Haddorkus

Oklahoma!

2011-01-17T14:23:00.005-06:00

We have made it to our new duty station. The super-exciting Oklahoma town of Lawton. Its not the smallest place we have ever lived but it kind of feels that way through lack of proper shopping choices. Can you say no Target? I can't and won't get over that one. The nearest one is about 50 miles away.

But the good news, this job of Dan's is a no deployment job. A guaranteed two years home. I would live in worse places that this for that. He will have a busy job here with a little bit of travel but just a few days here or there, nothing major. And I have been able to get back to school, although I really enjoyed my break. I am taking three classes this semester and will take summer off, just because I hate summer school.

The kids are doing really good. This was the hardest move for them. Three years in Tennessee, they really got settled with their schools and friends. But like true military kids, they are adapting. They really like their new schools, I think one reason might be because they are easier than the last schools, which doesn't exactly make me happy.

We are who we are though and so far we have loved everywhere we have been, met great people, and will make the most of this state, too.

Just a few pictures from the last few months:

The kids in the Bahamas, we totally spoiled them this summer and went on a cruise. DD totally expected to be able to order personal starters and desserts at a restaurant afterward. She was so confused when I explained to her that back in the real world it doesn't work like that.

Punx, my little band geek, at his first middle school concert. He is also first trumpet.

We just got back from Utah and two weddings, here we are at the Garden on top of the Joseph Smith Memorial Building.

More to come later, I have been ignoring the kids all day so I could study.

Dipping my toe back in

2010-09-09T20:41:00.002-05:00

I have been a little anti-technology these past months. I have spent a little too much time getting to know facebook which I now regret. I have been just trying to live and enjoy my life without worrying so much about how I was going to record it. But the truth is, I missed this. I like sharing my life.

The last seven months have seen a lot of changes in our house. Punx just started middle school, which is just weird. Although I really enjoy the "you look too young to have a kid in middle school" comments. We are preparing for our next move, which is about a month away. I have dropped out of college again, since we are moving in the middle of the semester. DD started fourth grade and Bug the second. Dan will be leaving company command at the end of this month to exchange it for a recruitment command in Oklahoma.

In June, we took a cruise with the whole family to Key West and the Bahamas. It was beyond awesome. It spoiled the kids a bit. When we went out to eat after the cruise DD started trying to order a personal appetizer, her entree, and her dessert and was very confused when I explained to her she couldn't do that. They have come back to earth but it still cracks me up what a cushy life they lead and annoys me to no end when they complain. Cruise, are you kidding me? Family vacation for me was an overnight road-trip to Utah sleeping in a van and then sleeping on the floor of my Grandmother's basement, maybe mix it up with some camping in Payson canyon.

The next month is going to be very busy for us, but I will try to get some pictures posted, at least. I make no promises on consistency but I am going to try and be a more active poster.

Bug, still going strong.

2010-02-08T17:26:00.002-06:00

Shh, Dan thinks I'm locked in the office to study for my first Anatomy test tomorrow. Now that we are under Winter Storm Warning again, school will most likely bee cancelled and I seem to have lost my drive. I think that's going to come back and bite me.

Anyway...

Bug is still our comic relief around here so I wanted to share some stories. Some are months old.

We are all sitting at the dinner table, I had made roast beef for dinner and he breaks the silence with, "What the he!! is this meat?" I have no idea where he picked up that kind of language.

A few fast Sundays ago, what we call the first Sunday of the month where we fast, in Primary he comes up to me and says, "This doesn't feel like fast Sunday, it feels like slow Sunday."

We are driving in the car to scouts one night and everyone is chattering away. There is a slight lull in the conversations and Bug uses that opportunity to shout, "B00BS!" And that was all he said.

Another time to break the silence he shouted, "Shut your pie-hole!"

Bug and I have been writing out his Valentine's Day cards for his party on Friday. This week is really a wild one, so I am trying to stay on top of it. I am spelling out first names and he writes it down on the fun dip package. At the end, I spell out, c-r-i-s-t-t-i-n, and he writes it down without a thought. We have them all on the table laid out to keep from smudging when I grab mine and rip it open and start eating it. He starts to complain loudly that now he will have to write out a new one and whose did I steal. I show it to him and he says, "That is my second best friend." Oh really, and what is this friend's name, I ask? He looks at it a while and admits defeat. I ask Punx to come over and read it and he tells him its my name and he gave me that you betrayed me face. I ate the fun dip in front of him and it was gross.

You know people always say how Punx and DD look like Dan and Bug looks like me, I think he got a little more than my looks. I am half-proud/half-fearful.

Four month recap

2010-01-14T15:58:00.003-06:00

I just started a new semester today and the thought occurred to me that I did not post throughout the entire last semester. The past four months were beyond blur-crazy.

September - Dan took command of a company here at Fort Campbell and while we understood that he was taking on a very demanding job, the understanding that I was in for it, did not quite hit home until later. Some wives will take on a job when their husbands take command as FRG leader (a spouse/family support organization) however, I decided that with school and kids that I would not be able to do the job to the level that is expected. Luckily, another spouse volunteered for the position. The day Dan took command, there was a change of command ceremony. I remember walking through a part of the work space of the company with the kids and distinctly heard the whisper, "That's the wife." I can't go into the office without a whole lotta ma'ams being thrown my way. People in Dan's company recognize me in the parking lot and will say stuff to me. It's a little unnerving, this "commander's wife" thing. I am not used to it, the thing I really get a kick out of is seeing all the deference that is paid to Dan. I am like, what? This is Dan, I could tell you guys some stories. After the ceremony, it is tradition for the new commander to provide food. So we spent a boatload of money to feed his almost 300 person company, while most people left right after the ceremony, didn't get food, and I was left with 3 massive cheese platters to take home. The neighbors all thought we were crazy as we showed up at their doors begging them to take bags of cheese. For about a week, there was cheese at every meal at our house. Next the kids finally wore me down and we got a puppy. A white short-haired chihuahua that we named Roscoe.

October - Punx got his Arrow of Light and is basically done with cub scouts. He turns eleven next month, Feb., and that's that, it makes me sad. We took vacation this year during fall break. We went to Orlando and did all the Disney Parks and spent one day at the beach. Disney has the most incredible military discount that I just did not want to pass up. Orlando in October was really hot, so we still enjoyed the water parks, but we never waited in line for anything longer than 20 minutes, and that was only a couple times. We had a really good time and the kids are a such a perfect age to have done it. Pictures later.

November - More Dan stuff. Dan started the Air Assault School in the beginning of the month. It's a lot of great Army stuff, jumping out of helicopters, sliding down ropes, and marching with 60 lbs packs. Halfway through it, Dan got a nasty flu/cold but would not give up, the second to last day, he sprained his ankle coming down a rope wrong, still did not give up. So on the last day, to finish the course is a 12-mile march with the packs, which crazy Dan did sick with a sprained ankle and got sixth place out of almost 200 soldiers. Which leads us to...

December - Dan with pneumonia. Dan spent the majority of the month in bed, barely able to move, needing help with every little thing. I learned a few things, though, I am not a good nurse, I get cranky. Dan makes a lot of noises when he is uncomfortable. And there are certain colors bodily fluids should never be, no more details to spare the innocent. But the year did end well, Dan returning to health, Christmas with family, New Years with family, and another semester down. Although I did get a B, in one of my classes.

So I am off again for another wild ride, Anatomy II and Pre-calculus. After this semester I will take a break, no summer school this year. I am looking forward to that. As of right now we still have no idea when Dan will deploy again, it could be soon to soonish. Any one's guess is as good as the next rumor. We do what everyone else does, survive today to live tomorrow.

At the time...

2009-08-13T11:11:00.002-05:00

It did seem like a good idea at the time. How long has it been since we've been camping, Dan? The kids are starting school, we should go. Great idea, or...

The last time we went camping was an overnight ward campout in ND, three or four years ago. It was August and the temp dropped into the 30's that night. After that the moves, various trainings, and deployment just got in the way.

So we decided to start off small, just an overnight camping trip at our favorite lake spot. We did have a good time - hiking, fire, smores, tent, etc. It was a little hot but I'll take it over 30 degree weather for a tent. It all happened at the end.

We are packing up camp and getting ready to head back for swimming one last time before going home. The kids are off bush-whacking in the distance when Punx comes limping and crying back. He has been stung by a wasp in his leg through his pjs. All the kids come back and I go up to him when all of a sudden the wasp decides he has not proven his point. He flies up Punx nose, lets just say Punx starts freaking out, and it stung him inside his nose. Dan takes him to the bathroom to get some cold water on the stings and calm him down. A couple minutes later, Bug just starts screaming, one has stung him and flown into his shorts. Dan takes him into the bathroom and finds the wasp and kills it. DD runs to the girls bathroom and won't come out. I make Punx sit on a curb with a wet paper towel on both his stings and try to get Bug to do the same but he won't turn his back on the forest and, "I'm not going anywhere near a forest." I finally talk the boys into retreating into the truck although it does take some coercion since it involves going back to our campsite. Once they are safe in their refuge, they won't come out and freak if someone opens the door. It took 20 minutes to get DD out of the bathroom to run to the truck and they just sat in there while Dan and I packed up camp.

We had to drive to the other side of the campground to use the toilets before going home, and we have to work hard to convince them that the wasps had not followed us. We went home, we did not do one more swimming trip. Punx had a bloody nose this morning and it was the same side as the wasp sting and he was sure it was connected, five days later. Poor kids.

In other news, my class ends tomorrow and I get my two week summer vacationand the kids have already started, woo-hoo. Take final, finish paper, AC upstairs broken. I feel so behind in my to-do list I think it might lap me.

Juggling

2009-07-28T23:38:00.002-05:00

I have never been able to juggle. Once at a parent-thing at the kids school, they taught us to juggle handkerchiefs, I sort got the hang of that. I have tried to learn how to juggle quite a few times, just cannot get the hang of it.

Now to my life, there are too many balls in the air. This has been a very jugg-ly kind of summer for me and I think I have dropped a few balls. I was recently released as cub master, I have never been sad to be released from a calling before but I was very sad to lose this one. Now I am in the Primary Presidency which while less fun than scouts takes up way more time. I am still in my philosophy class, and if any ball is going to be dropped it tends to be this one, I think right now I'll be lucky to scrape an A in the class. There was a lice re-occurrence just as I started to feel better about the whole situation. DD is so sick of me treating her hair and sitting still for hours. And I couldn't be more sick of cleaning the house.

There are some stresses coming down the pipe, also. Good and alright. For fall semester I am taking my first full load, half in class and the other half online, still working toward the Dec. 2010 date. I really need to stick to that date, that is pretty much the only date I have guaranteed to still be here. Dan recently got word that he will be taking command of a company here and it is a very demanding job, about 15-18 months. The great news is that the company just got home from deployment so it looks like Dan will not be deploying the rest of the time we are here at Campbell.

I think that I will be very busy and kind of anti-social for quite a while. I think my regular posting days are on hiatus for the time being.

Breakdown

2009-06-29T14:43:00.002-05:00

I wanted to have a nervous breakdown today but then I took a real good look at the to-do list and decided it wasn't a priority. I bumped it to number 47 on the list, maybe I'll get to it later in the week.

My top priority contenders:

Exam today that I didn't know I had. I've been so busy with everything else that I haven't checked in on my philosophy class in about six days, that's really bad. I haven't read the past two sections and now test today. So right now is my study/reading break before I take the first of only three exams in this class. By the way, I am not a philosophy fan. All this debate on whether or not my body exist, what is reality. Are you kidding me? I know I exist because I hear my children whine at me everyday about something. I know I have a body because it is bone-tired by the end of the day. And if reality didn't exist why I am having an exam on whether or not it exist or not?

Next, finish putting the house back together from two disaster this past week. One, we decided to exchange the boys room for ours and when we were just about done we realized that our box spring wouldn't go up the stairs. Two, DD got head lice from who knows where and I have since been cleaning everything and anything in the house. I have treated her head twice with the one-treatment only stuff and been a groomer monkey on her everyday. There is nothing in this world to freak a person out more than lice.

Last contender, trying to appeal for a refund for a class that I registered to take and completely missed. I didn't read the fine print of the registration that said it was a two-week course that would be done before summer semester started so imagine my shock when I logged onto school the first day of the semester to discover that I had already missed an entire class. Dan and I also pay for school completely on our own, this class cost about $800 plus the $80 book. And its a class in my major so I have to take it. I am trying to appeal for a refund to not have to pay for the same class twice.

So between all this, the breakdown had been resceduled for a later date.

Two bright spots. I took the kids to their first day of Y-camp today and I found my emergency snickers last week that I had hidden from the kids so well that I couldn't find it. I don't expect it to last the week.

Coming to grips with...age

2009-06-16T07:24:00.004-05:00

There has been a lot on my mind lately and age is one of them. I turned thirty last August and really didn't have a problem with it. Now that thirty-one is not to far away, I'm thinking a little deeper on the subject for a few reasons.

I went to the doctor for my woman's appointment. It had been three years and finally the post hospital actually called me to set up an appointment. A few things came to me about this. First that it had been three years and I didn't even notice. Then while I was doing the maintenance to get ready for my appointment it seemed harder than usual. Something about going to that appointment makes me need to shave my legs. Besides needing to be a master at yoga to succeed at this feat, I also need a riding mower to get at the back forty acreage. While I am shaving the back of my legs, way up there, I notice a dark patch that would make a hobbit proud if only he had it on the tops of his feet. Just one patch on each leg, not only am I grossed out but I am now distressed by the thought of the rest of my leg hairs turning dark.

Anyway, I survived the trimming of the hedge and I get to the doctors. She used terms like, "you're at the age where..." and they weren't followed by anything complementary like "you could seriously injure yourself surfing and recover just fine." No, this was supplement talk. Calcium, bone, you don't want to break a hip, now do you, talk.

Also, recently I started taking fiber, since nothing works anymore. So now I've added calcium to the regimen. Vitamins, Vitamin C, Calcium with Vitamin D, and Fiber. There are so many ways one vitamin can stop the absorption of another so they all have to be taken at separate times, with food or I feel like puking. Now all I need is one of those plastic pill separator boxes with a calculator watch with the alarm set for every four hours to remind me to take my pills to help along the transformation.

Then to complete the picture: Punx and DD have passed the swim test at the Y so they get a bracelet to wear that means they can swim anywhere in the pool and without me being there but Bug isn't there yet. The other day, DD went swimming while I was working out and when I was done, Bug and I joined her. The day camp was also in the pool. All three of us were at the deep end side when the day camp was starting to get out. That's when the lifeguard finally noticed Bug at the side of the pool, throwing things in for me to dive down and get. She walks up to him and starts telling him he can't be at this part of the pool and must go. He doesn't go. I finally manage to swim over and look at her like, what? She looks at me and says, "He doesn't have a bracelet." I say, "He can't be here with me?" She replies, "He doesn't have a bracelet," I say with more feeling, "He can't be here with ME?!" Something in my tone finally got her to stop and look at me. She just stared and me and finally goes, "Are you the mom?" I'm like, yeah, I didn't add that the older girl next to him was also mine and that the oldest was at cub scout day camp, that stuff never seems to help. She looks at me and goes, "I thought you were with the swim camp. I thought you were like 13 or 14."

There are many things wrong with this to me. While I don't mind being thought younger, heck, even half my age, that's great. How sad that someone with my body type, ie big fatty, can be confused with someone that young. And the cut-off for Y-camp is 11. Whatever, I'll take it, once it stops, I'll be sad.

It's just really hard to reconcile all the differences between still being mistaken for a teenager, still acting like a child a good portion of the time, while my body ages just to spite me.

Whoa! Tons of Stuff

2009-05-23T09:44:00.007-05:00

We've crammed more stuff into these past couple weeks than I would've though possible. It is a time of transition for all of us here. Another semester down for me, A's in both my classes. The kids have completed another year at school. And we are gearing up for all our summer activities. But here we go for all the fun we've crammed into the past month or so.

The big one:

DD waiting so patiently for her baptism. She turned eight in December but we decided to wait until Dan came home, then we learned than my sister, Jenny was getting her Master's degree in May so to save my Dad the burden of two trips in a couple months time we pushed it back another couple months. She took it like an angel. The baptism went well. And I even got the chocolate stains out of her dress that it took her all of ten minutes in her dress to put in. The day before her baptism was Jenny's graduation so it was just a super-fun busy family weekend.

I totally forgot how boring college graduations could be until we went to this, with all the kids. However, they can also get really interesting when the Provost conducting the ceremony passes out towards the end. Everyone started paying attention then, and she was alright, I am not heartless.

Earlier in the month, Punx got his Webelos:

That is Punx pinning on the parent pin and that is me in my super-snazzy uniform. Punx is really loving Webelos, getting those pins is very exciting to him. I love seeing him so enthusiastic about scouts. We have the best Webelos leaders, which makes all the difference in the world.

We ended the school year, with all the normal hullabaloo, those awards ceremonies that the kid's school does every quarter and that every grade has their own. That is twelve award ceremonies this year. I miss the first quarter because of my classes so I only went to nine, but eight last year. And we all know how these go, they say the same thing at every single one. That is seventeen times of explaining perfect attendance their particular way, what this award means, what that award is. I could do the whole thing myself now but way faster. (Can anyone tell that I don't like these things? But if I don't go the kids get all sad.) I have finally figured it out though. I sit in the corner and put my book/magazine under the sticky cafeteria table when one of the kids is up front and can therefore see me. It helps.

This year, all the normal crap, I mean achievements. The kids did really well, honor roll, Bug got the award for knowing all the sight words, my kids never get perfect attendance. I am just really glad that they didn't do a kindergarten graduation, I think that really would've put me over the edge. The only things that does bother me about this state is the grading system. The cut-off for an A is 93%, for B is 86%. Punx this year, all four quarters only had two grades that were 88%, all the others were in the 90's but he never had all A honor roll because sometimes his grades were in the low 90's. I think it's weird. I tell the kids if it's in the 90's it's an A in this house. Rant about elementary education over.

Now we move onto summer, yeah, trips to the lake, pool, stream, splash park, what else has water in it, the drinking fountain. We are taking a break from swimming and gymnastics this summer and doing track, just to shake it up. Don't forget the free movie festival. It is really amazing how different I feel about this summer compared to the last two, without Dan here now that he is home. I feel all excited and happy. I feel a little of the freak out feeling but that is just about trying to juggle my classes and keeping them happy. If I have to do it when Dan is home from work, then that is what I'll do. Wow, options and parental help, it's like it will never get old.

Blurbs

2009-05-08T16:46:00.004-05:00

I am feeling a little disconnected lately, besides being on the computer for my school work and deleting emails that I don't want to take the time to read, my computer time has been very limited lately. I am so glad that I finished my finals this week and have so much more time. But to start fresh I wanted to put out there all those little things that have been floating around in my brain that I would have posted about in a normal way.

1. We cut off our satellite TV. We are a TV-free household, and by that I mean that we set-up Dan's laptop to the flat screen and watch hulu.com for all the shows I watched before. But the kids watch way less now, which means that I haven't heard them quote Spongebob in weeks. I'm liking that.

2. I lived up to my side of the bargain to not do something crazy to my hair during the deployment so I gave Dan a couple months and then chopped it all off, because what I did to it after he came home wasn't apart of the deal...

3. We are having a fun time with Bug right now. Honestly he is driving me crazy. We have had rain pretty much everyday for two weeks and I think that is a small part of the problem the other part is he has the tendency to think the word "now" means at your earliest convenience if you don't mind. The mornings have been particularly tough. Staying on task isn't something he is terribly interested in, like getting dressed for school.

That would be a pair of his tighty-whiteys on his ceiling fan.

4. I actually have a graduation date. It is hard to trust it, I have been going to school off and on for 12 years, it doesn't seem possible. December 2010. I keep thinking that there has to be something that my adviser forgot about. That is one reason why I am targeting graduation for December so that when I find out that there are classes that he forgot about I still have another semester to get it in before it's time to move. So maybe May 2011? And I had to take on a minor with my history major so I choose Political Science, which was one of the first majors I ever considered so best of both worlds here. My first poli sci class is this summer, I am excited.

5. Punx is recovering really well. His ear is almost all the way healed and his physical restriction will be lifted next week. He is really ready for that one. I will post some before and after ear pics later. I think there is some spoiling going one though. He getting a little more bent than usual when he doesn't get his way. Maybe I overdid it right after the surgery with taking care of him.

6. Dan started with his new unit and is back to normal work hours, boo. The month or so after the deployment when they just have them work a couple hours if they ask them to go in at all was really nice. As with all new jobs, they are working him. But, Dan is one of those love to work guys so he likes it. He'll probably only be with this unit for a couple of months and then he'll get moved again, but we'll see.

Well, that is a good amount. I have a couple of weeks off before the next semester starts and before the kids start their summer, I am going to enjoy it.

Mexican Cruise Pics, finally

2009-04-20T14:11:00.012-05:00

I am feeling good right now. I am on top of school work, only a couple weeks left of the semester. The house work is on that good predictable schedule. I feel like I am finally getting a firm grasp on things again. Just in time for school to get out, right? Although, I already signed the kids up for Y camp, yeah!

So, the point of this one, is that I finally have the time to sit down at the computer and upload the pics from the cruise. And try to empty my email inbox, boy that was not pretty.

Here we are after a good full day at Cozumel. I did all the good shopping there. We had some real fun there. We didn't do any of that tourist excursion stuff that they try to sell you on the boat. We totally winged it all day. We walked off the boat and looked for the first place that we could find to rent a moped. We then drove around the island. Stopped at a beach that looked promising. That's where there was this guy that rescued animals and he let us play with his monkey, so cute. Then on the beach were these couple guys who had a boat and they took us out snorkeling. It was really beautiful, we saw eels, rays, and a ton of reef fish. While we were out we saw one of the excursion snorkel boats, it was like 25 people all in one spot, all having to wear life vests. There are very few things less appealing to nature than a whole boatload of white overweight Americans trying to commune with a reef en mass. I really liked the way we did it, it was just Dan and I and the local guy occasionally pointing stuff out to us. Without the jackets we could also dive down whenever we wanted to. After that beach, we continued to drive around the island and then found some completely empty beaches and enjoyed walking and exploring there. Then drove back to the boat with one fun little romp through the downtown area that included us driving the wrong way on a one-way street. We did Cozumel up right, let me tell you. The rest of the pics to go with the story...

The next stop was Progresso, that's when we did do the tourist thing and bought an excursion to Chichen Itza, which is the thing we were the most excited about. We were a little bummed to find out that you can no longer climb up it. Later in the day at another part of the ruins there was this thing of steps, maybe like six or seven, and climbing it burned. The climbing down part though was so scary. The steps are small and steep. I know that I would not have gone up to the top, I would have gone about ten steps up, freaked myself out and called it quits. It was really cool to look at though. We got to walk around the almost the whole grounds. We saw the arena where they play that game with the sideways hoop, you can sort of see it in one of the pics. There is this one thing called the cemetery, I'm standing there in the front of it, its a rectangular block thing just with skull after skull in relief, totally awesome. There is one picture I have near the arena with a little Mayan women selling handkerchiefs, she is normal size for her people. It was a really amazing place, even if we didn't see any drug lords.

That's about it, I don't really have any pics from when we were on the boat. We didn't really do anything but sleep and eat. And I mean eat. I am still paying for that one. Here we are a month later, I am just getting back to the gym, I need to work off about 8 pounds from these past couple months, totally worth it.

The Talk

2009-04-13T15:03:00.000-05:00

Last week, while Punx was home from school Dan thought it was the perfect time to have "the talk." I was just very happy that I got through the deployment without the question and could field this one over to Dan. Dan took him up to his room and they had their discussion. It all went pretty normal. Dan was trying to be as vague as possible but we all know how that goes. Finally Punx asked a question that needed to be given a more direct answer. After learning what I am guessing was more than he wanted to know or had imagined, his response, "Dad, I didn't think it was like that. Why didn't you wait to tell me until I was thirteen?"

All Punx, all the time

2009-04-03T09:35:00.002-05:00

Between Punx and the paper I have due today I finally have a moment to myself. It's spring break this week and rather than do something like fun, Punx had surgery. On Wednesday he had his tonsils, adenoids, and a cosmetic procedure done on his ear. So the lead up to the surgery was what kind of fun can we have today since he is going to be miserable soon. We played with friends, went to the movies, and played on the trampoline a lot. It's a new purchase so the kids are on it all the time, that was a really good buy for us.

The 7am surgery time was not so fun. Punx chose me to take him and Dan stayed home with the other two. They gave him a sedative about 30 minutes before they took him back. Let me just say, drunk Punx is an awful lot like regular Bug, that was surprising. Before they doped him up, he was just laying on the bed, all nervous, but a nervous Punx is a very quiet one. Once he was all loopy, he got this really weird grin on his face that wouldn't go away and he wouldn't keep still. I had to keep making him lay back down because he was trying to get away. He wouldn't answer questions, just look at me with that goofy grin.

Then they took him back and it took about two hours. The doctor then told me I had time to go to the pharmacy before he woke up and then I could see him. He woke up while I was at the pharmacy and by the time I got back he was really upset and crying. It just about broke my heart when the nurses brought me back to where he was, to see him with his head all bandaged up, crying out like that. They let me get in bed with him to calm him down. The nurse came back a little later and commented that his heart had slowed way down. That made me feel good. That I serve a purpose to my children. He was so hurting and just asking to go home. It took another hour or so, but once we got home he was better.

Under the constant care of Tylenol with codeine and the computer which he swears makes him feel better, he is doing alright. We go to the doctor today to check on the head dressing and see if he can get a smaller one on. He will still be out of school for a while but so far, he is doing well on his diet of pudding, popsicles, and ice cream.

This is how I know he is doing better, he couldn't even be bothered with the camera. He sort of looked at it, waved and went back to his game.

Nearing completion

2009-03-20T14:29:00.005-05:00

Completion. What a great word. Anyone remember November 2007? Dan and I were starting the renovation of the kitchen with grand ideals to have it done by the next month before he deployed. Isn't that just quaint? We did get a lot of work done in those two months but here we are now a little bit later and I am finally seeing the finish line.

I won't bore anyone with the list but really all we have left is touch-up work, it feels really good. And I am loving my kitchen. I love waling into this room, I love the way it turned out and I love that we did practically all the work ourselves. The only thing we didn't do was install the oven and the counter tops. The backsplash was installed purely by me, I totally dig being able to say that. Dan did all the cutting.

Flashback to when we bought the house:

Now here is where we are at right now:

So now, besides the dozen or so touch up things we still would like to do, there were also some slight unforeseen hiccups. We changed the electrical outlets because they were all beige and we wanted white, sounds simple enough, yeah? Dan is no novice around electricity either, thanks to his time in the Guard, but now there are a few light switches that don't quite work the way they should. For example, the light above the sink is normally turned on by the light switch, now the only way to turn it on is when you have turned on the garbage disposal. Little glitches like that. But other that that, we are coming along, and on the bright side, I have never kept a kitchen so clean. It's like wrong to let this one get dirty, it actually gives me pain.

Coming soon, vacation pictures. And one last thing, happy anniversary to Dan and me, eleven years today!

