Observations from an ordinary day...

If you need inspiration to clean your floors, I have it. He's 7 1/2 months old, very cute, and works for free. When he's done here I could bring him to your house, you will want to put away everything he tries to put in his mouth, and THAT is EVERYTHING!!!!

The fourth boy is now the first to get stitches AND a black eye. How long before the broken bone? Wanna start a betting pool on which bone?

The oldest takes on such massive mental projects for his age and is so responsible. I am impressed, and now feel like I WANT to bail him out when he loses something, instead of like I HAVE to. It's amazing.

Some personalities need the motivation of an audience to pull out their best performance. They can swallow the pain if there is an audience when hit by a ball. They will take the plunge in swim class, if there is an audience to watch. Then he can apply it to when the audience is gone.

Some of the time, my boy (the only one left to brag about) is able to point out the things clearly and concisely that he tried to avoid at first to spare my feelings. When did he get so good at dealing with other people?

When did they get so old?

How do I slow this down?

I can't? Then how do I make it all last?

When it rains it pours...

First of all, I am not looking for sympathy. I don't need any I'm so sorrys anymore than I need I told you sos. What I do need is an opportunity to vent. And it's my blog, what better place to let it all out, right?

So we had a baby. He is wonderful, a beautiful blessing that is a prime example of how Heavenly Father's plan is so much better than ours.

We align our finances in an aggressive plan to pay off a large amount of debt in a manner of a few years.

Then we decide to add on to our house because our situation severely lacks order and sanity. After months of preparation, He reveals that it is a bad idea. So instead we pay off our van. Again, we trust His wisdom is inspired, and His vision is better than ours. We see it as a teaching moment to all of our children, about the need to listen to the whisperings of the Spirit.

We learn about a way that we can maybe get a bigger home for less money through an agency. We believe that all things align just so and decide it is a process we are to go through at least to gain knowledge. I have stated since before we found this home that when we bought a home it would need to be the one I could die in, because I never wanted to pack my crap up and haul it anywhere else. I loathe moving.

So we begin to open our minds to the ideas of moving or hiring out to have a major renovation done, one that still requires packing. The paperwork is begun, and the day arrives that we are to pay a processing fee.

But wait. That paid off van? Oh yeah, you know where this is going. The transmission quits. And I mean fried. We are talking a minimum $2,000 to fix, when it blue books for $2400.

So, please dear reader, do as I have done for several days now, and wrap your mind around this. We own a five passenger Ranger pickup truck. With 2 doors and a bench seat and two little jump seats in the back. We have a 13 year old who is 5' 3" or so, an almost twelve year old pushing 5', a 9 year old, a 4 year old, and a little baby in a honking infant car seat.

Yeah.

And so here I sit, typing out my problems to you. Can you solve them? Of course not, you can't buy me a van any more than I can buy me a van. Unless I get a loan, which the Credit Union will love and I'm sure it will impress the mortgage people too, never mind the fact that we were going to use the $ saved from payments to do small repairs in case we try to sell. HAH!

In the mean time I not only can't take all my children anywhere, but can't reasonably take the oldest and the youngest at the same time. Did I mention the driver's seat on the truck doesn't move forward? So you have to unbuckle the baby to get the oldest in and out, because Heaven knows he doesn't fit between me and it.

But I heard a couple of talks during general conference, only a couple mind you, but one touched my heart. A man told how his father passed when he was a child, leaving his mother alone to raise 4 small children. And she gave advice that will suit us all in this life. The end will be better than the beginning.

As we face our trials head on, we are often overwhelmed by the enormity of what lies ahead. But we must remember that all is for our good, and the end of the trial, when the lesson is learned and the iron has been purified by the fire, will be better than the beginning.

We often speak in my church about following the Spirit being like taking a step into a dark room, not knowing where the floor is but having faith there will be one. I don't know what the next holds, but I do know it will hold us up. We will eat, we will drink, we will love each other, and have our needs met. Where, how and when? Predicting that these days is not my job. I'm to just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and smile.

In case you were wondering...

