Where Are The Gypsies When You Need Them?

I spent all morning looking out the front windows hoping a band of Gypsies would wander down my street today.

I had just what they needed, and I hoped that they had what I needed. I was perfectly willing to trade 2 cute, whiny, foul tempered small children for a set of new pots and pans. Not just any posts and pans, they would need to be just the right kind, but you see, I need (well, don't exactly need right now but will soon need) some new pots and pans. What I did not need this morning was whining, crying, fit-throwing, ugly attitude filled children. Fortunately for my children (and for me, I suppose- In most of the world, it's frowned upon when you trade kids for cookware) it appeared there was to be no roving band of Gypsies traveling through our little town this morning.

After several hours of household bliss, I wondered... If we went to the larger neighboring town, would we find the aforementioned Gypsies?

Nope, but we did find Home Depot and got some stuff that Husband needed to finish a project that he started this weekend and was just this short on supplies. After a trip out of the house, a bit of fresh air, and a visit to our beloved Home Depot (Son would spend just about every day there if he had his way!) my cute, loving, happy, fun, silly children were back.

I'm glad the Gypsies didn't travel down our road today. I still need new pots and pans though.

Happy Solstice!

Today is the Summer Solstice.

Summer Solstice is an exciting day in our house. For one thing, it is the true beginning of Summer (except this year as we are in the leap year cycle).

The real reason it is so exciting to our family is because Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year. Here in the "lower 48" that doesn't really mean much. For us it is exciting because we have many fond memories attached to this mostly overlooked day. We spent 3 years in Alaska, the "land of the midnight sun" and the summers were fantastic! There were always lots of things to do during the summer... street festivals (like the Solstice Festival and the Midnight Sun Run), Community Band concerts held out in the downtown/ river park (which Husband played in), softball games, midnight baseball games (on the day of Solstice), playing at the Pioneer Park and riding the train with the kids, and always lots of time to dig in the yard. Since there was soooooo much sun, all of our flowers grew and grew and grew. We literally had to mow the yard twice as often as we have to here. It seemed like everyone in the building would be out working in their yards (at least all of the social people that we really enjoyed) at the same time and the evening intended for yard work would turn into a fun evening with friends. The kids would all ride their bikes in the parking lot, we would open the gates between fences and the dogs would run "free" back and forth like maniacs, the men would stand around and talk about whatever guys need to talk about, and the ladies would walk in endless circles around the parking lot pushing babies in strollers or guiding toddlers on tricycles. Sometimes we would be able to convince the men that they needed to do the pushing and the girls would sit and have a glass of wine together. What a great way to spend the evening!

So, for those of you who haven't truly celebrated Summer Solstice... go out and live it up tonight! The sun may have already set where you are, but go outside, close your eyes, and just imagine that you are basking in the midnight sun! I think I'll grab a glass of wine and head out there myself.

My Goals

I set 2 goals for the week that Husband is gone.

The first goal was to not eat any junk food. Note I say was. That one hit the door about 6 hours after Husband left the door and the kiddos felt the need to push every single button I have. Yay, Blue Bell Banana Split ice cream. The ironic thing is that I set this goal for myself several days before Husband left, and since I knew I wasn't going to be eating junk for the whole week, I told myself that it was OK to just eat whatever I felt like since that would be it for at least the next week. Not so much.

The second goal is to organize something each day that he is gone. That one has been successful. Kiddos and I were at Target the other morning and there were several types of storage boxes for a super good deal, so I took advantage. I have gone through and organized the kid's craft cupboard, the pantry, the game cabinet, and each of the kid's toy closets. I also installed a shelf in Daughter's toy closet that we purchased before our trip to CA in May but hadn't installed yet. The directions on how to install it were not good, but with the assistance of a hammer and a few good whacks, the shelf went in beautifully. I am happy to say that I no longer fear for the lives of my children when they open their toy closets. Son's was so bad that on Tuesday I literally just closed my eyes and shut the door so that I wouldn't have to see what a disaster it was. It only took about 20 minutes of sorting, and not much throwing away, and it looked as good as new in there!

And the true question is... does anyone care that I cleaned out the closets? Did the kids even notice? Oh, the glamorous and exciting life of a SAHM.

We Have Not Been Reduced To A Pile Of Burning Embers

I'm telling you this because I am kind and thinking of your feelings...

