I'm Changing My Name to Superwoman

You know the saying "that which doesn't kill you makes you stronger?" Yeah well, I am getting some serious muscles! Every day I do things that are unpleasant and difficult. Today it has been catching up on laundry and a sewing project that I refuse to let kick my butt. Friday it was clean up vomit. Saturday it was...well I guess Saturday was ok. Yesterday it was stand in front of a large group of teens and adults and talk about a painful piece of my past. I'd rather have cleaned vomit again.
The truth is, I have a very blessed life. I always have, but there were some years that were marked by heartache and some things that I really don't like to remember. My prayer is that in talking openly about what I overcame, someone who hears it will be encouraged to persevere in their own circumstances. Maybe one of those kids are dealing with their own painful situation and can look at me and think, "Huh, if that lady went through all of her stuff and moved on to have a good life in a great pair of heels [well that's what I'd be thinking], then surely I can hang on long enough to see what God has waiting for me."
If we aren't changed for the better by the bad stuff we walk through, and if we can't help other people because of it, then we just let the bad stuff engulf us. I was reluctant to speak yesterday because I was afraid people would be shocked or pity me. I also would rather focus on the fun things in my present than the ugly things in my past. However, when I felt compelled to share some facts with a smaller group who in turn asked me to speak in greater detail to the large group, I knew God was showing me a way to use my pain to glorify Him and help others. That alone is better healing than years of therapy (which I didn't have) could have ever been!
I encourage anyone reading this to see blessing in your pain. Find a way to help someone else and focus on how God moves you out of the dark times and back into His glorious light! When you feel weakened by your circumstance, remember that God will make you strong again. He will make something good out of it if you let Him. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time and change so many things, but it's wasteful to regret. I am strong today because of the struggles I overcame, and I will pass that strength on to my kids and others through my testimony of faith and God's protection and mercy in my life. It's good to be strong!
And now that I've given myself a mental pep talk, I am ready to show my sewing machine who's boss.

My Name is Stephanie and I am an Addict

I have openly admitted my shoe addiction before. It hasn't really gotten worse, but it certainly hasn't improved. My taste in shoes has though, and therefore my obsession is more costly than it once was. Today though I am at peace with that little problem. Perhaps because I bought a beautiful pair of brown knee high boots today, so the beast within is satiated for the time being. The hubby's beast is raging. It hates my shoe shopping. Oh well.
The reason for my therapeutic confession today is to get it off my chest that I'm addicted to crafting. I was a Hobby Lobby regular long before Pintrest, but now...well now let's just say I'm really thankful for the ability to print out coupons and scope out the half priced deals before I go in the store. I try to plan my weekly crafting "needs" accordingly in advance. I also force myself to avoid Pintrest as much as possible when I already have projects in the works as to avoid going broke.
My latest feats? Making hair bows is the ongoing addiction. I started making them for my daughter, and in the last couple of months it has blossomed (or festered, depending on the day and condition of my house) into a small business.

So that's been fun. It feeds my demon and keeps me too busy to snack mindlessly, so I'm ok with that.
Then my lovely friend who is a fan of my bows suggested that I could help her make Angry Bird costumes for her kids for Halloween. That was REALLY fun because she did all the dirty work. She tracked down instructions, bought all the supplies, and measured the children. All I had to do was sew it all together and admire the cuteness.

Here is my youngest in his own Halloween costume modeling the Angry Speedy Bird. Spiderman never looked so adorable. There will be a couple more Angry Bird projects in the coming weeks, and I hope they're as cute!
But now that enabler called Pintrest has gone and gotten me in the Christmas spirit, and I have had to add a few more things to my craft list!

 I don't  know if the madness will end because my brain can't even stop mentally crafting once I walk away from the physical act. My fingers have perpetual blisters from the glue gun, and I've been sporting white paint on my foot for three days that won't wash off in the shower.

You know how drug addicts will often trade one addiction for another? The lesser of two evils I suppose. Well I may have to give up one of my addictions or focus all of my energy on one instead of spreading it out over multiple habits. I might be willing to stop crafting (for the good of the family) if I could focus in more heavily on shoes. The King Prime doesn't approve of my shoe shopping, but he should know that my last trip to Hobby Lobby cost more than the boots I bought today. Between the bows, the birds, and the Christmas cuteness, I may be halfway to a pair of Jimmy Choos. I'm posting a picture of the exact pair just in case he wants to follow along with this treatment plan.