I totally fell asleep. Big surprise, you put a thirty-ahem-year-old woman beside her 3 year old baby and tell her to lay still, and breathe slowly, so that he will get we are napping and lay still and breathe slowly so that he will not be an intolerable earthquake of chaos and destruction come 5 PM and of course she falls asleep. Don't hate me. Just because then I wake up and move to the couch so I don't have to be squooshed up by the bed rail so tightly I can't breathe or move and doze some more because really who only sleeps ONE hour and the 3 year old wakes up and is tended to the now-home-from-school 12 year old because REALLY PEOPLE, MOMMY IS TRYING TO SLEEP.

Yeah.

Anyway, I have a bone to pick with the blog world. It's cold outside. I know it's not the blog world's fault, but I am sitting in a draft, with the laptop ON my lap instead of the appropriate shelfy lap thing to keep warm, and if you folks out there don't blog SOMETHING (with the exception of Tracey, and Melissa, and Josiah I am going to have to get UP and do SOMETHING productive, like pick kids up at school. ACK!! I've nothing left to read online! Blog!! EMAIL!! SEND ME A MILE LONG FORWARD, PLEASE!! Anything but housework!

Thank you, in ADVANCE.

MJ

ps. people, do you realize how long those links took me to make? I'm desperate, truly.

I was going to blog...

No, really I was, Z is watching a movie and it's not quite 12, I don't need him in bed for at least an hour.

But he just announced he's tired.

TIRED.

I have 4 children. And I can count on one hand the number of times my offspring have uttered those words.

And no, I don't have extra fingers on my hands. It really is just that rare.

So, I'm off to put a boy to bed. Maybe I'm early enough I won't have to fall asleep too.

But I doubt it.

Mommy's Little Helper

My kids are cute. That's not an opinion, it's a fact. One that I remind myself of DAILY to ensure their survival!

So, sometimes they do things that are, well, cute... and I take pictures. Other times they do cute things and my friends take pictures. Occasionally, though rarely, they do things that are not very cute at the moment, but I take pictures knowing that I will look at them days or weeks later and find them cute. And there are those rare, fleeting moments, when my friends take my kid's picture when they are doing something that is cute at the moment to them and they think will be cute eventually to me.

THAT my friends, is what you are about to see.

You be the judge.

Zachary (3) had pestered Brian (10) beyond tolerance. I told Brian to leave the room, ignoring Zachary. It worked, and Z was bored, almost instantaneously.

So he found trouble. In an effort to dissuade him, I gave him a "job". He was to clean the extremely large, 80's decor mirror in our bathroom. The darn thing covers the wall above the double vanity. I moved the toothbrushes. I sprayed it down with Windex, lecturing all the while that this was an abundance of blue stuff and he would not get more.

I gave him a wad of clean paper towel. I lectured that it was "more than enough" towel and he would not get more. And he happily wiped away for quite some time.

Then Donovan (4) saw what Z was doing. He immediately ran to me, and with a dreadful stutter finally "tattled" on Z. I told him that was Z's job, his chore. He insisted he wanted to help, and as I began to explain it was Z's chore and he couldn't help, Z hollered from the bathroom, "It's ok, Do'van can help me."

Angels appeared and sang a hallelujah chorus in a moment of toddler kinship.

So I brought Donovan in with his own paper towels, sprayed a little extra windex for kicks, saw how cute they were and sent D's photographer mother in with my itty bitty camera to take pictures, because they were CUTE.

She laughed, she directed (move that way, look at me, cute!) like she does, because she's a photographer, while I sat at my dining room table.

And then I heard it.

Donovan: "I need more soap."

Soap?

More? Soap?

Uh Oh.

Quickly followed by:

Zachary (loudly) "Shhhh, don't tell my mom!!"

I suspect this is the getting of the more soap...

Time to rinse

While this likely depicts the "Don't tell my mom."

Very satisfied with his work.

Another happy boy!

So nice they can work together!

Partners? Uh, only in crime folks, only in crime!

Old News

Our trees were massacred recently. I took pictures.