I know you probably couldn't even sleep last night because you were so filled with angst over weather or not I would have to be brave all alone and haul 2 children and the dog out of the house for fear that the roaring blaze next door would jump the .25 acre that separates our houses and set us ablaze. But fear not, Fair Friends, we all made it through the storm last night, though it was a whopper. There were somewhere in the neighborhood of 6 rolls of thunder. Neither of the neighbors' houses were struck by lightening or caught fire.

Now, get a good night's sleep tonight. I know you need it after being up fretting about us all last night.

Home Alone

Well, not exactly alone. I still have 2 children and a dog at home, but Husband is gone. He had to go to Texas for work this week. I miss him already.

I know this is going to sound ridiculous... but it's stormy outside and I wish Husband were here to protect me. I really am not afraid of storms... in fact I actually enjoy them most of the time. What I don't like is when I have to be the brave one in the house. Say, if lightening hits the house next door to us (not likely, I realize) I don't want to have to be the only one to be brave and calm and round up the kids and the dog and all of the stuff you have to grab along with the kids and the dog after lightening hits the house next door to you and catches on fire. Do I sound nuts, yet?

When Husband was deployed I just about scared myself sick (literally) one night. Son was still very little and I was boiling his bottle parts and pacifiers (lovingly called "pluggies" in our house) after he went to bed. Well, I hopped on the computer upstairs in the office to do something and completely forgot that I had things boiling on the stove. I forgot until 11:00pm and the whole building fire alarm started going off. After I went downstairs to be sure that it wasn't me setting off the fire alarm late at night in the dead of winter when it was- honestly- 5 degrees outside, I realized that it was my kitchen on fire. The pot that I was boiling everything in had boiled completely dry and not just melted all of the rubber and plastic things in the pot, but literally set them on fire. I couldn't get the fire out by throwing a lid on the pot, so I ran upstairs to grab the baby and the dog (and all the stuff you have to grab along with the baby and the dog) and ran outside until the fire department came (from directly across the parking lot). Luckily, I was blessed to have a wonderful and calm neighbor who put the fire out with baking soda while I was outside completely freaked out. Thank you Olivia's Mommy!! After the fire department traipsed through the house leaving melted snow and black marks all over the first floor of the house (including on the walls- explain that!) things settled down a bit. I don't think I slept at all that night though!

Now you know why I like for husband to be here during a storm. Doesn't make a lick of sense, but welcome to my life!

From Bunnies To Jack-A-Lopes

OK- I admit it. At times I can be a bit high-strung. Sometimes even a bit, how do I say this delicately?- anal. (Alright not so delicate, but truthful.) I also struggle a bit with perfectionism. I certainly don't expect other people to be perfect, but I tend to hold myself to a different standard. I can't remember if I have always been like this or if it is something that has developed as I have grown-up. Maybe it started when Husband deployed and I was the only mobile person in the house? (Son was 5 months old when Husband left... just a baby lump- though a very cute baby lump.) When you are the only one to "blame" when something isn't where it should be, it makes you pretty motivated to put things where they belong! At least that has been my experience.

Where was I going with this?

Oh yeah... high-strung. I have been pretty much on the high-strung side for the last... 2.5 months? We had a rather unexpected death in the family at the end of March that really seemed to throw me for a loop. I don't think that I have really been able to get my bearings back since then. My house has suffered the most, I think. I can't seem to keep up with the laundry, there always seems to be clutter out on the counters (not in the clutter basket where it belongs!!), we have progressed from just having dust bunnies to having dust jack-a-lopes. My whole cleaning schedule has really been off. Well, I lost it yesterday. The kiddos both went to hourly care on post and I got more done in the 3 hours while they were there than I have in the last 3 weeks. I attacked the house with a vengeance. I potted plants, I dusted, I cleared clutter from counters, I scrubbed bathrooms, I cleaned the stove, I cleaned floors (though not the garage floor, because Husband did that for me on Tuesday!!), I washed walls and baseboards, I finally got the house back into the condition that it belongs. And then my children came home.

For someone who doesn't like messes, and who truly doesn't function well in a messy environment, children can be a challenge. There's a part of me that wants my children to just sit on the couch and look pretty all day, that way they won't make a mess. But that's not what children are for. I have been blessed with 2 healthy, active children that really like to make messes, as children should. It's just finding that happy medium for me that sometimes causes a true internal struggle. Someone once told me to remember that the house "needs to be clean enough to be healthy and messy enough to be happy". Maybe if I had that painted on a wall somewhere in the house it would be easier for me to remember.

