tell them they can't use the bathroom for a week?

P.S. What the freaking heck is wrong with eating in the kitchen?????!!! Someone please, please tell me now. I'm dying to know.

What Happened to the Lost Colony?

2009-12-01T09:25:00.003-07:00

According to Thing 2, they obviously got abducted by aliens. Just love this kids' art!

Where Did I Go?

2009-11-23T13:49:00.004-07:00

So, for those who were wondering where I went, my mind exploded somewhere over there and I'm still picking up the pieces. It took less than 3 months as RS Pres. for me to lose my mind. But it's cool. It's just occupying too much space in a brain that was already having problems holding it all together. It could be worse. My house might be chaos, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. But then, my standards/expectations were pretty low to begin with. However, it didn't really get too much worse. Actually, even though it's wild, I'm liking this job. A whole lot. I mostly can't talk about half the stuff going on, but let me tell you that there are people facing so many problems out there. Wow. And really, they are super awesome people. So it's fun to get to know so many people and help support them while they work through things, but it's a HUGE responsibility. It's sort of like being a social worker but your boss is God. Then there's trying to help those who can be more helpful realize that they can be. It makes for tons of traffic in the brain. It would be nice if I had the thoughts I needed in the daytime when I could actually call or visit people, but I don't seem to work that way. Besides all that, there's the organizing of our regular activities.
We have done a clothing exchange and had a therapist come talk to us about marriage. Next we are having a Thanksgiving dinner and making Christmas cards and gifts. Plus, we have a group meeting once a week to do Zumba. We are making plans for next year too and we have already started a little project for all the ladies. We gave them a love journal and each week we give them a new goal to work on that week and write about in the journal. Hopefully we will all eventually be better at loving each other :). I put the journal up as is in Spanish here for those who want to join in, and speak Spanish. All 2 of you. I may manage to translate it into English soon and make a link for that. my first lesson went along with that, now I have to start planning the next one I have to give in February. And that, folks, is a reader's digest synopsis of what that part of my life is like. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, I have all the kids and husband and jobs to deal with, and things like scouts and spelling and taking our meds regularly are slipping through the cracks. I think I seriously need a time management coach. I am not getting anything done in a timely fashion and I waste copious amounts of time trying to figure out what to do and when. Oh, and the organizing projects are shot too. And my budget. And everything that runs has been breaking down. My van, $1000 job to replace the motor, the blender, the freezer, the vaccuum, the camera, etc. And Christmas is coming... I've given it maybe 1/2 hour worth of thought so far. Maybe Papi's new t.v. and the motor was Christmas? Sounds good to me... If I could just think of some awesome spiritual bonding like things to do with my family that would seem fun to them, and wouldn't take a lot of work to do, I'd be in heaven.
Enigma has been doing a special makeup class and loving it. This is the area she is most interested in. Also, she is now working on live people's heads and could use as much practice as she can get at all kinds of things. It's cheap, so if you live in the area, contact me and I'll let you know how to set something up at her school with her. Also, if you could use some quality hair care products or know anyone who could or that would be a perfect gift for a person on your gift list, let me know because you could also help save us from financial ruin while getting the products you need. Also, Enigma is up in arms for the cause of poor kids in Africa who are being kidnapped and forced to fight in wars. She's all ready to save them, if she can get through school and pay it off. She might as well go off and fight for a cause, because I don't think she's ever going to be the domestic type anyways...
Everyone else has managed to keep from killing each other or blow up the house while cracking us up with their crazy antics, so not much has changed on that front. I just love the pictures that come home on the back of their school papers. Some day I'll have to post some. We've had some sickness. One day Papi had to go to the school twice to pick up sick kids but so far they've all blown over fast and we've avoided the worst of the season. I've tried to get us shots this year, but it's impossible to find out when and where to get a ticket to go when they get shots in, so I don't know if that will ever happen.
Papi has decided to take some independent study courses next semester. Who knows how that will go over. Meanwhile he takes us one by one to the BYU games and keeps super busy with work and church. And now I need to stop and go get the boys so I will stop boring you and get back to life.

Thing 2 isms

2009-11-07T19:36:00.003-07:00

He's a barrel of laughs but I too often forget the great things he says. Here's just two I haven't forgotten yet.

I came home from a day at the church doing a clothing exchange. Enigma was making a blanket and the boys had been given free reign. There was stuff everywhere. It looked like a tornado hit the house. "What happened here?" I asked. "A struggle?" Thing 2 answered. Enigma and I laughed, "Yeah, that's what it looks like, alright!" Then thing 2 asked, "What's a struggle anyways?"

We were watching a DVD and there was a preview for the movie 2012. Enigma mentioned that if the world really did end in 2012 she would only be 21. And what a pathetic life, she added. Then she turned to Thing 2, "You would be, hmm."
"What?" he asked. If the world ended in 2012, you would be what?"
"Dead!" He answered.

Day of the Dead

2009-11-02T15:06:00.010-07:00

This year we decided to make calaveras, little sugar skulls that are used to decorate altars or to give little kids cavities when they eat them. Why? My boys have been bugging me for about 3 years to make them. So, we made them. This is what they are supposed to look like:

I was foolish enough to walk away and get something else done while they decorated theirs with frosting. This is what I found:
Thing 1 is a minimalist-less is more! Or he's carving in the skull injuries that caused this poor one's demise.This guy got into a silly string fight...

With this one, who lost.
A bystander green beret got mixed up in the fray.

This one was mistaken for a forensic face reconstruction kit- turns out it was the Hulk's skull they found. So luckily there were a few untouched ones and they turned out a little more traditional. I would recommend using real decorator tips and bags instead of snipping a little hole and letting the kids have blowouts on the tops and sides. You have way more control with the real thing. Here's our results:

Except to me, especially at this angle,
they look a lot like this guy:

Things I Never Imagined I'd Say To My Kids (At Least Not Before I Met Them...)

2009-10-23T00:27:00.008-06:00

Copying, coloring in, and cutting out reams of the school's reward bucks is called forgery. It also wastes ink, and I will confiscate them.

Never put out a lighter with the vacuum cleaner!

Hiding the lighter under your pillow isn't such a bright idea either...

Stuffing a dollar store toy axe up your shirt and into your armpit isn't just uncomfortable, it's shoplifting. Violators will be prosecuted...

This is not a safe experiment.

If you get a tattoo on your neck, I can promise you will live to regret it.

Things My Mom Forgot To Tell Me:

Parenting is loads harder than it looks.

Hosted by Cecily and Kelli

Thing 1

2009-10-08T14:39:00.009-06:00

Make a Smilebox postcard

Random Update-Hopelessly Late

2009-09-25T16:18:00.007-06:00

At least I don't have to worry about hopelessly late meaning a baby's on the way anymore. :) It seems like ever since I got my big fat calling life has been super busy. I immediately started getting thrown into these situations which taught me that my life is so simple compared to other people's. Along the way we took in 2 dogs and one person. I also did a lot of pro bono work for another person in a mess. Everyone is off on their own now. Those dogs barked, chewed up everything, broke through the fence, somehow got the lock off the gate, played escape artist and got out of their harnesses and pulled up their stakes and somehow found themselves tied up in new random places in the back yard, got into a neighbor's and all but killed their chicken, and on and on. I don't guess we'll be getting a dog anytime soon, and Enigma is cured of that dog fever too.

Meanwhile, I got a cold with a weird cough and then a sinus infection and then after that the cough came back and then on top of that, I got seasonal allergies, plus I kept having these episodes where my throat got so tight I couldn't breathe well and the Dr. sent me to the ER one Saturday night to make sure it wasn't because my lungs were filling up with liquids because a heart valve was failing or anything spooky like that. After doing that fun evening with Papi, I told him next Saturday we would have to go out to someplace less expensive and more entertaining. Of course there is no real explanation for what is going on, so they just prescribed $50 medicine to see if it helps. I haven't had any bad episodes, but I still have the cough and some tightness off and on. Also, I had a very intense pain in my neck and lower back that had me all stiff and uncomfortable, so I have been seeing a chiropractor for that. I've also had acupuncture! It's amazing. I love it.

So, next Papi decided to take me on a lunch date to the ER, he started having numbness, tingling, weakness and heaviness in his left arm. Finally after a few weeks it got so bad he decided to call the doctor while he was at work and make an appointment. The doctor sent him to the ER. After an EKG, blood tests and Cat scan they decided he didn't have any heart problems or stroke so they ordered an MRI to see if there is any kind of nerve problem. More bills, but at least nothing bad is happening.

It seems like we have had a flurry of activities. We did a BBQ or Asado as we know it with friends over Labor Day, had a few get togethers with family and friends. We had our Independence Day party with the Chileans. Wewent to a campout with our old ward and got a little lost on the way. Nice scenery. I attended a BYU football game with Papi, and they totally played like kindergarteners and lost, so I'm now back to being banished from games. I'm not really sorry. It was fun to go do that with him, but after not going to games for so long, it seemed like a stadium full of total nut cases. First on the way in there are people making hand gestures in order to pretend they are not looking for tickets and it makes them look like a bunch of people on the spectrum stimming. Then you see the cheerleaders and the pom poms which just seem silly, and the people freaking out over every play like it's a matter of life and death, it's kinda hilarious really. Then there's all those cute boys on the field almost killing themselves every few minutes, thus possibly eliminating my future son in law before his time...BUT after a while the whole thing kind of grows on you.

Before that date, I took the kids to a pic-nic for kids with craniofacial problems and we met a girl who has had the first stages of a rib graft ear reconstruction! That was really exciting for us because we got to see what it's like up close and personal. I really wanted Carino to see what it's like, especially before it's done. We had a lot to share with each other there and will keep in touch.

Work has been dead, as in not enough work. The economy has hit my profession. I'm looking into going back to school and branching out into other related professions. Meanwhile, Papi is slowly starting an import/export business. Anyone who has good info on that, we would surely appreciate it.

The kids are doing pretty good in school this year, and we love all our teachers. Sometimes it is hard keeping up with it all and getting things handed in, etc. My curly headed boy has started pulling his hair on his head out, and has kept scabs going so long on his chest that we decided to get him some treatment for that. Hopefully this will help. The older boys are starting to really get along better most of the time, but now the younger set are into their standoff phase. Hooray! So much fun.

Enigma is in beauty school now and loves it. Sometimes it is frustrating, but she is doing good and very enthusiastic so far. After 6 weeks core she starts going Tuesday through Saturday and will start working the salon there. She's also going to do a makeup training because that's what she's most interested in anyways.

Papi went out and got a new TV. Our old one was cracked and so we couldn't see the corner where the channel comes up, and it only took analog signals so he couldn't hook up the computer to watch soccer games. Now the new and improved much larger one is in our living room. Now all I want is to finish fixing up the living room so it doesn't look half done. That's what I asked for as a birthday present. For the last 2 years... but instead I got a party with empanadas- ham and cheese or shrimp, bbq meat, rice, tomato salad and a torta de hojas cake- so awesome!

Church is going fine, I've managed to intercept nerf guns sneaking in, but one of my offspring managed to sneak in those popper firecrackers. He put them under people's tires and "dropped" some on the sidewalk as people were leaving. I loved conference. Church in PJ's and excellent messages. The calling is going fine. My head feels like it is going to explode I have so much to do and I'm trying to figure out how and when to do everything. Not my forte. It's been lots of fun getting to know people better. Once we get all our helpers called and trained and get Visiting Teaching info out, things should slow a teeny bit. I'm working on a lesson with a program for the women this month too, and luckily my theme seemed to be a conference theme so now I have tons of backup material. Sweet! Right away after I started this job, our ward was in charge of a Stake activity where we fed everyone tamales and such, and then had a latin folklore program. It was awesome! The mosquitoes were too. Tea tree oil really works, people! Try it. Repels the bugs and heals the bites.

One of the Things did an interesting thing to his forehead.
With this:

What will they think up next? I will tell you next time...this almost sort of brings us up to date. More to come.

I'm in Love

2009-09-17T00:14:00.010-06:00

This story brought to you by...
Hosted by Cecily and Izzy 'N Emmy

Move over Papi...
Well lucky for him IKEA isn't a man or he'd be in trouble. My Enigma begged me to take her to IKEA before she goes back to school so we finally went. It might seem shocking that I've never been there before, but I don't go shopping if I can help it, and going shopping somewhere that's about 1/2 hour away or more is,well, not likely to happen at all unless I'm inspired by a more human cause like bonding with my offspring (Of course, usually I don't choose to bond with them in stores. I usually try not to commit infanticide in stores is all.)
Oh, but people, IKEA is a soothing balm to the harried disorganized disheveled mess of a housewife whose house is all full of holes in the wall and really wants to find balance and harmony in home organization and practical beauty. It is AWESOME! It is full of little organizing things that truly work for the right brained mind. It is so aesthetically pleasing to the eye. Plus, kid play place if you have them along, cinnamon bun bar, restaurant and awesome showrooms, and stuff for a myriad of budgets, plus fun stuff like Swedish groceries and as my brother pointed out, you could live there. It has bathrooms, beds, sofas, kitchens, food, and so on. Now my brother and I will have a bonding tie between our two opposite existences-Beaver Cleaver vs. Dennis the Menace. Super Ultra Conservative vs. Artsy Nonconformist. Now we can stop trying to come to an agreement on politics that always leads right back into the conclusion that everyone should be responsible and BOY DE WE NEED CAMPAIGN FINANCE REFORM, bad enough that I think he should take my side on that one. But now, now I might just turn into a materialistic puppet who forgets all hope of world peace and end to hunger everywhere in exchange for the peace of a redecorated reorganized home.

WOW! We spent almost 2 hours in that store and I could have easily spent another hour at least in there. This is coming from the one who can't stand to spend more than an hour in any store on earth without feeling ill.

I am in love, love, love! Now I just need to find a way to earn enough money to get some things we could really truly use badly! Like entertainment center storage and wardrobe storage. Meanwhile, we settled for some little stuff. Remember the magnet thing I did? Oh there are so many magnetic options in that store, it would make your head spin. Here's what I got. This first one has no magnets, that was just to confuse you. Now I have a place to keep those pesky potholders, dishrags, pens, sponges, etc. Next I got this magnetic strip and some containers, but I did a switcheroo with the office containers because they have a few spice openings on the lids.See? No you don't need glasses, I need photography school.
Now the office supply corner looks like this:And just below that I have a new little table to go over my file box and to hold my cubbies. I realize this looks messy to most, but for me, it's nearly tidy. If I can just learn to file now, we will be in business.
So all this stuff was under $9 each and some stuff was less than a dollar, but it's sorta like Walmart, it adds up. I built the table and hung the stuff in the kitchen myself. The table was a breeze but I'm a klutz with tools. It was scary, but I got the job done because Papi is jealous. Just kidding! He's too busy working and when he ever gets a free moment, he has to hang up the other thing I got called....rings! I think that's what they're called. Like they hang on ropes and you swing on them or do awesome gymnastics, or destroy your house, but that's happening anyways, so why not invest some of that destructive energy in a step towards a world class gymnastics career? Or the ER...Some moms never learn. But it was just made for my boys. It seemed safer than the swing... and the chair that hangs from the ceiling was out of stock...or temporarily understocked as they say in Swedish.