The "tree people" as they have been dubbed by my family have now been in the area for a few weeks. When they appeared outside my house, they said they were contracted to clear all along the roadside, eight feet back. We debated the merits of having them just cut down, but three or four cars a winter slide into that ditch, and I don't want any of them in my yard. I plan to look for saplings along the power lines in the spring, and plant them between the older ones. The older ones we'll cut when the saplings are large enough.

A few feet back, that is. And we hope to prune them, so that this needn't happen again down the road.

They do it to prevent power outages from wires being in the branches. The irony is, we never lose power, and last week (after the devastation) our power flickered off three times. Oh well.

For those who (like me) don't know, pines won't grow back where they have been cut. So these will be like this until we cut them.

Remembering...

Please give pause today, and say a little prayer.

Regardless of your name for Him, be it God, Father in Heaven, Lord, or what have you, please thank Him. For her.

Because without her having come, my world would never have known perfect beauty. There would be less understanding, less hope, less strength to endure.

I just wish she could have taught us all of that, and stayed here to reap the benefits, without pain. I just wish Heavenly Father hadn't needed her home so soon. I wish she could have stayed and played a bit longer.

But I am grateful for the time that I had.

A Good Day

Today is Saturday. I came to hate Saturdays a few months ago when I realized every one was a disappointment. My husband comes home from work on Friday evening to hear a chorus of, "Yay, it's the weekend!"

Then Saturday shows up, and it's all work work work do do do slave slave slave and desperately try to live up to everyone else's expectations.

But not today.

Today, as many other Saturdays, there was no "plan".

And we didn't laze around and waste the day, (although I did sleep past, gulp, 9 AM!!) we talked about what needed doing. And then did it. I made a grocery list. And then went. to. the. store. I haven't gone Grocery Shopping in over a month. Don't get me wrong, I've been there, but only to get X Y or Z. Not to actually shop up and down the aisles.

Bill started repairing our posts out front. We realized we only needed to replace parts of them, and so it wasn't going to be expensive. He did 3 today.

I cleaned my bathroom counter/sinks. And mopped. And did laundry.

The boys took out their steers. And clipped their hair. And did chores.

Life is good. I need to go sit with the boy. He loves me, and he will only be 3 for a short time!

To Aura, or not to Aura...

A tractor trailer with logs on it wiped out at least one telephone pole and numerous wires late yesterday morning. He drove for quite a while not knowing what he had done.

Why do I care?

Because my power flickered. It was... disturbed.

I had to turn the TV back on for kids. I had to turn my computer back on.

And my computer didn't work right. It usually flashes a little screen that says Compaq, 'cuz it's a Compaq and they don't want you to forget it. It got stuck on that screen.

I tried 50 million things, and then my brain shut down. It couldn't handle the idea of a fried computer. Not when some of my pictures and most of my video were not backed up. (Hear in your mind that famous Jack Nicholson line: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!)

I spent the afternoon in a fog, trying to talk to people who knew computers without having to spend money.

Nicki finally took my hard drive and put it in her computer. Everything was still on it. I would have shouted for joy, but I really hadn't allowed myself to worry yet! (Hear in your mind that famous Jack Nicholson line: YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH!!!)

Sorry, I really like that line!

So it must be the motherboard is fried. Right?

My brother (who fixes the computers for Leavitt High School a couple of towns over) agrees it may be the motherboard.

Me: How much are they?
Him: (laughs)
Me: No, really?
Him: It depends, it may not even be able to be replaced.
Me: How do you figure out if it can?
Him: You look at the motherboard and know what you're looking at.

He agrees to look at it, and says, "Bring it to my work tomorrow."

I am fully prepared to stop at his work, find out what motherboard it needs, and drive on to the city of Auburn and buy it. I am floored by the enormity of the high school I used to attend, first time I've ever driven in the parking lot since it was rebuilt. It's gargantuan.

My brother puts the hard drive back in. He turns it on. It boots up. The Compaq screen flashes by, 'cuz they want you to remember it's a Compaq. I see Count it all Joy's dish of jelly beans on my desktop, where I put it in February 'cuz it looked so springy.