Once Bitten Twice Shy...and I'm not talking about vampires

This morning the deejays on my radio station were talking about their home improvement disasters and asking people to post their own DIYs gone wrong on Facebook. I was driving at the time, but naturally I didn't want to be left out of the conversation, so I wrote about my husband's and my latest dishwasher installation that included me having to go to the store with a wet behind and getting my head stuck between the cabinet and the dishwasher. You can view the details on that little adventure on my march 21, 2011blog post. What I didn't mention on the radio station's fb page was another little mishap I had while changing a toilet seat. 

I must preface my tale with a confession. I have an abnormal fear of snakes being in the toilet. So far the scariest things I've ever found in the toilet (besides what it's made for) have been a pair of glasses, a toothbrush, and an entire roll of toilet paper, which incidentally soaked up all the water in the bowl! Thank you children. Yet, I occasionally convince myself that there will be a 3 foot boa waiting to lunge out as soon as I open the lid. Now picture a pregnant woman waddling into the bathroom first thing in the morning and sitting down only to feel a sharp stinging pain on the edge of her tush. That'd be me-the one with Snake-in-the-pot-aphobia. I screamed and jumped right off the toilet trying my hardest not to go into full labor as I saw that the snake bite I had received was merely a pinch from a crack all the way through the seat. My groggy husband said, "oh, I broke the toilet seat last night." Information I would have found more helpful about 8 seconds sooner!

That evening I bleached the entire bathroom in just my underwear so as not to get bleach spots on my clothes. Not that it would have mattered if my maternity clothes had bleach anywhere below the belly because I certainly wouldn't have been able to see it. Once the bathroom was clean enough to lay down on the floor, I set about replacing the broken seat. It turned out to be a much more difficult task than I ever imagined because the bolts were rusted to the nuts so severely that they wouldn't budge. I had to wedge myself into the narrow space between the wall and the toilet to get a better angle to saw the bolts off. By the way, pregnant women should avoid wedging themselves into anything! Yes, I was stuck. I decided to finish the job before claustrophobia set in and reassured myself that at any given moment my husband surely could pull me out. I asked that man who pledged to love and cherish me until death to hand me a tool since I was in no position to get it myself. He left the room, and when I heard him return, I put my hand out to receive the tool. No tool touched my hand, but soon I heard the snap of the camera. 

Eventually I did get the old seat off, and the man to whom I am miraculously still married did pull me out from behind that ridiculous-albeit sparkling clean-crawl space. I even managed to delete the picture off the camera before it came back to bite me on the rear much in the same way the toilet seat had that morning. 

I have also vowed to never let the bolts get rusty on another toilet again. You know, just in case. 

I haven't stopped blogging. I will have plenty to talk about as long as I have kids living in the house I think, but I have more or less switched forums. Skirt Magazine has let me be a "skirtsetter" on its website, and I have been posting my latest stories about my nutty family on there. You can check them out at www.skirt.com/stephpaigek

There's a strong possibility something is clinically wrong with me, but I have to fess up-I like doing yard work. Stop rolling your eyes, Brent. I like trimming the trees (except when I get stuck in them. It's funny for everyone except the lady 15 feet off the ground with her butt wedged between the branches while her boys are on the ground asking if it's time to call for help yet.) I like using the hedge trimmers to sculpt the shrubs. I even like mowing. I'm not allowed to do it for reasons that Brent will be glad to share with you if you just ask him, but I enjoy it. Weed eating on the other hand, is a horse of a different color.
 I don't know what the weed eater's problem is, but it hates me. It's as though it sees me coming and makes up its mind to torment me from the get go. Today for instance, it was hidden in a corner of the shed where I couldn't find it at first and then had to detangle it from some life jackets just to get it out. I know it did that on purpose. I did a thorough poop scooping in advance today because last time, I trusted my kid to scoop it before I weed whacked, and it did not end well. We'll just leave it at that. I think I heard that dumb weed whacker laughing at me that day.
Since it didn't get the pleasure of witnessing a dog poop event today, the evil thing made sure the cord came unplugged with every step I took. I yelled at it, "the hedge trimmers never give me any trouble. What's your problem?" That just seemed to tick it off more. As soon as I finished my tirade and plugged it back in, a chunk of cement flew out and nearly took off a toe. (I don't normally weed eat in flip flops, but I got careless) The madder I got, the more stunts it pulled to make matters worse. I swear the trim line wrapped itself around a weed and pulled out about 3 feet of green string, entangling the spool and making an impossible mess. All I could think was, ahhh! The more string it wastes this way, the sooner I have to refill it! I am about to be banned from refilling the string because it brings out the absolute worst in me. I NEVER manage to get it wound on the spool without drama. Marriage troubling drama. It's possible that I have thrown the weed eater in a fit of rage after trying unsuccessfully to get the string in it, and that could be why it hates me now.
 I finally got the job done today, but I am petitioning Congress to pass a law that would make weed eaters come with a label that clearly indicates "If you were born without a Y chromosome, you are not equipped to handle this machinery. Step away immediately!" I'll stick to climbing trees and embarrassing myself in front of the neighborhood instead.