P.S. This is not an infomercial. I'm really just in love. No one paid me to post this, but I think it would be awesome if IKEA rewarded me with free stuff for the free advertising. IKEA on the other hand, probably figures that since I'm the last one in all capitalist countries to walk into their stores, they didn't need the advertising. Too bad for me. Maybe it will happen in a dream someday. I'm dreaming of Swedish Meatballs....with this song in the background

The Last Laugh Was at My Expense

2009-09-07T13:44:00.003-06:00

Here's the joke that involves Mormon culture I promised a while ago. If you need help the Mormon words can be found in all caps in my terminology guide on my sidebar.
We will call this joke The Gods Must Be Crazy II. If you aren't related, you probably never read The Gods Must Be Crazy I, but it was the e-mail I sent out about finding out I was having twins, a week after we had a brand new $13,ooo debt dumped on us, and we still had two boys in diapers. It was so fun. The good news is we survived. So, without further ado, the longish version of The Gods Must Be Crazy II.
A few months ago, my husband got called to be the Ward Clerk. We got a call from the Stake Clerk to meet with the Stake President. Papi was so sure I was getting a calling. He knew from past experience that they would ask the spouse first if they would be supportive of the calling before extending it to the "victim". We were supposed to meet with them right after our meetings, but during the last meeting, Relief Society for me, I was sent back to the stake offices. The president explained they wanted to call my husband to be ward clerk, and I was relieved it wasn't me, except in hindsight, if it had been for me, it would have been a stake calling, and frankly, they're not that bad. Anyhow, then I went to sit in the hall and the men were meeting right next door, so when Papi went in to meet with the Stake President, he didn't see me. The first thing the president did was ask him some questions to make sure he was worthy and the whole time he was super confused, because why did he need to be worthy for me to have a calling? Then they called me back in and explained. I had a good laugh at his expense. So, a few weeks ago, he comes home and he just says to me, you'd better prepare yourself. What does that mean? It has been common knowledge that both our ward Relief Society and Primary presidencies are due for changes. He just said, changes are about to be made and the list of possibilities is shrinking. This insinuated that I was on that puny list. He said the bishop was praying about it. I figured Papi could just be trying to get me back for not getting the calling last time and so he decided to scare me. But then again, better safe than sorry. If the bishop is praying about this, I thought, guess who else will? Dueling prayers, lets see who wins. Do I have more clout than the bishop? I thought I would. I planned to pray harder. Right. But, I get sidetracked. I just told God that I'm always willing to help, but considering the fact that I can't even get everyone dressed in the morning, get food on the table every evening, or realize what time it is to get everyone in bed at night, I really wasn't in a very good position to take on more responsibility. I mean, before putting me in that position he really ought to think of my family's needs first. After having that little prayer in my heart, I felt pretty peaceful. He knew. I figured I could end up being a Primary song leader or something like that to help the kids, and certainly there were other people who could handle the head honcho positions much better.

So, about a week and a half later, I'm finishing my "ogre lady" thing, and I get snagged by the Bishop. He wants to have a little talk with me. And he just starts chatting and asking my opinion about the Relief Society, and I'm thinking how novel to ask the sister's opinions. I thought, next he'll move on to the Primary, as he was acting like he just wanted some feedback. I figured if I was lame enough in my responses, he'd also eliminate me as a candidate for either President. Then instead of moving on to the Primary, reader's digest version, he asks me to be the Relief Society president. I totally did NOT expect this. Not even after my husband warned me. Not even after the bishop approached me, not even after he started talking about the Relief Society. I know, I'm dense. It just seemed impossible. I think I'm pretty sure I laughed at him. I remember telling him some good reasons why that was a bad idea. Then he told me some irritating reasons why it was a good idea. Then I'm not sure if I was abducted by aliens or what because I have amnesia, but suddenly I realized we were just sitting there and I don't know if he'd been saying anything or not, and I'm pretty sure I wasn't, so after playing dumb and acting like I wasn't sure if I understood the question, we got my husband in on the conversation and then the Bishop left it entirely up to my free agency and gave me time to talk it over with my husband and pray before deciding. How annoying. I bet bishops secretly love turning your life upside down like that and watching all the crazy reactions people have. Honestly, I thought the bishop had his wires crossed. I kept asking him if he wasn't confused about what position I was supposed to have, but he kept being sure he meant what he said. So, after much confusion and bewilderment, my husband and God have talked me into saying yes. The only thing I am sure of is that the reasons why I was chosen are compelling and if I don't share the gifts God gave me, it's doubtful I'm going to get His help in the areas I'm lacking in either. Apparently, all the things I'm going to mess up don't even matter, it just matters that I'm going to do the main thing I was chosen to do the best I can. It has something to do with this post (the last few paragraphs only), plus some professional skills I've developed such as neutrality and objectivity and being oh so sure I'm not the judge. How on earth someone who can't make it through her laundry is going to add these responsibilities to the list is something I totally don't get. I know I can't let my family take second place no matter what happens. But Isaiah55:8-9 came to my mind:

8 ¶ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Or in other words, He sees it differently. I think I need to subtract from my agenda instead of adding to it, but He thinks something like this is going to teach me how to do my life better, or something... Excuse me if I still kind of suspect chaos will happen first. I just know myself.

I'm just taking that big leap of faith because that's the thought that I kept getting- To take a leap of faith. I need to take a big leap of faith. Sure hope there's a net under there!........
And a massage therapist. My neck is killing me. I've only been serving in this position for less than 24 hours and the circus has already begun.

Another Tip

2009-09-02T20:53:00.003-06:00

If you use a retracting hanger like you see down a ways in the post below, do not keep piling up the clothes on it until you just can't fit anymore and then let it sit there for a week or so. Bad things may happen....

Organizing Baby Steps

2009-08-25T21:28:00.015-06:00

This is an idea I got of the Neat show. You hang magnetic organizers to metal sheets and put your office supplies in them. This would not have worked well if I'd done it sooner because my boys would have destroyed it. As it is, there are a few items that tend to disappear and cause problems but it's manageable. They've only scratched up one of my little containers so far. It's a lot easier to find these supplies than before and they aren't cluttering up my dresser.

I added these hanging files next to them. Too bad I haven't learned to use them right yet!Then next handy dandy thing I did was this. I always have a big ironing pile where things are only getting more and more wrinkly by the minute. I wished I had some kind of little hanging rod on the wall by my ironing board so I googled different descriptions and someone had invented it. Thank you, whoever you are! This is on solutions.com and it is a retractable hanging rod. I have one next to my ironing board and one next to my dryer. I'm still not the best at keeping hangers by the laundry one, but this system helps a lot more than nothing. Now my clothes don't get half as wrinkled and they look nicer hanging there too. Someday I may actually get everything ironed and be able to fold it into the wall for a day!Now here are some ugly before and after pictures of my office from 3 different angles. Please don't judge me!

Now here it is today.
It may be ugly and scratched, but it's a floor!The cabinets are all nice and organized on the inside too! The bad news is the before and after pictures of my family room. Before:After:sigh!

The First Day of School

2009-08-21T19:07:00.004-06:00

Papi (to Thing 1): Hey, how was your first day of school?
Thing 1 (while running off to play): Why don't you just guess!?

I guess it was good. Everyone seems really happy with their teachers and classes.
The first day when I woke up Carino, he shot out of bed and raced up the stairs like a bullet. By the time I plodded up there, he was already dressed. Just a wee bit excited, I'd say. Too bad he won't do that all year. He already started acting more normal this morning.

Sorry to take so long to update, but I've been trying to get my pictures to work on my computer and they don't want to. Also, I have two refugee dogs in my backyard, and obviously all the back to school stuff has been going on and I've been babysitting kids, working, and trying to get my boy Gigio ready for a scout review or some such thing. I'm also attacking the mess bit by too little bit and trying to help a few people work their way through a few ugly situations. In other words, life is crazy. Stay tuned. More to come someday.

Brother By Heart

2009-08-11T00:10:00.008-06:00

I was 22, and I was a missionary in La Serena, Chile. Christmas was fast approaching when I suddenly got transferred. I was replacing someone who had to leave early. As I got settled into the new area, with a new companion, we went to meet with the ward mission leader in the area. He was young, hadn't been home from his own mission for too long. I'm usually pretty easygoing. People don't usually bug me, but by the time we left this guy, I was annoyed. His dad was in Oregon, and he was going to be leaving in a number of months to join him. He wanted to know everything about the United States. I wanted to know everything about our ward. We were NOT on the same page. Every time we ran into Marco, I would cringe. He was always full of questions, "Hermana, do you eat a lot of hamburgers in the US Like how many times a week?" I tried so hard not to let my eyes roll too much. Then there came the day that we had some baptisms lined up. Awesome miraculous people. All we needed was for Marco to fill the font and set up all the seating. And be there. Early. I told him several times as he laid into his ongoing interrogations on how do you say this in English and how do you do that in America, that he needed to fill the font several hours ahead of time. It fills slowly. We go about an hour before the baptisms and what do we find? An empty font and the seating facing backwards. I was unhappy to put it mildly. You do not want to get me angry. Angry little people are scary. There were a few girls from the ward with us, and afterward, they told their mom, "It was like that part in the Bible where Jesus throws the money changers out of the temple. Chairs were flying! " It's true, I turned on the font full blast, and started chucking chairs to the corner, then set them all up as fast as possible. Then when all is ready, hours later than scheduled, Marco comes sauntering in like all is fine...
So a month later when I was getting ready to go home, and he kept asking me for my photo, I kept telling him-NO! He couldn't understand why. He begged, cajoled, and pleaded, but I did not budge. Because I was young and I still had a lot to learn about forgiving. I left without giving him anything.

Fast forward about a year. I'm home, studying at BYU. Whenever I was late getting up on Sunday, I'd hop on over to the Spanish ward that met later than my own. One day I walk in and who is there? You guessed it. My favorite Chilean. At the time, I thought, "Of all the people I'd like to see again, and who do I see?..." He's thrilled to see me, so I chat with him for a while after church. That night I go to the good old ward family prayers they have on campus, and who is there? Marco again. Turns out we're in the same student ward. Hooray. My lucky day. I try to be polite, but I don't do a very good job. One thing I could say about him even then, whatever he was into, he was very enthusiastic. He was always happy, smiling. Clueless that he drove me nuts. Because he was pretty self absorbed, and thought he was pretty cool. At that age, if a person thought too highly of themselves, I usually thought it was my personal responsibility to bring them down a peg. So, I would get in a few digs whenever I could to try to produce some humility. Then I studiously avoided him.

That is until a few weeks later, when who should show up at my door? Marco. He was in the throes of homesickness and no one cared about him here, and it was so hard, and how was he ever going to stand staying here, and... you get it. His facade was gone. His optimism had melted. He was crushed. He was desperate. And I was the only person in all of Provo, Utah that knew him. And I have a soft spot for lost little puppies. And it was refreshing to see him so humble. So, I got some eats going and we talked and I tried to encourage him. He left feeling happier. And that was the beginning of a change of heart. After that, he stopped by all the time, and we'd talk and laugh and eat and I'd poke fun at him, and he'd poke fun at me, and I would bluntly tell him what I thought about anything he said and did. He'd ask me for advice. He was such a nut!

His big goal in life was to get married. Oh, how he wanted to find a wife. A perfect wife. Some gorgeous tall svelt blond blue eyed model of a woman with multiple talents who is sweet and patient and spiritual. (I would have to ask him to excuse me while I got a drink to get rid of the after taste of that vomit in my mouth.) He had all these crazy ways of trying to get cute girls' attention, like he would walk by them and casually drop a pencil in hopes of her picking it up and giving it to him. Or, once he decided to join the ROTC, because certainly he would stand out in a uniform and that perfect girl would notice him. I told him the commitment involved in the ROTC might just be too high a price to pay for that possibility. So, he tried another tactic. He wore a big chunky sweater with a bright pattern every day. Everywhere. We were taking a Poly Sci class together at the time that was huge, in a big auditorium, and every freaking day he would wander around before and after class trying to get noticed. I told him he would get noticed, alright. Girls were going to wonder how bad he smelled after living in that sweater month after month. He saw my point. The sweater became history, thank goodness!

Marco was a very talented musician and one thing he did real well was play the bongos so he decided to position the bongos in his window where they would be seen and hope some future wife would ask him about them in the parking lot as she walked by... It's pretty sad how desperate he was, isn't it?

As it turns out, a guy noticed those bongos and invited him to try out for a performance group on campus. He came to me for advice. It took me a long time to talk him into it. It would be a great experience with chances to travel, perform and get some assistance with school as well. No brainer, right? But, gee it's a big commitment. However, it just might happen that he would make some really great friends through this and who knows? Even meet some girls? And not even have to drop pencils to have an excuse to talk to them? He joined. Whew! It was great. When he got back from tour, he came right over and told me all about it. He had a great time. He set me up with some guys from the group and we'd go out dancing. We did a lot of off the wall things too. He got me to help him make a video of his experience on campus. I remember filming everywhere imaginable and doing lots of nutty things. Once, I don't remember what we were doing but we found ourselves going past our turn on University Parkway at about 2 a.m. The street was empty, so he just backed up half a block and turned while I told him he was a maniac.

One summer he decided to take a job on a fishing boat in Alaska. I don't remember if that was the time that he left me his car, or if it was when he went on tour, but he actually was reckless enough to lend me his car for a month or something like that. It survived me! He survived the fishing boat, too!

One time I'm sure he didn't leave the car was when he went home for Christmas. He was hoping to bring his sister back to visit for about 2 weeks afterward. He needed a place for her to stay. So I asked our landlord if we could have her stay with us, and if she'd need to pay some kind of rent and all. She said it was fine. Then, after New Years, who should show up at our doorstep on a Sunday night at about 11 p.m.? Marco. He didn't convince his sister to come, but when he got to his apartment, he found his stuff outside. He had been evicted. Great. My roommates and I discussed what to do. I thought of calling my parents who lived out in Orem, but it was pretty late by then. In the end I thought it would be the best thing to put him up there, but one of my other roommates said it was pretty late, I mean, at this point it was only about 7 hours till morning. Why not just let him stay with us? It is against BYU housing policy, but since none of the four roommates had a thing for Marco nor he for us, what was the big deal? We discussed this, with many an interruption until it was about 2 a.m. and then there really wasn't anything else to do about it. So, we stayed up almost all night goofing off, talking and eating, etc. Then our landlord saw Marco asleep on our floor in the morning and she was furious! She was the sweetest old lady, but sparks were flying from her eyes as she said, "So here's your GIRL friend from your mission, eh?" I felt awful. So did my roommate, who interceded on my behalf. I finally got forgiven, but from then on, she had her eye on me....

Over the time we were in school together, Marco and I both dated different people, and then when we broke up, we'd have a wallow session or in Marco's case, several wallow sessions to get over it. Once I was dating a jerk, because I guess everybody has to try that at least once, and Marco was jealous. One night he even suggested that he thought we should marry each other. I told him no, because as soon as I broke up with this guy, he would go right back to taking me for granted and forget he was interested in me. He looked really hurt. Plus, I added, he really did need a tall model type, not half pint me, and while he was a fine person and a close friend, who was going to make a wonderful husband to someone, I was pretty sure if I was ever married to him, he was going to annoy the heck out of me. After a while, he realized that I was right. Probably because I'm not a tall blond Swede. But, the amazing thing about Marco was that even though he could be so shallow at times, when you got to know him, he was a downright charming human being. He was very intelligent and you could talk about any subject on earth with him. He had many talents and was always trying new things. He had a great sense of humor and this huge little boy vulnerability. He was always asking questions and sucking in the world like a sponge with his insatiable curiosity. He had so many ideas of things he wanted to do, places to go and see, and goals he wanted to reach, he didn't know where to start. Underneath it all, he was pretty deep and spiritual, amazingly. Plus, he was just fun. Most of my memories of Marco involve smiles and laughter. A lot of that laughter, I must admit, was at his expense, but even so... The thing is, even though I started out sort of begrudgingly trying to help him out, he ended up making a time in my life that was full of a lot of emotional upheaval so much more bearable than it would have been.