Coming down

2009-03-18T20:46:00.002-05:00

Man, has it been a wonderful month and half. Who knew having a husband around changed life so drastically? I really didn't appreciate what a transition it was from having him gone around 17 months to having him home - a lot. He has been working about three hours a day, when we weren't on vacation. He still probably won't start a normal work schedule for another couple weeks. I had no idea how independent I had become until I realized that I was getting irritated from having to tell Dan about my comings and goings, and not in a possessive way, just the regular way husbands and wives know what each other doing normally.

I just wanted to put in a quick update for some thing to look for. I will start posting pictures of our vacation soon, the cruise was so awesome. And before the vacation Dan and I were hard at work again in the kitchen and got a ton done before we left. It's just that between starting to be normal again, all the school work I need to catch up on from vacation, and of course, vacation laundry, all you can have right now is this teaser.

Just know that I am emerging from the bubble now.

Welcome and Un

2009-02-04T10:24:00.002-06:00

Ahhh, so he is home. He got home last Thursday at a totally normal hour which is rare for the army. After all the turn-in equipment fun we were still home by 3 p.m., just enough time for Dan to crash out for a little while. A couple days of travel deserves a nap, right?

He came home just in time for Punx's tenth birthday that was on Monday. He also came home just in time for me and the boys to get a short stomach bug. A nice, 24-hour-I'm-unable-to-move-except-to-rush-to-the-bathroom kind of bug. Welcome home, that was how I spent the first full day of Dan being home. The next couple days was being weak and nauseous getting over it.

I have no pictures of the homecoming I was too busy squirming around trying to find him and point him out to the kids to actually worry about the camera.

Now he just has a light work load and he will be taking leave soon. We will be headed to TX to see some family and then going on a cruise just him and me in about a month, our first cruise. Dan promised me years ago a cruise for our tenth anniversary and instead all I got was a call from Afghanistan, so we are taking it now for our eleventh next month.

We are just trying to find the new groove, it's very strange. I had no idea how used to being alone I had become. We had a couple snow days before Dan came home, then he came home, then we were all sick, so I went like five or six days with someone always there and it was starting to make me twitchy. Also, the kids keep asking me permission for Dan to do things. Mom, can Daddy play a game with us? Mom, can Daddy watch a movie with us? It's really funny. It's an adjustment for everyone, I guess.

Sitting, Waiting, Wishing

2009-01-28T18:27:00.002-06:00

That's the song title, and it seems appropriate right now, being that is all I am doing. Well, not much sitting. We are on day two of snow days here and I have used them to my benefit. Three extra set of hands for slave labor, I mean, help. Bug is convinced that we have the cleanest house in the whole world. Punx used the word sparkly for our bathrooms. I know Dan won't notice that the floorboards are clean but it sure does feel good.

Right now it is the only thing from keeping me from running around screaming and being all fidgety, although that is starting to come on regardless of the busyness. I seemed to have pulled some sort of muscle in my inner-thigh, that has slowed me down a little.

But anyway, do you guys see my donut of misery list? It already says 100%, while that bugs me a little that it says 100% when he is not actually home it is hopeful. I just need the weather to cooperate now and then maybe the army will give me back my husband for a while.

Please just let it end.

Advice

2009-01-22T15:13:00.004-06:00

Last month I went to a redeployment briefing in anticipation of Dan's homecoming. That is what they call it when they come home - redeployment. Makes me think of an assignment. Alright boys, strap in, your going home, this is going to be the tough one. The army takes the fun out of everything. So at the briefing we were given all sorts of advice, from finance to relationships to the signs of PTSD. All very useful stuff. My favorite bit of advice I will share because it can benefit all marriages. We were handed this piece of paper with an except from a Ladies magazine from 1955 on tips for being a good wife. Now that I know all the areas that I have been lacking I will share so no one else will have to suffer like my poor Dan has been suffering these past ten years. Remember that this came from a real magazine and that this was real advice.

The Good Wife’s Guide

Have dinner ready. Plan ahead, even the night before, to have a delicious meal ready, on time for his return. This is a way of letting him know that you have been thinking about him and are concerned about his needs. Most men are hungry when they come home and the prospect of a good meal (especially his favorite dish) is part of the warm welcome needed.

Prepare yourself. Take 15 minutes to rest so you’ll be refreshed when he arrives. Touch up your make-up, put a ribbon in your hair and be fresh-looking. He has just been with a lot of work-weary people.

Be a little gay and a little more interesting for him. His boring day may need a lift and one of your duties is to provide it.

Clear away the clutter. Make one last trip through the main part of the house just before your husband arrives.

Gather up schoolbooks, toys, paper, etc and then run a dust cloth over the tables.

Over the cooler months of the year you should prepare and light a fire for him to unwind by. Your husband will feel he has reached a haven of rest and order, and it will give you a lift too. After all, catering for his comfort will provide you with immense personal satisfaction.

Prepare the children. Take a few minutes to wash the children’s hands and faces (if they are small), comb their hair and, if necessary, change their clothes. They are little treasures and he would like to see them playing the part. Minimize all noise. At the time of his arrival, eliminate all noise of the washer, dryer, or vacuum. Try to encourage the children to be quiet.

Be happy to see him.

Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him.

Listen to him. You may have a dozen important things to tell him, but the moment of his arrival is not the time. Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours.

Make the evening his. Never complain if he comes home late or goes out to dinner or other places of entertainment without you. Instead, try to understand his world of strain and pressure and his very real need to be at home and relax.

Your goal: Try to make sure your home is a place of peace, order and tranquility where your husband can renew himself in body and spirit.

Don’t greet him with complaints and problems.

Don’t complain if he’s late home for dinner or even if he stays out all night. Count this as minor compared to what he might have gone through that day.

Make him comfortable. Have him lean back in a comfortable chair or have him lie down in the bedroom. Have a cool or warm drink ready for him.

Arrange his pillow and offer to take off his shoes. Speak in a low, soothing and pleasant voice.

Don’t ask him questions about his actions or question his judgment or integrity. Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

A good wife knows her place.

Housekeeping Monthly 13 May 1955

I sent this to Dan and he shared it with all the guys in the office. So now I know that Dan knows what my responsibilities are. Can you believe some of that stuff?

Note Home

2009-01-15T08:12:00.002-06:00

We have a notebook call the Study Buddy that the kids bring home everyday and that I sign and return. It has homework assignments, bad notes, and upcoming events. Leafing through Bug's book is an excellent glimpse into the life of a kindergarten teacher. There is not a week without one or two notes to put a smile on my face.

The one that tops the list came yesterday...

"He had about 5 pair of underwear today."

That was all it said, so slightly baffled I called to him to explain. Did you have an accident? Did you take them with you? No, I had like 8 underwears on. All at the same time? Yes. How did your teacher find out? I told her that my stomach was hurting and she asked why and I told her because I had a lot of underwear on.

This was one of those times where no poker face parent is prepared for. I just started rolling. I signed the study buddy with: that is like the funniest thing one of my kids has ever done and got the reply: it cracked me up, too.

Today, he tried to go to school with two t-shirts on. I think the boy is cold, I'm going to the store to get him some underclothes.

It's the Final Countdown!!

2009-01-12T09:17:00.007-06:00

I am trying everything in my power not to get super over-the-top excited before it's time but Dan should be home soon. Dan should be home soon. Holy Cow, Dan is coming home! See how good I am doing holding down the excitement? I am torn between restraining myself and acting out in frenetic energy cleaning and organizing. What else would I do but organize something, right?

First victim was my pantry. Every closet in the house is painted with flat paint and the shelves are a not pretty plywood. So, over the Christmas break I emptied it out and organized. And primed and painted the beast.

Some befores:

The Afters:

The feature I like the most is the sound system that I installed so that every time you open the door an ethereal choir sings out heavenly soft ahhhs to serenade me to my pretty pantry.

I've already started on the bathroom. I got some matching organizer things for the cabinets and went through the thousands of items under the sink. I had no idea that we had that much medication, that much lotion, or that much junk. This coming from a person who doesn't wear product in her hair and hardly ever ears make-up. Where is all this stuff coming from? I got rid of a lot of stuff but I think I need to be more cut-throat. So much stuff that we hold on to because I might probably use it one day, possibly.

Last week was a great week for productivity. There is nothing like feeling like your husband is never coming home to depress me into action. On the flip-side, I also feel like there is not enough time to get it all done. This dichotomy was one of the shocking realizations this last week. But I think the most astonishing thing was finding out that it is no longer possible for me to be a depressed lump.

On Thursday last, I realized that morning that it had been over 36 hours since I had heard from Dan. That is very rare. We have been so fortunate that I normally hear from him twice a day. I didn't hear from him all Wednesday and his normal time to call in the morning on Thursday had come and gone. So I figured this was the perfect day to lay around and watch bad TV. I laid down for about twenty minutes and then got up and cleaned the kitchen. Went back to be pathetic and lasted only ten minutes before I was up and doing laundry. What?! I can't lay around and eat ice cream? What has this deployment done to me? It's so shocking. He called while I was folding the laundry.

Well, anyway, I am not wasting this energy. This house is getting clean and organized. The cars are getting oil changes, fluids checked and filled, cleaned and ready. One car down, truck next. All sorts of errands are getting accomplished. The list I got down last week makes me feel all gooey inside.

This week I look forward to more stuff getting done and one more week closer to the end. Also this week my new semester starts. Two classes, I switched to both online classes so I am home-schooled this semester. The kids were so jealous. The switch comes from me changing my major and deciding on a different path on what I want to be when I grow up. But that is for another post. Kind of burying a lead there, huh? Onto the mighty list!

Resolved

2009-01-05T16:28:00.002-06:00

Ah, the New Year. Favorite time of people everywhere to come up with ways to improve their lives, start a new talent, or meet some new goal. To put it bluntly I hate New Year resolutions. I think the whole idea that at this randomly marked date in the calendar year that now I will be able to stick to whatever goal I have in my head that somehow I wouldn't have been able to make, say, in July. I do believe in goals, making them, keeping them, and adapting as needs be. However, the whole country believing that now I will write that novel, exercise regularly, finally learn synchronized swimming because Auld Lang Syne played, hmmm. Well, now I believe you. Any goal that popped into your head then probably has been there for a while but you waited for New Year's. You mean you've been procrastinating putting into effect this life-changing idea of yours. Yeah, that's going to work. All this does is crowd up the gym for a couple of months and drive me bonkers. So Happy New Year anyway but...

This year I resolve to make no resolutions.

Oh poop, I already broke it.

Yatta! ("I did it!" in Japanese)

2008-12-19T11:25:00.003-06:00

This past week was the week for some serious arms up in the air and screaming, "Yatta!"

I will list my top three:

First:
Finished first semester of school, didn't do too bad on my finals, didn't kill the kids with all the stress, with the added benefit of being so stressed out that I lost a couple pounds. I finished the semester with three A's and one B. Of course, that B is in my Anatomy and Physiology lecture, I've never worked harder for a B or been more proud.

Second:
I fixed the toilet. Again, but really fixed the problem. The handle broke again and instead of just putting on a new handle I found out what was causing the handle to break. An old gasket in the tank. Replaced gasket, new handle, and learned how to stop it from running. I used to have to lift the lid to flush the toilet and then wait around to fix the running. Now I stay purely to thrill at the sound of a completely working flush.

Third:
Survived first girl slumber party. DD turned eight last week and instead of some big party, I told her she could invite three friends to sleep over. I had this thing planned. Asked a friend to let the boys sleep over at her house so I could focus solely on the girls. They watched movies, played on the computer, video games, ate pizza, other various junk, and we made bracelets/necklaces with little picture frame charms for a picture of DD and whoever made the jewelry. And they were even quiet when I told them it was time to be quiet, I think I properly scared them with my I-am-the-crankiest-person-in-the-world speech. The next day was a little more challenging, they were all very tired including the boys. Everyone was all blood-shot eyes by the end of the day. None of them have ever stayed up that late before. They had a blast. Even if DD was having some serious entitlement issues, one more thing to work on.

Hunkered down

2008-12-07T21:44:00.008-06:00

I am in full finals study mode. I have only four more days until I will be able to say I have survived my first semester back at school. I wasn't really feeling that much pressure, all my grades are pretty set. My English grade is right on the border of A/B, but I feel good with Hamlet so I am not that worried. I think I will be alright. I am very confident in my Algebra class that I will be fine. The final is accumulative and I have gotten A's on every test. To my surprise, I was the only one in the class to get an A on the last test. The test that I took early so I could go to the presidential rally. I was feeling the normal amount of stress going into my Anatomy final, it is on the last two chapters. I have a very solid B, so I just wanted to hang onto that. I emailed my professor to double-check that my grade was what I thought it was. I had figured an A was mathematically impossible but apparently he does some last minute curving. He told me that if I do very well on the final an A is not out of the question. So pressure back on.

As Sunday is a absolute no-study day, I can just veg out and post today. Especially since we didn't make it to church. A special thanks to Bug, throwing up at the Ward Christmas party last night. I can't tell you how good he is at telling me that he is feeling sick and that he needs to get to the toilet. He hasn't thrown up on the floor in years, leave it to now so we can be in public for that to fall through. He's not really sick, but that's a whole other story.

Here's the point just some lists of updates I wanted to share:

I did not get my flat screen TV, I wasn't impressed by the black Friday sales. The cheapest I saw was $100 off the cheapest I've been able to find on a normal day. That is not enough a savings for me to deal with crazy. I will wait it out a little bit more.

Way back on Veteran's Day, there was a program for Punx year group at school...

I just thought this was so funny. Do you see the arrow pointing to where you can see that tiny patch of Punx's head? He is standing on the highest tier there and the girls in front of him are a step lower and still that much taller than him. I just wanted a picture. We got there all early so we could sit in the front row so I could get some good pictures and maybe a video. And then this is all I could see. Then my battery died right after I took this picture. They sang very well though, it was a nice little program.

Then right before Thanksgiving I took the boys to go to the Presidential rally. DD had a field trip at school so I let her choose which she would rather do. She informed me that she had studied all about the President at school so she pretty much knew what he was going to say. It was a lot easier, I must say, with only two of them rather than all three. Especially since we stood there for about two hours before he came and then it took another two hours after before we could get back to out car. All for a twenty minute speech.

That morning as I was helping the boys get ready, I was explaining that they should dress nice. Not church nice, but let's not wear jeans. Note to self: it is so alright to wear jeans and comfortable shoes. I wore heels and was sore for two days. I was picking a nice outfit for Bug and just threw some random underwear at him, probably SpongeBob, and he picks them up and hands them back to me and says, "Mom, these are not nice underwear."

While we waited for the President. A very nice woman stood with us the whole time and even gave the boys a snack. They had sent out an email that we could bring food so I didn't but then they didn't even care. They had food there but I wasn't going to give up our spot to try and find our way to the snack tent at the back of the crowds.

As good a picture as I could get with the camera zoomed in and held over my head. As the President came in, a couple awesome soldiers reached back and picked up the boys to hold them up high so they could see him walk in. They pick them up one more time later on so they could look again. It was really nice, I can't pick up Punx like that anymore.

When it was over, we didn't even try to get to the buses I thought we could just sit down on the bleachers and wait while all the hordes moo'ed their way along. All those people just stood there forever. A friend and her family found us and we all waited out on the side together while the kids ran around.

One thing all the crowds missed by trying to get out of there so fast was watching Air Force One take off. We were right there. I think the boys liked that. Then when the crowds finally started moving we thought we should get in line. Then all the soldiers started yelling, civilians, make a hole. Next thing we knew they all got out of the way and kept telling us to move up front. All civilians to the front. We kept getting pushed to the front until we were at the front of the line. We felt bad about that so we moved to the side. Then the buses came, it turned out everyone had been waiting until Air Force One had taken off, no one had left that whole time we had just been sitting around waiting for everyone to leave. Then everyone got all crazy to get on the buses so my friend's family and us, we moved to the side again. Next thing we knew another bus pulls up and stops right in front of us. So we just got in. It was hard not to laugh at all the impatient people pushing and trying so hard to get on that first bus when we just stood back and watched then one came to us. My friend's husband said, this is what an evacuation would be like, except that no one here is scared. That was a scary thought.

I really liked taking the boys to go see the President. Politics aside, I thought it was a cool experience for them. DD, of course, cried about it when she got home and thought the boys had more fun then she did. Not much of a surprise.

That's about it. Classes are over, so I do have a lot of free time to freak out and study. It turns out I am not that great at studying for prolonged periods of time at home. I think though that being on this side of the weekend and seeing finals so close will help me focus. Not so much tomorrow, though, mom day with a friend, I am going to see Twilight again.

I'm off!

2008-11-26T13:22:00.000-06:00

Lovely school break looming before me, I am taking off to my sister's house for some turkey and hunting. I am hunting a flat screen TV this Friday. Our TV is the first TV we ever bought in our marriage and I am ready for an upgrade.

I will be back on Saturday or so and then I will post pictures of the Presidential visit to Fort Campbell yesterday that I took the boys to.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Uhhh, thanks?

2008-11-21T15:23:00.004-06:00

Yesterday, I took a break from studying to actually do something. As I crashed and burned on my test this afternoon it probably wasn't the best idea. Anyway, I decided to go to enrichment. I have only gone like three times the year and a half we have lived here. It is the same time as swim team practice so I never make it. Yesterday, was the last day of swimming before we take a break. Less is more. So I pulled the kids out of swimming until Jan.

So, I get to the church and one of the first things someone says to me is..."You look exhausted."

I am pretty sure the phrase "worn-out" was in there also. I replied that, "Yes, I am but I am so glad that you can tell." Well, now. I have mirrors, I know that the bags under my eyes now resemble duffel bags rather than hand bags but ouch.

Here's to the future:

Life or Pancakes

2008-11-19T22:24:00.002-06:00

From the movie "Stranger Than Fiction"

Harold Crick - "I want to live! I mean who in their right mind in a choice between pancakes and living, chooses pancakes?"
Professor Hilbert - "Harold, if you pause to think I believe you'd realize that that answer is inextricably contingent upon the type of life being lead and, of course, the quality of the pancakes."

On an aside, I really like this movie, some of my favorite quotes are from this little know Will Ferrell movie. It is not a normal sense of the word comedy but it is very funny. Smart funny.

To the point, I love that line. I'm not trying to sound pathetic, but I hope when I look back at my life it would appear to be better than high quality pancakes. I'm just saying.

Lather, rinse, repeat. As needed.

2008-11-17T15:08:00.002-06:00

I know everyone knows the rut feeling. I have been feeling it something fierce ever since Dan left and just stepped back into the grind like nothing had happened.

Turn-off alarm. Do a little reading. Get breakfast for the kids. Get in the shower. Backpacks ready, clean-up breakfast. "Does everyone have a sweatshirt?" Repeat question four times. Get my backpack ready. Grab whatever bottle is counting as my breakfast and throw it in. Watch for the bus, get out the door, go, go, go. Oh yeah, I love you, have a good day. Drive to school, talk to Dan on phone. Find parking spot, walk to class. Cram whatever study time I have in. Class, study, class, study. Drive home. Clean something. Eat maybe. Study, homework. Kids, their homework. Clean something. Stop fighting. What day is it? Swimming, scouts, what's going on tonight? Dinner, baths, jamas. Stop fighting. Go to bed, now, I love you. Study, homework, watch some TV. Talk to Dan. Read a little, set alarm, turn off light.

Repeat, repeat, repeat, infinity...

I feel nothing but stress, frustration, anger, and occasionally nothing at all. I am just coming off a wonderful girl's weekend. My sister and I and a couple of friends did a church conference thing, Time Out for Women. It was here in Nashville this past weekend. A single friend stayed at the house and watched the kids. We all got a hotel room, went to the conference, ate actual food, had a good time. Now here I am two days later, one day away from my first final and I am ready to explode.

I am very dispirited. I don't know how else to describe it except that I feel like I am failing. Not grade wise, potential wise. I am not doing my best work, the house is not clean, I feel like I am constantly pushing the kids away because I either need to study or please just let me have a minute to myself. In trying to get everything done, I feel like nothing is getting accomplished. I just don't know what to do with this feeling that I can't do this. The thought of settling for B's in some of my classes that I should have A's in makes me sick. And, yes, I know how stupid this all sounds. Now you know, I am truly that uptight.

So I have conceded. I am unwilling to live like this and unwilling to have my kids live this way anymore. As much as it feels like a kick in the gut, next semester I am taking the A&P II class with it's lab and nothing else. This class, this semester, has taken me at least 15 hours a week. I am just going to focus on that and maybe next fall I can re-evaluate, again.

But now, it is official, I will not be graduating here. It will be impossible. I choose sanity over a defined graduation date. It just really sucks. I have no idea where we are going next, if there will be a university there, if they will even have a program. It's going to be a great picture me in my gown next to Punx in his in 2024. That's figuring that Punx graduates on time for high school, serves a two year mission and takes five years to get through college.

The thrill is gone

2008-11-08T18:12:00.002-06:00

Enough already. [cough cough] I am so over the charm of laying in bed and watching TV, as I sneeze and reach for the tissues. At least I was able to venture out today, I was out of medicine.

Sixty-five bucks later, cough drops in bulk, chest cough meds, and a humidifier with some fancy vicks stuff you put in the water.

It's time to get out of bed. I'm thinking the couch, the one with the DVR in front of it, I remember why I hate commercials now. [cough cough] Was that pathetic enough for you guys?

The bright side, the kids don't have school on Monday, so I am not going to my classes even though my morning class was canceled so I am only ditching one class. Then Tuesday is when Austin Peay is doing Veteran's Day so I don't have classes on that day so I can be all kinds of pathetic until Wednesday with no fears.

Tons o' Tidbits

2008-11-06T12:13:00.004-06:00

I am having a wonderful sick day. I haven't left my bed except to do necessary things like get chocolate, water, the computer, tissues, and more cough drops. I have never not minded being sick before. I feel like crap but yet I am enjoying myself. I have just laid here and watched TV, actual TV with commercials and everything. I even watched some music videos this morning, that was awesome. It has been too long since I took a lazy day. I wanted to take advantage of the lazy day to spew out all the stuff in my head that I didn't get out during R&R or have been otherwise forgetting.

Grades: I have hit a pretty good grove with my classes and have nailed a few more tests. The day that Dan came home was my second A&P test so I had to take it early, got the results after we got back from our weekend trip: 97%! I still got a sticker but my "good" went to "excellent" and I got #3 in the class. We just had our third test which I didn't study too well for since Dan was home for the whole section: 88%, back to a "good," but still third. Another Algebra test: 94%. In my A&P lab I got a 97% on the midterm and the top grade in the class. Second English test tomorrow on Dante, don't feel so prepared. So eventually my lazy day must end for some studying. Oh, poo.

Halloween: We did Star Wars this year. I was so happy that Dan was able to be here for the ward party at least.

I think I nailed the buns, that took some configuring. A natural bun of my thin hair is about the size of my ear, I made those from yarn. I took it easy this year, not much sewing. Dan's costume is thrift store with a little altering, mine is a Roman costume from years past with some altering, and the kids are purchased or borrowed.

There they are: Queen Amidala, Obi-wan, and Darth Vader. I couldn't find a picture where Bug is wearing his Darth Vader mask.

I already informed the children what we are doing next year. They have no choice in the matter, we are finally going to do what I have dreamed of doing for years. These will require five from scratch costumes so I have to get started real early, that's why I figured I'd let the kids know now that I took their free will away. I'm so excited, my dream Halloween.

Another swim meet: This time it was at our Y, so much easier. I don't know what places the kids got in there final events but they each won a few of their heats, they were very excited about that. The big one about this one was that they each got to do some relays for the first time and Punx did a 100 IM for the first time, one length of each stroke, it was amazing. He was so tired by the end, it was his hardest event and his last event. I was so proud. We have a couple more weeks of this session left and then we are taking the next session off. Just a little break, more free time during the winter and especially finals for me.

And lastly My kids on:

My kids on Finances:
Bug: If I had hundreds million dollars I'd put my hands in the air and say, "Victory is Mine!" Then take dollars and throw them in the air.

My kids on the eventuality of Death:
Bug and DD: Driving to Bowling Green, KY we drive through a small town called Russleville and it's graveyard every time.
Bug, "Mom, a dead yard"
DD, "Is that where you bury the people that you love?"
Me, "And where do you put the people that you don't love, in the garbage?"
DD, "That's all the people? How can that fit all the people who have ever lived?"
Me, "All the people that ever lived are not buried in Russleville, KY."
DD, "Oh, just all the people of KY and TN, then."

My kids on compliments:
DD, "Mom, you're nice and funny."
Me, "You forgot something."
DD, "Oh yeah, nice, funny, and beautiful."
And the same time Punx said, "Aggressive."

My kids on the election:
DD, "Mom, who are you going to vote for? At school there is a box at the cafeteria where we can vote."
Punx, "What are you talking about? That's for your favorite food, I voted for hamburger."
DD, "Oh, I saw someone vote for Obama."

The vote counters, that's one vote for pizza, one for Obama, one for hamburger, and one for Ralph Nader? Who put that in here?

That about all my diseased brain can remember for the moment.

Super Cheesy/Gushy Confession

2008-11-04T18:35:00.003-06:00

I am not one for emotional outbursts. Wait, let me rephrase that so it's true. I am not one for outbursts of positive emotions. Spontaneous hugs, Golly gee your swell kinda stuff. Nothing makes me want to kick my own butt more than when I cry in public. I'm not all that comfortable when other people do it either.

But the truth really is...there is a soft sort squishy person deep inside there that I keep chained up and buried beneath sarcasm, wit, and (hopefully) a good dose of dark humor.

This election has made my squishy come out.

I know that I will take this back, maybe even by the time the results come out but I am so happy today. I have always been too interested in politics, I remember when I went crying to my father to tattle on my mother for having a Dukakis pin on her purse. I was mortified, what was she thinking? She couldn't possibly be thinking about voting for him. It was 1988, and I was ten, it's a little bit of a head scratcher why I am like this.

I love this country. I mean Apple Pie, Fourth of July, Big Band, Fireworks, bring on the Lee Greenwood love this country. Every Fourth I take the kids to the show on post and we sit real close to the band and I cry. I am so embarrassed. I try to hide it every year and am always so grateful when it finally gets dark.

Here's the point. Voter turn out has always been one of those things that gets my blood boiling. This great right we have and so many people not exercising it. So much blood split for it and people don't care. I missed the registration deadline after I turned eighteen by one day, I didn't know about deadlines then. On the day of the election I went with my boyfriend to the polls and watched him vote for Bob Dole as I hide my tears. I've never missed a deadline since, even with all the moves.

I am so proud of everyone this year. Bursting. Millions of new registrations, millions of first time voters. It is anticipated anywhere from 20-40 million more people will vote in this election than the last presidential election. That is so huge!

With all the division in the country, all this break-down among party lines, today I just don't care. Today everyone gets their voice. Americans are taking their voices back. This is why I am so happy, so pleased, so squishy.