Single Parent Road Trips

A few weeks ago I had the joy of driving my three kids across the state while my husband and the father of these monkeys was on a mission trip in Honduras. I thought going to visit relatives would be a great way to help the time pass in his absence and perhaps prolong their lives until his return. After all, if everyone is buckled into their appropriate seats, they can't very well harm each other, and with the distraction of other people playing with them and loving on them, I will feel less ready to choke them. Theoretically.
Experience has proven that our trip would include many potty stops, even some in the grass along the side of the highway, and plenty of whiney "are we there yets" and "he's kicking my seat!" I even figured we would get stuck behind at least one car on a 2 lane road that insists on driving 10 miles under the speed limit. These are just normal parts of the King family car trip. I even emailed my sister-in-law to tell her to add an additional hour to our expected arrival time for potty stops and vomit incidents. (one of the kids gets car sick. Thankfully Dramamine saved us that little gift this time) She suggested I just force all of them to take care of their peeing and puking before we leave home in order to get to her house on time. We tried our best.
Here is a short list of some of the things I had not banked on:
*The 3 year old back seat driver. Each time the GPS told me to turn, a little voice would nag, "Mom, she said 'turn left.' You better turn left! Was that left?" He was helpful.
*A dead bee in the car. At one stop, the oldest kid was fascinated by this bee, and he wanted to keep it, much to the chagrin of his dramatic little sister. She was completely freaked out that he kept the bee in a cup in the back seat, and she kept screaming, "He's trying to kill me with that bee!!!!!" I almost drove off the side of the road when her screams startled me. Fortunately, we got the dead bee passed to the front seat, tossed out the window, and no one was killed by it. Bullet dodged.
*the unprecedented amount of roadkill, especially deer. It's a good thing we left on time and took the motion sick meds because if we'd pushed our destination further into the evening, we would have been playing dodge the hoofed beasts. After the 763rd time someone from the back called out, "I'm bored, are we ever gonna get to Aunt Debra's house," I suggested that the kids play a little game, similar to license plate Bingo, but geared for the younger kids' participation as well. I call it "identify that dead animal." I kid you not, I had JUST seen an entire herd of deer lined out on the shoulder from what I can only assume was a party on the pavement gone terrible wrong the night before. I began to wonder if the same vehicle (maybe a Hummer specially outfitted to withstand smacking a deer at 65 mph) was playing chicken with all these animals. Yet, the very instant I convinced three little heads to watch for roadkill out their windows and yell out what they see, there was nothing. Not even an armadillo, and everyone knows armadillos are practically suicidal! So what did my precious babies do? They whined more. "You lied to us. There's nothing to look at out here. You said you saw dead deer, but there aren't any." If I had seen a live deer at that moment, I might have whacked it just to shut the kids up.
Another event I should have but couldn't possibly have foreseen was the youngest child's reaction to his sister looking for deer out HIS window. He screamed at her, "stop looking out my window! It's MY window!" This tirade has also carried over into every outing we take in the car. I'm about to black the window out with shoe polish so no one can look out it at all!
Eventually we arrived safely, but the very next day I got a speeding ticket. Ever gotten a speeding ticket with your children in the back seat? I urge you to try it. No, I urge you to let your spouse be the one to do it!
After we got back home, I had to get my court papers notarized to send to the nice county that issued me the ticket, and when we were going to the notary's office, I had to explain where we were going. The youngest was astonished, "you got a speeding ticket?! You SPEED?" He was shaming me with his tone. I said, "Well yeah, the one time I did." The oldest, whose fatherly look scolded me in the rear view mirror, wasn't buying it. He tilted his head just the same way his parents do when we don't quite believe what he's telling us, and he said, "really? Just the one time?" Yes! That's my story, and I'm sticking to it. Happy car tripping!