Chickens Or A Hedgehog?

We have been inundated by grasshoppers. The new flower bed that I mentioned in a previous post is taking the brunt of it. Each day the lovely hydrangeas that I planted look slightly less lovely than they did the day before. My daisies are beginning to look like they will soon be "pushing up daisies" of their own. I am nearing my whits' end.

I decided that I need to take some drastic measures here- measures other than going out into the backyard and squirting the grasshoppers while yelling at them to GO AWAY and leave my plants alone. I hopped online to see what type of grasshopper remedies I could come up with. (Because there you have the world at your fingertips.) Believe it or not, the most common suggestion I found was to get a chicken. Then there was the guy that suggested getting an hedgehog. A chicken. Or a hedgehog. For my backyard. Where my children and dog go to play. Give me a break.

Upon further research, I came upon a couple of yucky sounding concoctions that may do the trick. Then I remembered that we have a bug man. He is a man who gets bugs to stay away from my house professionally. I am happy to write him a check to make the grasshoppers GO AWAY and leave my plants alone. He will be here on Thursday morning. He might even be able to make them go away without yelling.

Summer In The South

Summer in the south includes lots of sun in the morning, humidity all day and thunderstorms in the late afternoon and evening.

Today was the first BIG thunderstorm we have had this year. The black clouds rolled in very quickly and the thunder started in fast. We lost power a couple of times... not enough to really throw things off, just long enough for us to have to reset the clocks. The thunder literally shook the house. The lightening was close enough at one point that I thought there was a chance of it actually hitting the house (not that I can be at all dramatic or anything). It did hit one of the neighbors fields. The rain was torrential... we actually watched the rain head to our house. It truly is a bizarre thing to see. Of course, I spent 45 minutes watering plants and bushes this afternoon before we got the 1/2 inch of rain. That's OK- we're all about letting God water our lawn for us. In fact, it is not unusual to hear Husband, Son or I saying "Thanks for the water, God!" during a rain shower.

I checked the weather online (which isn't surprising as I check the weather about 5 times a day... maybe I should be a weather girl?!) and we have thunderstorms and rain in the forecast for the next 10 days. We are super excited about that! We desperately need the rain around here... until today we hardly have had any rain for the last month. If we can take some of the rain for the poor folks in the Midwest right now, we'll do all we can!

Feelin' Hot, Hot, Hot!

It is hot here.

We decided that to escape the heat here at home, we would take a trip to the beach for the day. The kids and I went to the store on Wednesday morning and bought all things beach related... beach towels, beach umbrella (really a patio umbrella because Wal-Mart doesn't sell beach umbrellas here), beach floaties, beach pails and shovels, beach whatever else we could think of. We were ready! Only 2.5 more days until we left! (Try to explain to a 3 year old on Wednesday morning that you are loading up on all this fun stuff so that on Saturday you can go to the beach... but you can't play with any of the fun stuff now because Mommy doesn't have anywhere for you to dig with your new shovel and pail except the flower bed that she just spent the better part of a long weekend digging and planting and mulching so that it would look pretty...)

Saturday arrives... we get up and are packed- new beach accoutrements, beach blanket, picnic lunch and more snacks than we know what to do with -and on the road by 9:00am. Only an hour later than we had hoped for, but whatever. We decide mid-drive that we are going to try a beach that we have never been to before, but is very popular not only with fellow South Alabamians, but with people all over the world. Since we have never been to this particular beach we decide that it would be a good idea to stop at the Visitor's Center to see just what we have in store for us (and because I really had to go potty!). After making the necessary first stop, I chat with the nice ladies that are there to give you info about where you should go, what you should see, etc. Only after finding out where the best "family" beach is, how to get there, where to park, yadda, yadda, do they mention that there is a "double red flag" posted for the day. Meaning that the water is closed. Yes, after driving in the car for almost 2 hours with Son asking (for almost 2 hours) if we are at the beach yet, the water is closed. As in, don't get in the water or the horrific riptide will suck you all the way to Cuba.

What the heck are we going to do now?

The nice ladies suggest a few alternatives... all of which we explored and decided against for several reasons:
1- Cost lots of money
2- The water is closed, so everyone else that drove almost 2 hours to go to the beach is trying to find something else to do too.