Today I honestly don't care who wins. Because with so many people finally voting it makes me feel like we will be getting a President that America has chosen, even if it isn't the one that I voted for. How can I be upset at that? Now I make no promises on how I'll feel in a few months when the new administration does whatever it is they are going to do that I don't like.

Right now, inside I am all roasted warm marshmellow. I voted today, I hope you did, too. The will of the people will be done today. For the People, by the People.

I have no words for this

2008-10-29T16:57:00.009-05:00

I took Dan to the airport today. I can't tell you how wrong it feels. There is this "back to normal" feeling. I shouldn't feel like things are going back to normal now that Dan is heading back to Afghanistan. I drove straight from the airport to my afternoon A&P class, then home. Right when I got home it was right to chores, dishes, laundry, etc. It felt all like normal. I'm not sure what's going on. Just knowing that Dan will be coming home soon, knowing that I know what to expect now, knowing that I can do this. Dan should be home in about three months. They have cut off two months from the deployment.

Let's get to the fun stuff. R&R was beyond wonderful. Dan and I spent a couple of days in Nashville and in Kentucky at the Land between the Lakes. Just us two. We have only done that once before after we had kids. Man, it was great.

This is the view of Carnton Plantation in Franklin, TN. Dan and I did a tour. It was a plantation turned into a field hospital during the Battle of Franklin during the Civil War. There are still blood stains on the wood floors. There is a historical fiction out called The Widow of the South, it was very interesting. Also nice was taking a boring adult history tour of something and having no one to shush.

The view from the cabin we rented at the Land between the Lakes. Beautiful. I wish we could've stayed there for a few more days.

We came home on Sunday morning. I walked into the house and called the kids into the living room. Hey kids who wants to see what I brought home from my trip? Yeah! I opened up the front door and there stood Dan. They just yelled and ran to him. It was indescribable. This picture was taken within minutes and I think that is enough.

Having a man around the house again...

He did this to the garage in one day. One trip to Lowe's for a tool rack thingy, toy thingy, another couple shelves and the garage is so pretty. I wish I had a before picture so you could really get the full benefit. Let's just leave it at that there was a free path from the car door to the basement door.

He mowed the lawn twice, trimmed all the trees and bushes, took two trips to the dump, and a trip to the recycling place (we don't have pick-up here in Clarksville, we have to take it ourselves). And he bought me this...

We didn't quite measure the cabinet right and the fridge was too high, so Dan took care of that, too. He cut the lower lip of the cabinet so the fridge fits. I'll admit it, I have hugged my new frigde. The best part for Dan is the old fridge in the garage, the next time we went to the commissary he made sure we bought a whole mess of soda. While we would be watching TV in the basement he would just step into the garage and come back with a cheesy grin on his face and a cold soda.

I hadn't realized how many things I had let slide, couldn't do, or didn't do until I had a man in the house again.

Now lets get to the important part. What I wore to the airport.

I'm going to come clean about this picture, its a re-enactment. The picture at the airport is bad. When Dan came walking down that hallway thing and I saw him, I starting bawling. I never got fully into an ugly cry but when I cry my face gets all puffy and red. It shows up on the pictures. And the person who took the picture didn't get the full effect of the outfit. So, yes, I made Dan do a re-do. As much as I worried about this outfit I needed pictoral proof.

So now back to "life." I don't even want to think about what my inbox looks like or the google reader. Looks like I have a lot of deleting to do. I hope everyone had a good eighteen days.

He's home!

2008-10-12T16:31:00.001-05:00

Dan's home! Dan's home! he he he

To sum up

2008-10-05T09:50:00.000-05:00

I can sum up all of Saturday with this:

I ate my emergency Snickers bar.

I [heart] irony

2008-10-03T15:40:00.002-05:00

I am beginning to love my World Lit class. I got the results back from the first half of my first test and it was an A, so yeah! The essay portion I will receive my grade on Monday.

Anyway, the first thing we read was The Odyssey, I got a kick out of reading the epic poem about a man struggling through great trials to get back to his wife after the war in Troy. I could imagine myself as Penelope staying at home with her son, waiting, waiting, waiting. Now I haven't waited for twenty years without so much as an email but I could sympathize with her, I think, a little more than the average college student.

Imagine my delight when we started Dante's Inferno today. As we begin to descend into the various levels of hell, it was all I could do to not laugh out loud.

Today we entered the first circle of hell: Limbo. Let's move on, huh? I've been living in this circle long enough.

By the time we get to the next circle, I should actually be missing class, due to picking my husband up for R&R, what circle will be be entering then? The second circle of hell: Lust. he he he.

I wonder if by the time I get back we'll have moved on to the third circle: Gluttony, which I plan to do a lot of while Dan is home, especially since I haven't eating in about five weeks.

This begs me to ask to real pertinent question? What circle of hell will we be in when Dan has to go back to Afghanistan?

"Abandon all hope ye who enter here." - Inscription over the Gate of Hell, where all the damned must go through on their way to eternal punishment, those with no hope of redemption.

Big mouth strikes again

2008-09-29T16:15:00.004-05:00

Last week was parent teacher conference week at the childrens' school. Punx teachers sent a note saying that we did not need to meet, that was nice. DD's and Bug's meetings went a little differently.

I have been getting notes in Bug's study buddy about three times a week. "He did not do so well with his listening today." "He didn't do as he was told and lost some recess today." "Today when I told the kids to go to their desks after carpet time he stayed on the carpet and spun in circles." You get the idea. We have been discussing every bad note and celebrating every good one.

A couple days ago there was yet another bad note and I looked right at him and said, "This is not a good note." He looks right back at me with dead eyes and in monotone goes, "I don't care." Get to time out, right now. I was on the couch studying and stayed there where I could see him sitting in the corner on the stairs where I left him for a long time. After about twenty minutes I start saying, "Do you care now? Huh? Do ya?" And then left him in there awhile more. We had a long talk about him never saying that kind of stuff to me. Ever again.

Next day, good note. The day after that, not so much. I look at it, and look at him. He looks at me and before I can say anything at all, "I care."

Alright message received, but we are still getting bad notes, but at least I am not getting attitude over it anymore.

Then yesterday, Bug's primary teacher tells me a good story of what he said in front of the whole primary. I have started getting the kids ready for my weekend trip. "Mom is going away for a couple of days and Aunt Jenny is coming to stay with you guys." They don't know that I am getting Dan at the airport and we are going to the lake for the weekend. I told them that I am just taking a little break. After telling DD that she doesn't get to ask me why I get to take a break, I went on to explain that it was just for like two days and they would be with their cousins and Aunt. You'll be fine.

Bug raised his hand and told all of the primary, "Um, my Aunt Jenny is coming to our house for the weekend 'cuz Mom needs a break."

He also told his teacher about me being unhappy about my birthday, by way of the unhappy face that I had put on the calendar. I told the kids it was because Dan was gone not the numeric significance. That got me a batch of really good homemade cookies, which I totally snarfed. Now that the whole primary thinks that I am coming unhinged. Oh well, I will be too busy actually spending time with my husband. Holy crap, ten more days.

Good?

2008-09-24T20:38:00.002-05:00

That was written on my A&P test. "Good." With a sticker of a flower on it. And a little note that said "tied for 8th."

I got a D.

I got 49 out of 72 points. Technically it was out of 83 points but he knocks off 11 out of the goodness of his heart. With his grading I got 68%, really I got 59%.

I stewed over the "good" and the sticker for a few days. He said nothing about grading on a curve. I wasn't holding out hope that my D was somehow miraculously a B or even an A. 8th out of 70 is pretty good, right? But never in my life has someone told me good job on a D. Or given me a sticker, although I don't think I have gotten a sticker on any of my work in about twenty years.

Finally today I asked him. Your grading scale is up front right? Percentage equals grade? Yes, that's right. Ok, you see I'm confused. I got a D, right? You wrote "good" on it. Did you get a sticker? Yes, I did. I put stickers on the ones I think still have hope. oh, alright, thanks.

Honestly, I think I'm starting to come around to him. There have been a few nursing students in the Library printing off his stuff for their upper-level classwork. They all say that they have forgotten everything and his stuff is the best. Everyone that didn't have him for A&P is now suffering. Anyone that had him and actually passed is doing fine. Maybe it really should be this hard. Maybe, gulp, it's only going to get harder, so I better get a good foundation now. From someone who forces you to actually learn the subject not just pass the test.

I think I will sign up for his class for the next level of A&P that I need next semester.

Until then, I have already printed out the study materials for the next test in two weeks. I have to take it early since the test in on the day that Dan comes home. But I am limiting myself to two hours a day, during the day. No more late nights. No more overdoses.

As in all things, I must find that balance. At least I know what is coming now. Until the next test, I have my first Algebra test tomorrow, first English test on Friday, and first A&P Lab test on Tuesday. One test at a time.

Wouldn't life be great if 68% were a good job on other things? I paid 68% of the mortgage payment this month- good job! I paid attention to the kids story about 68%- good job, although I think I would have to pay attention more to hit that percentage.

This has shaken my whole reality. Good job! For a D.

Things that make you go hmmm...

2008-09-21T21:08:00.003-05:00

I had a crappy week. I had been studying non-stop for my first Anatomy and Physiology test. At a minimum I put in thirty hours of study. I was doing about four hours a day on a light day and that was just last week. The test was on Friday and I am almost positive that I failed it. If I knew where this professor lived he would find a flaming bag of dog poop on his doorstep. No multiple choice, no matching. All short answer, define, or sketch and draw. I went through the study materials four or five times. It was about 100 pages. It would appear that the things that did stick weren't on the test. If I don't get a good grade in this class I will have to take it again. And not just because I care about my GPA, although, I really do. Getting in the radiology department isn't a given, you must apply and be accepted. My two classes of A&P are the only health field related classes that I take. I can't imagine that a poor grade makes me look like a promising candidate.

First thing I did after I turned in that joke of a completed test was go eat. I have given up food until Dan gets home but I made an exception for Friday. And I made it a point that I wasn't going to think about that stupid test until Monday when hopefully I will get the results.

Saturday, I took the kids to a video conference with Dan. It was really nice. And weird. I literally hadn't seen my husband in about nine months. Seeing him was surreal. The kids acted like the monkeys they are but if they weren't there, I think Dan and I might have had an awkward time of it. We talk on the phone a lot and our conversation never lag, but now looking at each other through a bad pixelated screen, what do you say? It made me suddenly really nervous for R&R. Then we had a baptism for a friend and I dropped them off at Super Saturday. I had originally planned on canceling but changed my mind for some retail therapy.

I got my haircut, found the outfit for the airport. I took mostly everybody's advice, nice and casual. New jeans with a nice three button jacket. And really cute dark plaid heels with shiny black on the toe and heel. It felt really nice to buy a pair of jeans two sizes smaller and they just went right on, no squishing.

Then today, it looks like Punx might have pink eye. Second week in a row of missing church. I missed school last Monday because Bug was sick and now Punx. I got him a doctor's app for the afternoon but now I have three more days to freak over the test.

So I needed a laugh. I remember my chopstick paper that I kept from one time taking the kids to the nearby buffet always intending to share it but forgot. So here it is...

In case you can't read it: Welcome to Chinese Restaurant. please try your Nice Chinese Food With Chopsticks the Traditional and typical of chinese glorious history. And cultual

All punctuation and capitalization is as it appears on the original. That also reminds me, on my birthday we went to PF Changs and my fortune cookie didn't have a fortune. That is really bad right? Not getting a fortune on your birthday?

This got me to thinking of something I read in The Time a while back about the Chinese translating all their signs for the Olympics into English. They didn't do so well, I did a quick search. Spent a whole lot of time laughing and decided to share my favorites...

#7 is the head scratcher.

I need a laugh, that was good. All I did was google Chinese funny signs.

I need help

2008-09-12T14:13:00.006-05:00

Yeah, yeah, go ahead and get the jokes out of your system. I really do have a problem here. It is two-fold. Dan comes home in one month. Hold on, I need to do that again.

DAN COMES HOME IN ONE MONTH!!!!!!

So the first part of my problem is the freaking out about all the things that I need to do to be ready for when he gets here. The house sparkling clean, food in the house, maybe even have some freezer dinners, yard work, garage, haircut for me, haircut for the boys, write real to-do list of all the things I want to get done, etc. Everyday I live in this house and it seems fine and then I think about Dan coming home and it's a crap-hole. One disgusting mass of kids mess and filth. And the various depositories of my belongings that I haven't taken care of. This house looks exactly like what is does when Dan is home and that is now all of a sudden unacceptable to me.

The thing I am really freaking out about is what I am going to wear at the Airport to pick him up? Seriously. I am running circles in my head about what I could wear to the airport and can't figure it out.

Options:
Casual or nice
New or old

There are many pros and cons to each side. Casual would be the pinnacle of what I am, jeans, t-shirts, flip-flops is how I live my life. So Dan's first sight of me being something he is used to sounds reasonable.

Nice though has it's upside as well. I don't dress nice very often. So when I do, Dan likes that. It's a special occasion so shouldn't I dress up?

Then the old or new question. Should I wear something that is from my somewhat skinny collection that I couldn't fit when Dan left but that he would recognize. Once again touching on the whole comforting angle.

New to make me feel better and also get to shop more and celebrate my new size.

What about mixing up the categories, old outfit but nice clothes? Casual clothes but new?

Welcome to the endless circle of my thinking. I will accept all suggestions and then pretty much do what I want in the end but I still need guidance. The other part that worries me is isn't it too early for me to be putting this much thought into a decision like this that let's face it Dan won't really think about all? I'll get the "you look great" and he'll mean it. But he won't think anything about the energy or time put into the decision. He's a guy. And he's not incredibly neurotic. And I am not going to tell him either, no use giving him ammunition for the committal hearing. But I am going to face reality, my reality here. I am going to have this on my mind until I make a decision.

So go ahead and take it both ways, I need help. oh, oh, the really great side of new and nice is I'll get new shoes. I hadn't thought of that one before.

Abstract and selfish

2008-09-11T10:01:00.002-05:00

I know that everyone must feel this way. This day is just off. Going about regular business, school, chores, swimming, feels out of whack. Staying at home watching the news feels weird. Everything about this day makes me feel like I've forgotten something.

This year more than any other.

I think of that day when I turned on the TV and saw. No one could have grasped then that it would mean that our lives had changed to pre- and post-. I didn't. Dan had just gotten out of the Guard and had contacted with the ROTC to join the Air Force after graduation later in 2002. He signed his contact on Sept. 9th when the world made more sense. Dan joined the Guard in 1999 to help pay for school and then fell in love with the military. He decided that if he was going to make it his career he should go Air Force and finish school. Dan's Guard unit was called up on Sept 13th for two years. All I could think of was how glad I was that he had gotten out and was now joining the Air Force, where he wasn't going to be asked to do anything scary.

Then...seven years later he is in the Army and in the war that started a month later. He has a desk job, he is not in danger, I do not worry about that. We are blessed, lucky, and grateful. But he is gone. And he is going again, all too soon. That is all I can think about. He isn't home from the first one and the second one is already looming on the calendar.

I am being selfish. Then comes the guilt. This day isn't about me but that is all I think about, my family and what this day did to my kids. Evil men on the other side of the world decided to murder innocent people because they live in America and wanted to go to work and support their families. Now my kids have to give up their father for big chunks of their childhood. I have to give up my best friend and have a 10,000 mile marriage.

We chose this life, the military life. Together. And more than that when Dan was being let go from the Air Force he had options, civilian life or Army life. We chose this, together. We knew that by going Army he would deploy. We knew that he would be gone and what he would be asked to do. We made this decision with our eyes open.

That knowledge doesn't change a thing. I am still alone at night when the kids cry. I am still selfish, and just want Dan home.

One success, one blunder

2008-09-08T22:22:00.002-05:00

Brag, brag, brag. To celebrate hitting the 30 lbs lost mark, I went shopping. I have been on the hunt for two very elusive items. One: a dress, two: a jean skirt. The search has been going on for about a year. Background info for those that don't know of the fashion restrictions. Sleeveless is not an option, skirts need to at least go to my knees, and a few other things like backless, or too low in front. I have been on the hunt for a dress that right from the hanger I can wear. I have two dresses and they are both sleeveless so I wear shirts underneath one and a sweater with the other one. I want a dress that is self-sufficient. Needless to say, I am picky. Nothing I wear is frilly, not big on lace, or those grown-up pinafore looking things. Not going to happen.

Then just like that two dresses in one day. With one being the ultimate, a black dress. I do have to make two slight alterations and then that one will be perfect. Just a little bit of a nip on the neck line so it's not so come and get it and then the other alteration is for me to be just a slight less fatty and I am all set. That is my new goal dress, hanging in one corner of my room, taunting me. The goal is to be ready for it by the time Dan gets home. The other dress is perfect for now, right off the hanger. And two sizes smaller than my last size. Success!

On to the blunder, totally not my fault which is why I can share it so freely, although I am never that shy to share all the stupid crap I do. Every year for my birthday I get myself a present. I go a little crazy on Amazon and add on to the CD collection. But with a mission, this is back-dating that I do. Not anything that I can buy at the store, this is my old-school stuff. The stuff that I grew up on, the songs that shaped my tastes for the rest of my life. I was a child of the eighties but more importantly the youngest of six children, some of whom were teenagers then and took it upon themselves to make sure I was raised correctly.

This year it is some Pet Shop Boys, Howard Jones, and Elvis Costello. And two other obscure CDs, not old but not available at the stores, The Shins and a collection of music from Gilmore Girls. The tricky thing with buying old is that sometimes used is the only option. I normally do alright with Amazon but it is always a gamble. The Elvis Costello one was only available used so I gambled, bet on red baby. It landed on black.

The Elvis Costello comes first and I was so excited, I can already hear Veronica in my head, I am looking forward to a night of uploading to the itunes and introducing the children to Peace, love, and understanding. I open the CD case and there to meet my expectant gaze is a familiar blue CD with the word Weezer on it. Huh?! How hard is it to open a CD before you ship it? The second CD was in there, but come on, let's face it, on a two-disk album the first one is always the best, the ugly sisters go on the second one.

And to get a CD that I already have, that's just insult to injury. All I could think of is any person who has an interest in Weezer has had the blue album for years. The only people still needing to buy the blue album are kids who are now back-dating their collections being that they were like two when it came out. They have no clue who Elvis Costello is. Having said that, if you like Geek rock, you must have Weezer and the Blue album is there first one, sooo great. Then their newest one, the Red album, holy crap it is the best album that I have heard in years. It has a song on there that now tops my top twenty of all time favorite songs, Heart Songs. And another one, Everybody Get Dangerous is like seriously taking a nostalgia trip into my teen years.

I got side-tracked. Now begins the whole email the dude who can't open a CD before he ships it to see if he even really has the CD or if he shipped it to poor some sap buying Wham! Make it Big! Then mail it back, find another shifty seller and hold my breath again.

So in conclusion, yeah for my new dress and boo for incompetence.

What the...?!

2008-09-04T23:13:00.002-05:00

Today in Algebra we were broken up in groups and set to work on an assignment. We got our little group of four all together, chatted a tiny bit and got to work. A few minutes into doing some work that didn't require any discussion I hear, "Um, ma'am?"

That would be one of my group members trying to get my attention. I was the only girl in the group and I can assume by his title the only ma'am in the group also. I hesitated and looked around to see how close by the professor was, maybe he was trying to get her attention. No such luck. I looked at him and asked, "Did you just call me ma'am?" Then he realized that he had offended me and meekly apologized.

Stupid-dang-respectful-butt-headed-teenaged-color-coordinated-wearing-more-hair-product-than-I-ever-have-phrat-bro-punk.

I'd rather had been called dude. A million times over. Ma'am. shesh.

It's hard to be a grown-up...

2008-08-29T15:26:00.002-05:00

In college. My first week as a college student is complete. Right before school started I reevaluated what I was trying to do versus what my priorities are. I was extremely stressed out about the pre-calculus class and the load I was taking on even before classes started. I took a deep breath and thought really hard about my goals and my kids and it wasn't so hard to come to a decision. I dropped two classes, the classes I was taking online, which I hate. I dropped the calculus and signed up for the math a level below it. Now I knew that making this decision means that I won't graduate in 2011. But on the other hand it gives the children a higher chance of survival by me not killing them in some stress-induced rage.

It also means that I won't graduate in 2012, either. All signs indicate that we will move in 2011. So I will go to Austin Peay until I am done with my generals, which I can do in four easy semesters. The last year we are here I won't go to school at all while I wait until we move to the next post. Hopefully at the next post I will be able to graduate. Also, the last year we are here Dan should be deployed again so not going to school that year just makes things easier.

Here is my point, though, about being a grown-up in college. Somewhere, somehow along the line I did grow up and now college kids bug me.

In every single one of my classes the kids start to clean up their stuff to leave five minutes before class is over. It is loud, distracting, and totally rude to the professor who is still trying to teach. In my Anatomy/Physiology class which has at least 50 people in it, it is the worst. The professor lectures right up until the end and people are all shuffling their things and it's hard to concentrate on the material. Don't they want to know what he is saying, don't they take notes? I seriously thought about shushing them today but that would violate my goal of staying low-key.

As I am trudging around campus the first day of school with my gimpy back, I was looking for a comfortable place to study during the two-hour break I have between classes. Which I love, I get so much work done and it frees me from having to do homework at home when I need to focus on the kids. I found some cushy seating in the student center and set up camp. It was so loud in there. All these boys playing pool and cussing at each other. A whole mess of flirting and disgusting behavior going on. And all I could think about was don't they have studying to do? Why do they have to be so loud?

Grandma that I am now, I scouted a new location with comfy seating in the library where at least it is a little more quiet.

This is all so surreal to me. I feel like I should go outside and yell at some kids to stay off my lawn. I was one of those obnoxious kids once, talking all loud, flirting, and making a general spectacle of myself. Now the kids who have taken my place are annoying and clueless to me. I always thought of myself as somewhat cool. This adult thinking is not on the list of what's cool. And I don't care, when did that happen?

Is this what my mid-life crisis is going to feel like?

I am almost positive that I am older than one of my professors. My lab instructor, I would be shocked to learn that she is older than me, it's so weird.

Last thing on an unrelated subject. I got a new lemon cake to try again with my birthday cake. Wish me luck.

Thirty

2008-08-24T20:53:00.004-05:00

Today I turn thirty. It's too big a number to just use numerals, it must be spelled out so that everyone can feel the weight of the number.

My name is Cristtin, college sophmore, mother to three, and I am thirty.

Deep Breath...

The fates have conspired against me to make sure that I never forget my thirtieth birthday.

Let's start with Thursday, a friend called, some neighborhood teenagers had lit her thrash can on fire. She had a puddle of plastic at the end of her driveway. Like most of my Army friends, her husband is not home. She needed some tools and some help to try and get this thing off her driveway. I headed over to her house and we tried to scrape, break, and pry this thing of the concrete. We just about have it up, I have been prying it up to get some leverage so she could scrape more junk. I bend over and just heft this thing up so it will start to come up. On the second lift, my back said, "Oh yeah, I'm done." I felt my lower back just contract and implode on itself. I spent the rest of the day in bed pretty much just a lump.

I wasn't able to get into my doctor so I had to go to the urgent care clinic on post Friday morning. That took about four hours. But I did get a wonderful cocktail of drugs that have kept me pretty happy since then, even through the pain.

Friday night, went out with my sister Jenny, who had come for super-fun girl's day on Saturday. We were out about two hours when the sitter calls, "Um, Bug threw up." All I could think to ask was did he make it to the toilet? He did so we didn't really rush home.

Saturday, on the other hand, did go smoothly. I had a couple friends unable to find sitters, so there were just the three of us on our trip to Nashville. Pedicures, lunch at PF Changs, and then a little shopping before it was time to head back to pick up the kids from Super Saturday. That night Jenny and I were wiped, we both were ready for bed incredibly early. I started to conk out around 9 p.m., I think the drugs are starting to build up in my system and am getting more dopey.

The big day, I wake up this morning and it hits like a ton of bricks on my chest. I am thirty.

I was going to not go to church today and just blame the back, but Bug had a talk in Primary. There was no water-pressure in the building, so they were going to let us go home early. My back was killing me from the chairs and pews that I was sitting in. Then all of a sudden the pressure was back so church is back on. I guess I must have looked really bad today because I was asked by two separate people what was wrong with me. I was so doped up that I was having trouble focusing.

Church eventually did end so I went home to get ready for the Sister missionaries to come over for dinner because I didn't want all that cake and ice cream on my hands. Turns out I didn't need to worry about that...

That would be my birthday cake. It is a lemon cake, in case you might be wondering. Did you know that if you put a cake in the oven and then walk away and it ends up baking for about two hours this happens? Well, I do. Now. The sisters thought I had baked a chocolate cake and were really surprised to find that it was in fact supposed to be yellow. We got along just fine with my birthday ice cream.

All in all I am very pleased with my birthday. This is the stuff of good stories and I am sure to not forget it. I would much rather things be memorable than go off without a hitch and just forget all about it because it was so normal.

The one thing I could've done without is the back strain. Like I needed a reminder about how much older I am than the majority of my fellow classmates. I know, let's add a cane to the picture. On Friday, I went to the college to pick up the rest of my books and they were doing some sort of Freshman tour. There were these infants every where. I was thinking about my mortality when it hit me that the average college Freshman is closer in age to my oldest son than they are to me. They were even born in the same decade, the 90's.

Born in the 90's? While they were getting potty-trained, I was freaking out about Cobain's death. While they were riding their first tricycles, I was tearing up the road in my Ford Escort. When they started kindergarten, I was learning all the rules of streaking in the middle of the night with my best friends. I will stop this line of thought now.

Speaking of best friends. My BFF stopped by my house on her move across the country. Lisa has been my best friend for almost half my life now. We became friends at Girl's camp the summer I turned 16. I was so happy to see her even if it was just for the one night.

So I better go to bed, it's a school night, after all.

Quick Summer Wrap Up

2008-08-18T15:12:00.011-05:00

Anyone remember how much I was freaking out about surviving the summer? Well, it would appear that I did survive. And even more surprising the children did too. With me starting school next week and my super awesome birthday girls day out this Saturday, if I don't get these pics out right now they aren't getting out. And there were a couple of cool things that happened toward the end there that I felt like sharing. Whether or not any of you care. I'll be sending this post and pics along to Dan, since he can't read this anymore, so I know at least one person cares.

Anyway...

DD's first swim meet and the thing I was actually a little more excited about, all their new swim gear. DD wore a swim cap for the first time. And Punx wore Jammers, it was The cutest thing he has worn, I think since he was in a onesie.

See their events written in permanent marker on their arms? Man, I love swimming. Punx wouldn't scrub his arm in the shower later that day, he wanted it to stay for as long as possible. DD scrubbed her arm pink.

Here is DD diving into the pool. See off to the right of the picture, you can see the girl is already in the pool. She has great reaction time, huh? After every race she would look at me and ask, "Did I win?"

Punx getting ready for one of his races or getting ready to pick his nose, not sure. He won his heat for the 25 yard backstroke, I was so proud. He ended up taking fifth overall in that event. He DQ'ed from the breaststroke again, so did DD. I will have to admit that made me a little proud, too. I was never any good at breatstroke. Maybe they'll be flyers like their momma.