Things I Don't Understand

1. clothes for dogs
2. why kids hate naps
3. the Direct TV commercial with the miniature giraffe on a treadmill
4. Why people eat Twinkies...and what possessed someone to deep fry one!
5. how 3 kids can ransack a room faster than I can boil a pot of spaghetti on the stove, but then when I make them clean it up, no one is responsible. They don't know HOW the mess got there.
6. the humor of 7 year old boys
7. the humor of 38 year boys
8. why I'm the only person in the house capable of finding matching shoes, glasses, backpacks, blankies, etc. And I REALLY don't understand how when I tell someone exactly where to look for said item, they can still miss it, claim it's not there, and then I find it in that exact location
9. why passing gas is so dang hilarious to all boys
10. why our dog will target me when she has separation anxiety. Why does she pull MY unmentionables out of my drawer and chew the heels of MY dress shoes even though my shoes are always put away neatly, and she could easily chew her way through SEVERAL pairs of everyone else's before she even gets to the closet where mine are?!
11. How the house can be completely calm, but the instant I put a phone up to my ear, all you-know-what breaks loose
12. what I want to be when I grow up
13. why sales people at high end retailers are so snooty. Don't they work on commission? Show me some Pretty Woman love, or it's big mistake for you!
14. How the almighty God loves me even though I am a mess. I mean, I love my kids, but they're cute and funny and sweet. GOD has SO many cuter, sweeter, funnier people to choose from, and He still chooses me.
15. Why there's no water-proof smart phone. Not so smart after all
16. people who don't hold the door for the mom pushing a stroller. Some people will just let it shut right in front of her or stand behind her and wait for her to struggle to open it and hold it for them!
17. Why my house is still a mess at the end of every day even when I spend the majority of each day cleaning said house.
18. iced coffee
feel free to add to the list. There's plenty more that I don't understand, but you know, this is a start

Extreme Couponing

My husband and I are currently watching Extreme Couponing because he is hogging the remote. I know better than to watch this, but he wants me to learn some tips. He's impressed by how much money these women save, and he is making me nervous! He's even fascinated by how they stockpile things in every nook and cranny of their homes. He said, "we have the space for that!" in a way that makes me want to move to a 1 bedroom apartment just to keep him from brainstorming ways to stash $20,000 worth of groceries and only spend $20. If I spent all my time clipping coupons, planning my shopping trips, and stowing immense amounts of groceries, I would have to use the savings from couponing to pay a maid and nanny, and then it would all even out. You know, except for the fact that I would be completely out of my mind! I can't even think like a couponer. Given the fact that I habitually forget my $2 off coupon for pull-ups that will probably expire before I remember to whip it out at checkout and that I can't even remember my reusable shopping bags (that I keep IN the car just so I will always have them on hand), I would have to say our grocery bill will never be $120 for a month. Sorry, Babe. I think this will also be the last time I watch this show because I'm getting sweaty hands just thinking about the lengths required to be an extreme couponer.
There's a reason this show is immediately followed by Hoarders! 

The Coolest Bed Ever

My baby is turning 3 this weekend, and to celebrate, we let the oldest child dismantle the crib, and we ordered a new big kid bed.
I was thinking practically and had planned to get him a plain, wooden twin bed. A good bed that would last him until college...or at least until he and his brother have a jumping contest that results in irreparable damage to the frame, which could really happen at any time. The daddy, however, picked out and ordered a Lightning McQueen race car bed that will surely be the envy of every boy who has a bed that his MOM picked out.
This same daddy was conveniently in Chicago (a 5 hour plane ride away) when the bed arrived and was ready to be picked up and assembled.
My smallest friend and I rode to the store to get it and exchanged worried smiles when the guys rolled out a 8 foot box that almost outweighed her. It took some serious finagling to get it in the car, and by that I mean we had to wedge it to where we could strap down the hatch of the SUV and drive without the box flying out the back end. To accomplish this, we had to move our seats all the way forward, and I drove us home by steering with my belly while the two guys who helped load it stared in silence. I'm sure they had plenty to say about us after we left though.
My mother graciously came by to help me haul the giant pieces up the stairs and assemble the thing, which really wasn't too difficult until we got to the end when there was nothing left but the 700 pages of giant decals. Then my mother suddenly vanished.