During this time, I spent a summer in Montreal and then a Christmas vacation there as well. I came home engaged. I called Marco. I was pretty excited to tell him my news. He didn't jump for joy. I told him his time would come too. Once you find someone, you have faith everyone else will too. You also realize there is nothing you can do to find that someone sooner or later, they just show up when they're supposed to. He was sure I was now going to wipe him off my slate of friends. So, we got together and I started to talk with him about it all and tell him about my fiance. I had been calling my fiance by his name, not Papi, but since we call him Papi here, we'll stick with that pseudonym, and not his real name. Suddenly the light switched on!" Oh!" He said, "Papito! I know who he is!" He just didn't recognize his grown up name. I'd been telling Marco all along that they knew each other and I wasn't going to stop being his friend now, like he feared. After that, he was pretty excited about the whole thing. Papi and Marco had known each other for years. They used to have Family Nights together when they were taking the lessons from the missionaries. They had gone through the youth programs at church together. So, he danced at our wedding. And, not too long after he found the gorgeous, sweet, wonderful wife he was looking for. He was so happy. He was his ever exuberant self about it, totally excited and absorbed in his new found love. I don't remember the details, but there was some problem with getting their rings done in time for the wedding and he came to us for some help. Papi had somehow collected a number of rings from some thing or another, so he lent him some, but they were not really that great, if you ask me. His fiancee thought the same, only more so, and he came back with his tail between his legs, disgraced to return the rings. Somehow it all worked out and their wedding was beautiful. We finally had Marco safely married off.

Eventually Marco graduated and they spent some of the following years in Utah and others in Oregon. I had started working for an over the phone interpretation company and I got him to apply too. He worked for them for several years. Sometimes we would lose track of each other but sooner or later, we'd get a call from Marco, or an e-mail. Once we met up at a Chilean party shortly after he'd moved to Salt Lake. Then as life usually does, it got too busy and we lost track of each other. One day about 4 months ago, I opened my e-mails and there was a Facebook friend request from Marco. I rolled my eyes, there he is again! I can't get rid of him...But this time I smiled when I said it, and I added him. He was so proud of his little family. He now has a boy and two girls. They were in Oregon and had lots of great pictures of family vacations, and fishing and Marco was still his same old effervescant self. I don't spend a lot of time on Facebook at all I must admit, so other than look through the pictures and drop a line, I didn't start any big conversations.

Then a few weeks ago, a got a call from Papi. Marco had been in a terrible accident and died on the scene. His side of the car was hit by a speeding car that lost control on a curve. He was taking his son to the movies. I've seen the pictures and his car was overturned, the front end completely obliterated. His son survived with minor injuries, but they were trapped in the vehicle till rescue workers could get them out. I still can't get the horror of that experience that poor boy went through out of my mind. I still don't know what I can do to help his wife, children, sisters and mom who are left behind. What can you do except pray for them? Or hug your own kids and hope they'll never have to go through something like that? Or if they do, that they will feel the comforting arms of our Creator to help them through?

One thing I do know. I'm glad Marco came to me that day so many years ago and begged for my friendship, and so very glad I was smart enough to give it. He taught me that there is so much more than what we see on the surface in other people- enough that it's worth giving people second chances, and the benefit of the doubt or permission to just be imperfect. Because there's so much joy in getting to know the good parts of people too. To me, even though he's all but twice as tall as me, and a few years older, Marco will always in my mind, be my little brother. Someday, when I get to the other side, if there's the equivalent of Facebook, I'll send him a friend request and he'll say, "Not you again!" Till then, I'll just remember the smiles, the laughter, and the good times.

It All Started With Exercising...

2009-08-03T22:39:00.006-06:00

Or we could call this long post Self Awareness 101. (only took me 45 years to get it.)

On January 1, I started exercising for my health and to get an insurance discount. Because I'm stubborn and nobody tells me I can't do something. So I started following along on some exercise shows on Fit TV, and that lead to watching a show that came on after it called Neat. Premise- a professional organizer goes to people's houses and straightens out their messes. She tailored some of the organizing techniques to their personalities and it got me to thinking that maybe there was a way for even me to get organized. I also realized that I put off doing so many things and miss out on so much better quality time with my family because of my disorganization. I started to realize how much it is holding me back and adding stress on top of it all. So, I decided that if I'm ever going to not waste my life away, I'm going to have to establish more order in it. I did one thing from the show that was so cool. If only I could post a picture, I would show you. But I can't so I will just leave that for another post someday when the planets align to allow me to upload photos again.

Anyhow, my first baby step got all the supplies everyone uses upstairs out of my armoire. Then I learned that a room can't have too many functions. It just turns out that this gave me a whole new understanding. The big problem with my office is it has the function of personal office, overflowing food storage and freezer holder, sewing, art and craft supplies of all kinds storage, keeper of book shelves full of books and all the photographs and memories that haven't been turned into scrapbooks storage, as well as the dumping ground for everything that has no home or needs to be hidden, like sharp objects and gifts. So, what I needed to do was move some (most) of those functions to somewhere else! I decided to set up a craft and sewing area at one end of my family room. And opposite that, add some food storage. This revelation came just in time because I'm afraid to say that this is what my office was looking like. A picture would do what a thousand words can't but every surface was piled up high, the floor was completely covered with boxes and things that got dragged in there by my daughter one day to make room for a party, and things were falling out of the open overhead cupboards. Usually my room is bad but not as bad as those clean sweep show before shots. This was worse, way worse.

So I hauled everything out in the open to the family room, and then went through all the actual cupboards and stuff, chucking things and organizing my office. I thought it looked so cool, till a week later I went to show it to a friend and realized it is not that awesome looking if you hadn't seen the before picture. Now it's already getting messy, and the family room is overridden with things that need to be separated into keep, give away and throw away piles and then the keepers need a new home. I separated things into categories and there it has all sat for 3 months now. Just can't get back to it. In about 2 weeks the kids will be back in school and I won't have any time at all to work on it. Because then we start the get everyone up, ready, and off to school thing followed by work, appointments and phone calls, followed by kid pick-ups, then getting them changed, snacked and de-stressed and on to their homework and chores, then dinner then get ready for bed routines and on top of all that, even when I have time, I can't figure out how to embrace it. Because of the next part of this story, which is...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, as I was beginning my baby steps, I happened to go to the kid's doctor who happened to ask if I was aware of CHADD, which is an ADD support organization. Yes, I am. But when I first looked it up, there was just a puny website. That was in the infancy of the net, and considering how much info I got off the new facial deformity sites, a little idea hatched in my mind called re-check-it-out. It's huge, and I signed up, and I chatted: did anyone know of a good source of help for organizing a home full of ADDers? I was suggested Organizing From the Inside Out. Good book. I also checked on my local chapter. I wrote down the next meeting. Or two. The second one coincided with 2 other commitments, but when they fell through, I decided to go check it out. I was really late, but guess what? They had invited a PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZER to teach us how to organize our lives. Is that serendipity or what? She gave us a handout with some reference materials. One book was called ADD Friendly Ways to Organize Your Life. Awesome read, plus, I was right! Dressers DO NOT WORK if you have ADD. I suspected this. We need shelves (sturdy, unbreakable, bolted to the wall so they won't fall over kind, with rounded edges so we won't need stitches after we fly into them.) Then we need to have transparent tubs to put our things in. And since we don't have anyone under 5, we don't need to lock that all behind closed doors, either! And probably no one will pee in those tubs at this point, but that is a post for another day. Now to digress a little, with a reason.

Often I have had doubts about the whole ADD diagnosis, because really, for my kids the sensory issues, the anxiety, the depression, the ODD, have sort of made the other ADD issues seem like side issues. Science has now caught up with my kids and they realize there are all these related issues now. No one talked about that before and I could write a whole post on this issue...but that's a subject for another day too.

The point is, I was about to have one of those moments where all the little tumblers fall into place. As we finished up with the CHADD meeting, someone was mentioning a watch they saw in the latest issue of Attention! Magazine. It has like 40 alarms and messages you can add and stuff to keep you on track. Someone asked, "Is it submersible?" And that's when I knew I was in the right place. These were my kind of people. They got what was going on at my house. I was home. Of course, they need help getting their meetings more organized and getting the word out. It's sort of like the procrastinators club, where meetings keep getting postponed. Everyone needs someone else to organize the dang thing, but who can do it when living with all the distractibility, impulsivity, hyperactivity, etc. that goes on in your life if you belong to this group? Not me, not yet anyways.

So, anyhow, I got home from that meeting, hunted down the book I just mentioned and read it, plus another one called Driven from Distraction that was on the list. It's all about ADD and how to handle it. It talks a lot about what it's like to be an adult with ADD. I started hearing "Killing Me Softly With His Song" in the back of my mind while I read this book. It sounded uncomfortably familiar. Sort of like someone's life I know all too well. When My oldest was diagnosed, I got an explanation about how they diagnose you as having a certain number of symptoms from a list of symptoms to a degree that goes beyond what is normal for the person's age, and starts before age 7 and lasts longer than a year and shows up in at least two areas of their life. Well, I wasn't born yesterday, I knew I was distractible enough, but the whole X number of symptoms by x age to x degree blah blah blah, I just didn't think I fit it. Well, since then there have been sub sets of types of ADD that have been defined and much more is understood about how differently it is manifest in females, and when you get done with those explanations, I don't have a lot of room to hide. I still thought I wasn't as bad as all that, till I started noticing that half those things I thought I didn't do when I was reading this book, I was in reality doing. Slowly I realized that not only was I a type add personality, the biggest struggles and stresses of my life are due to ADD symptoms, and even if I eliminate the ones inflicted on me by my kids, which obviously would ameliorate the symptoms, I'm still facing the same issues with myself. I've always thought my symptoms weren't as bad as a lot of people who have ADD, but I also realized that I have built in a lot of crutches to help me overcome the tendencies that would make me as out of control as others I see. At some point, if you are holding too many balls for too long, the crutches fall out from under your armpits and all the balls start dropping. That is one of the reasons why even though I have spent most of this whole calendar year trying to improve things, I'm getting worse instead of better. I just couldn't keep it all together anymore. Ironically, I think exercising was the thing that put me over the edge and threw my minimal organization of my life in the disposal. SO, lucky for me I have some great reference material to help me learn to simplify my life. Except as much as I want to change all by myself, it isn't working yet. I keep forgetting what I'm supposed to do and when to do it, and I have no real concept of time to begin with. I finally realized I need help. Which is real hard for me to accept. I'm terrible at asking for help.

That's when I connected some other dots. Many years ago, I was dealing with some issues my oldest was having, and I learned in the process that with this kind of child, they need an over abundance of consistency in your dealings with them to help them get themselves together and learn to do what they need to do. Simple things like homework, for example. At the time, this seemed ironic. Seeing as how I'm not consistent. Except that I'm consistently inconsistent. That's what I'm most consistent at. Get it? So, I whined at God: "Why would you give a child that needed consistency to someone like me?" And I swear, I got an immediate answer. It was a thought, without words, but basically, it was "Exactly! How do you?" and the other part of what it meant was basically- If I give my kid a kid like herself, she'll have to learn to be consistent in order to get her child to be consistent. This hopefully will trick me into being consistent, seeing as how I wasn't going to have any reason to work on it otherwise. Am I explaining myself? Who am I kidding? Unless you're my mom or have NOTHING to do, you probably dropped off to sleep a long time ago. Anyhow, for my posterity, at the time this happened, I thought that this was it. I had to learn to be consistent. For the love of Enigma, I had to do it. I was determined. Except I kept forgetting and getting sidetracked. I kept trying to love more so I would stop letting things distract me. For years I have carried around the guilt that I had not learned to love my child enough to be as consistent with her as I need to be, or the rest of my family for that matter. Granted, for the best of people, when you are inundated with 5 crazy kids and an overworked spouse, this is going to be tricky. That was my excuse, but you know what? That spouse has told me a million times that ever since he knew me, I've been like this. Ever since he's known me he has usually silently accepted my not following through on things he wanted or needed me to do. Things I always wished I could do for him. I wanted to be a more attentive and doting wife, but obviously, I hadn't developed enough love in my heart to focus on him and do those things for him more consistently, either. Until it finally dawned on me. After carrying around this guilt for about 10 years now, I realize it has nothing to do with how much I love or don't love my family. It has to do with the fact that my brain needs help in order to be more consistent. So, it only took me a decade to figure out what I was supposed to do with that newsflash from God. Maybe he tried to elaborate, but I was already distracted thinking about how my love was going to give me the will power to become consistent. He is super patient. Even more patient than Papi. Definitely more patient than my kids. Or me. SO, now I'm trying to help my brain so my motivation can be more successful at things like making sure Enigma did the dishes before she went out with her friends. I'm finding my search for solutions less than successful, so far but encouraging. Baby steps. I need to find just the right mix of things. It is giving me whole new insights into my children's minds so it's not a total wash-up. I'll keep working on it because I do want to be consistent- because I do love my family. That's why I won't give up. That's why I'm remembering to work on consistency more often. It's the most frustrating job in the world. It's also why I need to stop and go read a bedtime story to someone. Good night.

Ogre Days

2009-07-26T22:37:00.007-06:00

Just a quickie. Yesterday I was at a baptism and afterward one of the girls there was telling her mom that I am her Achievement Days leader. Except this was in Spanish, so it's called "Dias de logros". However she pronounced it Dia del Ogro. Made me smile. "Dia del ogro" literally translates day of the ogre. That could get those rumors about Mormons having horns started again, eh? If you're not Mormon, you might want to look up Achievement Days in all caps in my handy dandy Big Fat Mormon Terminology Guide there on the sidebar. While you're at it look up Ward Clerks and Relief Society and Primary in all caps also so you don't have to go back in a week or so and look those up too. That's when the next joke should be over and I can talk about it.