Me: How'd you do that?
Him: I have an aura.
Me: No, really, was there a cord loose?
Him: No.
Me: Then what was it?
Him: I don't know, sometimes computers are strange.
Me: (in awe of his aura).

I go home, put my computer back in with its cords, and turn it on.

It reminds me it's a Compaq.

And freezes there. No jelly beans. No desktop. Just Compaq.

My brother has no aura.

I decide to try a different power strip.

It reminds me it's a Compaq, and then goes to jelly beans.

I breathe. Then I call my mom and have her email my brother so he knows he had no aura.

But he did save me a ton of money. 'Cuz I wasn't ever going to try plugging my computer into any other outlet. Not until I had bought a new motherboard anyway.

Thanks Jason. And thank you inventor of surge protectors.


(and tractor trailer driver, I know gas is expensive, but not as bad as how high your insurance is gonna get if you keep that up!! PLEASE STOP!)

This post is for Kathy (Joy) B.

I've been dreadfully ill this weekend with a sinus infection, which Z is showing the early symptoms of having caught. I read a post on a blog last Thursday, and wanted to write about it here, but was out all day and then fell too ill to do more than was absolutely necessary. So now, here it is:

It's a strange, strange thing, this internet. By opening a blog some time ago, I invited myself into a whole new world. Oh yes, I brought a few friends along with me, and we have learned together how to cross things out, upload pictures, even got a video to work once.

But then something happened. I started looking to see who else was out in the blogosphere. I found some really funny women, some angry women, women with many children, women with none, and even the occasional man. Some I took one look and passed them by, not really liking what I saw. Others seemed ok, but not really worth the time, when I suspected better was out there. So amazing is this internet, that even our church leaders have spoken of it in a world-wide convention, encouraging us to use it in a manner that would please the Lord.

I wept Thursday morning. I wept openly, and unabashedly, alone at my computer. I wept for a woman I have never met, and for whom I probably never will. I did not know she existed two months ago, but when I found her, of all places on this internet, I knew she was someone I would like. I told her that first day that I read her thoughts on line that I didn't know what it was that I liked about her blog, but the word peaceful kept coming to mind, and there just isn't enough peace in my life, so I would be back.

And I have, I've been back, to look at beautiful photos of flowers, old buildings, ancestors who are not my own. Things that I long to make the time for, but know it is not the right season of my life. But I have rejoiced in the beauty that this wonderful woman, this woman I have not met, sees, and desires to share with the world. And she has been to my blog, and given me words of encouragement and peace, words that I treasure.

I knew she had cancer. I reminded myself of that Thursday morning, and even went back to read the page that had told me early on she was ill. But for someone so far away, who doesn't talk about it online much, and doesn't have numerous photos of herself showing frailty and hair loss, it was easy to forget. I should have remembered, anyone so good at stopping to look at life had a clear understanding of it's value, something usually only gained through loss.

I shrunk for a moment. I am embarrassed to tell you that. But I was so tired, physically, and also emotionally. There just seems to be so much loss, it has been a very hard winter. But it only lasted a moment. Then, I went on to consider how truly refined in the fire of trial this elect daughter of God is. To be such a strong, and spiritual person that it could come through in a mere introduction read on a computer screen, must truly be one of the Lord's chosen.

I am grateful to those who step forward, and testify of their faith. I am grateful to those who share the good, and also the bad. I am thankful for a heart that is open, and can still be touched, in spite of numerous, and ongoing hurts. But mostly I am grateful for a loving Heavenly Father, who awaits our return with open arms, and for our Lord and Savior, even Jesus Christ, who atoned for our sins and made it possible.

I am grateful, even in this small way, to have known Kathy.

An expounding of my former Epiphany

I recently posted about a mama duck.

Well, yesterday I thought about that. A lot. I have a 2 year old who is just coming down from his asthma attack. His asthma affects him by making it difficult for him to shake the congestion that accompanies a cold, his nose stays runny and he coughs longer than most do. This obviously makes sleep difficult, and when he is sick he is known to spend numerous nights being rocked to get to sleep, or even sleeping in our bed.