Here's the thing about decals: it is a completely misleading term. I think of "decals" as removable. Not so much. These had super strength adhesive that could be used to attach a trailer to a truck in the event the hitch breaks. Thankfully the kids were in bed and were spared any unnecessary exposure to mumbled expletives when the decals would wrinkle or misalign, or the worst-curl up on themselves, sticky side to sticky side. There's also a learning curve to the placement process, and I would have faired better had I started on the side of the bed that's against the wall, but instead, my mistakes are in full view of all who enter the room. The bright blues walls surrounding the giant red race car though are enough of a distraction to keep visitors from looking too closely at my handiwork.
I was quite proud of the finished product, and since the kid was already fast asleep in his brother's room, I was tempted to sleep in the car bed myself, but I was afraid I would exceed the weight limit. Sure enough, the next day, I laid down to read a book to the kids on the bed, and a slat under the mattress popped out. The baby cried, "Mommy! You broke my new bed!" After I scooped up the remains of my ego, I fixed the bed, and now I guess I'll leave the cool race car bed to the little guy. I hope he at least appreciates that I still have adhesive on my fingers from putting it together...and now an E key stuck on the tip of my ring finger. But the bed is cool.

Why I Need to be in Recovery

I have a disorder. It's called Jimmy Choo Infatuation, and there's no cure!!! I should get help, but I kind of like being sick. Jimmy Choo makes the most exquisite shoes I've ever seen. Well, Some of the most exquisite I've ever seen. In Neiman Marcus in San Francisco, I saw some unbelievably amazing blue strappy pumps with glitter on the soles. They were so far out of my price range that I didn't even pick them up for fear I'd have to sell a kid or a kidney to pay for any damages. But the Choos are right up there with the prettiest of the pretty shoes. 
The problem is that they aren't in my budget at all, and I can't justify paying that much for shoes (and what I mean by that is my husband wouldn't let me justify spending that on shoes). The man of the house doesn't get the whole shoe thing, but as my sweet 20 something friend and I have tried to tell him, shoes can make you feel sexy even when your skinny jeans have betrayed you. Shoes will also never make you wear a shirt to the pool like the little two-piece swim suit that looks so cute on the rack will. Shoes love you all the time, and they make you look taller and thinner. Who wouldn't love them?! And come on, if you can find the perfect pair of tan strappy sandals that make you look taller and thinner, feel sexier, and keep that smile on your face all summer long, aren't they worth the triple digit price tag? After all, they're still cheaper than surgery, Botox, or a new wardrobe. Besides, Honey, if a man is looking at my feet, he's not going to be checking out any other part of me, so it's really an investment, an insurance policy! Can I help it that the "insurance" is as much as our car insurance? Alright, fine. I can't justify it either, but looking at them makes me smile. I bet wearing them would make me seem like a brand new wife-younger, thinner, taller, happier. And think of all the time and money THAT would save you!!!