Abscence of Sibling Rivalry

2009-07-17T15:45:00.006-06:00

For some strange reason, I found myself reading the book Siblings Without Rivalry recently. No one who knows Gigio and Carino could fathom their mom doing that, right? It did point out some great things for parents to do. At the same time, I found myself intrigued with some of the things that went on in the narrative. The book was presented as an account of a therapist going through a several week workshop with a group of parents. The people in the group were asked about their childhood experiences with siblings and it was amazing how these people who couldn't understand their chidren's conflicts were suddenly telling stories of their own sibling issues, emotions still raw. This was a point of reference for them to see their children's point of view.
I really gave pause to think at this, because I can't think of any similar experience of mine. I think if I combined all the sibling issues I saw in my home with 7 other siblings and myself, It wouldn't add up to a sum total of the last 10 years between just two of my children. I honestly cannot remember anything about my relationship with any of my siblings that still hurts or upsets me now or negatively affects my relationship with them. I don't remember having great horrible clashes with them either. I'm sure my reactions to them seemed over the top, but it blew over in my mind fast. Maybe, on the other hand, all my siblings resent me ;). I brought it up with the in town sibs last time I saw them. They laughed, but didn't admit to resenting me at least. :) I think some out of stater's ears were burning, but other than bringing up what their attitudes at the time were towards one another as kids, no one expressed any bad feelings in the present towards the others. My perception was that possibly the worst combinations weren't present, so I don't know how those sibs feel about each other, past and present. In any case, I never felt real deep hurt over anything. For the most part we just seemed to live and let live, and not take things too personally. I think my parents were exceptional at appreciating us each exactly as we are and having faith in what we could become. Once in a child development class in college, the prof walked in and asked us if our parents had a favorite child. About half raised their hands. Then he asked how many had parents that didn't have favorites. Most of the rest raised their hand, me included. Then he told my group that we were the favorites. But, as I asked my siblings, they agreed there weren't favorites. When I look at extended family relationships, my grandparents with their children and grandchildren, I see the same thing. I remember my aunt telling me once that there were a handful of us nieces and nephews that she could relate to more, because we were more like her, but that she didn't love the others any less. It would be boring if we were all like her and she just loved who each of us was just as much as the next one. While I do think there are those in my family that have had a harder time with these issues, maybe some are resolved, others not, overall, that was the type of attitude that went down. On my part, I'm sure I'm not the child my mom understands and relates to. Often, her chagrin and amazement was apparent throughout my years in her care. Once as an adult she mentioned to me that I was the one she worried the most about being sure of her love because of that. I know that even though I'm very different, she does love me very much and really appreciates me for who I am. It doesn't matter how much more she relates to my other siblings, I know she love me just as much. Or maybe, put another way, she loves me enough. As for my siblings, I feel like the odd person. I'm just really different from them. But I don't feel left out. I feel totally comfortable being with them, and the vibes I get in return are the same.
I'm realizing that maybe my family is amazing or a bit unusual to be this way. How much? You tell me. What were your experiences with your sibs? Do you feel you carry any scars or lasting damage to your relationship? Out of town sibs of mine, voice your opinion on the subject. Please?
Another interesting side note about adult siblings in the book I read was that these people taking the workshop started to see how their childhood might have been as equally hard on their siblings, so they talked to them and aired out their old issues and many became closer friends because of it, or let go of negative self esteem issues because of their new awareness.
If we look at siblings and their rivalry and expand it to the world and nations, we can see parallels there too. It would be so nice if we could solve some of these issues and get along better. Don'cha think?
Bottom line, I'm really glad I got the family that I did. I love you guys!
I'll let you know how it goes with the Thornies, as my kids have been known to call themselves.

P.S. I wrote about the sibling rivalry of conservationists and conservatives over at my think tank. Tell me what you think should be done with those two. And do you think Americans suffer from affluenza? Read the previous post and give me your thoughts on that subject too. Because I like musing about these things with other people, and if you muse along with me I won't end up having sibling issues or feelings of rejection either.

That Dumb Salty Lake

2009-07-12T01:05:00.003-06:00

Almost 2 weeks ago I took 6 boys to the Great Salt Lake. Why? I'm not too bright. Plus, we had this great idea to do our science fair projects over the summer and Carino was doing his on mass and we thought floating in the Great Salt Lake was more dramatic than an egg floating in salty water. We needed to go to Salt Lake City anyways to hand deliver the 5000 dollar sound processor/hearing device called the BAHA that Carino already managed to destroy. We can repair or replace once every 2 years. What are the odds we will last another 18 months without incident?
So after stopping by the audiologist's place, we went to Antelope Island. The boys started running down the hill to the beach with half our bags while I helped Thing 1 get his shoes on. Then I realized my swimsuit was in one of those bags so we had to run and catch up with them, then I had to go back up the hill to the bathrooms to change. I told the boys to all wait on the shore. I hurried because what are the odds? At least it's hard to drown in a lake you float in. Little boys don't think when bigger boys tell them to stick their head in. By the time I caught up to them, one was spitting and his head was full of salt. Good thing I brought a lot of juice with me. So the lake is about 12-14% salt. You can sit down and float in it. You know that saying about pouring salt in a wound? Everyone learned what that was about. However, the salt water does help heal wounds, even if it doesn't feel too great at first. The boys had fun skipping rocks and catching brine shrimp. The water is only populated by them and then there are brine flies that hang out with them, and of course seagulls and other such birds that love to dine on those first two species. Antelope Island ironically no longer has antelope really but it has a herd of bison instead. We didn't go see them because we didn't have time. We saw plenty of seagull up close and personal. The boys shared grapes and chocolate chip cookies with them, and they were all over it after living off flies and brine shrimp. Even though the Things settled down and had fun, they still keep chewing me out periodically that I took them to that dumb salty lake that they didn't like because it is too salty and it hurts your eyes and cuts and tastes bad, etc.

The boys were so well behaved. Really! This is just a little game with a rock...I love this picture of Thing 1, such a typical expression... As you can see, he did have fun. So did Thing 2. This little friend is not phased by the salt. He kept trying to swim underwater, but the water would just push him back up. See all the crusty stuff on his face?

See the bubble between my toes? They form in this water a lot. See how the water blends with the sky? When there are boats out there, they sometimes look like they are floating in the sky. Pretty! Great scenery, eh? There is NO shade on this beach. The hike up and down hill from the bathrooms is very sandy with flat sharp rocks. I don't recommend sandals. Especially not stretchy elastic topped ones. I do recommend taking lots of water and sun block and something for shade. What an amazing lake. Even if you can't really swim in it. When you get out, you have to go shower off all the salt on your body. I would go again, but I don't think the things will want to join me.

Neurological Condition

2009-06-30T13:43:00.004-06:00

Every day I find myself saying something to the kids and somehow, I just don't say what I mean to. I'm not sure what disorder we can attribute this to, but I need treatment fast.

For example, every single night of my life, I think I say to my kids, "It's time to get ready for bed. Go brush your teeth, take a shower and get to bed." That's what I think and that's what I'd swear comes out of my mouth. But, no. Apparently that is not what I say, not even when I repeat myself because the minute they tune into my message, they run off to the kitchen and start foraging for food. The only conclusion I can draw from this is that I must really be saying, "Go eat."

The same thing happens when I tell them to do their chores. I think I say "Get to work," instead, I appear to be saying, "Go have a snack," because off they go to build sandwiches. Do your homework? No, I'm still asking them to eat more. Get ready for church, school, the dentist, a party, the store, you name it? No matter where I send them, it somehow comes out "Go to the fridge, leave the freezer and fridge doors wide open while trying to decide whether or not to consume every single item inside."

Please, help me someone, before my spoken vocabulary is reduced to one single imperative word- "Eat!" (And the sad part? When I mean to say eat? They don't obey.)

Some Random Madness

2009-06-26T19:48:00.007-06:00

Maybe I should ask the blogosphere to pray for us every week- Sunday went way better than usual.
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Enigma is in mourning over Michael Jackson's passing. She had a huge crush on him when she was like 3 years old. I mean like she totally adored him. I miss the little boy Michael. His life was so sad to me, just so sad. Did you see Lisa Marie's post? I love his music. It's in the air. He fixed my birthday present for Enigma. She got online and found a 5 cd compilation of his best hits for $37 just hours after we heard the news, and begged me for it for her birthday. I told her to go ahead and order it right away because the price was going up for sure. She did and I didn't even have to think or shop or give her time to think of more expensive things she wanted or anything, all done! She checked today and the price did go up to 50 something already. So, I owe him. He sort of took the thunder out of Farrah's passing didn't he? And did you even notice Ed Mc Mahon died? I'm starting to feel a little bit old what with all these people dying and my kids had no idea who they were. And wasn't it just within the last week that John and Kate announced their separation and the governor of SC announced he had an affair? What a bizarro week. Sort of makes all the Americans forget about those poor Iranians. They really should have been the top story. I wish them luck.
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It's been a quiet summer- only 2 trips to the ER so far! Carino twisted his leg and it was looking like a bad injury. By the time we finished waiting to be seen, he practically leaped into the exam room. No bad injury there! The second was a dislocated finger. Gigio being the injured party. Don't put your other hand under your baseball glove...
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Quotable quotes:
"Did you know that dust mites eat your skin? Yes, and they will get in your bed and things to eat it. And did you also know that they eat dust bunnies? THEY DO!" -The THINGS

"Whenever my hair gets messed up, I just consider it a new hairdo"-Gigio

Thing 1, lying next to mom, looking up her nose at the hairs in there says, "If a spider looked up there, he'd think it was a web!"

During a hailstorm, the Things chant, "It's raining ice cubes!"

Thing 1, looking at a picture of a T Rex with bared teeth, "That's why God made him un-stinked!" I'm a little slow, "The TRex didn't stink? How do you know this?" "No, He made him un-stinked so he wouldn't eat people!" (Oh! That would be extinct. Gotcha!)

We are discussing why we go to a Spanish congregation at church now. I tell the boys I can give them 5 good reasons just off the top of my head.

1- You need to communicate better with your papi.
2-You need to understand your heritage better.
3- If you ever need to learn another language, it will help you learn easier.
4- When you go to look for jobs, if you are as good as the other people applying, but you know Spanish and they don't, YOU will get the job.
5-You can talk to way more people if you know Spanish too.
there, that's 5 reasons without even having to think about it- I commented.
But Gigio without missing a beat said,
"Name 5 more things!" Some people are never satisfied.
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Papi got a promotion. Now he's in a better position, in the same area where he moved to when he went to the day job. He will have more free time in the summers and more overtime in the school year. I do manage to cook for him 4 nights out of 7 usually, but it's often late. Poor guy, my brain is too full of cotton and I've slipped into one of the worst time warps of my life, so I feel like all I do is waste time. I make up for it by making ice cream and beef jerky. He loves it, and just turns out his new boss loves it too, so now we are on his good side :).
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Papi finished the kitchen floor!!!! Yeeeeaaaahhh!!! Now we are dealing with paint decisions. He wanted peach. I did my best guess at shades of peach that would work in both the living room and kitchen. I even took pictures of the rooms to see the furniture with the wall being the samples. It just looks different in bigness surrounding you. We are not using these colors. Those two swatches of color are the same color. That is how your environment affects how you look, if you're a color, that is. We're trying a tanner shade of peach rather than a redder one. It's called honey bee. It's on 3/4 of the above wall here and the middle half of the one to it's side. It looks really weird right now. It looks brown next to the ice cream peach color. It looks light peach where its' not! I hope it gets done this summer!
Once the paint is done, Papi has to do runners around the bottom of the walls where they meet the floors. Then if he will magically redo the downstairs bathroom, and put in some new doors, I will have to release him from bondage. And start making better dinners. On time. It IS easier with a finished kitchen...
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Enigma is babysitting the boys and another 1 year old boy for her summer job. The new boy is cute. Too cute. Very distracting. I set up a new rule. Before you play the Wii, you have to practice the piano. Before you watch TV, you have to read or do math. Before you play on the computer, you have to use one of our educational CD Roms. You can't go over an hour on any one screen. If you don't follow the rules, I unplug things. It's going better than I thought it would-now that I also blocked Cartoon Network. It felt so good to do that, very liberating. Now the twins are always wanting to watch Phineas and Ferb on Disney. They could sort of be Phineas and Ferb. New nicknames. I don't know if I mentioned the other names, Bob and Marley. Enigma started calling them that after we saw the movie Marley and Me. Is it unusual for a dog to remind you of your own children?
Anyhow, we are also hoping to do our science fair projects over the summer so next school year will be more relaxing. If I could just remember to get a few items, we could get started. If I would just realize the library books are overdue and get them back, I might have money to pick up a few items.
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It has rained so much, we haven't gotten our pool up or our early summer planting done. The stuff I planted in spring is growing like never before however. It appears we are going back to the Utah spring all summer thing. There are new plants we haven't seen in years. I'd really like more sun, but so far, when the sun comes out, it's hazy. The other day I drove up Heber canyon to work. It was so green. There were like 10 shades of green everywhere. It was gorgeous. There were low lying clouds and mistiness but sun peeking through. There were wildflowers in 5 vibrant shades and the sky was reflecting off the clear creek waters. It was gorgeous. It reminded me of Chile in the spring. I kicked myself all the way there and back because I didn't bring a camera to get shots of it. Then when I got home, I remembered I had a new cell phone with me that came with our new family plan and it has a camera. sigh. Sometimes it's hard being me.
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Surprise: Thing 2 is turning into a sensitive child. He just might develop a conscience after all. He has started showing great empathy for people, real or on shows when something really sad happens. He cries in movies now, it's so cute! Of course, he cries when he remembers he no longer has Cartoon Network or Boomerang, too.
The next fun thing he did to surprise me has to do with our new rules. In order to go on the Bionicles site, he first has to do a music program called Music Ace. It gives you lessons and then you do exercises to see if you got it. They start out with a lot of pitch exercises. He was all over it, without any coaching from me. They play a pitch then play two other pitches on the staff and you have to pick out which one it matches. He barely let it play and he'd click on the right one immediately every time.
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Mental Health Update: I'm losing my mind. But you already knew that. It' s just more lost than before.
For some reason none of my kids are sleeping normally this summer. One always falls off the bed, another occasionally stays up all night and others woke up at 4:30 am and started their day cause they couldn't go back to sleep. Other times they would sleep all day if you let them. Of course my stellar sense of time has helped me do my part of getting them to bed on time. I just cant' stand waking them if I don't have to. Know that saying "let old sleeping dogs lie?" I believe it.
If that weren't enough, somebody is trying out symptoms of different mental illnesses just to see which one is funnest. So far we've dabbled with some symptoms from Bipolar Disorder, Paranoia, Conduct Disorder and Trichomania. Luckily, he seems to be settling in on the latter, he has taken up an obsession with plucking hairs- his leg hairs, Papi's facial hair when he's sleeping, etc. It's been going on for months and was so annoying till I realized I could train him to do all my tweezing for me, so when I go blind I won't end up with a chin like Shaggy on Scooby Doo. I'm happy to report that a sibling's kleptomania episodes have subsided and seem to be over. Knock on wood. They are currently working hard on their best case of sibling rivalry ever. So I"m doing a little investigating. I think I will post a little on that later, because I would like my very own siblings' feedback on the subject.
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Transformers: More than my eyes wanted to meet. We went to see this as soon as it came out- the whole family. I sat between the twins. I had the best seat. It was fun to watch it with them. They were both very enthusiastic and kept yelling out stuff and explaining things loudly. I'd have to remind them to lower their voices. We had to take 3 trips to the bathroom. I would like to edit the movie a bit myself, but it was fun.
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Oh, and I got my hair cut, it was way too long and stringy! Whew!

That's it for now I think.

Beautiful Day of Peace and Rest...