On to their last day of gymnastics.

Bug practicing some jumps.

DD was nailing her headstands on the first class.

Punx on the balance beam.

And then our trip to Louisville to see my sister, Kaarina. My other sister, Jenny and I went to Louisville for two days to see her. She was going to Louisville for business. I hadn't see Kaarina in about two years. If only my one other sister could've been there all four of us girls could have been together.

All the kids at the science museum. It was a really cool place.

Then all of us at the Hard Rock Cafe, it was my first time at a Hard Rock. And all three of us girls by the river. Sorry about the eyes, Kaarina, the other picture you were talking so your mouth look all funky.

So that's basically got us to the end of summer. And now the kids are in school. Bug starts full time when I do. It's off to another year.

One last thing. Dan comes home for R&R in less than two months. Woo-hoo!

It's Here! It's Here!

2008-08-12T19:18:00.006-05:00

I was going to do a long newsy post about surviving summer and the last few things we did that I didn't get around to posting about. Very wordy, lots of pictures. Seeing my sister from Idaho that I haven't seen in a couple years. DD's first swim meet. The kids finishing up gymnastics. The kids first day of school. Putting my baby on the bus for the first time...

blah, blah, blah...All that went out the door at 2:15 p.m. central standard time by an unexpected ding dong.

I got a new toy.

The Kindle. A Kindle. My kindle, my own, my precious. I have been begging Dan for one for my birthday and lookey lookey, he listened. He was not wanting to spend the money but I finally hit him with unassailable logic. I was in love and would most likely end up getting one, one way or another. It was in his best interest to get it for me now. It will save him money. It saves him whatever he would've spent on another birthday present that I may or may not like.

Anyone not familiar with what this is? To a person who reads two or three books a week this is the best invention since the printing press.

An electronic book reader. The Kindle has the capacity to hold 200 books. With simple memory cards like you use in your digital camera your library stash can be as big as your real one. And to download a book is often more than half the price. All books 9.99 or less. A normal best-seller hardback book is $25, after 25 books, my kindle has paid for itself.

And it has a built in Oxford dictionary, access to Wikipedia, and can download books wirelessly without ever paying for any sort of internet or contract. Amazon pays for what they call the whispernet and it uses the cellphone internet so connection is every where you get cell coverage.

No doubt to any of you I could go on and on about how great this thing is but it has given me a true dilemma.

Which book do I get first? This is a decision of momentous weight. I will forever remember this. Fiction, nonfiction? Thriller, sci-fi, fantasy? Each book says something about the reader. I can't just get something I want to read and call it a day. This matters.

And yes, I did the same thing to my ipod. I sat there with a large stack of CD's agonizing over what would go in first. It was John Mayer followed immediately by Jack Johnson.

I think I need to take a chill. Curling up with a good book always relaxes me. Argh!

Chicken sans head

2008-08-06T22:22:00.003-05:00

It's been a few months since I had a meltdown, right? So it's time. I'm entitled to one now, ok?

Entitled or not, I am having one. I won't bore you with my whole to-do list just my top two.

The kids start school on Friday. I start school about two weeks after that. I am taking seventeen credits. One of my classes is Pre-Calculus. It has been six years since I went to school. Longer since I took college algebra. But to graduate in the time before we move, I have to take Pre-Calc right now. So I have been studying everyday from a textbook that is the math level just below the class I am about to take, as a refresher. Want to know what doing Algebra everyday for hours on end of your own volition does to your will to live? No, you don't.

So, I am freaking out. I don't know how I am going to handle this class and the unknown is my enemy. Once school starts and I am in motion things will be better. I can get a tutor, meet with academic advising, have options. Right now my option is calling my Dad and asking him to please go over functions with me and please explain their purpose. And could you kindly tell me why they exist in the first place?

Also, there is something wrong with the computer so I got an external hard drive to save all my files and am going to attempt a reboot to see if I can fix the problem that way. I found a trojan horse on the computer a few weeks ago and removed it but I think that there must be something else that the scans are not picking up. Just the thought of being without my computer sends me in to hyper-ventilate mode. But if I can't fix it, looks like I am going to have to suck it up and take it to Chuck after all. Just for them to look at it is going to be like $200, man.

I will be pretty scare for the next little while. And a pretty bad blog reader, too. I just opened up my email and had 45 messages and my google reader had 73 posts. It is time for me to focus on the freak-out. I pretty much deleted all the emails and am just going to clear the reader.

Because I need to get back to my Algebra. Is it bad if your brain feels squishy?

Saturday to-do list

2008-08-02T20:54:00.004-05:00

I've got everything done on my to-do list today and it's only nine p.m. so that still means I'll get a couple good hours of veg time in now that the kids are in bed. There is nothing I love more than days that are in the extremes. Extremely lazy or extremely productive and today was one of those miraculous days where it felt like I accomplished both so I wanted to give the results.

Pick-up the children from their first sleep-over (all of them)

Watch four kids all day

Clean the kitchen and floor

Take all seven kids out for some sprinkler time

Pay the bills

And read Breaking Dawn

The last one on the list was obviously my top priority so it got the majority of my attention today. Oh man, it was so excellent. I am very satisfied with the whole thing. There are always those couple things here and there that you wish were in a last book, but she can't make all these totally insane uber-fans happy. For this book I had two firsts. One, an actual audible reaction to something that happened in the story. Two, when my friends and I went to the book party last night at midnight we totally geeked out. I even made a T-Shirt. We all wore T-Shirts...

...to pledge our allegiance to our sides. They had those iron-ons that came in the special edition of Eclipse that I didn't even know existed. I just made mine. Team Jacob was across my back. Not to say anything about the character Bella, it's just a personal connection. If I had to personally choose one I would choose Jacob. It's a tough personal choice that every girl has to make. Not saying anything bad about Edward, he is wonderful. But I am a sucker for a sense of humor and the over protective thing would bug me.

So you can see what my totally geeked out shirt says.

I even won a book, from winning a trivia contest the book store was doing at the party. It's not a book I've ever heard of but I am not one to ever turn down free book.

I can't wait to hear how any one who has read the book liked it, or like in my case was really surprised by some of the stuff and loved it.

Although I hate it when a series comes to an end, it makes me so sad.

Feeling the need to clear my name

2008-07-30T13:52:00.007-05:00

I think that just the fact that I am writing the post at all proves my point that I have OCD issues. I did that photo tag, see just below, and most everyone got it. I have organizational issues. But there was one comment, just one, where someone called me a neat freak. And being the never-let-it-go person that I am. I am addressing the issue. To everyone and in particular my brother-in-law Mike that leveled the accusation that I am a neat freak here it is...

I am not a neat freak. I am an organization freak.

There is a distinction, like the difference between dork, geek, and nerd. A very fine line to walk, yes, but I like things in their place. I don't necessarily care if they are clean while they are there. I love baskets, especially if they match, folders, shelves, and systems.

I don't have a problem with the intensely clean it's just that I don't count myself among their numbers. A dirty kitchen floor will not bother me, in fact, I'll just leave the room and go read. A book shelf where one of the books is on the wrong shelf, now we are talking, that will be fixed.

One example for you to truly understand the level of the psychosis:

Looks harmless enough, my CD case. Each nook has a reason and within each nook there is further reason. The sections that hold bands that I have more than one CD of are all grouped together. Then there is the church section. Then the three sections when I explained to my brother-in-law Brian I got a "Are you serious or sick?" look. Bands that I have only one CD of broken into three groups. Punk/Ska, Older than twenty years/classic rock, and rock of the recent twenty years. And did I mention that they are in Alphabetical order? I also have a drawer of CD's in my bedroom that I don't put on display for various reasons, they are burned so in cases that are not pretty therefore un-displayable, kids CD's that I will not admit to owning, and other things that defy my system therefore have been banished.

I could delve deeper to figure out the reason for my freaky ways but I think I do it for a few simple reasons. The obvious trying to have control in an out of control world. I really like pretty shelves and organized and being able to find things easily. I was raised by someone of a more pack-ratty tendency and have swung the other way.

I believe that any organizational freak has their dark secrets just like I do. There are a few people that I have no secrets from and have seen the madness behind the order but here it is, dark secrets no more.

My desk is almost always in some state of shambles. Especially since I got DSL, I used to clean during page loading waiting time but that time disappeared and so did desk tidy time. I am currently on my third system of organization for my office and am still unsatisfied.

The other side of the pantry floor, holding all the things left to do on the never-ending kitchen remodel that I haven't done anything for in about six months. For full disclosure benefit once I took this picture I looked into myself and realized that there was no way I was doing any more work on the kitchen by myself until Dan gets home and promptly moved it all into the garage so as to not have to see it mock me everyday and now it looks rather nice with just the toolbox, ice chests, and shopping bags. And the water jugs to be cleaned for long storage.

I didn't take a picture of the garage my deepest of all messes because that is too much revelation even for me on one day.

A few more example of my excessive organization for everyone to mock:

Our upstairs storage closet. It holds sleeping bags, luggage, and the holiday totes. I bet you can't guess for what holidays though.

Now before anyone thinks I am totally Sleeping With the Enemy crazy, this is out short-term "comfort" food storage on the top shelf of the pantry so it doesn't get touched much so, yes, I felt the need to make it pretty. And my normal food supply doesn't look like this.

And before you think "poor Dan," I don't force any of this on him. Any laundry that I have specific needs on how it is to be folded I never ask him to fold, like the towels and all their categories, I am not going to get into another explanation and sound like Monica. He is excused and encouraged to not participate in the madness.

So I am pretty sure that I have made my point that I have an organization problem not a neat/clean problem. I think we have established that freak is totally justified but just don't ever accuse me of being a clean freak, it obviously gets my back up.

I just did my proofreading before posting, man, I sound like a nutter, oh well.

Picture Tag

2008-07-24T12:56:00.015-05:00

This has been going around and I decided to do it at the beginning of the month and then didn't do it. But then Stacey tagged me by name so I figured since I had already taken the pictures, I would just post them. As stated by the rules of the tag, I took the pictures the moment I decided to do it, July 4th around 11 a.m. They have just been sitting on my computer since then.

So the rules are you take pictures of the ten things on the list without any prior clean up or sprucing. Anyone seeing these pics will know that I followed the rules.

1. My closet

I don't think there is much to say here, I think my anal-ness is speaking volumes for itself right here.

2. My Bathroom

As you can tell we had just gotten back from the lake and all the shoes, toys, life jackets, etc still needed to be cleaned and washed. When I say just got back, I mean like three days.

3. What the children are doing right now...

Punx, he didn't even acknowledge my existence.

DD, with the pose and facial expression of her generation.

Bug, no clue what he was doing there under the coffee table.

4. Favorite shoes

My OP's baby, does anyone else remember those teeny-tiny corduroy shorts?

5. Dream Vacation

Hawaii, do I really need to say more?

6. Fridge

[insert quippy food pun here]

7. Self-Portrait

As I appear to the children on most days and that is me still in my pajamas at almost 11 a.m., good day.

8. Favorite Room

The living room, it is a no-kid zone. This is an adult functioning room. It is where I keep my pretty books and my music. I always keep it clean. The first room in the house that I will clean, I should say. I will sit on the couch with a book or some music on and can really relax here. I do allow the children to enter it from time to time but with strict rules. And there is no TV in this room.

9. Kitchen Sink

Dishes I can be proud of. Not only are they proof that I actually cooked, they are proof that my kids got a hot breakfast!

10. Laundry Room

I don't have a room, I have a closet. I put my sorter in my pantry which is right next to the closet. I had to remove one shelf to get it to fit but I just moved it to the top.

That was fun. I am not tagging anyone, if you want to do it, just do it.

Drumroll please...

2008-07-18T16:27:00.003-05:00

I've been dangling the bait for my fall plans on what I will do with myself once all my children go to school full-time. What will I do with all that free time? I will join them.

Meet Cristtin, soon to be 30 year old Sophomore at Austin Peay State University. I start school the day after my birthday. If all goes according to plan and it must, I will be in the class of 2011, only eleven years behind my original class. These next two semesters are beyond crazy, I have to complete all my general work by the summer because that is when my major's program starts. The course work is set in stone for the next two years after that. I must start it next summer or I have to wait another year before I can. I am taking 16 credits this semester and technically 24 credits next semester but breaking some of it up in 8 week courses so it's not all at the same time. It has to go perfect or I might not be able to graduate here, it will be time to move on and the next place might not have my major.

My major - Radiologic Technology, also known as Rad Tech. And no, I did not just choose it for it's awesome abbreviation. When I am done with school, I will be a qualified lab technician for a Radiology department.

A quick note on my school, Austin Peay. It is not pronounced Pay, like almost all outsiders assume. It is pronounced pea, like the veggie. It still makes me giggle every time. And once again no, I did not choose the college based off of it's funny name or chant, Let's Go Peay. I am serious, that is the school chant. It's on everything, T-shirts, bummer stickers, mugs, license plates. They even made us do it at orientation today, over and over again, Let's Go Peay, Let's Go Peay! We even played a game called Peay in the Blood. To find out who amongst the transfer students had the most family members who had gone to AP. I think I am going to like my school.

I am already nervous, though. Some of my classes are going to be tough. Like I had to dive right into Pre-calculus this semester, even though I know I would be much more comfortable doing a lower level refresher course. But I don't have time. That math class is a pre-requisite for the physics class I need next semester. So the logic goes, I don't take it now, I don't get into the program next summer, I don't graduate. Ah, the stress of graduation three years in advance. Once I am in the program, though, the load is a lot lighter.

On a lighter side, the kids finished up Y Camp. I think they might have had as much fun as I did. Every morning taking them, they were all energy talking about what they were going to do that day and taking them home it was all stories about what they had done.

The past two days they have been going to a park with a creek they could hike to and try and catch critters and get all dirty. They have been in kid paradise. I asked them yesterday if they would like to do this again next summer and they all screamed yes and DD said, "Of course we are going to do it next year." Punx asked how many times they could do it next year.

DD told a funny story about something they saw at the creek. They are calling them crawdads? She, and her brothers concur, says that they have pinchers. First of all, what?! What are these things? Something in a stream with pinchers. To me, pinchers belong in the ocean on lobsters and crabs, after that I am out on my knowledge on what comes with pinchers. So back to DD, she told me all about the crawdads and informed me that, "If a crawdad pinches you it will hold on to you for the rest of it's puny life." At least she learned something at camp.

Also yesterday after camp we came home and the kids were bushed. They were dirty, cranky, tired, and hungry. I get dinner done and am waiting for it to cool off before I call up the kids when Bug comes up to tell me he is hungry. I tell him it will be just a minute and then put on my most serious face and say, "Come here," and hold out my arms. He has learned that this means I am going to make him snuggle me. He assumes snuggle position and the negotiation begins. He tries to get in as little time as possible and I try to get as much time. I tell him we will snuggle for three hours, "Mom, I don't think we will survive." I start lowering it by the hour but he still thinks he will die from hunger so I up the ante and say five hours, "I will totally be dead." So, I let him out and fed the boy.

Here they are after camp yesterday all dirty and camp-happy.

By the way, I did get to the movies. Saw the Dark Knight. If you saw Batman Begins and liked it you should like this one. It was really good. It was a lot darker. A lot. Very tense. The Joker stole the show. Makes it kind of creepy to think about, though.

Living the Life

2008-07-15T10:56:00.004-05:00

I am going to shamelessly brag for a little bit about the amazing time I am having...

Yesterday I did nothing, I mean like totally nothing. I dropped the kids off and then when out to breakfast with a good friend, Charlotte, who happened to be driving through town that morning. Awesome, I haven't seen her since she left ND a couple months before we did in 2006.

Then I went home and totally piddled, all day. I read a little, did a little laundry, played around on the computer, talked on the phone, whatever. Then left a little early to work out before time to pick them up.

Today a little more ambitious plans. Today I am going to run errands, I am stoked to run errands, who knew? Post office, oil change, all that crap it's going to be so great. I also discovered that I can hear the stereo in the shower with the bathroom door open and the volume up to five. I sang and danced in the shower enjoying the whole not being interrupted thing. No - Mom, can I have another bowl of cereal? Mom, the boys are being really mean to me. Best shower ever. And, yes, afterward there might have even been some Risky Business style dancing going on around the house. Who's going to stop me?

Tomorrow, I think pool time with hot tub is in order. Thursday I see a movie in my future and Friday I am super excited for. Look for Friday's night or Saturday's post to explain all. All my fall plans will be explained finally once I get everything in order on Friday. Originally I was thinking this would be a great week to tackle some sort of project around the house, but then I sat down and the feeling passed. I am going to have some fun instead.

Alright back to my super awesome week and some of you probably need to get back to your kids. Ha Ha Ha, was that going to far? I think am getting kid-free punch drunk.

Y Camp

2008-07-13T21:49:00.002-05:00

Y Camp tomorrow. YMCA Day Camp for all three kids all day long tomorrow. Y Camp all day long for five days starts tomorrow. Y Camp tomorrow. Y Camp tomorrow.

Y Camp tomorrow!!!

You know that day before you go to Disneyland when you are a kid and you can barely sleep and you wake up at like 5 a.m. with the excitement with I am going to Disneyland today. I think that might happen.

Y Camp tomorrow!!

I am really excited.

My Little Bug

2008-07-10T08:37:00.003-05:00

It's just one of those things that you wait for and you wait for and when it comes you are just as sad as you are excited that it finally came. My baby turned five on Monday.

I have done a party for all the kids when they turned five and although I really didn't feel up to the challenge this year, I knew I had to do something. So I invited two families to Chuck E. Cheese for lunch, baked some cupcakes and called it a party. I forgot candles, matches, and my camera for the party. The morning of the party, I realized that I didn't have frosting, or powdered sugar to make frosting, a cupcake pan (I have been using the same 6 holder muffin pan for like ten years), or wrapping paper. I think that the impromptu party is not for me. I need planning and lists and lots of time to accomplish it. Oh well, it is what it is. The kids had a blast. We were there so long I was a little late to drop of the car to the shop for it's repair job.

As we were leaving to go to the Chuck with a box lid filled with hot cupcakes that I would frost there, even though I forgot the knives, the kids were jumping up and down with excitement. They were also going on and on about the, what do you call it, tag line? Where a kid can be a kid? But apparently they have some commercial about coming on your birthday that then it's "Where a kid can be a star!" He was so excited to be a star. We get there and they see all the trapping of birthday and ask who's birthday it is, Bug answers and he is told if he tells them at the counter he can get a free ice cream. He turns to me and says, "I really am a star." I am so glad at least he is still easily pleased.

I left his two larger presents at home so as to not have to lug them around and this was one of them. He has been asking for a guitar for a while now. He started asking for a violin and then the next day informed me he changed his mind and wanted a guitar instead because it was cooler. At least he went back to asking for a guitar because the presents he asked for at Christmastime were a little problematic. The first a real-live frog, and we know how that has since turned out and the second was a guitar with wheels that he could ride. That one stumped us, so he got the ill-fated frog.

Lastly, some of my favorite bug items:

The things he says...I could fill this blog with the random, funny, embarrassing things he says. Even the stuff he says everyday makes me smile things like tippy-bottom, baby-ified (he said that is what would happen to Punx when he caught him reading a baby book well below his level), and he still has that little kid high-pitched voice that he really cute. He is also the one that came up with throwing toys down the stairs to the basement and saying, "Fire in the hole." I have no idea where he got that one from.

He still doesn't mind snuggling. Sometimes I fight him but most of the time he is a really good snuggler.

He is the only one in the house to give spontaneous hugs to me.

He shares every new achievement with me, running to me in his excitement to share.

He loves school and is bursting to go to Punx and DD's school. I am rather bursting myself, with that twinge of sadness.

He still sleeps with that blanket he is pictured in as a little baby, he calls it his Qwe-Qwek. That is how we spell it, it is just one of his made up words that he called all his blankies as a toddler but still hangs on to that one.

He answers to Bug now.

Memory Game

2008-07-03T17:37:00.002-05:00

Here are the directions:

1. As a comment on my blog, leave one memory that you and I had together. It doesn't matter if you knew me a little or a lot, anything you remember! You do not have to have met me in person as I have barely met any of you.

2. Next, re-post these instructions on your blog and see how many people leave a memory about you. It's actually pretty cool (and funny) to see the responses. If you leave a memory about me, I'll assume you're playing the game and I'll come to your blog and leave one about you. :) If you don't want to play on your blog, or if you don't have a blog, I'll leave my memory of you in my comments.

So simple enough. I read about this on Missy's blog, one of my never-met blogger friends and coming up with memories about something funny she wrote or said on my blog was very easy. This is one of my favorite things of blogging, the awesome people I have "met" and feel like I know so well. Now, I am going to add one more rule, some of my readers know me from my High School years, so if you choose a memory from then remember this is a PG-rated blog, at least I try to keep it that way, so please be nice.

My countdown helper

2008-07-03T12:46:00.002-05:00

Most spouses going through a deployment know about the Donut of Misery, AKA the Donut of Hope. I prefer misery, maybe I'll go with hope when I am over 50%, we'll see. It is a wonderful little excel sheet turned into a circle graph that charts your progress on the deployment. Just insert departure date and date of redeployment and it does it's magic.

For a numbers person like me, it is bitter-sweet. I love being able to know how much we have accomplished, down to months, weeks, days. It goes all the way to seconds. And on the flip side says how much is left. That would be the bitter part, sometimes. I am shocked that we are nearing the halfway mark but at the same time we are only nearing the halfway mark?

I have to force myself to not check it everyday, just maybe a couple times a week. it takes 4.5 days just for the thing to move 1% so I really don't need to be checking it, other than for a convenient torture device.

There is one thing that I do like and that is the message that is associated with percentage we are on. It changes every 10%, I look to see what will that next message be? Like some upcoming scene from next week's episode on my favorite show. They are mostly humorous and have given me some smiles but I am unhappy to say the least with what it told me when it hit 40%. "Not quite there!" Oh really? I didn't need a computer program to rub it in like that. Totally necessary. Bad form, entirely.

I decided to forgive it though, it will change sometime in the next 45 days or so.

Also, I will add a new sidebar item of the list of all the things the Donut tells me. You will know I have hit the new level when I add to the list.

Here's what we've accomplished so far and it's corresponding percentages...

1% Fresh off the Jet
2%-9% A Long, Long way to go
10%-19% Still a Long, Long way to go
20%-29% So...How many steps does it take to get to the Latrine/Showers?
30%-39% Are we there yet?
40%-49% Not quite there!

So that's it, almost 200 days it and all it can give me is a not quite there, stingy spreadsheet.

If I were a camel...

2008-07-01T11:50:00.002-05:00

I am trying this new thing of not complaining so much. This post, however, does not apply. To get to the part where I explain this new resolve of not complaining, I am going to do a lot of it.

It started and ended all last Friday. There is some build-up to it all but the boil over fun happened on Friday. It began all normally, going to the Y to work-out and then the plan was to go home and pack for a quick lake trip. The weather decided to not comply with some threat of Thunderstorms. I didn't like the idea of driving an hour to the lake to become a big chicken McNugget in the lake after being fried by lightning. So, kids, lake is off but lets watch and see how it goes and we can go the splash park on post instead. A couple of hours later and it is still all hot and sunny, we get ready for a trip to post. It is now the time that I realize that I better bring the stuff we need so I can take the kids to Friday Night Out after since it starts at six.

While we are leaving the house the kids are doing the bickering that is beginning to drive me to distraction. Knock it off, or we won't go. If only I had had the resolve to go through with my threat. We walk down the basement stairs to the garage into the car, they are bickering again. I walk out of the car and down the driveway to keep myself from really losing it. When I walk back to the car, they are in there having a rip-roaring good time. Which actually made me more mad. Shouldn't they be scared that mom is losing it, might possibly lose it all over them? I get in the car and tell them in my super-calm scary voice that I am trying to decide whether or not to take them to the splash park or just come up with some other punishment because the fighting has got to stop.

That seemed to have worked. The total silence reigned in the car for about 10 minutes. I am now starting to get smug with the power. I have cowered them into the proper amount of fear, respect, and awe. It is a heady feeling that I am very much enjoying, I would laugh out loud maniacally if I thought it wouldn't break the spell.

The kids broke the spell just fine on their own. Of course, DD is the first one brave enough to talk. She engages Punx in a word game and, I kid you not, less than two miles later they are bickering. That's it, just don't talk. I can feel the hostile attitude emanating from Punx from behind my back. I can feel his angry shuffling just as much as hear it. I turn around to look at him just to see him delivering a hard elbow into DD's side. For censorship's sake, let's just say I snapped. Sna-ap-ped!

We get to the splash park and I let DD and Bug go and hold Punx back for a lecture and talk session. You will tell me what is going on and what is up with all the anger. We eventually get to it. All he can get to is basically summer boredom. What!? Now I am pissed. Well, guess what? We still have over a month to go so you better find a way to get along with everyone or it's going to be a really long summer.

After the park, I need to go to the PX. A friend and her kids are now with us. She is doing FNO also and we are going to do a Girl's Night. Her with her oldest girl and DD and I. We have a "date" tradition that they can go out with the adults solo on their birthday month and their half-birthday month. June is DD's month. After the PX we stop and get shaved ice for all the kids and let them eat their treat. They are done just in time to head out for FNO. We even split the kids along their various locations for speed. Pre-school kids have one day-care and elementary kids have another. I take her son that goes to the same place as Punx and she takes Bug who goes with two of her kids.

I back out of my parking space, put the car in drive. Just as I am about to go, I see it. A black two-door car backing out right into me. I froze. I stared, surely he will see me and stop. He kept coming, finally I find my muscles and honk. I honked about 1 second before the crunch of him backing into my driver's side passenger door. Not cool. I get out to see. It was a very light hit and there seems to be only a light scratch and the molding has snapped off. I start digging in my car for the info we are to exchange but he isn't moving. Let's leave it at this. He offered me money instead of insurance info. Here we are a few days later and I have already gotten the estimate on the car and he didn't even offer me 10% of the estimate. I stood firm and told him we would do it through the proper legal channels, would you please give me your insurance information. He was unhappy, I feel for him, but I was unhappy about being hit, oh well.

Drop the kids off, go out with the girls, dinner, cosmic bowling, even onto Wal-mart so DD could choose out a movie from the cheap bin. Time to go pick up the boys. On the way home, Punx is pouting. He starts to complain about a stretch of boredom he endured that night for over an hour and a half. The youth center has a huge room with toys, a computer lab, crafts center, gym with basketball and tether ball, and they just got a Wii that they have set up to a projection screen. Boredom at the Youth center is entirely optional. And I let him know. Next thing I know DD starts to complain that she really didn't get that much dinner. This coming from the girl who only ate half her dinner because she wasn't hungry.

That's when it happened. This load-bearing camel could go no further. All I could think of was what I had been putting myself through in the month of June to keep the kids entertained, happy, and spared from summer boredom. The vacation, the activities, the pool, the movies. What do we have to show for it? Two exceptionally whiny, ungrateful, spoiled kids. Bug, I do not put in this so much, he really isn't whiny, just really active. He isn't advanced enough to join in the complaining, yet.