After all agreeing that so far this trip had not been fun, let's just all complain about it loudly together and get it out of our systems now we decide that we will go to the beach, not get in the water and at least have some lunch and play in the sand for a while. Turns out that was a good decision. The weather was perfect for a day at the beach. We found a great spot to lay everything out and dig in the sand (while eating sandwiches for lunch). We decided to try our luck and get in the water, a little. Neither of the kiddos really wanted to spend much time in the water. Son only wanted to get his calves wet and Daughter really didn't want anything other than her big toe to be wet, so this worked in our favor for the day. (It was nice to know that we wouldn't have to worry about any last-minute trips to Cuba.) The amount of water play was just enough to cool off when we got too hot and just enough to rinse off when we got too sandy.

Roughly 4 hours after arriving at the beach we decide to pack it up and head for home. The trip home was much easier, mainly because we knew which home we were heading to (unlike when we decided to try the "new" beach and just decided that it was "that direction"- not really knowing it was "that direction"). After arriving home we were still hot- it was about 15 degrees hotter at home than at the beach- but we were all so tired and had such a good time that we didn't care how hot we felt.

Chalk one up for another not-so-spur-of-the-moment-change-plans-in-the-middle-of-the-trip kind of family trip.

I Thought I Was Going To Wet My Pants...

I was randomly zipping around the internet (because there you have the whole world at your fingertips!) and found an article titled "Bold Dresses for the Bold Bride" or something to that effect. I thought I would see how styles have changed in the wedding world since I was a part of it many years ago. Not that I was a "bold" bride, but whatever.

As I am clicking through the slide show of pictures I am seeing lots of dresses that I would never in my wildest imagination dare to wear, though I do find intriguing. Then I happen upon this picture. I laughed so hard I thought I was going to wet my pants.




Now I can get over the yellow apron with black ink stains all over it. The dress as the bottom "layer" of the outfit seems like a dress that I would wear myself, should the occasion arise. I wonder is she knows that she is wearing a pin cushion for a bracelet? What really cracks me up is the fact that this poor woman apparently has one of two things (or two of two things) going on on her wedding day;

1- She is marrying a tyrant who won't even let her have their wedding day off from sewing clothes for all of the little elves that so painstakingly calligraphied (is that a word?) all of the wedding invitations by hand.

-or-

2- The poor woman's biological clock is ticking so loudly that she just wants to be done with it and let everyone know that, yes, she does realize that she is getting older and, yes, she does have babies on the brain. She, in fact, has so many babies on the brain that it is too difficult to even hold her head up straight.

Poor woman! I sure hope that the-seamstress-to-ink-spraying-elves-wife-of-a-tyrant can have kids soon so she can at least get that darned kink out of her neck!

It's 9:00... Do You Know Where Your Children Are?

I know where my children are.

Daughter is laying on the floor in her room squishing her fingers under the door and saying "Mommy? Mommy? Mommy?".

Son is out of bed wandering around to tell me that he has "the most hiccups all the time".

And believe it or not, Husband has been sacked out on the couch for the last hour. (Not that he is one of my children, but I thought you might like to know anyway.)

What is going on in this house? Kiddos are usually in bed by 7:15 at the latest and asleep not long after that. Husband and I are usually in bed by 10:00 at the earliest (and asleep about 3 seconds after our heads hit the pillow!). Is it the knowledge that outside our house it's Summer time? Is it the knowledge that out in the yard it is not nearly as hot as it was this afternoon and might therefore actually be enjoyable to play on the swing set (except that we are experiencing about 4000% humidity right now)? Maybe it's the fact that the kiddos know that Daddy is asleep and feel the need to keep me company until my quilt finally finishes drying in the dryer (they are pretty sweet like that!) and I can go to bed myself.

Whatever it is, I Really Ought To Be Doing Something Else... like sorting through the large USPS Priority Mail box that I have stuffed full of papers (mostly junk mail, I think) to organize. It has been looking at me all day. I guess I should get to it now- I am afraid that if I ignore it any longer, it will crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night just so that I can't ignore it in the morning. Not such a nice thing to wake up to... unless it is bring me my coffee.

June

It's June. How do I know? Not because the calendar says it is. Because we had June Bugs last night. Did I see any when I was outside on the night of May 31st? Nope. June 1st? Yep.

June Bugs... the most dependable calendar there is. Yuck.