2009-06-13T16:56:00.007-06:00

Ha! It was our weekly shot at making it to our 9:00 Sacrament Meeting on time. This is where I rush around trying to get everyone into clean, pressed acceptable attire that matches, get their hair combed, shoes tied, mouths fed, pills taken, hearing aids on, plus get myself ready, while my husband misplaces his brain. He helps as much as he can, but he just doesn't get how to get a family ready for church, bless his heart. If I don't have everything all laid out and labeled for him, he's not much help with the kids. He doesn't understand that he needs to get out of bed the same time I do for this thing to work. He starts to help by 8:30, then by 8:40 he quits, gets ready in ten minutes and then tells us all we are making ourselves late for the next 5-25 minutes it takes us to get out the door. It doesn't matter if I start 2 1/2 hours or 1/2 hour before meeting time, the little elves will find a way to sabotage whatever time we have. Once we get there, at least one important item has gone missing, one person has messed up and had to change the clean clothes they just dirtied, at least someone has had a meltdown ( could be me), usually someone has gone missing in action, and someone is packing illegal stuff and has to be maneuvered one way or another into leaving it behind. Someone has to go to the bathroom again. Someone didn't eat yet. It is bedlam.

This Sunday was no exception, but Papi did his very best to be useful and herd us in early so we would be in our place before the meeting began. we hadn't even all gotten seated before one son jumped up like a shot and left the chapel. He left behind a big wet spot on the pew. His brother willingly confessed in the exiting boy's place that he had just popped a water balloon he covertly brought in his pocket. A WATER BALLOON! Sigh. I'm off to the mother's lounge to get some paper towel and try to dry up the spot. I try to convince Papi to go look for the MIA boy before the meeting starts, but he doesn't want to look till I finish going back and forth for paper towel. So glad we are on time...this is so relaxing. We are encouraged to be early so we can get in tune with the Spirit. I'm not so sure I'm getting in tune with the right one...

It's June, but another boy will not be coaxed out of the coat he has on over his head. Another is already picking at a sibling and we're place hopping to strategically locate people away from one another. Tip: If you have 5 children, this will be impossible. Someone will always be by someone else. Plus, wherever you put a child, they will want to be by the other parent, not the one they're sitting by, or if they don't get to be by a parent, that is just heresy. They will all start trying to climb on your lap to be "by" you. My advice to myself? If you get to do life over, try having only one child if you hope to get anything out of church.

Water balloon boy is back and I see that although he wet his pant leg, he still has breakfast smudges all over himself. Much shuffling occurs to get him in his spot; the spot covered with paper towel. The meeting has started and someone has begun giving the welcome and announcements. If I could just get the kids to settle down, maybe I could hear them. Now I have to get a kid off my lap to find the hymn book. He's back on in a flash and I am dodging his head to read the music. We're singing the old pioneer anthem, "Come, Come Ye Saints". I don't know how many of you mentally (or verbally) change the words to songs, but the magenta editing below shows what went on in my mind...

Come come ye Saints, no toil nor labor fear; (heck, no!)
But with joy wend your way. (I'll try)Though hard to you, this ~~journey~~ meeting may appear,
Grace shall be as your day. (I hope so)
'Tis better far for us to strive
Our useless cares from us to drive. (Just give up and let them run amok then?)
Do this and joy your hearts will swell-
All is well! All is well! (Ah, the original Mormon sugar coating...)
Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? (I can't imagine...)
'Tis not so; all is right. (Well, I don't know...but it will be OK at least)
Why should we think to earn a great reward
If we now shun the fight? ( I don't want a reward, I just want a nap!)
Gird up your loins; fresh courage take.
Our God will never us forsake; (Yeah but will he come sit by us in Sacrament Meeting?)
And soon we'll have this tale to tell,
All is well! All is well!
We'll find the place which God for us prepared,
Far away in the ~~West~~,(future)
Where ~~none shall come to~~ Gigio no longer will hurt or make afraid;
~~There the~~ ~~Saints~~ Then his siblings will be blessed.
We'll make the air with music ring
Shout praises to our God and King; (Or at least shout, I'm sure...)
Above the rest these words we'll tell-
All is well! All is well! (Pollyanna style)

(last verse, sung while stopping a scuffle:)
And should we you die before our ~~journey's~~ meeting's through,
~~Happy day! All is well!~~ It's Not well, it's infanticide!
We then are free from toil and sorrow, too;
But With the just we ~~shall~~ shan't dwell!
But if ~~our~~ your lives are spared again,
to see ~~the Saints their~~ your mom her rest obtain,
Oh, How we'll make this chorus swell-
All is well! All is well! (And then there won't be any sugar coating...)

Let's hope this Sunday goes better, we "get to" be the speakers so we'll all be on the stand in front! I call on the whole blogosphere to pray for us.

P.S. If you are LDS and haven't noticed, the Friend has gone interactive online. Even MY kids like it! Games, puzzles, scripture stories, stories from the Friend, music, etc! Even if you're not LDS, you'll probably find something you like on it. It's here!

Delicious Time Wasters

2009-06-11T22:12:00.012-06:00

Filberts or Hazelnuts? I don't know why they have two names but personally, I like hazelnut. And hazelnuts. Mmm! So when I found a recipe for hazelnut gelato, I was dying to try it. Hazelnuts aren't in just any old store, but it just so happened, that when we went looking for allergy medicine, we found hazelnuts. So we got them and some cream and ice and all. It took me 3 days to make it. Because first you have to roast the hazelnuts. Supposedly, all you have to do is roast the nuts on a tray at 350 degrees for 10-15 minutes. When you take them out, the skins are supposed to be cracked and blistered and so you stick them in a dishtowel and rub them together and all the skins rub off. Then you toast them again till they're tan and toasty. RIGHT! After 15 minutes, some of them were a little bit more than tan. So I did the rubbing thing next. By the time the movie ended, there were about 15 of the 300 that had shed some skin. So I toasted them some more. It didn't help. They burnt. So the next day, I tried a new batch. Less time. I rubbed and rubbed and rubbed and rubbed. By the time a third of them had come undressed, I decided that was it. I googled and found another possible way to blanch then roast that is supposed to be way better. I will experiment on a handful someday. Meanwhile, I finished roasting the nuts till the naked ones were toasty. Next day, I made the actual recipe. After grinding the nuts to a powder, you heat them up in the milk mixture and then you let it seep for 30 minutes. Except that life interrupted and they seeped for 2 1/2 hours. Then you strain the liquid from the nut. Several times, to get rid of all the bitter skin powder. The remaining liquid seemed a bit too strong and bitter. I added extra sugar. Not exactly a fix-all. I added more milk. Much more passable, but it wasn't going to be remarkable. So, I did the sensible thing. I added chocolate. I thought Papi was going to hate it at this point. He didn't. He said it tasted like a Ferrer Roche candy. So I froze it. And it made a ball of ice cream. Like it would easily fit in one of the little cartons of ice cream instead of the big tubs. But it turned out good.This is the closest I can get to giving you a taste.
I learned a lot about how to make it better next time. Which will not happen for a long, long time!
For an easier dish, make fruit gelato- Passion fruit gelato! It is called maracuya or maracuja in Spanish, or mariconada in Papi-ese (which is a politically incorrect way of saying dirty trick in Spanish). You do have to strain the fruit and all, but it is soooo yummy!!! Can't get enough of it!

Pomp and Circumstances

2009-06-08T19:13:00.004-06:00

I was going to wait to make a post about graduation till after Papi developed his film, but considering this shot on his digital, and that it may well be 2010 before we see the other pictures, I'll just go with this. After 13 years of confusion, frustration, trying to pin down the buzzing bee standing on her head and running around while trying to do homework, after pretending to be done with assignments that weren't even started, after approximately 8120 hours spent daydreaming in class, or making googoo eyes at a hottie, after approximately 160 late nights with mom, trying to type up a paper, or finish a book or do an assignment or make a poster, after fights and tears and rolling eyes, and threats and consequences, after 7 million minutes of run downs of "he said, she said so I said," and another 4 million rants about teachers, after 13 IEP's and several e-mails, after thinking up 20o ways to motivate an un motivated student, after failures and triumphs galore, after tryouts and letdowns, and ah-ha! moments and approximately 714 calls to bring me this or that at school, after refusing to go or sleeping in and going to tardy make-up a bazillion times, after staying after school, after parties and dances and games, after finally reading a book all on her own, after sewing and cooking and mountain climbing and water sampling and reading some more, after ten million discussions on a million subjects and after 45 class changes or plan changes, FINALLY, FINALLY, it's over!!!!! No wonder moms cry at graduations! I was so glad we made it out only a little scarred but not destroyed, that it ended at a ceremony with a diploma and not in GED's, that it didn't involve drug rehab or juvenile hall or sitting in classes with her to make sure she'd stay, or suspensions or sneaking out at night or a psych ward or not even making it this far alive, like some of her classmates. I don't care that my daughter wasn't a valedictorian or homecoming queen. She grew and she learned in spite of it all. She stuck up for underdogs and helped people through with her. She hung onto her faith and her dreams and I'm VERY VERY proud of her!

Turns out the ceremony wasn't even that boring or too terribly overly long either. It was a great day.

One down, four to go!

Crime Scene Investigation and another Mystery to Solve

2009-06-01T19:01:00.009-06:00

Enigma thinks this looks like a crime scene. If you were a CSI, could you solve the crime? What happened and how?

Closer up.

A closer view of some splatter.

And why, might you ask, is my table in my living room? Better levitation techniques on the part of the poltergeist? Or what? Will there be a prize for those that resolve these mysteries? That is just another mystery.

If you give up, the solution is here.

Think Tank and Diva Alert

2009-05-29T23:29:00.006-06:00

I have a new think tank post about moral dilemmas and a new book up on the book club tab for you to read as well. It is a bit lonely over there where you have to think, but if I make your head hurt, you can just whine in the comment section. Also, BTW, I have been posting for the month of May over at Healthy Divas. It's getting lonely over there recently, since May is possibly worse than December in the busy category, so feel free to visit and catch up on my exercising habits, breakfast and lunch status, and my stand on how best to consume omega 3's. I stand alone at my house. Soon I will be back here with stories and mysteries from my house.

Skies

2009-05-28T20:39:00.006-06:00

Not that I never noticed the sky before, but I notice it so much more often since i started joining in on skywatch. There are such amazing skies over us so often. Just as often, I'm out somewhere and don't have a camera. I guess I lamented that out loud too because one day one of the twins told me as I left to go somewhere, "Mommy, don't forget your camera in case there's a pretty sky." Too often I don't take that advice, but one day in February I made it home in time to get a camera and get a few shots of this wonderful sky. The colors were so intense, it didn't look real, more like a paper sculpture sky.

This shot is a little fuzzy, but it was the next morning.

Happy skies!

Sacred Holes

2009-05-21T18:39:00.016-06:00

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Most people don't decorate their homes by poking holes in their walls. Most people, if they accidentally knock a hole in a wall fix it as soon as possible. Most people aren't 2 years old. This is good for a whole lot of reasons. We didn't originally plan to have walls that looked like Swiss cheese, but the destructomobile of four sensory seeking boys just got ahead of us. My husband isn't lazy, he works two jobs and goes to school part time, so things just have to wait a lot. One day, my husband finally decided to patch up a big hole in our bedroom. The twins got in before it dried... (that sad tale is just a corollary of a very long day you can read about here-and really, it's a lot better story than this one :)). Anyhow, they took a liking to the taste of drywall and soon there were holes being carved out of the walls everywhere. I asked the doctor about this new diet of theirs, but he said as long as they were eating all the other normal foods as well and staying a normal weight, not to worry about it. Of course, none of HIS walls were involved. What did he have to worry about?
There was a really big hole in the basement near the rocking chair, which facilitated it's growth. It got so big, I was afraid they were going to tunnel out of the house before it got fixed, so it was called the tunnel to China hole. Then there was the mother of all holes. It was big and it was halfway down the stairwell to the basement, so it was DEEP and it was just the right height for a 4 year old to use. We called it THE BLACK HOLE. Many people blame a black hole for eating up things that they can't find, but in our house, there really was a black hole responsible for several missing items. Everything imaginable went into that chasm. Occasionally, a brother's toy was sacrificed to the great black hole to appease it's hungry pit. Often wrappers or whole pieces of paper were thrown down there. An assortment of pencils and sippy cup plugs, and small articles of clothing made their way on down. And if that wasn't bad enough, I caught a few little elves on a number of occasions using the black hole as a urinal. I didn't know what to do but spray Lysol down it's gullet to try to disinfect and deodorize it. That black hole was becoming a source of great irritation and stress in my life. I really wanted it repaired.
One night, I melted down. Over ice cream. As I walked through the kitchen, I noticed the lid to a brand new carton of ice cream on the counter. No carton. I look in the freezer. No carton. I look in the fridge. No carton. I look all over the house. No carton. I interrogate 5 kids over and over and over again. Finally one kid cracks and tells me his brother (right!) threw it away. Well, then how come it wasn't in the garbage? Simple. It was in the black hole. A carton full of ice cream! That was it. That was the last straw. I called my husband at work and told him he had to find time to clean out the bowels of the black hole before someone threw a lighter down it and set the whole thing on fire. Then he had to patch it up forever.
Well, I wish I could say that was the end of the holes in our house, but they just kept appearing. One of the boys was determined to dismantle our home piece by piece, and had pulled off the molding around a few doors and started to chip away at the walls. One of those rooms was the bathroom. No privacy. My husband couldn't fix it because he was in South America fixing up his mom's house before it caved in around her. It seemed so oppressive to come home from that and find your wife wants you to keep working. So I got a great idea. Why not do a "While You Were Out" on him? So I asked the oldest of the boys who had watched all the wall patching how Papi did it, and he told me. I set out to follow his instructions and with the help of a great friend and babysitter, we painted the walls too. It looked great.
Except. There was this one hole in the hall outside the Things' bedroom. It kept re-appearing even after patching it back up 3 times. So we decided to leave it there. Just one hole. The "Sacred Hole" or "Orificio sagrado". We left it there to appease the boys. And there it remained for years. It grew a little and got some little dents to keep it company.Until there were enough holes in the walls that my husband felt compelled to go on a patching spree again. He patched all the holes up. Apparently, several of them were now sacred, because soon about 5 of them returned. Papi lectured the boys. He patched the holes back up. The holes returned yet again. Papi lectured much louder. He patched the holes again. Only 2 holes sprung a leak. Papi threatened. He patched the holes again. Now we had no holes, just polka dots.

Before he could even think of painting over those, he took the 2 oldest boys to a baseball game. They each got a ball. We have a new hole in the wall. And I'm not even going to talk about the new holes in a door, because it's just too depressing.
I give up. Maybe we should just let it go and call it the wailing wall? Maybe we can just paint some trompe l'oeil that makes it blend in? Maybe we should just resign ourselves to living in a dive till the kids leave home? Except then they'll probably bring their kids to visit...

Wantad

2009-05-18T23:52:00.002-06:00

LOST: Patience. Every time I find it, it gets misplaced again shortly after. May be running away from me due to overload. Can't be sure. May be accompanied by my mind. If found, please return it to me.