It was the last straw. Ohhh, things are going to change around here kids. Prepare yourself. Me, running myself ragged to keep you happy, thinking that all the activities and fun would actually help with the fighting, obviously I was wrong. No more. This far, no farther. I am done spending money on kids who think they deserve it and don't even think to thank me. They are polite children, to other people that is.

Here are the new rules. We will still go to the Y, like always, so enjoy it all you can because that is about all the fun you guys are going to be having anymore. When we get home be prepared for chores everyday. They have chores but they do them on the as needed basis. Not anymore. Just since Friday they have cleaned their rooms, the family room, the play room, the upstairs bathroom, and the kitchen floor. We haven't even started today's chores since right now they are doing their "school work." All those workbook I have that I make them do maybe once a week during the summer. Well, kids, welcome to summer school, Monday through Friday. As for the activities, one free fun activity a week. Yesterday we went to the lake, so check. Although I will make two exceptions this week. One for the Fourth, we go to the free show on post. And for Manners Tuesday, not free, but it is our deployment countdown and I am not taking that away. After school time or chores is extended reading time, I've made it longer.

The thing that bothers me the most is knowing where the blame truly lies. Somewhere along the line, I had to have seen this coming but I did nothing to circumvent it. All the complaining, whining, they must have a model for this behavior and I am the only consistent model they have right now.

My name is Cristtin and I am a whiner.

Since I made this mess, I will clean it up. I will fix it. It's not like there is much of a choice, these are my kids. I have always at some level accepted the fact that any kids of mine would be messed up. But I thought it would be that I would cripple them with my sarcasm, dark humor, enjoyment of other people's pain, you know emotional stuff. I never thought that I would be guilty of spoiling my kids and actually raising "middle-class socialist brat from a suburban family where he never really had to work." Props to anyone who knows what that is from.

No more. This broken camel has a back brace and is not taking anymore straw.

Dan's Day

2008-06-27T12:50:00.004-05:00

Dan does not have access to his blog through his government computer and he did not take one with him on the deployment. He figured he would make do with what was provided him and wasn't willing to pay the $100 a month he would have to pay for internet access out there. The only downside for me is that he can't even read my blog so I just have to email my posts every now and then to him as I remember. The other day I got this email and he asked me to post it.

"I enjoyed Cristtin’s blogs so much that it has inspired me to lead you through an average day here:

I wake from 0500 to 0730 and depending on how sore I am I might do PT. I immediately get the razor, put on shower shoes, and head for the bathrooms.

Since I shower at night when the room is clear, I don't have to shower in the morning when it's crowded. The bathrooms are on a ground floor. It’s about a 2 min walk from my room. They are made out of a CONEX boxes. If you have ever seen the movies with large cargo ships that have containers on the deck then you have seen my bathroom. It has windows cut into it and it is fabricated to put three stalls, three urinals, and two sinks. Often it smells like a porta-poddy since there is no sewage system. The truck has to come every day and suck it all out of the tank under ground. When you walk in and it doesn't smell like a porta-poddy, it's because someone is in a stall and it smells (indescribable).

I shave in one of the sinks as people walk by. Often I have to move away from the sink to allow someone to wash their hands after doing their business. At least they wash. I see many that just walk out. I have gotten in the habit a few years back to use towel paper to open bathroom doors in public places. Oddly, I think more people wash hands out here than back at home. It may be because they are in the habit from doing it before meals. Everyone washes hands before meals…otherwise we have disease issues.

Anyway, I finish shaving, rinse my face and use the wet hands to rub my eyes and short hair. Once I walk outside the air acts with the wet face to make things feel fresh. I walk back slowly and deliberately because I have my shower shoes on and the walk is in large gravel (stability issues) and sand where they put sand bags to get above the flooding that happens in March. Sometimes I drag sand it…in fact, at some level I drag sand in every day.

I get my uniform on, check my pockets for ID card, reflective belt that we wear at night, and strap on my weapon so it's at the "low-ready". Currently, I don't have ammunition in it since I am leaving my current job. I still have to wear it at the low ready. Once in a while I put it in my left hand pointed down and walk. It looks better that way.

So I head on my 15 min walk to work. It's nearly 3/4 miles from room to work since they moved me down to the original unit I am assigned to. There's only one sidewalk on the main road that parallels the flight line 400 meters away. I spend much of the time saluting and returning salutes. I see the annoyance to most people but we mostly all salute. After 1/4 mile I get to one of the dining facilities (DFAC). I don't always stop by for breakfast, especially when I drive back from taking a car down the night before. When I walk and am not behind schedule, I stop for some hot food. I can always get cold cereal and milk at the office since we load up on that stuff when we go to the DFAC for dinner. I wash my hands, grab my plastic utensils (not enough water here to wash dishes), and recycled cardboard tray, and head to the serving line. It always has the same English breakfast items.

Today I stopped by and loaded up with an extra milk and cereal to replenish the food I ate the day before. One milk box got away from me and hit a Local worker (from Afghanistan) in the butt as it fell. I said sorry, his friend picked it up. Poor guy was just emptying the trash and some Captain throws a box of milk at him. I imagine he was worried. Our rules here are so strict and they need the jobs so badly that he was likely worried that he would lose a job. I am off to work. I try not to load my right hand so I can return salutes. Today I just walked by as they saluted me. I didn't want to drop milk again…not on the ubiquitous gravel and sand!

Anyway, back to the average day: I get to work and drop my hat off, place my weapon in the weapons rack and immediately call Cristtin. People are around and the TV is usually on but I call anyway. There is no private area to talk. At night, her morning, I get more private time to talk. I get through the phone line most of the time. It's important to call immediately because it is about 1000 PM her time. We have a 10 min conversation before the recorded "lady" voice says we have no more time to talk. I call anyone that has a military base nearby that does morale call programs. In the instance of my family, that limits the options to Cristtin and Mom. The call to Cristtin starts my day off right and I immediately get to the e-mail so I can see what happened the night before. The rest of work time is pretty dull.

There's always the guy that goes to lunch at 1130 AM every day. He comes by to invite me (came by as I was writing this), I decline most of the time because I am engrossed in work or I have gotten an early start on lunch hour and I am dominating my staff in "Command and Conquer Generals". It's a game we play that takes 2 GB of space and doesn't require a disk to place. You can play online or on a network like us. I have applied the training I got in officer school (something my enlisted staff didn't get) and I beat them most of the time. That can last almost two hours if we all build up huge armies. We call it "training" since I always have to teach it to someone else.

After the normal day of actual work and random or reoccurring meetings, my staff and I walk to dinner, get take-out trays and go back to the office to keep working, play the game, or just socialize. I always call Cristtin again and start her day off right. I was once asked why I called twice. I call my wife in the morning and my best friend at night. They didn't ask again after that. Some guys don't call their wives but twice a week. How? It's not just about us out here…they need our support also.

After calling Cristtin, if I didn't workout, I go running. That goes well as I dodge the traffic on the sidewalk I walked earlier that morning. I jog back and forth until I get 45 min - 1 hr of running (any cardio after 30 min is when a person really starts to burn the fat). Yes, I am trying to lighten up since I have a reoccurring back injury. I just have to take the load off the upper body. That's one reason why I don't want to gain muscle either; I'll just strengthen and tone. Cristtin will be the main benefactor!

Now I can go shower. I shower in the mornings after I work out but the changing room is 3 x 3 ft. I have bumped into other dudes while trying to get dressed. I like having that space to my self. That's the main reason I prefer night workouts. I just don't like socializing in the shower room.

About the shower, it's on a second level and there is a widow cut where you can see someone’s window at their room. Who does that? You wonder if they plan these things out. There are 6 showers, limit 5 min a shower, the changing room is next to it and then there are four sinks. It's made of the CONEX boxes also so it is metal mostly with a wooden floor. Once I had to shower without shower shoes. It was icky. I never forget the shower shoes anymore.

After my shower, I go to my room. It has a doorway in the middle. It is about 6 x 10 ft room, made of wood, and not private. Someone made a door that goes up to 6 ft, leaving the rest above it open. That is consistent with the walls where sheets are tacked up to provide privacy. I leave one side open so that it feels more roomy. Somehow I have managed to place a closet, bed, desk, all my bags, lawn chair I acquired, a fridge, chair, and drawers in the place. I basically live in a walk in closet. I brought rugs over that I got from my last room. I just have to take the shower shoes off once in a while.

Someone installed a long shelf on one wall that holds my toiletries. I use it to put my cool MP3 player my family gave to me for Christmas. I listen to it every night. After I get back in the room, I check to make sure that no bugs entered in through the window that always stays closed but is so poor that it doesn't close all the way. Can't wait for winter! I sit down and immediately read two chapters out of the Book of Mormon. I used to read another book but I have been getting back late. I say my prayer and lay down to sleep in my single bed with the headphones on. I never fall asleep to them since I have been rudely awoken to the louder songs. I once found myself shaking because I wasn't ready for a song.

That is essentially an average day."

I did do some minor editing to the email. There were a couple times he confused the Pronouns, used you and Cristtin interchangeably, I just couldn't leave it. Other than that, I left it in Dan's words. It is so much fun to get a picture of what his days are like, even the icky parts. I figure this is a good time for some pictures he has sent me recently...

Here is Dan with some Pro-Ball players. That is Shaun Bradley with his arm around Dan, and yes, Dan is standing on a chair. These guys are the only ones Dan has bothered to go and met yet. Famous people have come to his base a few times but he has never taken off work to go see, not even concerts. But for some Basketball players he made some time. Although, he is not sure whether or not he offended Shaun Bradley or not when he invited him out to church, they were there on Sunday. Dan told him how great church was because it was so quiet without kids. He just looked at him and said, "I have six kids," with a face that said church is great with kid noise. Dan just kind of shrugged and left it alone. No one on earth could ever say Dan is anti-kid. I think that title goes to me.

Here he is at his soon-to-be ex-desk. You can see the weapons rack he was talking about in the background and even on the board on his wall some letters and pictures the kids drew him. Tanks and helicopters, of course.

Summer Flashback

2008-06-25T13:21:00.008-05:00

A couple weeks ago I was driving in the car when on the radio they were doing one of those "On this date..." things. On this date 15 years ago, Jurassic Park opened in the box office. I started at the realization that it had been 15 years and then was instantly transformed to that summer. See, Jurassic Park has always had a special place in my heart and that summer even more so.

The summer of 1993, seriously, no competition, the BEST summer of my life.

There couldn't have been more anticipation leading up to this summer ever in my life. I was fourteen years old. I had just completed my Freshman year in High School...

My older brother just finished his Senior year and this was the first year we had gone to school together since elementary school. We even had two classes together, band and swimming. Derrick and I were good friends and this year had been so awesome. Some of his friends even had younger siblings my age and I became really good friends with them. We all just blended together in this big sibling/friend band geek group. It was great. I had been really nervous starting High School since I had been going to a different Junior High in another district and had decided to go back to the school district I belonged to for High School. I had to keep the tradition alive. Being the baby I would be the last one in my family to go there and every one of my siblings had gone there. We had a lot of the same teachers. There was one teacher that had us all. Our band director. Wasn't he lucky?

Back to the point. I just had to get that picture in and a little background. The anticipation to this particular summer came in the form of an announcement from my mother a few weeks before school got out. "We are going on a trip." Not a sign of anticipation, let me tell you, it was the next sentence. "Your father and I. For six weeks. And you kids are going to stay home." Holy crap, play it cool, must not show pure unadulterated joy right now, save it until out of sight. I don't know how any of us manage to play it cool, years of practice, but we did. Oh, the silent celebrations and Toyota jumps around the corner were plenty. Calmed by the realistic approach we had all honed through the years of not counting chickens before they hatched.

Even with trying to restrain our enthusiasm, my one sister who had moved out decided to move home for the summer upon the News. It was arranged that my oldest brother would be allowed to pick up my dads paycheck every two weeks and deposit it so we could pay the bills and, you know, eat. And the formality of who was in charge went to my oldest sister who was married and still living at home while she finished her student teaching. Just for clarification, my closest to age with me brother was just about to graduate from High School even though he wouldn't turn eighteen until November and I was fourteen. But my other four siblings and my brother-in-law were obviously all adults. So it was five adults with two teenagers. It was heaven

We actually took this picture during that summer. The day we all sent to see Phantom of the Opera in L.A. We did some of the best stuff that summer with my parent's money. We shopped at Sam's Club and bought all our food in bulk, but for some reason all I can remember eating that summer is lasagna and taquitos. My dad has never been known for his clean truck so after they left we cleaned it so we would be able to use it. We found $28 in spare change that paid for 28 dollar movies.

The day of their departure was set for the day after graduation. And my party was set for that night. Although everyone was under strict orders that they could not come over until they heard from me, just in case something delayed their plans.

Graduation came and went. And my parents departure went off without a hitch. A cross-country drive that would take them from California to Florida all the way up to Prince Edward's Island and back. With lots of scuba stops on the way. We heard from them a few times, I'm sure, but I have no memory of it.

The party went off well. My friends, swimming and hot tub until like 2 or something. We eventually got bored so we played truth or dare and went toilet papering, of course, like freshmen would. I think most people went home some time around 3 or 4. My first real party was a total success.

We spent the rest of the summer like this...

Or as close to it as possible. One night my brother's friends and my friends were doing a fire on the beach when another group of kids asked if we could pool our wooden resources and make our fires last longer. We agreed and a tradition started. They were from Fullerton about half an hour from us and we agreed to do it again the next week. Imagine my shock one night when one of the guys calls me. I had not given out my number. I wasn't really like that. I didn't really notice guys since they didn't really notice me, I had the handicap of looking ten when I was fourteen. I accepted it. But I had noticed him. He was way too cute to not and he called me.

We spent the rest of the summer getting our friends together at the beach and eventually at my house, hello no parents. It all came crashing down though, as all good things do, when my parents came home. But I never told them about him and kept him to myself. He would still call me but now meeting was a little more tricky.

Then I came up with a brilliant plan. We would go to the movies. I told my mom that I was going to a friends house and my friends said she was going to my house and he picked us up and we went to see Jurassic Park. At the appointed time her mom was going to pick her up at my house we were out front waiting. The catch, she called and said, "I'm coming to get my daughter now." No, your not, my daughter is at your house. We waited outside the front of my house for more than an hour before I finally just went inside to the pandemonium. My oldest sister had already figured out that he was probably involved and since he was seventeen, I was fifteen by now, and so cute he had always made her a little nervous. She finally told my mom what she thought was going on.

So a lot of grounding later for both of us girls, then he went home to get busted for an enormous phone bill. The long distance summer romance kind of ended. It was so great. Just for another clarification, I was sneaking around hiding a "boyfriend" but I was still incredibly shy at that age. If I had met him a year or so later things would have been very different. But it was very innocent regardless of appearances and he was a very nice boy besides very nice looking. I just handled it poorly in the eyes of the adults. I am just saying.

That was and will always be the best summer of my life. And lastly just for fun. My Senior ID...

Not so smart

2008-06-23T15:26:00.002-05:00

I know that I do things sometimes, alright frequently, that aren't so smart. Not the best ideas. However most of the time, they are honest mistakes, lapses of judgment, moments of forgetfulness, things of that nature. Today, not so much. I am not sure what I was thinking, trying to torture myself? Wanting to cause myself pain? I would've been better off, falling down the stairs, like last year and spraining my ankle again than going forward with this idea.

I have been wallowing. Dan has been gone for six months. It should be the halfway point of a normal deployment but we are only at 40% instead of 50%. It will be another 45 days until we hit the hump. I have been obsessively checking my Donut of Misery willing it just to get to 40% and show me the six month mark, which has made it take even longer. Then I came up with the really bad idea, the supremely not smart idea.

Dan was gone last summer, starting a 15 month deployment, got four months into it and then came home for about three months and then left for this deployment. I have a friend here whose husband stayed on that deployment and he comes home next month. So I have been thinking a little too much about that. Been a little too jealous about that. Then I did it anyway, knew it would hurt, and did it anyway. I put in Dan's original report date from the first deployment and redeployment date. 85%. A couple days before my 30th birthday. It was so not smart.

There are so many, many reason that I am so grateful that he is on this deployment and not that first one. I am absolutely certain of the conviction that he is on the deployment that was best for our family, his job, his safety, my sanity, his health. Everything has worked out so much better for us that he was removed from that team and put on the unit that he is on now. Would someone please get that fist to unclench around my heart?

It was so stupid.

There was another not smart thing I did. I paid the mortgage to the company on the line above my mortgage company's on my bank's online bill pay website. And didn't catch on until I got the angry letter from the mortgage company saying, Yo, pay your mortgage. Talk about a heart attack. Luckily, the company above my mortgage company on the list is my Money Market account. It was resolved easily enough, after the hyperventilating.

In other update news, since I have been sort of MIA.

I have been busy with keeping the kids busy. The kids are in gymnastics and swimming. And Punx and I still have Scouts so all that is Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The three of them in Gymnastics is some of the cutest stuff I have ever seen. It is totally not bragging when I say my kids are better than all the other kids.

On Saturday, Punx had his first swim meet. So awesome. He was to swim three events but we were super late and I made him miss his first one. He was DQ'ed from his 25 breaststroke because he apparently doesn't do the arm stroke right, he does a full pulldown for every stroke, that is a no-no. But in the 25 backstroke he got 4th place in his age group.

I have found my true summer calling. It is laying on a tube at the lake. It is the way tubes were supposed to be used, no screaming involved. My sister and I went to the Lake by her house and just laid around on the tubes while the kids splashed around or played in the sand. So Fridays you will find me by the lake by my house if I am not at my sister's, weather permitting.

Lastly, Mr. Bunbury finally made up his mind and quite exploded. He finally decided he couldn't live anymore and died. Which is good, since I have never liked vacillating. Indecision just about kills me, at least it appeared to have finally killed him. By Mr. Bunbury I mean Bug's pet frog Kelly. Is it wrong that I feel relief? And maybe just a bit of anger at all the work this lazy frog made me put into it to keep it alive if all it was going to do was commit suicide? And I just spent like $8 on new vitamin fortified cricket food hoping that would help. I am so sick of neurotic pets. We are now, at least, a pet-free family. We will stay that way for a long time.

Any suggestions on what to do with a 25 gallon terrarium with heater, cricket habitat filled with crickets, a years supple of cricket food, six months supply of weird squishy moist dirt stuff, and a travel terrarium? Stupid dead frog. And I will be feeling no mom guilt over this thing. It died with fresh water and four crickets in it's cage.

Cleaning the Car

2008-06-14T19:02:00.002-05:00

One car trip too many, I guess. The car was so grossy. It could be put off no longer. I had to vacuum the car. While I was vacuuming the car all sort of things occurred to me. First was that just vacuuming was not going to be enough, bucket and soap was required, but here are a some of the other things that came to me.

My kids are gross. Not just lots of crumbs, trash, messy gross. I mean gross. I vacuumed a booger today. A smeared one my backseat, ew. And there is a high probability that there was another one on the door that I had to get with the soapy water. It was wrong.

My car really is a black hole. I found a zinger wrapper under the seat, while scrounging for trash. I sat down and tried to remember when is the last time I bought a zinger or even zingers in plural. I couldn't think of it. I have a vague inkling of a box of zingers back in ND, like two years ago. My car has been cleaned for sure twice just in the past year, deep down cleaning, look under the seats kind of cleaning. What the heck?

My upholstery is way more forgiving than I ever thought it would be. Soap and water and rag got out almost everything on those seats, very surprising.

What, how, when did the ceiling get stained? The ceiling above where the kids sit is lightly peppered with brown dots. Frosty? If there was some sort of Frosty war going on two feet from me, I am almost positive I would've noticed. And guess what else? My ceiling is not made out of the lovely forgiving material that the seats are.

I finally figured out how to turn on the back speakers, rock awesome. That is good sound. Now when I rock out, I will get full sound and get to blast out the kids at the same time, bonus.

How did the little cubbies in the driver and passenger door get filled with tiny pebbly gravel? The kind that is on the floor of your car from your shoes and stuff. My feet don't go anywhere near there, I think.

The bright side was that cleaning the car got me into one of those manic cleaning moods. I finished the car, did a little straightening up in the garage and then swept it, worked a little on organizing my desk (always a disaster), vacuumed the living room, hallway, kitchen, bathroom, and then watched DD mop the kitchen floor as I cooked dinner. I mean it, cooked a real dinner. I had to, the missionaries were coming over.

Altered Reality

2008-06-12T10:54:00.002-05:00

Back to life, Back to Reality, that's how that cheesy song goes right? Except everything is messed up and I can't figure out what reality is anymore. All that pre-vacation to-do list stuff bumped my normal to-do list to the bottom of the list and now the list has hit overwhelming proportions again. Just one thing at a time right? Blah, blah, blah. I am so sick of living my life through some weird non-addiction like 12-step program. What is my addiction anyway? Getting stuff accomplished?

On the second to last day of vacation, the best/worst day, while I was driving from activity to activity my to-do list from back home had already started to creep back into my head. I tried to push it away, thinking I am still on vacation, go away, bug me on the four-hour drive home. Which me made with no stops, by the way, unheard of accomplishment, it was so cool. Back to topic, as the dreaded list is scrolling through the noggin I start trying to plan the whens, wheres, hows, and all the practical things to get this stuff crossed off. I notice I am starting to get into September in my brain and the list isn't done. I am now feeling that all too familiar tightening of the chest followed by a slight ballooning sensation, that let's me know I am on the road to mild panic/anxiety attack. They come so frequently now, especially in the car when all I can do is think and plan, that I was surprised the other day when I got through a drive without a squished chest.

The thing that really surprised me about this one was what set it off. The thought that I didn't have enough time to get it all done by October. I needed to get it done by October, four months away. It's not enough time. Four months, it's too short. I won't get everything done, and if it's not done by October then it's too late.

October's significance is that we think/hope that Dan will be coming home for mid-tour in October. Most people have the luxury of knowing when their R&R will be, but not Dan, he is an exception right now. We are thinking that he will know within the next month or so, we'll see. Like everything else, it's just a waiting game. He requested October but won't get final approval until they move him, yet again, to another job.

So here is where the whole altered thing comes to play for me. Since when did four months of waiting to see my husband become not enough time? 120 days, too little time?! It totally blew my mind. In the grand scheme of things I know four months is not much, even compared to fifteen months, it's not much. It still seems weird to me that somewhere in the past five/six months four months became, what? Easy? Bearable? What has the Army done to me? I remember crying when Dan got word once of having to leave for a five week training with just a few days notice. Then a few years later doing the same thing when he only got a couple weeks notice for some six and a half week training. And I always said to everyone that he was going to be gone six and a half weeks. I think now I would probably say, he'll be gone about a month for that length of time.

Am I now some sort of deployment wife snob? I think I might be. I actually made my first disparaging comment about Air Force deployments a couple weeks ago. They typically deploy about four months, maybe some unlucky fool has to go for six, that's a shocker. See, what I mean? I couldn't even get through a background info sentence without inserting some contempt. When did I get contempt for the AF? Dan hasn't even been Army for two years. He was AF or Air Guard for six years. I had not planned on becoming HOOAH, how did this happen? I am confused.

I do not know what to do, how to function, or even where to go from here in this new altered reality.

Smokey Update #3 (cont.)

2008-06-10T21:41:00.002-05:00

My worst idea ever...

Let's go tubbing on the river. Wait I mean "river." Sounds like a great idea, good fun. Except...

I've never been, didn't know anything about it, and had no clue what kind of questions to ask that would have given me the information I needed to make an informed decision before taking my three young children down the River Wild. In hindsight it is one of those things that makes perfect sense. Maybe taking three kids with one adult down an unknown "river" in an area that has been in a drought for a couple years, with one child who doesn't know how to swim and two who are lightly proficient swimmers was one of those things that takes a little more thought than, "hey, that sounds fun, let's do it."

Come with me on our trip down the, oh let's call it what it really was, stream interspersed with bits of river. We get to the office to pay for our tube rental and the workers see me with three kids by myself and just say, "Wow, you are going to do this by yourself? There was a mom with four kids earlier today." That would have been the excellent time to ask, "Did she survive?" But it didn't occur to me to ask. I go to pick out water shoes for us all, and they try to tell me I don't need to get shoes for Bug since he will just be in his tube the whole time. I thought about it for a second and realized that the boy gets shoes just in case and also if I am buying shoes for the other two I am not going to explain why he doesn't get any. This was the only good decision I made that afternoon.

Quick change, ride down the highway in the shuttle to the drop off spot where the crazy can begin. Right away it is a rocky stream where our butts get stuck on rocks every few feet and already I get separated from Punx and DD. It didn't last long and it went into exactly what I thought it should be. A slow moving relaxing trip down what appeared to be a river. I get the kids all rounded up after a little bit and just enjoy the ride, this is nice.

But it wouldn't be my worst idea ever if this was the whole experience now would it? Let's get to the screaming.

I see a rocky part coming and the water obviously is going faster. Alright kids get ready we can do this, let's stick together though. I teach them how to try and avoid the rocks by lifting the bum by straightening the body over the tube. It takes about thirty seconds for us to get separated again. Punx gets way ahead and DD way behind. She is now terrified, again, and screaming for me. But not in the helicopter funny way, I don't like this kind at all. I yell to Punx that he needs to stop and wait for us so he grabs onto a rock which happened to be some sort of lava rock that cut up his hand but the boy still won't let go until I am nearby. I had to talk DD down and explain how she had to get back on the tube and make her way down to me. This whole time obviously I had never let go for a second Bug's tube. We eventually get back together and the river comes back.

Nice float over, I see another rocky part coming. Alright kids, get out we are walking. On one side of the stream is a KOA and we just saunter on though on the edge of the stream until the river comes back again. It was a fairly easy walk, there was a pathway so not bad. Water shoes, good idea.

Nice float over, another rocky part. Get out. Now it appears we are walking through people's backyards. The kind where their yard just goes right up to the river. Now it is a little tricky, some of these yards have like patios up against the river and now there is a little more climbing involved and there is more walking over the stream's rocks. Man, this is not fun.

There are two more rocky parts but they don't seem bad. Kids, we can do it. It is small and it doesn't look long. We get through but not without my butt getting stuck while the older two were clinging to my tube. They kept going while I was stuck and it made Punx dump out. So I abandoned ship and flopped my way through while clinging to my tube and Bug's. The second rocky part is where it all fell apart.

Once again I made the decision that it wasn't bad and that we would get through it and once again my butt got stuck, but this time it dumped Bug. Before he could even go under I was off my tube and grabbing him up, just so you know all three kids did have on life vests. While I am securing him, his tube starts floating down the river solo. There is a fee for lost tubes. I throw Bug onto my big ol' tube and pushed all the kids into the shallow part where they won't float downstream. Now I try to rescue the renegade tube. Slight problem, the water is like 2 feet deep maybe less. And it is really rocky, you know it's a river. I can't run after the tube in that little water, I will biff it hard. So swimming it is. Anybody seen the Lord of the Rings movies? Where Gollum is fishing in the river? Now you have a visual of me swimming after this tube. I am flopping around, like a pasty chubby Gollum. But I was victorious. I go it and made my way back up stream to the kids.