There are just some phrases that you never expect to hear stepping out of the shower from your children. "Mom?" is almost always a precursor to tattling or a whiny plea to eat something forbidden 20 minutes before dinner's ready. Sometimes- no, most of the time- they don't even wait for me to get out of the shower. They just barge in to talk to me. So naturally, last Friday when I was getting ready for date night with my husband, I was not prepared for the ever-annoying "Mom?" to be followed by, "the dishwasher's on fire." Any other sentence with the word fire in it would have prompted me to grab my towel and run, but the dishwasher? I had to quiz him to be sure he knew what he was talking about before I was willing to go check. The kid was correct in his assessment-it wasn't just steam from the drying cycle, but it wasn't a big deal with flames shooting out and melting plastic either. That was a relief because the fire extinguisher often gets "accidentally" sprayed in the pantry, so I don't know if it would have been any help in the event of a true blaze.
Thankfully, and only by the grace of God, who knows full well the limits of my sense of humor, we found a nice dishwasher on sale Saturday, so I went less than 24 hours without a working machine. But just in case you thought this was short and sweet, let me just say, the hubby and I chose to DIY it. Here are some tips for you in the event that you and your better half also decide to put in your own dishwasher:
1. Make sure you have a working flashlight and an empty stomach because you are about to be spending a lengthy amount of time laying in your floor flat on your belly looking into a dark chasm of wires and tubing. Oh yeah, you may want to sweep up first.
2. Do you know how to drain a dishwasher full of water that has no power? I'll give you a hint, you'll spend some time washing towels later. And if you're sitting in the floor trying to contain the water as it drains, you're going to be driving to Home Depot with a wet butt.
3. We've installed two dishwashers now (no, we aren't responsible for the flaming one), and based on our experience, the minimum number of trips to the home improvement store during installation is three. One to buy the new machine, one to get a part that was not included in the box and too corroded to salvage from the old one, and one to buy a new water line after you break the current one. These can occur in any order, but you'll look and smell like work when you get there, and have both the afore-mentioned wet rear end and wrinkle lines on your face from the angry exchanges between you and your spouse in between said trips to the store.
4. If  you or your spouse wonders, "should we just go buy a new [fill in the blank] instead of trying to use the old one?" The answer is always YES! After you spend an hour or more trying to get the old thing to fit or reach, you'll be mad at each other and end up buying it anyway. Then after the new part goes in easily on the first try, that same spouse who didn't want to spend the extra money will say something helpful like, "if we had just bought it in the first place, we'd have been finished about two hours ago." And that's a can of worms that should just stay closed.
5. If at any time during the process of repositioning the new machine to fit into the counter space, you are on the floor and your mate tells you, "just stay right there." You better fake a bathroom emergency and run out of the room lest you should find your head wedged between the dishwasher and a cabinet. Just trust me on this one.
6. Lowe's charges $120 for professional installation. That's all! If you pay yourself and your spouse minimum wage for your time plus dinner out (because that's the unwritten rule of installation-you must eat away from the kitchen when you're done!), you may not be saving yourself any money.
Good luck to you, and may God have mercy on your marriage.

My Last Nerve Must Be Made of Steel!

There are some mom phrases that my kids won't accept. For instance, I tell them they're driving me crazy, and the 5 year old always says, "we're not even in the car. How can we be driving?" Every time. And yet, I can't stop myself from saying it when they are in fact driving me out of my mind. The other thing is, "you're on my last nerve." I say it to the kids, the dog, and on occasion, the husband. The same child muttered under her sweet breath not long ago when I told her that, "you ALWAYS tell us that." I just told her, "yeah, well it's lucky for you that it's such a strong nerve."
And she is! They all are! Some days I feel like I am a hair's breadth away from ending up on the evening news. The amount of restraint I can pack into that one last nerve is really astounding. Like just now...the girl is fascinated with the this Gyrobowl she has seen on TV. It cradles food in a weighted two-bowl system so that the food always stays upright and doesn't spill. GENIUS! I can only imagine the hours of vacuuming goldfish out of the car I could have saved myself if we had had those! However, as the youngest is about to be 3, I can't bring myself to spend the $15 plus shipping on them now. Enter the 5 year old. She has goldfish in a bowl, stacked in another bowl with small handles. I was typing and didn't SEE what transpired, but here's the auditory playback from 2 minutes ago:
"Look! I have my own Gyrobowl!"
[sound of goldfish hitting leather sofa]
"oops. ZELLLL_DAAAA" (Zelda's the dog/vacuum cleaner and the only reason I didn't bother turning around. She had it cleaned up before my last nerve had a chance to even waver)
I have only myself to blame though. I actually PRAY for patience! I thought that's what you were supposed to do as a parent of young, adventurous children, but my loving spouse reminds me that God gives us opportunities to PRACTICE patience. Nooo thank you! But I guess it's too late for me. I have prayed, and now I am in patience boot camp. And in the middle of my drills, I am left to wonder, do our "nerves" regenerate on a constant basis so that the kids, dog, and husband need only to lay low until some new ones can form and join forces with that last one, or am I really down to my last nerve? If so, they should build bullet-proof armor out of that!