Happy 10th BIrthday, Carino

2009-05-15T22:28:00.004-06:00

Apparently, there is no way to get a birthday party ready ahead of time, stress-free like here no matter how hard you try. I spent time and money ahead of time but still ended up devoting my whole entire day to "last minute preparations". In spite of the fact that I don't really want to think about doing this again, I had a lot of fun and it turned out great. Carino chose a Fear Factor theme for his party. There were 15 boys in all. We started out with a release form where they had to agree to be contestants on Carino's Fear Factor Party, with a bunch of fun releases like they wouldn't hold him liable if they barfed, and just in case we gave them a barf bag and that any photos or video taken of them would be released to Carino for use in future birthday party promotions, etc. Most importantly, they had to have fun. Then we had them each make a blob of slime to take with them and get name tags. When everyone was ready, we started in on the challenges. They didn't have to do a challenge if they didn't want to, but each challenge you did you got a ticket for. Then you got tickets for being high scorers too. In the end, you got to pick a prize from a prize box, the highest ticket holders choosing first.
Our first challenge was to be medical examiners for CSI Las Vegas and find the cause of death of the old woman who swallowed some things, namely snakes and lizards. The catch is they had to find the snakes and lizards blindfolded in a vat of guts (spaghetti mixed with gravy and water-slimy and sticky!).
Next, they had to clean up the diapers of a bunch of kids at Daddy's Day Care. They got into a box of chiclets while the Daddys weren't looking and had blowout diapers. The catch here was they had to pick out the pieces of gum with their teeth. The diapers were filled with a few rolos, the gum pieces, and a bunch of chocolate pudding. Mmmm! It didn't bug some kids, but others were a little grossed out at the suggestion.
After that they got to pick a Moai's nose who had a bad case of sinusitis. They were trying to get out the hard boogers. They could use fingers or chopsticks. (More slime and chiclets, yellow and green ones) This one was nearly impossible, but they had fun trying.
Next, they had to save Mr Carebear who was kidnapped and chained to a chair and the key to the lock was thrown into a container with several other keys and a bunch of live crickets. We saved Mr. Carebear 4 times!
Following that, we had a vat full of water and seafood, octopus, squid, mussels, crab. We added a block of ice and said we were in the Antarctic saving the fish. They had to get as many pieces of seafood out of the vat as they could-with their feet.
After this, we had taste testing. I got lots of exotic delicacies from Africa. Namely: Bear's blood (tomato soup) caterpillar guts (pureed peas), roadkill (gummy worms rolled in a bunch of brown sugar), bird poop (thinned out white icing- heavy on the butter to make it kinda lumpy and slimier), dog barf (cooked oatmeat with more brown sugar, cocoa, and craisins stirred into it), and chocolate covered flies (raisinettes). Carino came seriously close to hurling after eating the dog barf! There were some choice expressions (not many liked the caterpillar guts). A few kids opted out on a lot, but a lot of them did them all. A few had to have a drink afterwards.
Next we had a garbage bag pinata. It was filled with all plastic toys and water, so when it started to break, it started leaking all over, then splash! It all came out.
Last we ate. We had hotdogs and string cheese and cow poop cake (smashed brownies with fake bugs on it), and used bandaids (grahams with a marshmallow tip and center and red food coloring on the marshmallow). Our punch was potty punch, sprite colored yellow with ice cubes I had frozen hershey's kisses into ahead of time. It was gross. But it all tasted good. We also had good old mint chocolate chip ice cream to go with the cake. After opening presents, all the kids had watergun fights with the waterguns from the pinata and played basketball. Everyone seemed to have a great time even though we grossed a few of them out a bit too much.
Thanks again to birthdayideas.com for getting us going on ideas. It is a lifesaver!

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Think Tank Alert

2009-05-08T09:19:00.003-06:00

A review is up on Moral Courage over at my think tank, hop on over!

Some Thing Things

2009-05-03T22:03:00.007-06:00

A few weeks ago, I happened to notice some new artwork on the Things' bedroom door.
I don't know how long it had been there because there is a lot of other strange stuff on it. I asked who did it and found out it was Thing 1. His explanation was exactly what I thought it was-No Gigio or Carino allowed! What likenesses to the real boys!

Then, soon after the guitar hero joined our family, I found box guts all over my living room. I couldn't get mad after Thing 2 showed me the fish he made me with it.

This gives me hope that he is doing the switchover from dismantling the world to building it up. As long as he doesn't get ambitious enough to build a nuclear breeder in my shed, I think we're O.K. Guess all the money lost to Transformers and Bionicles was useful, huh?
P.S. maybe I spoke too soon. Anyone know how to attach a wire back into a rock band drum? You know who broke it, and managed to get a fat lip in the process.

The Things Turn 7

2009-04-29T14:05:00.009-06:00

Last Friday we had a party for the Things. It was a lot of fun, but it took me forever to come up with what I wanted to do for the party. There are really no ideas for a Transformers vs. Bionicles party on birthdaypartyideas.com. Can you imagine that? It took a long while to get the creative juices in gear and have a plan. Then I had to get the supplies and get everything ready at the last minute. There are Transformers favors and such, but since the Bionicles movie is not close to release yet, there was NOTHING on that front. It was a stressful 5 days or so. I vowed not to do any parties after this year several times. I threatened to cancel it anytime I didn't get due submission from the natives. I had to give up on my cool idea to make Bionicle swords for everyone because there is no instrument known to man or at least to my house that will cut foam board with any precision. It would have been so cool. It's just as well because making 20 of them would have meant NO sleep the night before. Enigma made the invites, thus locking in my commitment, and she spray painted 2 square boxes to make 2 Allspark pinatas- one for each boy. My mom thought good thoughts for me the day before the party, because I didn't even have things ready enough to get her to help with anything before her bedtime that day, I think. It's a good thing she thought good thoughts because as it was, everyone was a wreck. I went straight from a cousin's funeral to pick up the boys from school and within the hour they'd all had a complete meltdown. One was an emotional wreck all day, finishing off the evening by threatening another brother with a scout pocketknife, then curling up in a ball in an empty dresser. (He's not supposed to have the pocketknife at all, by the way. Anyone need a pocket knife? And yes, I'm concerned about this behavior.)

The day of the party dawned with everyone in a better mood and me almost ready for the party. Then as I got ready after working all morning, Papi shows up with new sofas. Luckily I was there to approve or disapprove because the last time he suddenly brought in used sofas, he almost got kicked out of the house over it. This time he was careful and asked first before unloading them and carting away my old sofas. He made a trade for them with an apartment complex who needed some work done. They are converting from Singles/furnished to Married/unfurnished. They are nice sofas, and now we have 4 matching sofas, 2 upstairs, 2 downstairs.
Wanna see them? This is upstairs This is downstairs:
Umm, not sure why the colors don't look the same, they are more like a sage green in person.
The old sofas were total ghetto sofas, i.e. no leg on one side, frame coming loose and cracking, snagged dirty upholstery, and futon sofa with slashed futon and springs sticking out all over. They got dumped in the front yard, the cushions lying all over exposing just how dirty it was under them. Meanwhile the new, very nice and clean sofas were put in place, just in time for a bunch of party goers to smear gunk all over them. Other than the sofas all over my front yard, (Why yes, I have dirty rotten sofas as yard ornaments all the time, for all you who have never been to my house, especially a co-worker to see, come on in and make yourselves comfortable!) by the time the party started, I was ready. Good thing, counting siblings and birthday boys there were 19 kids in attendance. Enigma was busy getting ready for her performance but Gigio was a great assistant and my sister arrived with the cousins and stayed to help too, thank goodness. We had Papi man the pinatas and since he was doing a bunch of things at once, that was his contribution.

We had them put together a little transformer figure and make transformer hats, then we did a treasure hunt to look for the Allspark and did a Transformers vs. Bionicles bingo and did a carnival type knock over the bionicles game. Then we let them hit balloons into the air with those foam things you get for pools and did the pinatas, then had hotdogs, pizza dip with pita chips, and had cake and ice cream. Then everyone played and opened presents. It was an extremely loud and wild party but everyone was good and everyone seemed to have a blast! Seeing as how Thing 2 didn't want to invite anyone before hand but his little girlfriends because everyone else in the universe had all done something before like push someone once, I'd say it was a success. I had to promise to put anyone who needed controlling in time out but no one had to go :). And, no one slimed the sofas! Can you believe that? Here's an album of our festivities.

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Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Think Tank Alert

2009-04-26T11:48:00.005-06:00

Go see my new post on my think tank here and join my book club. For May, we'll be reading Moral Courage by Rushworth M. Kidder. Also, pass the link on to all your friends to join in too, the more, the merrier and the more minds to come up with good ideas.

The Love Triangle-Kindergarten Style

2009-04-22T00:17:00.007-06:00

The story begins about 3 weeks ago when, as we got out of the car after coming home from school, Thing 1 conspiratorially told me, "Mom, I love Alyssa." Ah, puppy love. How cute! Later that evening, he was telling me he had a hard day, that Nicholas pushed him down when he got up from nap time and he was chasing him around saying, "Why did you kiss her?"
-Um. Wait, back up. Did you kiss somebody?
-Yeah, (sheepishly) Alyssa.
-Oh.
-Thing 2 kissed him too! (We still don't get pronouns, Alyssa IS a girl.)
-He did?
(Thing 2 chimes in)- Yeah, I kissed him.
-Really? So you both kissed her? (They nod) Today? Where did you kiss her?
Thing 2- On the lips!
-(Good grief!) No, I meant on the playground or where?
- (Rolling eyes) No, mom, you kiss girls at nap time. (Mom's eyes bulge)
-Do you kiss all the girls at nap time every day?
- No, just Alyssa. Three times!
-(I turn to Thing 1) did you kiss her three times?
- No, just one time, on the cheek. (Thank goodness someone has scruples)
-And you're both okay with your brother kissing the same girl you kissed?
(both)- Uh-huh.
-But then Brandon was chasing Thing 2 and telling him to break up with Alyssa, so we have to break up with him. (This is Thing 1 talking, obviously very distressed that his brother is being chased around.)
-I see. Do you know what it means to break up with someone?
-No. (Both shake their heads no.)
-OK, here's the deal. For now, if you kiss girls, the other kids are going to bug you. I think for now it would be safer to just save all your kisses for your mommy. Save them all for me, ok?
But you can still be friends with Alyssa. Don't let anyone tell you who to be friends with.
-OK. (in unison.)

Later, Enigma finds out what happened. She says to Thing 2, "What about Ari, (previous puppy love around the block-Enigma is set on them getting married.) Don't you like Ari?"
-Yes.
-Did you kiss Ari? (Thing 2 just grins).

The next day, there is talk of Thing 2 holding hands with Alyssa.
Thing 1 is grumpily mumbling in the background, "She's my friend too!"
Next day, Thing 2 is all about playing with Ari.

Fast forward to this week. The Things have a birthday. Their class makes them pictures. Alyssa made Thing 1 this picture. See the hearts? Thing 2's didn't have hearts. Enigma read much into all that.

Thing 1 made a picture for Thing 2. He told Enigma that he is the one in the red shirt. Thing 2 is in the blue shirt and the figure between them in the back is Alyssa. See the triangle? Will she come between the dynamic duo?

Not to worry, because Thing 2 informed me that Aisha is smart, and will you take a look at the picture she made him? She's holding his hand! This is getting as hard to follow as a soap. It would be fun to scan half the pictures. Kindergarteners draw hilarious things. Also, Thing 2's first picture in his book said "You are kind." Wow! Someone thought he was kind! I was all excited. Then I looked down at the bottom and it said, from Thing 2. Well, it's a start.

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Random Update-First Quarter

2009-04-16T16:02:00.005-06:00

Somehow, 3 1/2 months have slipped by without hardly any blogging or updating on what is going on around here. We are still alive and well. I have great stories to tell, I just don't seem to be able to get them written. Maybe I replaced my blogging time with exercise? I figure if I could just rig up a bicycle to a laptop and run it on pedal power, I could keep up with both. So, just a list now of what's been up:

Papi-
*has been offered a day job and then it has not gone through 3 times. Now he's doing the night and part time the day job, which should eventually turn into just the day job and hopefully later this year be a better job. He's still doing the restaurant and classes on the side. I'm just glad he has work.
*He just got a hearing aid for his left ear. The right is no good for anything, even a hearing aid. He is getting used to all the sounds he never heard before. I really hope this one works out for him. They say it takes time to adjust so I hope he sticks it out.
*Was called to be assistant to the high priest group leader at church.
Enigma-
*Went to the FCCLA competitions, taking 3rd place each time.
*Had 3 interviews with a pizza place, but didn't get the job.
*Has been helping to manage the school softball team and went to St George with them.
*Has been checking out beauty schools with me and we're checking out financial aid now.
*Went with me to the Draper temple dedication (which was good), and the Hari Krishna color festival. She spent over an hour on the phone with me trying to find it. That was stressful.
*Has a different definition of work than me, but that's to be expected I guess.
*Lost a friend in a car accident on Easter. It's been so sad. Thanks to our great snowstorm, she couldn't go to the funeral in Salt Lake.
*Has been in eye therapy, which we hope will improve her reading skills, if she will just stick with it long enough.
*Wants to be asked to prom, dang it! If only she weren't so cute, boys wouldn't assume she'd already been asked.
*Is SO DONE with everything!-Plus, I can't believe I forgot she got suspended for a day. Over someone taking down all the tape the teachers put over their doors at night at competition to make sure they didn't get out... I'm not gonna lose sleep over it.
The 4 Boys-
* Continue to have their assorted spills and thrills, doing crazy stunts, getting into trouble flushing big chunks of styrofoam down the toilet, who knows what down the sink (It's been so fun having all the plumbing backed up at once), scratching up the computer desk, putting holes in their clothes and the walls, flossing everything but their teeth, breaking couch legs, being goofy, making us laugh and pull our hair out. We signed up for track and baseball. Had to cancel baseball due to a klepto spree. The twins are doing pretty good at school learning to read and to kiss. We have lived through several sessions of speech and eye therapy, science projects and book reports. Somehow, we have all gotten a dose of the American revolution and the pioneers through our reports and readings.
* We have all had fun visiting at family gatherings so far. At one, I accidentally kicked a ball with a hamster in it. It is so cute, Papi and I entertained the idea of getting one. Then I envisioned a plastic ball flying through the air with a hamster in it. I don't want to invent Shaken Hamster Syndrome, so we passed.
And Me?
*Not much, other than dealing with all of the above, exercising, getting everyone to clean up and do homework, go to Parent Teacher Conferences, IEP'S, various and sundry projects at the school, translations for the school, work, spending somewhere in the neighborhood of $5000 on medical expenses, doing taxes, refinancing, TRYING to get my own son's medical records and disc of his CAT scan, which thanks to HEPA laws is nearly impossible-I'm so protected, I'm protected from myself!, I've done a few other things.
*Things like try to organize my life and my home (still working on that, but we are making some progress), checking out possible master's programs to enter (Ha! In all my copious spare time!), picking away at the family yearbook and cookbook, KILLING MOTHS WHO MOLT IN MY FOOD!, working on food storage, banning cereal from my house, trying to get our poltergeist, Sighing Sally to let me tape her sigh, joining CHADD, getting called to be Achievement days leader (projects with little girls), reading, and thinking about what I would write if I had the time. Now I have to worry about how to get two birthday parties ready in the next 3 weeks and how we're going to handle our summer schedule.
*I'm afraid maybe I'm raising a vandal, a kleptomaniac, a playboy and 2 freeloaders. I'm so proud. Actually, I'm spending a lot of time trying to improve their possibilities for the future while trying to rid myself of PMS and other debilitating qualities. I wish someone had told me in college to just double major in psychology too, it could have prepared me better for my future.
*If I figure out how to build my BLOGERCISER, I will do posts to fill you in on some of the details in this post later on.
*And now, I need to go, we are having Spring Break. In utter insanity I got Guitar Hero World Tour Complete Band Set and it arrived just as a 12" snowstorm did, which was fortunate. (I'm afraid I'm responsible for the snowstorm: I started my garden. Wall o waters are supposed to protect tomatoes, but a week of snow? I'll let you know.) Now I need to get the kids away from the Wii. We're off to see the cousins! Take care, all!