Bug is sprawled across my tube clutching with all his might doing his "I am extremely uncomfortable" whine/cry. I grab him up and put him on the ground. The kids are ready to go but I inform them that I need a break. I just sit down right in the river and stare downstream and still can't see the end. Alright kids, mount up. They all start to whine.

Alright, new plan. I point to the direction that I know the highway is and say go that way, we are done. Once out of the river it turns out to be another campground. We are now walking through a campground. Bug turns to me and says, "Mom, that wasn't a good idea." Okay, let's be quiet and just get to the road maybe the shuttle will pick us up. I can barely see the highway when I see a shuttle go by, turns out it was the last one of the day. As I get to the opening of the campground, I ask the old man in chairs club how much more I need to go, oh, about 1/2 a mile. Well, get walking kids.

Now we are walking on the side of this highway. We are all in our swimsuits, carrying our tubes, except Bug, I am carrying his and mine. We walked maybe the equivalent of a block when I start laughing out loud. Mom, what is so funny? Guys, look at us, we are walking down this highway in our swimsuits carrying our tubes and I just took you guys on a really bad ride. DD, I don't see what's so funny. You will when you get older. When we got to the place, Punx said, "Well that was an adventure."

I got Punx and me some band-aids before we left and we just got in the car all wet and just went back to the hotel as is. Punx and I both cut our hands. I didn't even know about my hand until we were on the road. And we both have some great banana legs. He has some scrapes on his legs and from my floppy adventure I have some good bruises.

It wasn't until later that night with the kids asleep did I realize what a monumental bad idea it was. Things could've been so much worse. I still have some lingering resentment at the tubing place for not saying anything to me. Just a head's up, this might not be the best activity for you and your family. Seriously with what I know now, I wouldn't want to do that even with Dan's help.

So there it is, worst idea ever.

Smokey Update #3

2008-06-09T22:06:00.006-05:00

We are home from vacation but I still need to share our last day of vacation. I planned a grand finale for Thursday, our last full day at the Smokey Mountains. A full day of things I thought the kids would just absolutely love and would wrap up our vacation with a bang. I thought the last day would be best since if I did the super-cool fun stuff at the beginning of the week then every thing after that might seem lame. Two items on the days agenda will go down in history as the best idea I have ever had and the worst idea.

We started the day with my best idea...

I took the kids on a helicopter tour of the area and the National Park. It was so awesome. It was the kids and my first flight on a helicopter. It was DD and Bugs' first flight period. Punx's last flight was when he was a lap baby so it was pretty much his first flight, too.

We get to the place to start our trip and the boys are totally stoked and DD is already looking nervous and within the minute she is crying. I am trying to placate her with promises of safety for the aircraft and with the whole, would I take you on something dangerous? (remember that question for later) She stopped crying but was still not sure about the whole thing...

I was trying to get the kids to smile for this picture but realized that snapping DD "as is" was so much better for posterity. I figured let's keep it real. I am pleased with the result, it's a good face.

This is a face that needed no coercion. That was the facial expression he wore from the second he understood we were really going on a helicopter till we were driving away saying goodbye.

Alright, so it is time to get on the helicopter and begin the tour. There is girl who works there who has given us a quick safety breifing and is helping us onboard. The instructions were simple. Punx was going to sit up front with the pilot. I was going to sit in the back with the other two. I am to get in first, then Bug, followed by DD. The helicopter takes off from the hanger and flies to us where we are waiting near the landing pad. It lands and we begin a quick walk to it, DD is now crying, Punx gets in and I get in. I turn to help Bug get in. This is when DD turns it up a notch. The girl helps Bug up and then starts to help DD to get up. She is now screaming. Keep in mind, the helicopter did not turn off, the blades are spinning, the thump, thump filling the air, and we have our headsets on, I can hear her screams and every word she is yelling. I don't want to go. I want to go home. Mom, can we go home? I am leaning over Bug to grab her hand and pull her up and the girl is trying to push her in, we are saying, step up, step up, she will not budge. Finally the girl picks her up to just put her in the seat. The screams are now at fever pitch. As the girl tries to put her in her seat she becomes that cartoon dog that is being forced into the tub for a bath. You know the one am I thinking of, when the dog is being forced into the tub he uses all four legs spread out to stop himself from being pushed into the basin. She wrapped one foot around the open door of the helicopter and one arm on the other side of the open door-way.

We eventually forced her into her seat, but now she is trying to escape as I am trying to put on her seatbelt. She is stopping me and taking it off as I am buckling it up. I grab her face, DD, stop, look at me, what you are doing must stop, this is not safe. One look into her face convinces me that she is not there, she has already gone to the bad place. She has crazed darty eyes and she won't even make eye contact. She has now involved the pilot in her manic rants. Are you going to go high? Please don't go high. I wanna go home. We have her belted up but she won't stop screaming, so the girl asked her if she would rather sit by me than by the door. She won't answer, I am not sure she is registering that she is being asked a question. I hold her face again and ask her if she wants to sit by me. She still is past all reason and I finally say, let's go. She screams louder that she wants to sit by me so we switch her seats so she will sit by me. Finally she buries her head in my lap and the screaming is at least muffled. The pilot looks back at me with a baffled expression, what do you want to do? Let's roll. Man, I paid bank for this and we are doing this even if she screeches the whole time.

The pilot takes off with DD's face still buried in my lap. As we are just a little airborne she looks up and around, promptly put her face back on my lap. A little higher up she looks again and says, "This is fun." The tears are gone, the screaming is done. She is now laughing and talking with Bug about the small houses and cars. Seriously. Faster than a light switch. She never even had one of those residual intakes of breath that little kids do when they've been crying too long. I am dumbfounded, but then I remember which child I am dealing with here and the shock dissipates. I speak into my microphone to the pilot, "I bet you can't tell which is my drama child."

The rest of the flight was lovely. Punx didn't talk for the majority of the flight, just soaking it all in. I asked him a couple time if he was alright and he would just turn around and grin. The flight was almost over before we realized that his microphone didn't even work. Man, I wish DD could've had that headset.

It was such a great morning.

Too bad it couldn't have lasted all day. But it was time to move on. We did some hiking in the mountains and then moved on to the worst idea I have ever had.

Come back tomorrow for that one.

Smokey Update #2

2008-06-04T19:09:00.003-05:00

Vacation continues and trying to keep the kids entertained and happy goes on. Except for yesterday, that was for me. Our little mini-road trip out to Biltmore was all for me. It took a little less than two hours to get there but since we were this close I couldn't pass up the opportunity to go and see it. Background info: Biltmore is the largest home in America, 250 bedrooms built in the late-1800's by one of the Vanderbilts. It is still owned by the family but has been open to the public for a long time and in varying stages of restoration during that whole time. Dan and I went to Hurst Castle a few years back and were amazed by that but it no where the size of Biltmore. We were there for four hours and only did the house tour and a couple gardens. It was getting really hot and the kids were tired so we skipped the stables, the farm, and the winery was never on the agenda.

The weird part of the day was my favorite part. It seriously was the drive. The drive from our resort into North Carolina was so great. Very pretty, with forests, creeks, and the best part mountain driving. Remember the good ol' days when you would go for a drive? Dan and my favorite thing to do back then was driving the canyons (when we lived in Utah) just choosing one and driving up and maybe picking a different way to come out. We loved getting lost. What a difference $.99 a gallon makes on driving habits. And not having kids or just a baby.

This drive was like doing one of those drives again. It was like driving the I-15 Arizona Gorge in between Utah and Nevada except without the crazy L.A. drivers. It was wonderful.

Today was a trip to an out-of-the-way place called Townsend. Where there was a scenic loop called Cade's Cove and then we went to a cavern. On the docket was some tubbing on the river there but we ran out of time thanks to some laundry mishap at the resort here this morning that may have resulted in the boys going commando today and our rooms becoming one vast clothesline. We will try to squeeze that one in tomorrow. Of course, Bug had to mention how funny it was that he wasn't wearing any underwear in the public bathroom at the cave today while I tried to play dumb. "Mom, isn't is so funny that I don't have any underwear on?" "Um, what?" "It's funny that I don't-" "Bug, you don't? Oh man." Then I just quickly grab the kids and get out of dodge before anyone else can exit their stalls.

These bugs are everywhere. And whatever freaky sound they make fills the whole air. We we driving on the grounds of Biltmore with the windows down but the music very loud, just the way I like it, can't hear the kids so much. And DD asks me what that noise is, I hear it and just think the road must be made of something different here and it is just the tires on the road making the sound. We get to the parking lot and turn off the car and the sound it Hitchcock deafening. I got a video of the sound but I won't even try to upload it with dial-up. When I get home I will post the noise.

I am so excited for tomorrow, I have the biggest surprise ever for the kids on our last full day of vacation. I am bursting with nervous energy for them, oh it's so good. I can't wait to see their faces for this one.

Smokey Update #1

2008-06-02T17:22:00.004-05:00

We made it to the Great Smokey Mountains! Hooray. Normal road trip drama, he's touching me, I don't want to watch that movie, are we there yet? kinda stuff. It took a little longer than I thought it would but we survived and I used the knock it off or you won't get to go swimming threat judiciously. In the end we didn't have time to get to the pool on Saturday anyway, ha ha. I just want everyone to know how much I love my ipod, without that thing not only would I have to listen to the kids more but also their inane bickering or worse their movies. It's amazing what just one ear bud of Jack Johnson will do for a mom on a road trip. Not to mention when the mid-afternoon lull hits, lets crank up some All American Rejects or some OK Go! and actually get there alive. I did get lost on the way to the resort and a 12-mile detour later on the way back to the right road I saw a sign pointing to where the church was. So getting to church the next morning was a cake. Even met a woman at the ward who is moving to Fort Campbell at the end of this year, it was all very cool. Then walked out with a few good local ideas of fun stuff to do.

Sunday, was chill day but today we did the tourist thing, Wonder Works (a museum with lot's of kid things to do like find out your weight on different planets, optical illusion stuff, etc.) and the Ripley's Aquarium. Tomorrow we are small road tripping it to Biltmore.

But I wanted to share two good pictures of today. One is my favorite and the other was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up when I saw it.

This was taken outside a bar called Cooter's in the Smokies. Life, sometimes, is just so sweet.

Why do they hate me?

2008-05-30T11:15:00.004-05:00

This has become more than bad luck, this is some sort of vendetta. Toilets now officially hate me, or want me to do physical harm to myself. And in particular my main floor toilet is the ringleader. It hates me the most. Besides the fact that it has lead me to give emotions to inanimate objects and making me become slightly paranoid as to what it's next move might be. Well, we know that me giving emotions to things isn't really that new. I believe that the mower has called a truce with me for the duration of the deployment and that the frog is suicidal, although the other day it was giving me the stink eye something fierce, I have no idea what I did to it, other than take care of it more than any other person would take care of a tiny little stupid frog.

I seem to have digressed.

The toilet. Why? In the year that I have lived here in this house, the toilet has overflowed too many times to count. I have learned to use a snake, ew. Even other toilets not at my house have turned on me, ask my sister, every time we are there, her toilets act up. Even the Y has turned on me. And now this...

Are you #&*!@#&! kidding me? I come home from my sister's house, find the house not exploded, always nice. Later I use the facilities and then go to flush and it just breaks off, gosh, stupid idiot! So along with all my "let's get out of town" errands I am running yesterday one of them was to the hardware store to buy a new handle and stick thingy that I hope will work. How would I know? Now I get to add one more thing to my list of knowledge that I didn't care to have.

Just so you know the upstairs toilet already did this but it actually did it to the home inspector, ha ha. But I told him not to worry about it and it was when Dan was gone but just in KS, and he had four-day weekends once a month so I waited and he fixed it but he ended up putting in a whole new do-hicky thing in and I know I can't do that.

Here is the proof so you guys can realize how much my life really does revolve around the bathroom here are just three posts from the last year to prove it, one was just last week:

My ode to the Commode

Icky Post

The Bathroom

Well, off to test my theory on a whole new set of toilets at the Great Smokey Mountains, we leave tomorrow and will be back Friday, just in time for Super Saturday.

Where's Waldo?

2008-05-28T11:54:00.005-05:00

AFN (Armed Forces Network) does their own news stories for their channels on different items of interest. Overseas bases have their own and they put them online also. Dan send me this one awhile back and we all got a good chuckle out of it. It is a short news story for something happening where he is at and Dan has a cameo in it. I showed it to the kids and didn't tell them that Daddy was in it, just watch it and see if you see something interesting. Punx saw him right away and said, "I saw Dad." DD, of course, had lost interest about 3 seconds into the piece and wasn't really paying attention and by the time she looked up he was gone. She started to cry. Bug starts jumping up and down, "I wanna see, I wanna see Daddy, too." I told them to relax and that I could press play again when it was over, but they would have to pay close attention to find him as he is on the screen for about a millisecond. On the second time through, they did get a glimpse of him. They have made me play it quite a few times since then. I have to admit I have watched it more times than is really necessary.

So see if you can find Waldo, too. If you don't know what he looks like, look at the sidebar to see his picture for a comparison.

Good Luck!

Edit: So the winners are: Nikki, Jen (although she didn't give any proof, I am just giving her the benefit of the doubt as she is his sister), Missy (your description seems to match), and SuperCoolMom (Sorry, I have no idea what yours meant so you get an honorable mention).

I was going to describe where he was by what the narrator was saying at the time but Nikki described it perfectly so I will just use her description, he is in between seconds 36-39. Isn't that awesome a whole 3 seconds.

It's summertime, ah man!

2008-05-22T14:47:00.002-05:00

Remember back when all you could do was count down until it was summer? You looked at the calendar and counted the days left of school? That thrill when you were finally released and let loose to run wild and go toilet paper whoever's house you felt like that night, even though it was a Tuesday? Man, good times.

Sometimes being an adult is such a downer. Now all I feel is this oppressive weight. Mom, I'm bored. My soft-shoe and jazz hands just doesn't hold their interest the way it used to. Another summer of entertaining these kids without Dan seems incredibly long. Never mind the whole me messing up the calendar and Punx can't go to Cub Scout Day camp, I cancelled his reservation earlier this week. That is a whole week blown were I got rid of one of them. Sometimes he is the whiniest when it comes to the entertain me thing, too.

Last summer was out first summer here in TN, it was blazing hot. I mean HOT! Wicked witch of the West, I am melting Hot. I don't want to do it again. Sit in my air conditioned house, paying super high utilities bills, listening to the kids bicker, while I watch the lawn die, Super Fun Summer 2008! Yes!

We have a couple things to look forward to. Saturday we head out to my sister's for a few days then we'll only be home for a couple days before we go right back out to go to the Great Smokey Mountains. Our reservation is Saturday to Saturday but we'll be coming home on Friday so that the kids can go to Super Saturday the next day because I am thinking that I am going to be needing the break after all the family togetherness. Just a hunch.

It's not until mid-July that the kids go into the Y-day camp that I signed up all three of them for. An outdoor adventure thingy, whatever, I don't care right now what they do with them, just take care of them, keep them from killing each other, and I will go enjoy my 9-3 break, preferably by the poolside with some new books.

Then two weeks later, school starts. For the life of me I still can't figure out why they would have school start in early August in this place. Then it will be onto my new freedom and my new thing, still working on the details.

It's that big space in the middle that is giving me anxiety. I am relieved that school is out. A break from the hurry and go in the morning. Some relax time. But I am actually having anxiety about dealing with the kids and not totally freaking out on them this summer. It has me unnerved and antsy.

I've been doing some math. Taking into account Dan's started deployment last year but not finished, so therefore not counted for anything. This past year he has only been home for 3 1/2 months. And that was last fall all at once. We've been here a year and Dan has only lived here for less than 4 months. By the time we have been here for two years, Dan will have lived here for a grand total of 5 months.

I've gotten to that grove point of being here. Knowing short-cuts around an accident or traffic. Running into people I know at the Library or the Mall. Comfortable, right? Most of the people in my ward don't even know what Dan looks like. None of the missionaries that I feed have ever met him. I just hate this feeling of having this life here that Dan is not a part of and never has been. The one thing that my life truly revolves around (I know, gross) is the thing most invisible to everyone else in all the other parts of it.

What's this have to do with summer? Nothing, I am being a big baby, that's all. One last thing that I've noticed. No one likes a weak and struggling deployed wife. All anyone says to me is how they couldn't do what it is I am doing. How does anyone know that? Does that mean that you would literally die without your husband and somehow I am stronger than you are or don't love him enough that I can bare to be apart from him for so long? You are so strong and doing so well handling the children and all your responsibilities. Once again, how do you know what I am handling? Not that I resent all supportive comments sent my way, just sometimes I doubt their sincerity. Especially those said to me by a person telling it to me walking by me at 40 mph. The doubt comes from noticing that people don't notice when you don't answer their questions. Hey, how are you doing? Did you know that more than half the time I don't answer that question and the other half I answer with a very weak, "eh?" Very few people respond to my response.

It's very strange to me that the place I feel my support is from people miles away that I haven't seen in years or people I haven't ever met. Without the couple good friends and my sister here I am sure I would have snapped already. Unless I already have and just haven't noticed yet. It's a toss-up.

On that cheery note, have a good summer. What a great year it was. I had a lot of fun. You are my BFF. KIT. Cristtin
I can't think of any other cheesy yearbook thing to say.

The Bathroom

2008-05-18T16:42:00.002-05:00

Let's just say I've finally snapped. I put a lot of stock into a sense of humor and have tried to cultivate my children's comedic styles. Punx has a flair for sarcasm, I have encouraged it in it's proper place. DD is still an enigma to me, she still tells knock-knock jokes where the punch line doesn't make sense. Bug, I think, is where I will have my true comeuppance. His timing for saying those things that embarrass me and make adults everyone go, "oh!" is something to behold.

The children are on hour two of solitary confinement. And I have no intention of early parole for good behavior. In fact, parole really isn't a possibly since their sentence was "a really, really long time, now go."

Their humor is in the crude phase and try as I might to teach them time and place it is not working. I can enjoy a good bathroom joke now and again, like most people. However, life here has started to revolve around things involving the toilet. I have been as patient with it as I can. "Alright, kids, that's really not appropriate let's move on to another topic." Statements of that nature. Distraction, redirection, threats, pleadings, nothing is working. My children's minds are living in the porcelain bowl.

Finally today came the outright ban. No more bathroom jokes. Obviously you kids are not going to learn time and place or moderation any time soon so before you make momma start living in the fetal position, we are going to initiate a total blockade on all things bathroom related. Five minutes later, they start again. That's it, no TV for the week. It must be that I am letting you guys watch the wrong stuff and I need to get a better handle on this and reevaluate what and how much TV you are going to be allowed to watch. Thirty minutes later, you guys have got to be kidding me, you really need to rethink your priorities. Do you want me to take everything away? Just go play upstairs and please stop.

Five minutes later. Punx brings me down a white marble but it has brown on it. Bug put a Hungry Hungry Hippo marble in his butt. HE WHAT?! Bug get down here, no everyone get down here, NOW! They line up. I start to tell them how this is bad and we should not put marbles in our butts. I say butt and they look and each other and they are all snickering. Bad move, Neil. "DD your room, Bug your room, Punx living room couch, and you will all be going there for a really, really long time, now go."

I am so upset that I am calm. I think that I have gone to the bad place. The place that when I finally do go to talk to the kids it will be in a eerily-detached but firm voice that actually freaks the kids out more than if I yell at them. That's about where I am right now. Oh yeah, I am definitely in the bad place now, that's why I won't let the kids out because I have no idea what punishments I will start dishing out and then have to live with after. One thing is for sure those kid had better like Nick Jr, because that is about all they are going to be allowed to watch next week when I let them start watching the TV again. It's going to be a lot of Dora and that freaky weirdo show Yo Yo Gabba where the spazzy kids dance with the way too excited to there gangly Band Leader.

A fricking marble in his butt. Man Alive.

Rebate?

2008-05-16T12:12:00.002-05:00

Anyone who had read this blog enough to read some of my political rants can figure out I swing Republican, it's not hard to see. That does not mean you know what I think about the President, this war, immigration, universal health care, fiscal policies, or any number of politically charged debates sweeping the countries right now, unless I have already ranted about them here. A good amount of my views go hand in hand with the GOP, to a point. Not all, and in my advancing years I actually am learning a little diplomacy. A little. Political Correctness can can go to Europe, and stay there. I have no patience for that.

Here is one view I will share with you today. I think the tax rebate is a completely hare-brained idea that will do no good. The first one, we didn't get. We were too poor. I think we were still getting EIC at the time and so that disqualified us and so I didn't really pay attention to the debate or any ramifications. In the colleges years, it was really just babies and Dan, that was about all I could see. Although back then, I would have gladly taken the money and not cared about any affect to the country.

A few years later, here we are in very different circumstances and the country is too. So Mr. Bush comes in to save us with a better idea than what he did before, more money this time. Everyone listen, we will save this economy by spending our way out of it. What would Rosie the Riveter do? She would go get herself something pretty to wear for after work and maybe a Coach purse, too. We will stop this recession from happening (because we all know we aren't already in one, don't we, come on, prove it) by acting the same way as what got us into it. Does this make sense to anyone?

I found little Johnny smoking today so I made him smoke the whole pack.

My brother is an alcoholic so we took him on a four-day binger to make him so sick he'll never want to touch the stuff again.

The country is in such bad debt and can't handle their own personal finances, let's give them more money and encourage them to use it all at Best Buy, not save or pay down debt, use on mortgage or bills. It will help our economy.

Does anyone else think that maybe, just maybe we are past the quick fix ideas here? It may be easy to get into debt but it does take time and work to get out of it. Does a retirement account just grow with magic beans? Is this whole country just going to work until they die?

ABC News all this week has been doing a segment every night on the power of 2. Just 2 things you can do to make something better. One night, health, environment, etc. I think it was Wednesday they did personal finances. The two things are so simple and easy. 1.) Pay yourself first. Just start saving some money. They showed one woman who was a single mom in her 40's who didn't save. Had she started at 25 with 25 a week she would have $28,000.00 now. 2.) Pay with cash. Can't handle the credit cards? Put yourself on a cash only diet. Not a debit card, cash. It makes you much more aware of what you are spending when you budget for the week with cash and when you are out of cash for the week you are done for the week. Buy a $100 of groceries on a credit card and then only make minimum payments you will spend $212 on those Crunch berries and impulse Oreos, ouch. So simple, how many of us do it?

All that being said. I am really against this idea of the rebate. I don't like it. I also haven't researched yet what it will do to our next year's tax filing. Although for us it shouldn't do anything, combat pay, tax exempt. For us it's like we aren't making anything this year. Looks like another year for EIC, sweet! Anyway.

So what do you do when all of a sudden there it is in you checking account? The full rebate amount, so pretty. Best Buy did come to mind. A coach purse did not, I like them, I'll admit I have a baby one (got it at the outlet store) but can't pay full retail for those things. All my principles are against this money but come on, there is no way I'm giving to charity or something. I'll pay tithing on it sure. But help the economy by shopping spree? Sorry, Mr. President, not in the cards.

I promptly paid the tithing, paid half to debt, a third to savings. That leaves a whopping 7% left. What am I going to do with it? Maybe I could bend a little. It is Super Saturday tomorrow. Not to brag or anything but I have lost 25 lbs now and busted the skinny jeans off the shelf and now they are getting loose. A small principal to compromise, especially if it means I get to go shopping.

Weekend Trip to Cleveland, TN

2008-05-13T08:52:00.011-05:00

We took our trip to say good-bye to our good friends. It was a fun trip and it was fraught with all those things that are par for the course when it comes to my kids. Story to come, other than that, I was able to relax and just forget the house, to do list, and just have some fun with Tammy. That was a nice change. It was also really nice to see Tom, her husband home safe from Iraq, his third straight deployment. Fourth deployment if you count the fact that he went to Desert Storm, which of course you count. Seeing redeployment up close was interesting, to say the least. I know I am in for it when Dan comes home. I am not saying anything about Tom and Tammy. They are awesome, I love them. You imagine living on your own for 15 months and not having a fun transition at the end of it.

The first night the kids went to a Parent's Night Out at their church, nice. We just went out to dinner and talked. The next day the older boys had their football games. Tom took the boys and Punx and DD. This is where the story comes in. I stayed at home with Bug and Tammy with her two little ones. We get a call about an hour or so after they left. It's Tom. He's asking how everything is going, everything alright, meanwhile Tammy can hear DD crying and yelling in the background. We were neighbors of a duplex for seven months, she knows DD's sound. Just spit it out. DD was over by a tree and kicking fun little hills of dirt. Only they weren't. She starts running and screaming once she feels the ants all over her legs biting every where up and down her legs. Give it to the ants, it would appear they had synchronized the time for starting the attack. Tom takes her to the family bathroom and nervously tells her she has to take off her pants. He has three boys and one baby girl he is just now getting acquainted with. Her legs are covered in ants. As she dances around, Tom is trying to brush them off her and shake off her pants. Luckily, Tammy's mom was there to watch the game and she brought DD home for some cortisone treatment. Her legs were covered with angry red welts.

After everyone got back, we went to Chattanooga to go to Rock City, a garden of sorts. On the way there I look at DD face to see a red dotted rash across the bridge of her face. We stop at the next pharmacy at drug her up with benadryl and motrin. The dots didn't fade until the next day. But the next morning all the kids were so zombie that I decided church was not in our future and just headed home. We got home in record time and I got to nap, bonus, even if the kids didn't. It was for the best since they went to bed right on time that night to be bright and eager for school on Monday.

Back to Rock City. That place was really cool. It is this cool rock formation place in the high hills outside the city in Georgia. You just walk around the rocks and gardens, sometimes squeeze through these tight places. Even a couple caverns. Then up to the top at Lover's Leap where on a clear day you can see 7 states. We had to walk across a bridge to get there, the swing bridge. The whole time I am thinking of Short Round on the Temple of Doom, "Strong Wood, Strong Wood." as he about falls through. It wasn't made of wood but I didn't like it at all. When I stepped off it, I had some vertigo and had to sit down, it was weird. I've never had that before. We were at a higher altitude there than where I live, and I actually don't do well with altitude changes so I think that was it. As a kid growing up at the grand altitude of 99 ft above sea level, I have had my fair share of altitude sickness and fainting at girl's camp. But it's been at while since I've been through anything like that.

The best and worst part was the last cavern we walked through. I was still a little woozy so the walls closed in on me sometimes but it was made up for by what they had done to the cavern. The made it into a fairyland, wait let me put that into quotes, into a "fairyland." It was so hideously wonderful. The best part was they used gnomes for a lot of the characters. Creepy little gnome mother goose rhymes. I was so mortified and pleased and the same time. It was too dark, no pictures came out. At the end in a huge room was this horrible castle with all these gnome demon kids doing mother goose rhymes in sing-song voices like some travesty of It's a Small World under black light. It was the high-light of the trip. If I did drugs, I am sure that would be the place to drop and then go take a stroll. Although, maybe for me, just walking on the swing bridge and then walking through there is enough.

Now pictures that did come out...