When I grow up...

I have reached a pivotal moment in my life where I finally know what I want to be when I grow up. It's the thing my mother and grandmother told me as a kid I was destined to be but I refused to consider. So much so in fact that I spend 6 years in college being mediocre at something I thought I really wanted to do, even though it kicked my hiney. (hence the 6 years for only one degree!) Also, the entire time I was determined to get that degree and stay the course, I questioned constantly if that was something I really wanted to do as a career. I still feel the same about my degree 9 years after graduating as I did in the middle of school, so I think that means I didn't follow my passion.
I want to write. I would love to be a published author and get paid to sit in front of this computer and pour my stories into beautiful masterpieces that will entertain people. And while I type away, my income would pay for some sweet, efficient lady to take over my household duties while the kids are in school, and as soon as it's time to pick them up, I would morph into super mom-someone not tired from mopping and ironing, someone not frustrated from a trip to the grocery store, and someone not wondering what to make for dinner. That part wouldn't be my job anymore! It's good to have dreams.
Then reality whacks me in the face. I have spent exactly NO time of my 30-something years cultivating my portfolio or working toward a tangible goal of writing professionally. Changing directions midstream with 3 young children and several bathrooms that depend on me to care for them seems impossible. On the other hand, when I was  younger woman, I didn't have as much to write about. Becoming a parent and walking through some raging storms of life have given me more inspiration. It's a catch 22. Perhaps by the time they're grown, the kids will have given me enough material for a novel! In the meantime, I'm thinking of reading my stories aloud to the dog as I scrub toilets.

It Runs in the Family

My children's harebrained schemes never cease to amaze me. Just yesterday I had to supervise the oldest washing mud off the side of the house where he had used my bathroom window as target practice with custom made mud balls. It gave me flashbacks to last year when he spray painted a tiny sheet of paper in the floor of my office-in front of a space heater. He also has been known to remove the screws from his desk chair so it collapses on the unsuspecting victim who sits in it. Don't think though that he's the only one. Another child was seen walking down the stairs this morning with eyes squeezed shut just to see if it could be done without falling.
I am inclined to believe they take after their dad in this arena because I have heard stories of his childhood antics.  However, as soon as I convince myself that I was above such shenanigans, God (and my mom) remind me of my own ill-conceived stunts.
There was the time I cut my toe with a shovel, and as soon as it healed, I did it again-same toe, same shovel as I attempted a reenactment of what-not-to-do for my brother. I also once duct taped my eyes in order to pretend to be blind. Sometimes my plans involved an accomplice, who shall remain unnamed so that no one can urge her to spill the beans on any of our Lucy and Ethel adventures.
As I take stock of my childhood and the goobish stunts I pulled, my kids suddenly seem really smart. After all, when you walk downstairs with OUT duct tape on your eyes, they can be opened in case of emergency, and no eyebrows or lashes are forcibly lost in the process. Perhaps they do get that from their dad after all.

The Flu Causes Irritability...even if you're not the sick one

I just had a pretty little meltdown. Two of the kids are sick with the flu-going on day 4, so I am being held prisoner by two whiny kids who can't agree on show to watch or the proper boundaries over which the other's feet are not allowed to cross. I am also now the official butler, but instead of a tiny bell to get my attention, they have loud, irrational screams to make their requests.
Yesterday they both wanted orange juice, and being out, I decided to make them some from scratch. ie. fresh squeezed from a Sam's sized bag of oranges. Any other day I would tell them it's just too bad, but I was hoping to force enough vitamin C through their systems to end this viral hell. Do you know how many oranges you have to annihilate to get two glasses of O.J.? I'm not going to tell you-you'll have to do the work yourself to find out like I did. I do have sore arms from it today though. I should also point out that I am allergic to oranges, so I have had a massive headache since I did that, but it's a sacrifice a mother makes for her sick kids, right?
This morning they wanted French toast, and since neither has had an appetite to eat anything in several days, I thought making it for them (from scratch of course) would help them get some strength back. One kid ate some, but the other (the one who specifically asked for French toast) whined that it didn't look right and she could NOT eat it! And what was I thinking for putting eggs on her bread?! I guess the only reason she has liked it in the past is because she hasn't seen how you make it.
My printer picked today to decide printing photos is too much work as is printing any text on the left half of the page. Which means the printing job I needed to get done this morning gave me an extra measure of joy (and apparently sarcasm).
Now as I type, there is a tantrum in the works beside me as the colored pencil that was SUPPOSED to be gray is coloring purple instead. Somehow I am responsible for the misleading tint of the pencil, but I haven't figured out how.
The icing on the cake came when I was trying to get in a few bites of leftover pasta for breakfast/lunch at 10:30 to stave off hunger-induced irritability. I may not have eaten fast enough for that. The Elmo video froze causing an uproar among the feverish wardens, and in my haste to fix the movie, I dropped my food all over the floor.
As I screamed at my kids to sit down and shut their ungrateful little mouths, the dog sweetly cleaned up my mess and Handy Manny soothed the troops. I'd go soak in a hot bath to sooth myself, but the water heater is on the fritz, and we won't have hot water available until about 4:00. By the time the Littles all get to bed, it will be scalding, which is great because not a single flu germ can survive the bath, and I can stay well to do this all again tomorrow.