Which means that when he recovers he thinks he should continue to be treated in such a manner.

Because he is 2.

And the youngest.

And the last one.

So, nap times are eased back into, with a couple of laying down on the couch, maybe a fall asleep in the car, and then eventually he is made to lay in his bed, and I sit on his brother's bed in the same room. I promise to stay as long as he lays still. If he plays or wiggles around, I threaten to leave the room, and he cries.

When I want to leave the house and need him to put on his coat, I sometimes threaten to leave without him and he comes running.

I used to do that with Dustin. He's 11 now, almost 12.

And I am reaching a point where the tide will turn. I have spent years using the fact that my children love me and see me as protection and safety to my advantage. Slowly I move away from them, strategically testing the waters and limits. When we go shopping I want them to feel safe 2 or 3 feet away as a 2 year old, and maybe 10 feet away when they are 8.

It's all about to change. I am now the one who is scared, scared that they will move too far away from me. I want them to be productive, to be responsible adults, homes and families of their own. But I don't want them to move too far, and leave me.

So much to blog, So little time.

Well, there will be no pictures of my kitchen.

Why? you ask. Go ahead, you know you want to.

Because thieves infiltrated my life.

No, we weren't robbed, officially. Some creep decided to steal a bunch of information from our local grocery store chain's computers, and they have 4.2 million credit and debit card numbers. And they are using them illegally. They had 4 of mine.

One was a Discover card, and from what I hear Discover is working on it. They contacted me and now the account is closed (it actually got used to buy gas in Georgia!!) and a new account number is being assigned.

Then we have 3 debit cards. Yeah, well, we actually HAVE eight, four normal sized and four key chain ones with the same numbers as the regular size. Don't judge me. We have 2 checking accounts (because I'm so organized. cough.) and there are two of us, so multiply or add 2 and 2 make 4.

"But what about the kitchen?!?!" you scream.

Right, well, because I needed to replace my cards, and wasn't going to wait indefinitely for them to arrive in the mail while millions of other people wait indefinitely for THEIRS to come in the mail, I went to my Credit Union.

'Cuz I am a debit card addict. I know, I had to go without one before, and it's not pretty.

And my credit union mailed me a letter saying if I come in to the building they can replace it, for free, right then and there.

So, I drive down to my credit union. At 10 am, thinking slow time of morning. The parking lot is unusually full, and I think, "OK, not such a slow time. But really, how bad can it be? And I want my card. Now."

So I unbuckle the 2 year old. That's right, I have a 2 year old attached at the hip (I wish, then he wouldn't run away) where ever I travel. And I enter the Credit Union, am asked if I want to wait in line for a card, and my name is put on the list and I'm guided to a waiting room. One of three waiting rooms. One of three FULL waiting rooms.

Turns out, my Credit Union mailed a similar letter to almost everyone else that uses it. This grocery store is less then a mile from where the Credit Union is.

So, the 2 year old is handed a coloring book and a pack of crayons with 6 of the cutest little crayons in it, and we sit.

I knew it was bad when I noticed the little water bottles being given away for free. We were in for it.

TWO HOURS LATER my name was called. That's right, I went up to make sure we were on the list only once, after everyone in the room I was in had walked in after me and several more names had been called. I have to say, though, it could have been so much worse. I heard the woman taking names tell someone that the man that kept coming and going was handling anyone who was really angry and irate. All we had in our area were people who, while not happy about it, knew that yelling wasn't going to get us anywhere. So we waited.

And waited.

And waited.

One lady came up to me and offered me a Very Hungry Caterpillar book to borrow to read to Zachary. That ate ten minutes.

They had a big plastic school bus, and a few other toys that interested Zachary here and there. And of course the color book. And climbing on his chair. All in all, he was really good. Although he did throw the bus at one point, but we were well into our second hour, and frankly I think I might have been benefited from throwing a bus at that point.

But it's done. I never got to Walmart, but I told Bill that since I replaced his card for him too, he owed me two hours of shopping at Walmart tonight. Alone.

That might almost be worth it. Almost.

Would someone please tell the person who stole the numbers that no one is impressed?