One of those cheesy pictures they make you take when you enter an amusement park or go down a scary ride to get a good face, we have a great one of the kids at Busch Gardens, I'll have to scan those and put them in. Anyway, I just wanted to have a picture of all of us, well the two little ones are missing, oh well.

I like Bug's face, that was exactly how I felt.

Here's the view from Lover's Leap, and the little map to all the different states.

This is one of my favorite things about being in a military family and living in so many different places. Staying in one place and being settled how would I have ever found out that exotic places like this existed? This is what makes living in the South fun, they know how to name a town.

Snippets

2008-05-08T10:20:00.008-05:00

I am going out of town for a few days and I just wanted to get all this stuff out of my head so I could "try" and relax and have some fun this weekend. The last thing I need is to be thinking about my "need to post" list this weekend. My good friend and former neighbor from the last place we lived, Fort Lee, is moving to Europe at the end of the month and this is our last chance to go out, see them, and say good-bye.

This is one of those random, what we have been doing all at once kind of things. In no order except how I remember it, here it is.

Last year, DD gave herself bangs and then decided that she didn't like them after all and wanted to grow them out. She has been asking for long Princess hair for a while now but keeps getting in her way by having that habit of cutting her own hair. The last haircut I gave her was finally one where I could shape the bangs a little to the back length and make it look not so much like she had a mullet. Now it has been time for a haircut for a while now. I was going to take her in to a salon for this one just to make sure it gets done right. I can cut hair ok, but I always worry cutting DD's hair. I have been doing the boys for years but if I make a mistakes there, I can just shave it off. I don't have that luxury with DD. Her hair is like wild bushman hair if not taken care of all the time. And she is now to the phase where she wants to do it herself but always have it "flat down" as she calls it. By the time she gets home from school, rat's nest. It has been driving me crazy. So on Monday, I put her in a chair and evened it out. One length all around. It would end up around her shoulders. My favorite length for her, since it is too short to get all crazy and still long enough that I could do two french braids. Or as DD calls the nest in the morning, her hair is still snuggling from the nighttime. One hitch, as there always is, she moved, and I mean moved. It's a little shorter than originally planned.

I still like it and it is very easy to do, definitely a plus.

Two nights ago was Bug's turn for prayer and he prayed to be everyone's friend in the whole world, except the bad guys.

I informed the children that I would be cutting out all sugary cereals for our diet. Say goodbye to the marshmallow cereal, the crunch berries, the coco what-evers. When these are gone I will only be getting cereals with a lot less sugar. I am still buying stuff that has some sweetness, no point in buying something that they are just going to add sugar to. But stuff with fruit or healthy stuff with less sugar. Everything under 10g, no idea behind that, that was just the cut-off. After I told the children, they looked at me, asked a couple questions, I could tell Bug had no idea what I was talking about. But I know the message got through to DD, she started to cry.

It has been really nice here lately and so we have been doing a lot of driving with the windows down. I love the feel of my arm out the window in the wind. The change in the air as I go over a bridge and know that there is water nearby. That feeling when you were little of flying your hand and letting the wind take it up and down. I taught that to the kids recently and they ask to have the windows down all the time. I tried to capture the sweet thing I see in my side mirror every time Bug is trying to do this. He is still in a five-point harness so he doesn't have much wiggle room.

Last night was our den's Raingutter Regatta. If you guys don't know I am the Wolf and Bear leader for our ward's cub scouts. Punx is in Bears now so it is a lot of fun. It was supposed to be outside, but the weather didn't quite cooperate so we had to move it into the gym. It was so much fun. We did the races, let little siblings race, let parents race their kids, and then let the adults race. We only have six boys so we had a lot of time. A few of us adults made our own boats, too. I had a few difficulties with my Rosie at the beginning. I didn't know that you needed to glue the sail to the mast and so at the beginning the glue was still wet and the sail moved around, and I lost all my races. By the end of the night when it was dry, I challenged the cubmaster to a rematch and then won. That's my Rosie, she was there for me when I needed her. the best part of the races was that Punx won. We did the winner of this heat goes against the winner of the next and so on and did some consolation heats and all that. Punx won every one. Except me when Rosie's sail was dry. I was so happy for him. I took a ton of pictures but here are just a few.

All this past month in scouts we have been working on the Physical Fitness belt loop and it is not a simple one to get. One of the requirements is to show improvement in five fitness activities over a months time. When we started I had a couple boys who could not do a single sit-up in the minute time frame. And the end of the month both of the boys had surpassed the high teens in the minute time. One into the twenties. We awarded the belt loop last night to three of the boys, one of them Punx, and there are two more that should finish up next week. This was kind of new for me, but I can't begin to explain how proud of my boys I was when I saw them working so hard and improving like that. Giving the belt loop to one of them last night was the highlight of the night for me.

On Tuesday, at the elementary school was Kindergarten Round-up. All future Kindergartners were invited to see the school, do a couple things, and the parents get some info. Some of the info was shocking to me. In the first two weeks of school Bug will only go twice. They will assign him his two days and on those days it will just be him and four other of his classmates as they do assessments to figure out where they are and where to go from there. So the first day of school is a half-day and then the next two weeks only twice. Man, he is not going to like that. He is dying to go to Punx and DD's school and then when he finally gets there he won't go everyday with them. I know it will go by fast and then he will be over it and forget all about it. However, I am not sure what kind of wrench this throws into my plans for this fall, and that makes me a little nervous. Sorry to be cryptic, news is forthcoming. The other thing he got to do that night was take a little tour of the school bus and take a short ride around the parking lot. He was ear to ear grin the whole time. There is one problem though, he is way too tiny. I am having anxiety about putting my little Bug on that great big school bus.

Alright, that's all I can come up with. My brain, for the moment is empty, not a surprise. I really need to pack for the weekend and clean the house. I hate leaving on a trip with a messy house, one more thing on my mind for when I get home. So far all I have done this morning is blog and read Twilight, I really need to do something. Maybe just a couple more chapters.

Deployment is...I forgot 2

2008-05-08T10:06:00.002-05:00

I didn't just want to edit the other post because I wanted to get these two out there also.

Deployment is...

learning to doubt yourself in places you have never, I mean never doubted yourself before. You have a nice conversation with the cute Sergeant who did your taxes and you feel guilty for days about it, so much that you tell your husband about the ridiculously benign chat you had with some random guy you will never see again while you got your taxes done. And then he just makes fun of me and tells me it's too bad we don't have a pool, so I could hire him as our pool boy.

And probably the most important,

Learning how to rely on others, especially the women in your life. I am not an ask for help type of person, I really don't think it is a pride issue more of a don't want to be a bother and I should be able to handle my own problems issue. Since this, however, asking for help has become more of a necessity. What is even better is the times I have gotten help from my friends that I haven't even asked for. The time I had the flu and wasn't even getting out of bed and my friend Robin happened to call and next thing I know she is going to the commissary for me to make sure the kids had food. My friend, Catherine, who just yesterday made cupcakes for me that I forgot to make for cub scouts and realized that I only have a muffin pan that holds six cupcakes. Scouts was in three hours and I still wasn't done with all the other stuff I needed to do, she doesn't have a son in my den, she is not even in my ward. She has also took Punx and DD late one evening as I had to take Bug to the ER when he had strep over a weekend, and didn't get back until 10pm. These women and even the women I have never met here on my blog make my life easier.

Deployment is...

2008-05-05T12:31:00.002-05:00

A new way of walking. A walk that include the patting down of your pockets, to make sure you always have your cell phone, my new pat walk.

Becoming a trained monkey, jumping when the phone rings, turning on the computer to check the email first thing in the morning and before you go to bed, checking the mailbox everyday regardless of if you just got a letter yesterday.

Learning how to do things you never wanted to know how to do. I now know how to snake a toilet, yuck. I know that if our basement garage door won’t shut that I need to press the reset button in my top floor bathroom, even though there is a reset button in the main floor kitchen. Guess how long it took me to figure that one out?

A spider on the inside of your driver’s side window with your kids in the car and you unroll the window grab the thing by the web and throw it out the window.

Developing a love/hate relationship with time and the calendar. Everything is about the milestones. Next is summer break, then that trip to Jenny’s, then Super Saturday, etc. And sometimes it is alright let’s get to bedtime. Right now all milestones lead to R&R, the end of the deployment is too far off to dwell on.

Worrying about having to sleep alone then realizing you shouldn’t have bothered; one of the kids seems to be in his spot every night anyway. They are having nightmares.

Living and dying by your lists, to do, should do, want to do, need to do, need to get, and even in your head, the need to get on the to do list. If it doesn’t get written down you are not going to remember it, a lot gets forgotten

Feeling so frazzled and unfocused that I don’t even feel like myself during those times.

Turning into a mushy cheesy mess. I cry at love songs on the radio that remind me of Dan. The first time I saw the moon some morning after Dan left, I just stopped in my tracks. I must have stared at it for a good minute just goofily thinking about it shining on Dan at that moment. When the guys at Dan’s work razzed him for calling me so much (who would do that?) he told them that he calls his wife in the morning and his best friend at night. They stopped making fun of him and I can’t stop thinking about how he said that about me.

Finding out how to live with yourself and live in your head. And learning how to escape yourself at times. It’s a very solitary place.

Learning that the word “Morale” is not a silly propaganda word to use at the butt of a joke. It is a real tangible feeling in your chest when you miss his call, when he doesn’t call when he normally would have; it’s that feeling of nothing being right until you finally hear his voice.

Discovering that doing two people’s jobs around the house is just about impossible, learning to let go is just about almost as impossible.

Walking the fine line between making goals to keep yourself busy to stay sane and making so many goals that you are going to drive yourself insane.

Finding out you have a crazy amount of independence and are slightly afraid of what will happen when your husband comes home.

Trying to keep your oldest child from becoming a co-parent, because he feels so much responsibility. It is another difficult balance between knowing that you need to expect a little more help from your children and still letting them have a childhood.

Predictably, an emotional rollercoaster. One day, you realize that you are stronger than you thought and that you will be able to handle this and make it through. Another day is a day of walking through sand and you just have to be proud of the fact that the children got fed and you are dressed.

Only like 30% of the way through, oh man.

I am so mad, I could scream

2008-05-02T13:19:00.002-05:00

I know that I have been very brain-dead lately. Very forgetful, scatterbrained, any synonym you can think of, I can't because my brain isn't working right. However, there has been one consolation in that it has mostly been making my life more difficult. I have been forgetting my appointments, my stuff. The children's lives, for the most part haven't been affected, except maybe seeing me a little more frazzled than is normal. The one exception happened recently was when I didn't make it home in time for when Punx and DD got off the bus. I planned and planned to get home in time and then got stuck behind construction. One of those flaggers where they are only letting one side of traffic go at a time while you just sit there. I could have screamed then but I luckily have a neighbor on my cell phone, now I have two, and she got them and took them home with her until I got there, about ten minutes late. Now if I am not outside waiting for the kids, they just start walking to the neighbor's house. I had to stop them of that one, "Punx, you've been going to school for four years, how many times have I not been home when you got home?" Once, and now all of a sudden it is going to happen all the time? Kids are so funny. This is not the point.

Other than the bus thing, I have been trying so hard to not let my new state of mind affect the children's lives. Until today it hit me like a ton of bricks, major calendar error. I use the calendar on my cell phone because it calls you 15 minutes before you have something scheduled to say, "Yo, doofus, you should've left by now." Yeah, I know, my cell phone is rude. It has saved me a couple times by only being a little late instead of not showing up at all. I was sitting on the couch today trying to make sure I had everything in my phone and double checking it with the master calendar hanging in the kitchen. Yes, I am that bad, two calendars and I still am barely keeping it together. Then I get to the end of May, I am getting to the last day of school, blah, blah, blah. I look at the last two days of May, one of those days is the day we are leaving for vacation to the Great Smokey Mountains. That is when it hit me like a ton of bricks. Punx has scout camp that week we will be gone. His camp is the first week of June. We got the paper work for camp sometime in March, I made the vacation reservation sometime in February, I never saw a conflict. I always thought we leave in May and when we get back Punx will go to scout camp.

Both have already been paid for. Punx scout camp by the ward. Here is were the screaming comes in. I am an anal planner for the worst, I am an insurance person, I always get that $60 cancellation insurance, did I get this time, of course I didn't, I forgot. Is the reservation transferable, of course it isn't. The children know about our vacation, Punx knows about scout camp. Everyone is excited for everything. It's not like I can just cancel one, be out the money and just take the hit. I can't even begin to think of what to do. It would seem like I should not let Punx go to scout camp and we take the family vacation, since this is the only summer vacation I have planned this summer. I think we might do another trip in July but I don't have any firm plans. I just hate the thought of having to tell him of how I screwed up and now he can't go. Enter more screaming. Will one of you tell him and tell him it's your fault? I know, how can this be Dan's fault?

My kids didn't know, you probably don't either

2008-04-29T21:18:00.006-05:00

It all started last night with a very simple question from Punx.

"Someone in my class brought a couple coins from another country to school today and showed them to the class and I told my teacher that you had some from The Netherlands and I asked if I could bring them tomorrow and she said yes. Can I bring your coins to school tomorrow?"

I thought of my Euro coins that I picked up in Holland in 2004 and keep in a little teacup given to me from my Dutch brother Wilfred on my dresser. (Quick background info. Wilfred was our foreign exchange student my senior year of High School. Dan and I went to Holland in 2004 for his wedding.) I saw no problem with Punx taking them to school and then thought of my stash and realized the kids don't even know about my stash or what I am. I have never shared this with them.

I am a closet numismatist.

I won't get all technical with that definition on how it goes beyond coin collecting and into the study of currency and the payment of debt. It means I am a coin collector. A baby one. I have some old American coins but what I really like are international coins. The more from countries that don't exist the better.

Here is stuff that I am working on. In the bag are international coins that I have not yet either cataloged or identified. I have run out of coin jackets so I am at a stop for a litlle bit. The other coins are some of my American coins, old half dollars, wheatheads, even a couple half dollar mistakes. One of my favorites is a 1908 Berber half dollar given to me by my Grandfather, my first coin.

These are my Iron Curtain Coins. The Soviet Union coin is one of four that I have. The CCCP is visible on the obverse of the coin in the picture. That sort of dorky history stuff gets me all happy. The other two coins are from Yugoslavia and Poland. One a country that no longer exists and the other one is from before they became a democracy.

Here are a few of my coins from The Netherlands, these ones are all my pre-Euro ones. I sent this book with Punx to school. It has about 50 or so coins from 30 countries. Inside are also a couple of Dan's coins from Italy from his mission that I stole.

Last one and this one comes with a funny story. Now these aren't just coins but I knew the kids would like them, too. I got these from my sister, Kaarina who served her mission in Brazil. They have the unfortunate habit of devaluing their currency every now and then. Notice the 5,000 and 10,000 denominations. When my kids saw these their eyes had that slightly buggy look to them, oh wow, they said. I tried to explain that they were worthless and when they were worth something is was less than a dollar. The next day, today, when Punx took them to school he showed the Brazilian cash. "Whoa, your Mom is so rich," someone yelled out. Punx let the teacher try to explain that they weren't worth anything when they didn't get it when he told them.

All the children have decided that they want to collect coins now. They want international coins like me. I had the great idea to ask Daddy to send us some from where he is. I will ask him when he calls next and when we get them I will show all you. I never thought my kids would want to do my dorky habit with me, it's so much fun. I am going to get them their own little book and coin jackets, and make them into little dorks. Isn't it so exciting?

A couple Bug related things

2008-04-28T13:02:00.002-05:00

I am having this problem with Bug lately. Nothing I seem to do can get this boy to get dressed in anything less than 15 minutes. Send him upstairs on his own to get dressed and I better not be in any sort of time constraint. It can take him 5 minutes just for shoes and socks. The boy has like five pairs of shoes, but he always has to pull a Rainman on me and need a specific pair that day, "Mom, I need my Lightning McQueen shoes, or Vans or whatever." He also refers to his shoes by brand names, kind of freaks me out. I didn't tell him what kind of shoes they were. "Look at my new Airwalks." That's great, Bug, nobody cares.

Back on topic, if we are in a rush I will need to get him dressed myself to ensure speedy dressing. Not always so feasible on the morning rush with getting three kids ready for school. That's life.

This weekend, here in TN there was a tax free weekend on clothes, school supplies, things like that. I needed new workout shoes from having worn mine accidentally while doing yard work this past week and now they were all green and grossy. I am not going to the Y with green shoes that weren't meant to be green and thought I would check out any sales for summer clothes for the kids. Sales tax here is almost 10%, so no sales tax and any additional sale could be worth it. JCPenney was doing this buy one get another one for $.88. And I found a good deal on some shoes and some 50% off short pajamas for Bug.

We got home late and I wanted the kids to get dressed fast and right into bed. I told Bug, "Get your jamas on super-fast or I am going to take away your other new shark jamas." He took off up the stairs to his room. I took my time getting upstairs and when I got there, normally I would find I naked Bug doing some sort of tribal dance around his bed but instead I found a fully dressed in pajamas Bug. He came running to me with a big smile on his face proud of how fast he had gotten dressed and exclaimed...

"I got dressed faster than a hippo."

Huh? I ran with it, yeah, you did! That is so awesome! Of course, older, wiser, Punx tries to butt in, "If he only had underwear on he would be faster than a hippo." Not helping.

I have been trying to figure out how to capitalize on this and make this more habit, give him new fun exciting clothes everyday? I only have one more pair of new pajamas, then what am I going to do?

Onto the next thing. There is a slight possibility that I might be killing his frog, Kelly. I take good care of that stupid thing but maybe lately, not so much. Maybe I was supposed to clean the cage out a month ago, spray it everyday (I think I have been doing it every other?), feed it every night (if it didn't finish the crickets from the night before do I really need to bother?). Then I looked into the cage and thought, how long have those crickets been in there? How many crickets a day has it been eating? I don't have any idea. Then I looked closer and the frog wasn't moving. I poked at it and it still didn't move, normally it tries everything to get away. I picked it up and it was like, whatever. It even looks a lighter shade of green. I know it weighs like nothing but is it even lighter? Dude, am I killing my son's Christmas present four months later?

First that thing was not cheap. The frog was. The cage, the heater, the bedding, the water dish, the log, the travel cage, the cricket cage, and the crickets. All that crap added up. This thing is not allowed to die. If it died now, that thing would've cost me like $30 a month. So not worth it. Never mind that Bug sort of looks at him every once and a while. It's not like they play together.

Next, I can't look into that little face, your frog is dead. Why, cause your mom is too busy to think about a dumb pac-man frog.

I cleaned the cage today, really well. I guess we just have to wait and see if I can get it to eat tonight. I even left a gimp cricket in there, just in case it is too weak to catch a normal one. It's missing one of it's back legs so it can't jump, no I did not remove the leg, I just found one that way. Stupid frog, stupid mom guilt.

I figured it out

2008-04-24T12:07:00.002-05:00

I know I am obsessing about the lawn mower but I have to share this last thing. I still had to finish mowing the lawn on Tuesday and I was still worried about starting it. I thought it had to be easy since in ran for two hours on Monday but you never know what that thing might do, it's such a tricky little blighter. And I was super-sore from the two hours of mowing and the not so smart of me trip to the gym before yard work of an hour and a half.

And wouldn't you know it? One pull, oh yeah! Who's the man? That would be me, if you are wondering.

I thought about this all the next day why is the mower being nice to me? Is he planning some sort of ambush for later? (Of course the mower is a boy) Lulling me into a false sense of complacency and then wham-o no more Mr. Nice-Mower? Then it hit me.

"The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

He knows that the lawn has turned against us both and has formed an alliance with me for this battle. He knows that he will never win without my help and so he has offered his help however short-lived it might prove to be while we fight the insipid yard and whatever vile thing that is breeding in the backyard (see last post's picture).

Now that I know what he is doing I won't be caught off guard when the lawn is back to normal and he revolts again.

Too far? That is what 6 hours of yard work in two days will do to a person. I am still not done. I started trimming the bushes, I got three of my 63 or so buses done on Tuesday. I didn't do any work yesterday, went to the Temple with some friends instead and won't get any done today, Punx is home sick from school and I have to take him to the doctor. Let's think this will be number three infection since Spring Break. First Strep now this is the second ear infection.

Back to that beast of a yard tomorrow but maybe I'll have something else to post about by then.

Cool Kinda Day

2008-04-21T19:38:00.011-05:00

This was one of those days when cool after cool thing kept happening. I can't even begin to explain how bad one of these days was needed. To make sure this day was remembered properly, I took a ton of pictures. Get ready.

It started off normally enough, trip to gym, blah, blah, blah. But after I got home it hit me that I could no longer put off mowing the lawn. I went to my ward's fundraiser not too long ago and bought a few boys to mow my lawn but it has now gotten to that point where it would be cruel to make them do it, especially since it was an auction and I got them for cheap. I figure I need to do the first one and then they can maintain. It really wouldn't be fair I mean the backyard looks like this...

I don't even know what the crap that stuff is. If you look in the corner of that picture you can see my pathetic attempt to try and pull this weed. Around the time I realized it was one organism out to get me and my family, possibly the neighborhood, I gave up and called a professional. They start this week.

As I was saying, I really needed to do the first mow. One reason for hiring a bunch of teenager to do it? It takes me about three hours to do it myself. Remember DD praying about the Archenemy? Meet mine...

It takes my two and a half hours to mow and half an hour to get the beast started. I try for about ten minutes. Rest for another ten. Then maybe look helpless enough for another ten until a neighbor comes and helps. I have never gone and asked for someone to just start it right from the start, I just can't to do that. And I have only gotten it to start by myself about, maybe three times.

I am driving to pick up Bug from preschool knowing that when I get home, it is time to start, knowing that none of my neighbors are likely to be at home. I literally start crying at the thought of trying to get this mower to start after it has been sitting in my garage for what? Five months? I am falling to pieces at the mere thought of standing in my driveway facing this thing, pulling the cord, over and over again. Until I am so tired I don't have the energy to mow anymore.

I didn't even have the guts to pull the mower onto the driveway, I tried to start it in the garage. I couldn't face the humiliation of the mower beating me in front of my empty neighborhood. I had to do it in the privacy of my garage.

Three minutes. That is all it took. I beat that thing in three minutes. I even sat down and took a break to stare it down once, too. The last time I stood up I closed my eyes and prayed holding on to that stupid cord, "Please, Heavenly Father, I need this to start." Then bam, three pulls. I cannot express how cool this is to me. All last summer, this mower was such a stress to me. Thank-you.

Then I had to start the mowing. Ah man. I am still not done. While I was mowing, Bug brought in the mail, which brought in super-cool thing number three, to come later.

Also while I was mowing I saw a little Easter candy egg in the gutter, I was like gross. Just a little blue candy coated thing, whatever. Keep moving. Under a tree a see the same thing but only half, and I accidently stepped on it and it just crushed under my foot, it was a bird's egg. I look into the tree looking for a nest but can't see one. Just keep mowing.

When the kids get home, my brain finally clicks about the Easter egg in the gutter and I go and grab it...

Isn't that the cutest tiniest egg you've ever seen? So the kids and I decided we had to go on a nest hunt. We looked high with the binoculars in every tree and just couldn't see one. DD finally decides to climb the tree that I told them I found the other egg piece and there it was, right at shoulder level, in the crook of the branches. Another really cool thing for me. I haven't had a bird's nest in one of my trees before and one we could look into before...

Then I let the kids climb the trees, another first for me. It makes me nervous, I just sat back, after I took pictures, of course...

The last super thing to happen to me came in the mail today...

That is the Complete Jane Austen BABY! I couldn't help my brain. Once I realized that I had missed Persuasion there was only one thing to be done, go online and buy it. So once online looking at Persuasion, there were all the others right next to it and next thing I knew, click, click, click, and check out. And it came so much quicker than they said it would, bonus. Two movies were backordered for 2-4 weeks and they still came earlier than the original delivery date that they given me for the non-back-ordered ones. I got some of the movies last Friday and have already watched Persuasion three times. I know a little over the top, but I am so in love with Captain Wentworth.

So that is my long-winded super-awesome Rocking Cool Day.

Bug Flashbacks

2008-04-20T19:52:00.010-05:00

After renaming Punx, I felt like sharing where Bug got his name from...

This is it. And that is the whole story. That picture and that t-shirt combine to make the whole reason on why I started calling him Bug. He was two and the shirt was by far my favorite and by the way, he still makes that face.

Once I realized what a short story it was I decided a trip down memory lane was in order so everyone could know why Bug is so appropriate for him. All these pictures are just a random sampling from a time period of June 2005 to December 2005(2 years old). I didn't even put in all the pictures that I could have, just some of the highlights.

He is such a picky eater, still. I now only put his veggies on his plate. And hold the rest of his dinner for ransom until his four green beans have been eaten. By the time they are Punx and DD have finished their entire dinners and maybe even seconds.

"Mmmm, ce-wee-o." That's the best I could spell phonetically the way he said cereal. He just climbed up onto the counters and rummaged through the cabinets, what a find, sprinkles.

Here he got himself a slightly more nutritious snack of cheddar cheese. See that massive honking bite he took?

This time he didn't choose wisely, trying to eat my rubber grapes. Eventually I was missing so many I just threw them away. To this day I don't know how many were ingested or just lost. Is it just me, or is he ever wearing pants?

Not all Bug fiascos are food related. I stepped in the house to go to the bathroom while the kids were playing in the backyard and came back out to this. He was about two weeks over two years old. This boy has always been my scary climber but being able to up and over the fence was a new thing to worry about for me.

The other thing he has always been good at is pulling a runner. Especially at this age, you could never let go of him in public, the front yard, a foot from the car, etc. The boy would just be gone. This is a picture of the time he pulled a runner and was returned by a stranger who was driving by and saw him do it. Knock, knock. "Is he yours? I just caught him running down the street." Just so all you know, I was not home, it was Dan watching the children. When I got home I let him loose so I could get a picture because that was what he was wearing for his escape, well, at least he put on some boots.

The runner story is last because that is exactly what he did to me again today. I am called out of Relief Society by a member of the Primary Presidency, "Um, we can't find Bug, he ran away, do you know where he might have gone?" There are like six adults scanning the church for this four year old. His class has two teachers. They were taking a bathroom break and he walked out of the bathroom and they were lined up to go back to class when, I guess, he saw his oppurtunity. And he made his wild dash for freedom. Then we all spread out, someone outside, down this way, down that way. I was turning the corner in the hallway when I saw the Primary President see him in one of the overflow sections that was closed up and say something to him and then all of a sudden dash in after him. Apparently upon realizing he was caught he did not take it lying down, he still tried to run.

I then had him sit on a chair in the foyer and he wanted me to sit by him, when I said no, he got attitude at me because that was when he started to understand he was in trouble. When I started to talk to him I said, "Why did you run away?'

"I couldn't help my brain."

I gave myself a second and then tried to explain to him all the whys and how comes to not do that. Then after church made him apologize to everyone I could find who had to go looking for him and his two teachers.

That is my Bug, at least now he almost always is wearing pants.

Shaking?