Happy Easter, Everybody!

2009-04-12T13:06:00.005-06:00

Maybe He's Right

2009-04-10T14:44:00.005-06:00

Papi always says, "Don't get them more toys for their birthday, get them clothes." What fun is that? They're kids, they're not interested in clothes. But then again, who needs toys if you've got clothes?

Someone in the background aren't taking advantage of the fact that he has his whole wardrobe to himself right now. Then they started undressing. It was hilarious. Here's just a clip in the middle.

Then they figured out all they needed to do was slide the pants down. Duh!

Rorschach, Anyone?

2009-04-08T22:46:00.011-06:00

The psychologist is IN.
Take a seat, lean back on the comfortable couch.
So, what do you see in this?
Or this?
How about this?Did you see a giant with a big nose trying to stop a sneeze with a doorknob in the first one?
Or was it a cumulonimbus cloud with two funnels spouting downward?
Or maybe you saw Bill Clinton in a baseball cap lying on his back and trying to kiss you?
If so, you would be: A) playful, B) Paranoid, C) Either sick or desensitized to too much sex on T.V.
D) If you saw something else- you're probably normal.

What about the second one? Did you see the elongated shadow of a man holding a stick over his head and using another as a cane?
Or possibly you saw a swordsman on stilts?
Or is it a broken guitar chord? If so, you are: A) Pensive B) On the verge of a nervous breakdown C) Conflicted D) If you saw something else, you have great eyesight.

And as for the last one:
Did you see a fat bird hanging from a string? Or does it look like an angel shining a beacon into the sky-beaming home. Possibly you saw a dried up long stemmed rose, being dumped in the trash can. If you did, you're probably: A) Passive-agressive B) Overly optimistic C) Insecure or D) If you saw something else, you're probably creative.

BUT, if you saw the interior designs of your offspring who so charmingly peel the paint off ugly dark doors, then you would be A) Me or B) Papi. If you are neither of the above, I'm sure you're so jealous that I'm the only one with original Rorschach blots on my walls. And if you think that is exciting, stay tuned for my next installation, where we will visit the sacred holes.

P.S. Feel like taking more Rorschach tests? Go here http://www.stupidstuff.org/main/rorschach.htm
Enigma was watching me take it and I died laughing at my results. She kept saying, "How did they do that? How did they know? Here's my results:

Diagnostic Overview:
Your responses indicate that you wish for a world of peace, harmony, & nakedness. What's new? Like that's supposed to give us insight into your mind or something? Either you're excruciatingly normal, or you screwed up the test somehow. Take it again. People who answer as you did are always terrible at parking and usually take up two spaces.

Long-Term Prognosis:
You will need intensive therapy to succeed in living a normal life, however this also means you may make an excellent politician. Your answers clearly indicate you need a better wardrobe; this is often because of micro-manifestations of the id, conflicting with your unconscious mind (the one you use at work).

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Mom, What's Irony?

2009-04-03T10:42:00.005-06:00

Gigio asked me one day.
-Well, irony is ... hmmm.... how could I define it, it's when something is... gee, this is kind of hard to put into words. It 's like when something is in direct opposition to what you would expect and usually this is annoying, but sort of funny. Which doesn't really explain it at all.
-(Gigio is still looking at me expectantly, hoping for a better explanation, something he can use to understand this word he just unearthed.)
-How about if I give you an example of irony? That would be easier:
Your sister wasted my money on a nice new suit and went and got third place in the state FCCLA competition for doing the best at applying and interviewing for a job in the preschool field. Everyone thought she was awesome. Great look, great presentation, great at answering questions, great portfolio. She has a beautiful bronze medal to show for it. But, she has been unemployed for about 7 months now and has maybe looked for 10 jobs in that time, optimistically, and has never worn the suit to a real interview yet and has no job to show for it yet. That is ironic.
-A light bulb appears above Gigio's head and he laughs as he goes off to tell his brother and friend, "Guys, irony is like this....."

Gotta make the most of those teaching moments.
And after much nagging, (and refusing to pay more cell phone bills), Enigma just may be wearing that suit to a real interview soon. Cross your fingers!

Eyes and Hair Story

2009-03-26T14:01:00.015-06:00

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

After seeing the eye doctor and getting my first prescription and getting a whole lecture about different types of lenses and coatings and all with some pricing, I set off to compare and see what I could get in the area. What I got was confused. I have been using little reading glasses that aren't strong enough because apparently your head is supposed to grow as you get blinder, but my head didn't get that memo. Everything falls off my head when I look down. Now, I hoped to get some glasses that fit and looked good on me. Every place I went to told me I couldn't get frames with that small a lens for the type of lens I need. I was figuring I was still going to have to get something with lenses so big, I would look like I had compound eyes in them. Unless I wanted another material that will be thicker than my pinkie finger or some such thing. They would all blurt out a bunch of disagreeable such options with even more objectionable prices and I would give up and leave with my head swimming and my eyes watering. This was worse than high school algebra. One smart person wrote down my options at least, so I could go home and think about it. I eventually decided to go back there because it was going to have a bigger selection of frames and a second pair for half off. Well, then when I went back the story had changed and I could get polycarbon no glare lenses that would not be thicker than a coke bottle bottom and I had a little more breathing room on frame selection. Problem is, did you know when you try on frames, you won't be able to actually see through them to see what you look like in them? Also, the store was closing in 15 minutes, because that's how I roll and if I waited, it would be Easter before I made it back, so I just tried on about 30 as fast as I could and picked some frames and got them ordered. Then I waited anxiously for 10 days. Would I like them? I didn't remember what they looked like. Except, maybe I never knew because, everything looked fuzzy. If I hadn't been so friendly, that other person wouldn't have chosen one of my favorite frames in the keep pile and went off and ordered them before I made my choice, eliminating that possibility. I should have taken more time, I should have tried on more frames. I should have gone back with my daughter or someone who could tell me what I looked like in each frame. I should have paid more attention to details. I'm going to be stuck with this choice for a while. It felt like waiting for a blind date except I was going to have to go steady with him for at least a year. Well, the day arrived. I think it turned out to be an arranged marriage. I could have done better, but I could definitely have done worse. I'm terribly un-photogenic besides the fact that I'm funny looking, but here are the glasses.I actually like my sunglasses I picked better than my regular glasses.
I didn't choose them for everyday because I could see a big shadow under my eyes and I didn't want to look like a football player, so I chose it for the sunglasses. Turns out that may have had more to do with lighting in the store than anything else. Live and learn.
If you are thinking these are really un photogenic shots, you haven't seen anything yet. Here's an example of anything:That makes me laugh even more than it makes me embarrassed. Seems I don't even blink evenly.
The thing I like the least about my frames is that they sit way off my head about an inch on the edges so I can easily hit my husband in the head with them.
Here, this shot up my nose shows what I mean.I wish I could have smaller lenses. Also, I thought no glare lenses would have less reflections off them but I had to try a lot of different angles with no flash to get a shot without a ton glare off them for pictures.
Do I see any better in them? Well, at first I honestly felt seasick and was forever spinning my head around trying to find the right angle to look at whatever I was trying to look at through them. They are progressive lenses because I need reading glasses, but I also need distance glasses for other things. At first I had to push the glasses up high to read and down low to drive and learn how to do all kinds of head gymnastics to see anything in between near and far. Now, about a month later, I've learned how to move my eye quickly to where it needs to go more. I still have some issues, and some days, I just can't see that great anyways. That's because I found out I have something called keratoconus. Which means my cornea doesn't hold it's shape. So, some days my eyesight is worse than others. Actually, hard contact lenses are supposed to help that, but I have another condition no one could name that makes my eyes really sensitive to everything and they really gooped up so I don't know how well that will work. Eventually, I may have to have a surgery for the keratoconus. We shall see. No pun intended.
On a happier note, I am in wedded bliss over my haircut I got around the same time as the glasses. It seems I was born to wear a bob, so I have gone back to that style. I worked real hard to take a picture of the side of my head, but I couldn't manage the back. But I think you can see that it is shorter in the back and tapers down lower in the front. Here's the view the farthest back I could get and still get the side too. Who'd have thought I could have more bad eye days than bad hair days? THE END.

Common Sense (Well, at least it made sense at midnight)

2009-03-17T23:15:00.006-06:00

As Thomas Paine said, "Society in every state is a blessing, but Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state an intolerable one: for when we suffer, or are exposed to the same miseries BY A GOVERNMENT, which we might expect in a country WITHOUT GOVERNMENT, our calamity is heightened by reflecting that we furnish the means by which we suffer."

He was clairvoyant. He was writing about the future Daylight Savings Time. Why do we put up with this crap anyways? This is the U.S. of A. for Pete's Sake. Why don't we just vote this silly clock changing nonsense into history???? I figure that the time change has us in such a stupor that we can't think straight until the next fall and then we are just so glad to get an extra hour of sleep that we shut up and put up with it. Well, wake up all you groggy people and write your congressman.

I have been a mess ever since the time change and it is worse because they keep springing it on us earlier than ever. Eventually, it will totally meet up in January where we will go forward one Sunday and fall back the very next and we'll have to call it darkness savings time if this keeps up. My kids are a mess. too. Behavior is in the toilet and everyone is stressed out. No one is keeping up with chores and homework as well and sleep schedules are a wreck. I drag around all day and then wake up when it's time to go to bed. All this for an extra hour of daylight in the evening? If you want more sun, get up earlier. (Or sleep outside and sleep in, getting the best of both worlds.) But it gets worse. Criminals are having a hard time adjusting too. Since the time change, bail hearings have been taking three times as long as usual because we have so many more people to process. And they are doing more rash things than normal. People who are barely keeping it together or are already over the edge do not need a push further down the cliff. Think about this, DST abolition is a public safety issue. It's a health issue too. Apparently, heart attacks rise in the days following the switch as well. And productivity drops significantly too. I ask you, does our economy need this?

What is so great about having light at night, anyways? Did you ever meet a child that believes it's bedtime before dark? Did you realize we could start the fireworks earlier on the Fourth of July if we left things well enough alone? But my best argument is this: Arizona and Hawaii are doing JUST FINE without it! Do you see anyone complaining and asking for it there? No, they are complaining about the other 48 stupid states that are not in sync with them. Oh, I just can't resist digressing here to say that once this poor Russian interpreter from Arizona I met at an over the phone interpreting conference told how the first time everyone else switched times, she didn't know and so was not there for the first hour of her shift that was sent to her from an out of state agency. Her supervisor said she should have been aware of it and known to switch. this just makes me roll my eyes because who in their right mind thinks, "Gee, what if all of the sudden, everyone but Arizona changed their clocks and I didn't know about it. I better find out if that ever happens. "? (Sorry, that's been bugging me for YEARS. Sometimes it's just better to get things off your chest right away, I guess.)

Lastly, you might want to know that if we don't reform, this kind modus operandi can get way out of hand. I heard on the radio that some people think we all ought to have the same time all over the world. Like, if we decide Tokyo is the right time, we all set our clocks to it, and us people on the other side of the world will just have to have our days at night, because, then American business men who have lots of business with Tokyo can be in sync with them. Don't even go there, I know you are thinking that the true time is Chicago time, but we don't need to do anything else to upset the rest of the world right now either. It's all ridiculous because EACH PERSON can just get up and work and play and eat and travel and call people on the other side of the world and bathe and go to bed and sleep WHENEVER works best for them and their activities and jobs.

And so, as I began, I will quote Thomas with a few twists: Wherefore, laying aside all state pride and prejudice in favour of modes and forms, the plain truth is that IT IS WHOLLY OWING TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE PEOPLE, AND NOT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF THE GOVERNMENT that time is not as oppressive in Arizona and Hawaii as it is in _________ (fill in any of the other great 48.) Wake up everyone else, day or night, and let's demand our government stop moving time. There's plenty of other things that need moving and shaking.

Hugs

2009-03-11T23:05:00.004-06:00

When the twins were littler, they loved this book called "Hug" by Jez Alborough. We still have it but it is about to disintegrate. The funny thing is, they didn't like to hug much. Especially Thing 2. When I would carry him from one place to another, he would pat my back, but he preferred to sit in my lap rather than hug me head-on. Most kids, when they get hurt want their moms to hold them and kiss them. Not this kid. When he would get hurt, he would go hide, and I wouldn't even know unless "someone" snitched on him that he was hurt. Used to freak me out that he would get hurt bad and I would never know in time. Even if he was crying, he wouldn't let me near him with a ten foot pole. It was very difficult to ascertain if he needed any medical assistance from that distance, but we did the best we could. Gradually we'd work our way in close enough to help if he needed something. Otherwise, it was best to just leave him alone. As he's gotten older, little by little he's warmed up to us more and even gives hugs now. About a week ago I realized he had finally arrived at a new milestone. Gigio knocked him over in the kitchen and he hit his head and arm. He cried hard and I went in to see what was going on. After I got the story and hung big bro out to dry I went to see if I could calm down little bro. He got up off the floor and still crying threw himself into my arms and hugged me and hung on as if I were a life preserver and cried for a while. I hugged him back and tried not to cry myself. That was one of the best hugs I ever got.

The Gift

2009-02-26T12:55:00.017-07:00

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

About 4 months ago, I was thrilled to find out I had won a gift certificate to Photofiddle.com. I won it just by commenting on one of Dawn's blogs here. See? Sometimes wasting time commenting on blogs is profitable.
What is Photofiddle you ask? It is a fun site where you can upload any photograph and choose a style of painting and they will turn your photo into a painting. There are several styles to choose from and options for photo collages too. There is everything from oil painting to cross stitch and everything in between like fantasy and sponge painting, impasto or even light bright. Check it out, it is really fun! Any how, I thought it would be fun to get a painting made for my husband to take to his office. (Because at home, it wouldn't last long.) I like to paint, but I would never get around to making a painting for a gift, so this was a quickie way to get it done, right? One would assume.
First, however, you need a great photo. Turns out, I didn't really have one. I mean, if I used a photo of just one of the kids, it would upset the others who weren't in the picture. I could do me, but I am extremely un-photogenic, so any good picture of me, if I could find one, it would be so old, probably I would no longer be recognizable. So I decided to take a picture of all the kids together.
Trying to get everyone together at once and have everyone actually wearing clothes or clothes without holes and stains was not an easy feat. Once I managed to do that, I had issues with getting everyone to get together and get something looking decent. We tried inside:
Cut the faces, and lose the football!Great! There's still a hole in a knee and some goofy smiles and an unhappy diva.Still can't settle down and keep our hands to ourselves. There are several more pictures like this or worse. So we went outside. It was FREEZING. We got shots like this:Someone's upside down, someone's hiding behind his hood. Best we can do, but those are pretty cheesy frozen grins and the background is just more cluttered than I'd like. I decided I would need to get them all dressed in something like school clothes and take them right after school when it was warmer to somewhere really scenic and get some shots of them in a more natural setting. Plus, then maybe the coats could hide stains. So, we got some good shots. From behind. The front facing ones were more like this:Laser head. Need I say more?Maybe their faces are just naturally goofy? From behind, I had several great choices. So I deliberated and narrowed it down to about 8. then I fiddled. I fiddled, and I fiddled, and i fiddled. I tried different styles, different cropping, I tried photoshopping different saturations, etc to see how it affected coloring. I asked questions, asked for tweaking, and in general, drove the photofiddle people crazy. I had gotten them to fix the shading and detail on one painting, but since I had done some photoshopping messing with the same pose, I found it impossible for us to get the original without the mess in the background so it would all look the way I want. So, I tried a similar pose. Then I couldn't get anyone who spoke English or Artist to understand the one simple little thing I needed adjusted on it. So, I decided on another pose that didn't need any help. I tested it in different frames and in a room with different colored walls, etc. I chose it in oil painting, but frankly, it looks like watercolor to me. However, it looks really great. If you are not an artist, you will love this site. If you are, you may save everyone a lot of trouble and just paint it yourself, or just don't be as picky as me. Honestly, it took me as long to fiddle in the end as it would to paint. It still seemed lazier doing it on the computer. And in the end, it turned out great and Papi LOVED it. So do I. It totally captures our kids, right down to the untied shoelaces and unfailing hats and hoods. Here it is. If you click on it, you can see it up close and in detail. And that's all she wrote for now.