Little Debbie is the Devil in Pig Tails

I have been trying so hard to lose the extra pounds I let creep on after cancelling my gym membership. That, by the way, was a mistake. I had convinced myself this summer that my youngest would have difficulty behaving in the gym's crowded childcare, and our family would spend so much time swimming that I wouldn't need to go to the gym to stay in shape anyway. The faulty logic there is that moms don't get to swim! We get to catch little people jumping off the side of the pool, carry them through the deep water, dodge noodles, and occasionally jump in fully clothed to perform a rescue, but rarely swim laps! If you don't believe me, try it with three kids in the pool and see how far you get before either they pounce on you or you have to stop and help/break up a "situation."
When school began again, I had intended to rejoin the gym, but preschool takes such a chunk out of the bank account each month that I decided to save the money and put our Bow Flex and treadmill to good use. As it turns out, once a week (or um, once a month) doesn't actually count as putting them to good use. It took seeing the scales tell me an ugly number and feeling the ill-fitting bulges in my favorite jeans to propel me to really buckle down and fix this problem.
Now I am starting to see results, but they've come at a price. I have had to give up all the yummy foods that got me to this point in the first place, and I am missing them a lot! I would gladly embrace the notion that a little indulgence is ok, but it hasn't worked for me for one simple reason: when I give myself too much freedom, it consumes me. Oh, and because Little Debbie is pure evil in disguise. She packages those Swiss Cake Rolls in pairs so that I can convince myself eating one of them won't hurt me. But soon I've eaten both of them, and once I've plowed through the whole box, I must face up to the fact that I was duped by the cuteness on the box. How can a snack cake be so bad when a sweet little girl in gingham and braids is selling it? That's how I ended up in my fat jeans.
Maybe that's why God gave such strict guidelines to the Israelites. They had already demonstrated in the desert that they would turn away from Him at the drop of a golden calf, so it stands to reason that God was protecting them from themselves when he imposed a harsh set of rules on them. When they wavered from His rules and gave themselves too many freedoms, they were consumed by evil. Hopefully, I can continue eating strictly healthy foods and continue working out and avoid being consumed by my own over-indulgence. Wish me luck!

Anyone know an aquatic therapist?

Remember the fish I poured into the disposal? I mentioned him in my rant about why I am not a pet person. I do well to take care of the three kids, and the animals are just not my thing at all. Thankful for the big scary dog though-especially when I'm home alone. Anyway, back to the fish. He hasn't quite been himself lately, and even though his brain is about the size of a rice crispy, he seems to have post traumatic stress disorder. When I go near his bowl, he flips out. Sometimes he swims sideways erratically, and other times I'd swear he trembles. I understand that I caused the whole situation, but that was over a month ago! He needs to get over it! I can't even believe I'm thinking this, but perhaps he needs a lady fish friend to take his mind off his near-death experience. What am I saying?! If I poured one down the drain, what is the likelihood that I could keep two fish in the bowl when I change the water? And baby fish? I'm pretty sure any offspring would become casualties immediately. Maybe one fish with PTSD is fine for now. Once he graduates to the toilet, we can go back to being a one and a half pet family (the turtle hibernates half the year, and it's anybody's guess whether he'll emerge each spring, so he only halfway counts) where nothing living fits in a drain.