2008-04-18T08:05:00.002-05:00

The whole house is quiet and I am sleeping alone in my bed, for once. There always seems to be one of those halflings trying to sneak in lately. When I am woken up by the house shaking. My first thought? That is a mighty strong wind. But then it kept going. By the time it stop, no more than two seconds. I had already realized that there were no wind sounds to go along with enough wind to get the house shaking like that. And for that long? What would make a house shake in TN? I know what makes houses shake in California, earthquakes. An earthquake here? I guess it's possible.

So what did I do? Go check on the kids? If it woke them up they might be scared, earthquakes can be scary. No, I did what every self-respecting trained born and raised Southern California girl would do.

I went back to sleep.

And figured I could research in the morning. I found it was an earthquake, The children felt nothing, so I will tell them nothing. One less thing they need on their plate.

After I saw a blurp on the local news I went here.

All kinds of stuff

2008-04-17T21:41:00.004-05:00

Alright where to start? I have been really busy with kid activities, scouts, various Army wife whatevers, Big Brother is getting to the end (yes, I watch that, blame homelessness and living with my sister), etc. I have all these great things in my head that I keep going, Oh gotta put that in the blog. But now it's gotten to too much. I only seem to be able to post every few days so all these tidbits in my head must come out so here it is in my very fond of list form.

1. Bug, today, as I came downstairs as we were getting ready to leave said, "You look very pretty in that black shirt, Mom." Then when we were in the car on the way to going out to lunch with some friends to a fancy-pants restaurant, I did what I said I would never do. I decided to stop and get Bug a burger to sneak in, I am not proud of myself but he ate lunch. I tell him my plan that I am going to stop at Wendy's before we go to the restaurant to get him a burger so he won't have to eat anything he doesn't like and his reply, "Wow. that's very nice of you."

2. Somewhere along the line, DD has lost all table manners. She has started chewing with her mouth open and making smacking sounds. I can ask her to please close her mouth but about three seconds later, I'll hear the smacking again and see whatever masticated gross is going on in there. If I told her to stop every time she did it during a meal, I would say it at least 25 times. But that would be less than she actually does it because by me asking her to stop she is trying to be better. If you say nothing at all, seriously, I could rip out my eyes and then jab something extremely sharp into my ears. Make it stop.

3. Punx made the Junior Swim Team at the Y. He practices with the team twice a week. The team, isn't that so cute? I can just sit there and watch his little strokes. His butterfly just makes my heart melt. I had to get a video.

Now, obviously that was freestyle. I haven't gotten a video of him doing butterfly yet. I got another video of him doing breaststroke but it didn't turn out so well. And after getting about four videos I thought maybe I should wait until another day for more shots so everyone wouldn't think I was just a little over the top. And just for clarification Punx is on his way back from his fourth lap and that was his first break. He is doing so great.

4. Ah man, I knew there was another one. Now I can't remember it.

Announcing

2008-04-15T16:02:00.006-05:00

I have given this a lot more thought than it really necessitates but really that's what I do. I even used precious minutes of talk time with Dan to try and figure this thing out, he was no help, shocker. I asked the boy himself and took SuperCoolMom's advice on trying out his favorite superhero or tv show as ideas. What he brought to the table was the Suite life of Zach and Cody. I am not going to give him an alias that is just another boy's name, kinda defeats the purpose. The only other show he loves is Spongebob and that didn't give me that warm "that's it" feeling. Although I rather like the evil Plankton.

Needless to say, I am getting a little neurotic over this when we are having a discussion over it while I am folding laundry in my room watching a movie. I am a once a week laundry person and then I spend a couple hours watching a movie in a marathon folding session. The movie is Groundhog's Day. I feel a certain affinity to that movie right now and was trying to get some inspiration. He loves that movie because Groundhog's Day is his birthday and he loves the idea of being stuck day after day in your birthday. So I started to brainstorm from the characters from this movie and got my tingly feeling.

Announcing Punx. Short for Punxatauny Phil the famous Groundhog. I sometimes refer to him as my Groundhog and now this is just one more step closer. I also really like the how it sounds like Punks, which is something I call the children quite frequently.

This is a picture of Punx' first day of school. Look at that sweet little face. He is about to finish the third grade, huh? When I told him I was going to name him Punx he told me he liked it but he still likes Innie. That is my boy, such a sweetheart. We haven't called him that in years but at the thought of giving it up he got a little sad. I told him he would always be my Innie and promised to call him that to his Prom date. But for now he can just be my little Punx.

And a P.S. to my Father who turns 71 today. Happy Birthday Dad.

This is my Dad in Montana, his home at the time, in 1941, age 4.

My father the University of Utah Theoretical Nuclear Physics scholar, some time in the 1960's I think, I would have to make some calls to get the exact year.

Bloggy Award-Its so pretty

2008-04-14T16:29:00.006-05:00

I have received my first blogger award! I would like to thank SuperCoolMom for giving this to me. She is my first never met blogger-friend.

I would also like to thank my children for suppling my endless material for post both humorous and mushy. I would also like to thank all my readers who put up with my rants, I'm sure sometimes mind-numbing travelogues, and the occasional too-much-informational pieces that I like to put out there to see who's reading. My most heartfelt gratitude goes out to those who leave comments. I base my self-worth as a human being on how many comments I get.

I will reaward this to SuperCoolMom, because I love her. Others I will share the love with is Nikki who helped me survive my time in the great white north with Killer Bunnies and who I miss terribly. And to my "new and newer" blogger friends Laura and Missy.

My 100

2008-04-09T23:34:00.003-05:00

I made it to my 100th post! I have been looking forward to doing this list since the first time I saw someone else's 100 on their blog when I was just a baby blogger. But no more, I have made it my 100. Enjoy all the random that has come spewing out of my head so that I could fill this thing up...

1. My middle name is Ina (Eye-Na)
2. Ina was my father’s half-sister that raised him after his parents’ death
3. I am the youngest of six children
4. We have 28 nieces and nephews
5. My children have 4 Grandpas and 3 Grandmas
6. I am a Stay-at-home Mom
7. I love being the boss
8. I am half-Finnish
9. My girl’s camp name was Flipper
10. I love Dolphins
11. Girl’s camp is where I met my best friend of 15 years
12. I have a million pet peeves wanna know some?
13. Pretty boys
14. People who tailgate me when I am going the speed limit
15. Old campaign bumper stickers
16. People who smack their lips
17. Who leave their mouth’s open
18. When my kids talk back
19. Fox News
20. I am not a morning person
21. I try not to talk for the first hour
22. I am cranky and not just in the morning
23. I have a bad temper
24. But a good sense of humor
25. I laugh at my own jokes
26. I can finish a Jane Austen novel and just start over
27. I would marry Captain Wentworth
28. I am constantly reading something
29. I love bad movies and disaster movies
30. My favorite TV show when I was a little girl was Inspector Gadget
31. Teenager- Quantum Leap
32. Adult- Gilmore Girls
33. Right now- Heroes, I wish I knew when it was coming back
34. Absolute news junkie, I can’t even get dressed in my room without turning on CNN
35. I miss the Air Force for Dan
36. But I am still mad at them for letting Dan go
37. I love being a military family
38. I can tie a cherry stem in a knot in my mouth
39. It takes like three minutes and I look like a clown
40. I have lived in two Olympic host cities, LA 1984, Salt Lake 2002
41. The torch went right by my Elementary school
42. We had our State Swim Championships every year in the Olympic Pool
43. I still swim every week, at least a mile
44. I never leave the toaster plugged in
45. A faulty toaster caused a house fire when I was seven
46. I am an Anti-pack Rat
47. I throw away/get rid of things all the time and then look for them later, oh well.
48. I love to organize and reorganize
49. I have quite a few OCD hang-ups
50. Especially in my night rituals, noise, pillows in the right place, water, etc
51. I now sleep with a pillow in Dan’s place
52. In High School I was in the play Annie
53. I was one of the orphan girls
54. I was a Senior the rest of the girls were Freshman
55. I am short and have always looked younger than my age
56. I am short but I have never felt it and I always forget it
57. I buy Ibuprofen in bulk
58. I have never drank
59. Never smoked
60. I don’t even drink caffeine
61. But
62. I deliberated this and these things almost didn’t make the list but
63. Naughty things I used to do as a teenager
64. I used to steal money from my mother, a lot
65. Streaking with girlfriends late at night
66. Steal people’s jack-o-lanterns and then throw them out of my car window into intersections on Nov 1
67. Toilet papered a lot of people’s houses
68. Showed way too many people my bum
69. My children don’t know that I have done these things
70. Yet
71. I think that the one to spill the beans will be one of my siblings
72. Even my father knows that I have done these things
73. I love my Father very much
74.
75. I started playing the trumpet when I was five
76. Switched to the French Horn at Eleven, still play it
77. Played the Violin for two years, very badly
78. I had a “boyfriend” Freshman year for 2 weeks
79. His name was Fro
80. I forgot his real name, Mike, for three days
81. I couldn’t ask anybody cause it might get back to him
82. We didn’t speak during spring break, that was counted in the 2 weeks of our dating, I am still surprised it didn’t last
83. I once made out with my sister’s Home Teacher
84. Maybe it was twice
85. I lived in Provo for six months
86. The longest six months of my life
87. I met Dan the next month
88. In a fire I would try to save the kids and my Horn
89. If there was a way to grab a CD collection, I would
90. We own my dream car, a Toyota Tundra, although I covet the newer model
91. North Dakota was my favorite place we have ever lived
92. Negative 60 January and all
93. I got married when I was 19, looking back, man is that young
94. I hate crying in front of people
95. But cry at movies very easily
96. Only Dan knows how truly mushy I really am
97. And my children
98. Anyone else will only see glimpses
99. I am member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
100. My life revolves around that

New Alias

2008-04-07T20:51:00.003-05:00

My oldest son is nine years old and we haven't called him Innie (In-ee) since he was about two or three years old. It is a very little boy nickname. We call him by his name, we don't have a nickname for him. Calling him Innie on the blog has been bothering me for a while now but last Saturday morning it hit me with full force, this boy need a new name.

It was Super Saturday and I was getting ready. The kids were basically ready but I called Innie to have him get a bag ready for Bug. The place that Bug goes to has requested that a bag with extra clothes always go with him just in case. I asked Innie to get Bug's backpack and put in a change of clothes in it so we would be ready to go. He tells me that he already did it and that it is ready. Every morning for school he is ready. He is dressed for church even before I wake up, church is at 11am. I am constantly blown away by this kid.

I think that a lot of this can be traced back to some sort of first born responsibility complex. I can't tell you how hard I try to not rely heavily on him. It is almost second nature for me to call him if I need something done because I know if I ask him it will get done. If ask DD, the success rate plummets. So I have been making a huge effort to call DD much more often and try to get more responsibility out of her. I refuse to make Innie the de-facto man in the house, he is my child, and he gets to have a childhood regardless of where Daddy is. The most humorous thing about this is the biggest thing I have to fight in this is Innie himself. I have to remind him that he is a kid, that he is not DD or Bug's Dad and to let me do my job. He so rarely gets in trouble but if we are going to butt heads it will be over this issue, him trying to force his siblings to do the right thing to make my life easier.

He is such a funny little thing. He is a tiny nine year old. DD is barely smaller than him even though she is two years younger. He is so smart, so reserved. We got him a bike for his fifth birthday, he looked at it, got up walked a circle around it with barely a smile on his face but we knew he was bursting with excitement. For his ninth, we got him a Star Wars Transformer that he had been asking for, his response was so uncharacteristic of him that it even surprised my sister because it was totally childlike, "Whoa, come to papa!"

Even though he rarely gets into trouble, he's not a total freak. He can still be a kid, laugh at a bathroom joke, play a prank on his little brother or sister. And when he wants to he can be very evilly manipulative to try and get his siblings into trouble or mess with his cousin's mind. So I am stumped, I can't think of a single thing to call my oldest boy. This gentle trying too hard tiny boy with his hidden evil streak that I secretly love. Any ideas?

Economic Woes Rant

2008-04-05T23:16:00.002-05:00

You can't watch five minutes of news these days without hearing about the economic horrors this nation is facing right now. Huge banks collapsing, home foreclosures, stock market free fall, the horrendous news just keeps coming. I have nothing but sympathy for the thousands of people facing a real financial struggle. I can't even begin to imagine the loss and fear associated with losing your home. However, yes, you knew there was a but coming, I am having a hard time getting too worked up about a lot of these "personal" stories that they bring you to put a human face on the numbers. So many of these people only deserve sympathy. Once you hear their story you wonder why anyone would ever think that they deserve any sort of governmental bail out.

For instance, the face of the attack on the middle class. CNN did a profile on a woman who was having a really tough time. She was laid off her mortgage sector job, a few months later her husband left, her mother moved in with her to help with the mortgage. She makes can't qualify for food stamps, she gets unemployment. She has started going to the food bank for help. All her money now goes to keeping a roof over her head. I feel for her, I do. This is where she lost me. And she is telling her story to get our sympathy she explains how when she gets ready to go to the food bank she removes her Tiffany bracelet and doesn't take her coach purse. Alright now I am just mad. Why is your bracelet not on eBay by now, why is your purse not up there with it?

I cannot take any more people talking about the attack on the middle class. Have we thought about the fact that maybe the middle class is filled with people who are actually faking it? People who shouldn't be middle class. Just because you are living a middle class lifestyle doesn't make you middle class. If in two to three months of hardship you might lose your home and you are out of money by the end of the first month, maybe you weren't actually middle class? I think we need to rethink the definition of middle class. Now huge, monumental catastrophe, that I won't argue. You know, through the roof medical bills, some sort of horrible legal battle followed by lawyers fees, that kind of stuff can kick anybody down, even the most avid of savers.

Here is a personal disclaimer. I don't consider myself middle class, too much debt. If Dan were too lose his job we would be like all these other people. We are working hard to remedy that situation. We are plugging away every month at our debt and trying to make that number in savings go up a little bit more. Just putting that out there.

Since when did being in debt up to your eyeballs, barely making minimum payments, but having your kids in soccer, dressing nice and owning a house all of a sudden make you middle class? What a sorry state we are in that keeping up with the Joneses has become drowning with them also.

The thing that is so sad about all this is that somewhere along the line the American Dream became the American Right Now with no money down with no work involved. It would be wonderful for every American to own their own home but only if they can afford it. I would rather it take hard work and sacrifice to own a home than it be all interest only loans and we all end up Zimbabwean millionaires. (Just for the record in Zimbabwe with all the political unrest there inflation is out of control and for about $2 you can get about $100 million dollars there but that is still not enough to buy flour.)

This whole economy right now has got me fired up. It has me a little scared but mostly highly motivated to get my financial house in order. If a long recession is in the works, I want my family to be prepared. I guess the spending fast was a really good idea after all.

My number One insecurity

2008-04-03T15:49:00.003-05:00

On a friendly blog there was this fun little thing to do. Simple really, all you have to do is type in your blog address and it will give you your blog's readability level. I didn't even think about the consequences it would have on my ego for days on end but hey look something fun and shiny, let's do it.

And so here is my results..

Movie Reviews

The second I saw it I laughed. Then I decided to hide the evidence, that no one would ever know my dirty little secret of my Nancy Drew of a blog.

I then decided to move on and pretend that this had never happened except that it did and I knew it and I am not one to let things go. Next thing I know I am doing the dishes dissecting this bloggy thing thinking what in my blog makes me a junior high school level. I hated junior high. Did it take into account the fact that I put in my blog address incorrectly at first, did it grade my typing skills before it checked my grammar? And it took like two seconds, how can check grammar that fast? What the heck is it checking? The amount of times I used the word like? I don't even use emoticons, shouldn't that go for my favor? What about sarcasm and irony, a computer can't check implied intent in two seconds, can it? Is it too many kids stories where I used what they said verbatim? Are you telling me that blogging about my kids is actually dragging down my blog IQ? I knew it, dang those halflings.

Then I thought about this post and mounting my defense to show how actually smart I really am and then putting down in list form all the smarty-pants things I really do. But lets get to the heart of the matter. Appearing to anyone at anytime to be anything less than intelligent is my biggest insecurity. Once in a while I know that I am a little empty-headed when it comes to my calendar but that doesn't bother me at all. Appearing to be laid-back, not a problem. The thought of anyone thinking that I am not intelligent is intolerable.

It started from childhood. The youngest of six children, I have been playing catch-up for as long as I can remember. In my house, grades were the ultimate example of your intelligence. It was compounded by an early marriage, early kids with a very young face accompanied with very impertinent remarks. And the postponement of my higher-education.

I feel like I have been compensating for my lack of college degree ever since. Especially when you are in the baby phase and all anyone talks about it mind-numbing baby things, and where did you meet your husband chatter? Don't get me wrong, I can dissect a pregnancy by trimesters with the best of them, tells you exactly how old each of my children were when they finally slept through the night and can continue ad nauseum. However, there are times when I just want to talk politics, literature, anything else if not to prove that I am intelligent than just to prove that I am an adult.

I didn't write this to get any comments about that I am smart, really. I am sending this out there to show one of my failings that I am trying to overcome. This isn't one of those things like a skinny woman who complains about being fat so she will get compliments on being pretty and thin. I am not stupid, this I know. I am smart. My insecurity is solely wrapped up in people not perceiving me as intelligent. On the other side of that coin, I also have problems with trying not to seem like a know-it-all either. I walk a wonderful tight-rope of insecurities.

DD's prayer

2008-03-31T19:49:00.002-05:00

It was DD's turn for prayer tonight and she said a thing she always said...

"Please bless those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and training."

Except tonight there was something interesting on the end of it that gave me pause so I had to ask her about it after. She said...

"Please bless those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and training even their Archenemy."

DD did you just pray for those in Afghanistan, Iraq, and training and their Archenemies?

Yes, we were taught at church that we should pray for our enemies. Alright I get that but I am not sure where the arch part come into play here. She is too sweet for words sometimes.

The praying for those in training comes from the fact that Dan was "injured" this past summer while he was in training for a deployment to Iraq. I don't complain though, that injury got him out of that deployment, just not out of this one he is on now.

Spending fast is over, where's the mall?

2008-03-31T14:46:00.002-05:00

So I made it through my 45 days of no spending in the last week or so, well, sort of. There were a couple of slip ups but I think all of my slip ups add up to about maybe $150. There was the wireless modem, the chick flick and box of chocolates, a $2 sweater off the clearance rack, and some over spending on my weekend with my sister from my budgeted $65 (I bought clothes). Other than that the only things that I bought was a new vacuum after the old one started to smell like something burning and the new laminate floor.

All in all I think I did alright. The day after my fast though, there was a little bit of gorging so I have to watch myself on that one. The upside to ending the fast was that during that time there were two accomplishments hit. I paid off a debt during that time. So one payment gone, woo-hoo. And I timed the fast with my donut so that means we hit 20% when the fast ended. 20% of the deployment done is nothing to shake a stick at. It is the first three months down, only 12 months to go, give or take a week or so.

The next milestone is triple digit days. We will hit day 100 soon. Won't that be something? I have to admit the days are doing that speed up thing. We are getting through the days alright, I just would do anything for a little more time. I have accepted the fact that things are not going to calm down any time soon, I am this busy and this is how it is going to stay for the foreseeable future. We'll see what happens during summer, maybe then I'll get some breathing room.

Rest in Peace

2008-03-28T21:28:00.003-05:00

DD's beta fish Dorothy has passed on. She lived a good full life. A little passed the normal life span of a beta fish of 2-3 years. We got Dorothy at Christmas time 2004. The normal fish in the store is already 6 months old and then we had it three years and three months. That means this fish might have been four years. That would be like adding on 20-30 years to a humans life.

Not only did Dorothy live a long life, she lived a hard one, she was a survivor. The things we did to this fish should have killed it at least four times over. Innie's fish didn't survive the things we did to it but Dorothy did.

There was the time that we had both fish in one of those bowls that just had a divider and we left off the lid once. She actually jumped over the divider to get at Innie's fish. We found them who knows how long later both at the bottom of the bowl obviously very tired and their fins were missing quite a lot of big chunks.

Then their was the time that we left both fish in their respective jars, a la Gil in What About Bob?, as we were moving from VA to TN. We might have accidentally left them in the jars in the trailer in May as we went on vacation to Williamsburg. Dan had to go back to the post one day to out-process and he tried to get to the trailer but it was in the storage lot and to get into you had to check out the key and it wasn't the proper hours. They wouldn't give him the key no matter how Dan explained that children's pets were at stake. One week later we went to the trailer to see what became of the fish and then begin the move to TN. There were two nasty jars and one floater. Innie was a little upset. Especially since DD's fish survived and his didn't.

There was another time I left Dorothy in a jar on our book shelf for a week just two months later. We were going to my sister's house and a friend's house for the week and I put her on the shelf right by the front door so I wouldn't forget to bring her along. I did leave it right where I put it. A week later we had a fish just fine.

We have put this fish through the mill and she just kept kicking. The last few days though I knew it was coming she been swimming real slow and she has been there just sideways in the water. The day finally comes and I try to think of how to tell DD. I hide it for awhile and then finally call her to tell her. I tell her, "I'm sorry DD but your fish died." She instantly goes to see the corpse. And then she comes back to me and says real close to me, "I kind of forgot I had a fish. Are we going to get a new one?" Well, no DD we are not going to get a new one. All we have now is one big-mouth frog and once that one goes we will be a pet free home.

As I was placing Dorothy into her porcelain coffin ready for her grand burial at sea, I thought of taking a picture of it for this post but then thought maybe nobody would really want to see that so with one flick of my wrist, Dorothy was gone.

Rest in Peace.

Living room project - Check

2008-03-26T17:20:00.009-05:00

All the flooring in our house is going. We have done the kitchen floor, still not quite done with the finishing touches that's why still no pictures even though we started that in November, I haven't even done anything in a month or so. The carpet in the bedrooms and the living room is the wonderful light shade of beige that has picked up everything the former owners even thought of dropping on it, and has great traffic pattern marks. We didn't even have to discuss where to put the couches there was already a spot mapped out for us.

We decided we would put laminate into the living room and hallway and recarpet the stairs and bedrooms. I have been on the look out for a good price on floor for months now and all of a sudden I find it, the perfect shade, and way below our budgeted price. I ended up paying about 30% of what we had budgeted for. Yes! I know everyone loves a deal but this was so sweet. Then at the store they gave me a referral for an installer that they were on good terms with, I call him up and his price is 50% of what we had budgeted, super score. I wasn't in the mood to even attempt putting this floor in by myself.

They came over last Saturday and installed in about four hours. While they were here we talked about a couple other jobs that they will do for me in the future because I really liked their work speed, and prices. So soon, I am getting a new basement door, the thresh hold is too high and makes for one very scary first step, a custom thresh hold into the kitchen since the tile floor is so much higher than the laminate and while they are here next they are just going to nail in the quarter round that I haven't gotten around to in the kitchen and don't have a nail gun to do it anyway. If I have them painted and ready and in place they will just nail them for me, then the kitchen will be practically done. And they moved the furniture back into the living room for me in exchange for me doing the sweeping, like I haven't clean a floor. Moving a couch by myself, that one is a little more tricky.

Last thing, when the contractor walked into the kitchen and saw the tile floor he said, "Wow, this is a nice job, who did this for you?" Man, did that feel good. It felt really good to tell him that my husband and I had done it and it was our first tile floor. Just wanted to brag, now here are some pictorial brags for my new pretty floor.

Here's a good idea of the carpet, just random non-descript stains splattered all over it. Well, no more. He he he.

I had to get a picture of the wonderful entry thingy we had of those sticky vinyl squares. And then surrounded by an elegant trim of metal.

Ta-da!

Any suggestion on the mantle, we were thinking about maybe painting it white, what do you think?

Happy Anniversary

2008-03-20T20:14:00.001-05:00

(1998)

Daniel and I were married ten years ago today. Most people know that I am not a mushy person and to write a post completely devoted to how much I love my overly-goofy husband just isn't going to happen. He knows how I feel about him and besides he can't even read my blog right now, the government blocks a lot of websites on their computers and he didn't bring one with him so he hasn't read for months.

Ten Years of Marriage simply by the numbers

Ten years=520 weeks

116 weeks pregnant. DD was 1 week early, Innie 3 weeks early.

3 children

65 weeks apart. That does not count missile alerts. When Dan was in the AF he was a missileer and his job required him to be at an alert facility for 24 hours. He would leave in the morning and come home the next late afternoon. He did that eight times a month for 2 years.

(2000)

13 Addresses/only 2 we have owned

10 wards

6 states, although we lived in 2 states twice, 7 if you count the month we lived with my sister in KY while we were homeless

3 times we have been homeless for more than 2 weeks, every time we lived with family

(2002)

2 colleges

1 college degree

4 schools Innie has been to, he's in the third grade

3 schools DD has been to, she's in the first grade

(2004 )

2 weeks dating before Dan proposed

32 weeks (about) from meeting to getting married

5 cars

1 that we have bought and finished paying on

3 times we have read The Book of Mormon as a family. We started when Innie was a baby at just one column a night.

That was about all I could think of. Its kind of weird to see the last ten years of our life summed up that way. We've done and accomlished a lot in this past decade, imagine what we could do in the next one.

(2007)

Klepto

2008-03-17T16:59:00.002-05:00

So one of my children just came up to me to confess of a crime spree. The boys are playing in the backyard and DD comes up to me in a panic and is saying all those will you still love me, will you still forgive me even if I did something very wrong speeches in between her tears. I am not freaking out yet because, one, she is drama, and two, I have the weird ability to completely freak out about a spilled cup at the dinner table and go completely zen when the kids break my brand new $40 vase.

DD finally gets to the meat of the confession and its not pretty, not short, and not even a little recent. And it is not even a little easy to make her make this right. Apparently she stole a crappy little toy from a cousin, sorry Jenny, she will confess this weekend when we come, and while we were cleaning earlier in the week I threw it away. She said nothing as I threw in the trash with the rest of the those weird little toys you accumulate and then periodically trash. She stole a glue stick from a friend's house at the last post and they don't even live there anymore. The last thing to come out of course was the worst. Actual shoplifting. She stole candy. But she doesn't know from where. A store where Daddy was there, and it has grey or black floors that were easy to skate/slide on and we saw her friend from school there, remember? Uh, no.

I just tried to explain to her how bad this was and how hard it is to make it right when you hold it in for so long. But other than just going to a random store and making her pay for candy, I am out of ideas. And also on the "whoa is me" front, I hate having to make these sort of decisions by myself. I have been having problems with DD taking stuff of mine and squirreling it away in her room but I thought we had gotten control of this. I makes me so crazy angry when I think about it.

As she lays there in her own bed in her own room, where she keeps all her girls toys that she doesn't have to share with anyone since she doesn't have any sisters. My kids have activities, satellite TV, nice clothes, decent parents, hot lunches at school, cold lunch when they want that, and the list goes on. They don't have an endless list of toys because we don't think the need that much, we don't buy them all the stuff they ask for, but we do sometimes. They are not beaten, they are loved, they are cared for, even if it is in my weird way. We teach them to be caring people, loving, responsible people. They have chores, they know work. They are not spoiled, they are not Oliver either. I just am not sure how to discipline this when it is something we have always taught to not do. I am frustrated and angry not to mention on my own.