Won't You Be My Valentine?

2009-02-23T21:21:00.006-07:00

A few days before Valentines, Gigio asked me why people don't answer when you ask them to be your Valentine. Hypothetically. Except it sounded pretty specific.
Well, maybe a lot of people think of it as a rhetorical question and figure they don't need to answer, right? That it is just a Valentines gesture like saying "How are you?" on a normal day and then skipping right over that and talking about something else.
Except another girl told another boy NO when he asked. (Poor boy).
In any case, the hypothetically specific girl not answering was tormenting his soul.
Meanwhile, Carino's list of students in his class for Valentines preparation had a circle around the name Ivana. Interesting...
Friday the 13th was hijacked by Valentine's Day at schools all over the country. The Jr. High students made a special hot lunch of ravioli for the occasion, so the boys begged to have hot lunch that day and I conceded.
I went that afternoon to pick them up. Gigio was bouncing off the walls. Guess what? SHE SAID YES! If she had've told him sooner, he would have gotten her a pink rose (that stands for crush, because, yes, he confirmed, he had a crush on Sophia. White is friends, and red is love. Also, Emma got 2 pink roses and a red rose and a white rose. -Is she hot?- No, but she's tall and talks a lot and she's the one who used to pick him up in Kindergarten.) Not only that, but the ravioli was so delicious, he ate it all and any he could get off of anyone else and would I please make some at home, because it is soooo good! (Following this, we all get detailed instructions on how to make ravioli.) Oh, and he lost his seat today after being too wild and leaning it back too many times. Because the ravioli made him excited.
Could it be that the prospect of the imminent Valentines party and all the sweets had anything to do with his hyperactivity?
Well, not really. Except the fact that" she said yes" could have made him hyper too. After all, he was smiling all the time after he got that note. So, yeah, the girl had anything to do with it. But, it was mostly the ravioli, he declared. Girls are great, but RAVIOLI? True. Love. (Men!)
Later that day, as Carino went through all his loot, he came running to show me a handmade Valentine by Ivana. It said I heart U! Euphoria reigned on Valentine's Day at our house.

P.S. Someday soon, I might finish getting my taxes ready and the props for the fourth grade program, and I did get an internet connection in a more central location in my home, so I just might join the blogging community again in the near future. Hope to read ya soon!

Watch Me Slowly Lose My Mind

2009-02-08T22:38:00.008-07:00

Wait, isn't that what this blog is all about? a chronicle of my descent into dementia. So one day you can all say, "Yes, I saw the signs it was coming to this, and now it has happened. Her brain has passed over to the other side and left her behind in the lurch." Today at church it happened again. They gave me a note saying one of my sons is supposed to give a small talk next week. I cringed. I've only been given one of these notes about 4 times already in the past 6 months and I have forgotten every single time to help my child prepare something. I told my neighbor and she suggested I stick the note on the fridge when I got home. Except by the time I got home, I'd already forgotten. But it gets worse. My son's scout leader called me a few weeks ago and told me they were meeting in one more hour. Could Gigio make it? Of course, I assured her I would bring him over. Except he was finishing up his homework and I didn't want to interrupt. By the time he finished, I had long since forgotten the whole conversation.
I spend more time looking for lost things than anyone else I know. Plus, I get lost on the way to the kitchen to get something for my husband and show up an hour later, with nothing in hand and no memory of his request till he asks me about it. He's stopped depending on me to remember to wake him when he needs to be somewhere early. I totally forget it. He has someone else call him. (Yes, he doesn't know how to set an alarm.)
I'm always planning to go places, like the bank on my way home from somewhere, but I usually forget. Or I plan on calling someone but I never remember till after midnight. I regularly forget what I was planning to do or why I went to a room and have to go back to where I was to try to figure out why I left.
You can ask my kids how forgetful I am, it takes quite a bit to jog my memory of events and things they bring up. Once I went to my son's kindergarten class to help out and one of the kids comes up to me all wide-eyed and says, "Do you really have short-term memory loss? Cause your son said you did."
There was something else I was going to tell you about, but I forgot.
Oh, by the way, Papi is on a homemade pizza binge so I have been making it a lot lately. I have this really good recipe. It works great when it works, but sometimes the dough is too stiff. One day I had to double the water to get it to work. The next time, I started out doubling the water and ended up having to double the flour. Could it be the humidity in the air? Or could it be I was doubling the recipe the first time and forgot to double the water? Or then, if you forget the olive oil altogether, you end up with a less maleable dough as well. Usually the pizza turns out better if you set the timer after putting it in the oven. Also, it helps if you turn off the oven when you turn off the timer and take the pizza out of the oven. These are tips to live by when making the perfect pizza.
Sometimes I get really discouraged with myself.
Reading this info by the Alzheimer's association didn't really help me feel too much better:
Memory loss that disrupts everyday life is not a normal part of aging. It may be a sign of Alzheimer's disease, a fatal brain disease that gets worse over time and causes changes in thinking, reasoning and behavior. Although the disease is more common in people 65 and older, it can also strike those in their 30s, 40s and 50s.

I always joke about donating my brain to science so they can study the earliest onset of Alzheimer's ever. It was a JOKE! This isn't really supposed to happen to people!

Here are 10 warning signs of Alzheimer's:
1. Memory loss. (Yup)
Forgetting recently learned information is one of the most common early signs of dementia. A person begins to forget more often and is unable to recall the information later.
What's normal? Forgetting names or appointments occasionally. (What about usually?)
Difficulty performing familiar tasks.
2. People with dementia often find it hard to plan or complete everyday tasks. Individuals may lose track of the steps to prepare a meal, place a telephone call or play a game.
What's normal? Occasionally forgetting why you came into a room or what you planned to say. (Again, define occasionally vs. usually.)
3.Problems with language.
People with Alzheimer's disease often forget simple words or substitute unusual words, making their speech or writing hard to understand. They may be unable to find their toothbrush, for example, and instead ask for "that thing for my mouth." (I thought that was a language skill called circumlocution. )
What's normal? Sometimes having trouble finding the right word. (Is every night by 9 pm sometimes?)
4.Disorientation to time and place. (OK, maybe I was born with this.)
People with Alzheimer's disease can become lost in their own neighborhoods, forget where they are and how they got there, and not know how to get back home.
What's normal? Forgetting the day of the week or where you were going.
Poor or decreased judgment. (Whew, this one sounds more like me.)
5.Those with Alzheimer's may dress inappropriately, wearing several layers on a warm day or little clothing in the cold.(No problem there.) They may show poor judgment about money, like giving away large sums to telemarketers.
What's normal? Making a questionable or debatable decision from time to time.
6.Problems with abstract thinking.
Someone with Alzheimer's disease may have unusual difficulty performing complex mental tasks, like forgetting what numbers are and how they should be used. ( I don't think I ever learned to use them normally, is that alright?)
What's normal? Finding it challenging to balance a checkbook.
Misplacing things. (Whew, again.)
7.A person with Alzheimer's disease may put things in unusual places: an iron in the freezer or a wristwatch in the sugar bowl. (Uh-oh. My kids show this sign.)
What's normal? Misplacing keys or a wallet temporarily. (Define temporarily)
8.Changes in mood or behavior. (Oops! Sure hope it's only PMS.)
Someone with Alzheimer's disease may show rapid mood swings – from calm to tears to anger – for no apparent reason.
What's normal? Occasionally feeling sad or moody.
9.Changes in personality.
The personalities of people with dementia can change dramatically. They may become extremely confused, suspicious, fearful or dependent on a family member.
What's normal? People’s personalities do change somewhat with age. (Thank goodness, because I don't think the young me would recognize the old me.)
10. Loss of initiative.
A person with Alzheimer's disease may become very passive, sitting in front of the TV for hours, sleeping more than usual or not wanting to do usual activities.
What's normal? Sometimes feeling weary of work or social obligations.
The difference between Alzheimer's and normal age-related memory changes

Someone with Alzheimer's disease symptoms
Forgets entire experiences
Rarely remembers later
Is gradually unable to follow written/spoken directions
Is gradually unable to use notes as reminders (Gradually would be important, it's ok to be born that way, right?)
Is gradually unable to care for self

Someone with normal age-related memory changes
Forgets part of an experience
Often remembers later
Is usually able to follow written/spoken directions
Is usually able to use notes as reminders
Is usually able to care for self

While I can make fun of myself and my air headed ways, I can't make fun of Alzheimer's itself. It's just not funny. Currently we are supporting my mother in law who is suffering from Alzheimer's. She often asks my husband if he has gotten married yet. We are having our 20th anniversary next month!

Not only that, but my grandmother and more than one of her siblings had this horrible disease. Oh, that was the thing I forgot! Last year I signed up to help with the Alzheimer's Association's yearly fund-raising campaign. But then I forgot to do it. Then I forgot to send it in. Then I was getting reminders and had to tell them that I kept forgetting. Eventually I got it all in only 2 months late. This year I vowed to do better. I have set up a website in the memory and honor my Grandma, Ruth Johnson.
Please visit my tribute page here. Please feel free to donate whatever you feel you can. I know times are hard, but even little amounts add up. The mind you save might just be one of your favorite blogger's. :) I'm so proud of myself I didn't forget to do this today! Please don't let my work go to waste. Go here now. After the campaign, check out the association's donate page at any time of the year for more information and other ways to help.

Snacks, Anyone?

2009-01-28T13:27:00.003-07:00

I wish I could ever catch Thing 2 on film talking the way he normally does. He says the most random things sometimes and the tone of voice makes it even funnier. Often, he sounds a bit like Ercle on Family Matters. But he will say things in this funny happy voice that doesn't really seem to fit what he's saying. Here's hoping that someday I'll be able to catch him on film so I can preserve that little boy he all too soon won't be anymore.

In the meantime, I'll just have to write. A few weeks ago as I was getting the twins to bed, Thing 2 says out of the blue, in that indescribable voice of his, "When I drink soda, I barf in my mouth after. Then I swallow it. It's the best snack!"

Should I try to find a better snack for him? Or just let it be?

Winter

2009-01-23T13:44:00.003-07:00

This morning we had rain, which means it's not freezing anymore and hopefully this inversion will clear out, but it got the ice and snow all melty and my tires got stuck in it this morning. I had to dig myself out again. I really want my own personal snowplow. Since I hate winter, I try to ignore it. Since it has been hard to ignore, I decided to at least enjoy how beautiful it can be and so one day last month a snow storm cleared out while I was driving home and it was so beautiful, I got out and took some pictures.

Do you know what this picture represents? Hope. Snow is melting and dripping off the eaves onto the steps below. Later that day as I drove kids home there was a circle with rainbow colors in the sky, right in front of a little cloud. It was so cool I ran to get the camera, but the second I snapped, it went away. You can almost see it in this close-up. Just a few tinges of pink edges.

Another day we woke up to everything covered in ice. And hazy skies. If I had a camera built on my forehead, I would have the coolest pictures of some great drives. So, for now, that's all!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Random Updates

2009-01-14T22:42:00.005-07:00

So far 2009 has not been a big blogging year for me. That is because I have gotten sucked into a time vacuum where I am doing interesting things like trying to get medical records and fight over not wanting to pay for copies of blank pages when I get them 3 months later, helping kids plan the dreaded science fair project they needed to have pinned down yesterday and finding hats and gloves, sewing hems, etc, etc. Oh, and digging myself out of the snow over and over again. Not to mention getting myself out of snowbanks I so skillfully drive myself into. If I'd had time those days, I could have written something "I love Lucy"-ish about it but now the details are buried deep in my sub conscious mind somewhere. I have just about killed my husband off with all the pushing my car out. There are some other pressing things I have to take care of like, yesterday, work stuff, but my kids are requiring more attention than ever because it is much easier to clean yourself than to get them to do it, but they are having to work to pay off dastardly deeds, so I can't just do it. Left to myself on a desert isle, I would have several fascinating and delightful things to say, but I don't have time to say any of them. Plus, I sort of had some strange transformation and I have finally started exercising. I wrote about that here.
I can't even remember all the events in all their nutty details, so you are spared that and a laugh or two. Maybe exercise really makes you forget life. Or get healthy, skinny and boring? I better not think about that now. A few highlights.
Nothing too thrilling about New Years. We just stayed home even though we had fun parties to go to because we are old and boring. We were just tired that day. We are excited to start a new year, however.
Enigma had a little surgery to remove some growths in her ear cartilage. She has milked it for all it's worth and then some. She was in a newspaper picture which I'm supposed to post but I'm nowhere near the scanner. Later.
Thing 1 got an infection in his finger and we had to go to after hours and get an antibiotic. Papi had some dizziness again. His jobs have fizzled out for the winter so he just has the one main one while just dabbling in the others. If they will finish the freeze the end of this month he will change areas and schedules and possibly positions so we should get to see him again. This will be good for everyone, but it will be an adjustment since now he will need to get up early and need people to go to bed early. And he doesn't want to live off spaghetti, macaroni, and pancakes so I'm going to have to get more consistent about meals. It should be like when a guy retires and comes home to drive his wife crazy except there will be children in the mix.
The 3 kings brought an ICoaster and dart tag which have both been successes. I sewed ponchos and hooded towels for the boys too. My sewing machine had a snafu, so I went and visited my mom. Sheesh that house is quiet without my kids in it. I may go deaf from the silence when I get to that stage in life.
Papi's birthday present turned out to be a success. That will have to be a post in and of itself, if I can get a picture of it. He took it to work for safekeeping.
Little Coleman died as well on the 5th. We are sad for Caden (and their parents of course, but it is so hard for a 5 year old to make sense out of such things) but we know Coleman is happy with no more pokes and no more 'teemo. He's one brave little guy who Neva Dave Up! They are all a real inspiration. Just wish we could help make it all better. The best way to do that is support cancer research. Curesearch.org is a good one!
I'm hoping to get out a March newsletter to family with what we have of the yearbook, which I hope will inspire everyone to give me more work to do on that.
And now I will leave you disappointed with the lack of adventure of the last 3 weeks or so, but you know we're alive and well and hope after a few more fires are put out to be back to writing in earnest. Chao for now!