Had to Check You Tube Just to Be Sure...

This was my facebook status yesterday: "Ever have one of those days you just pray you don't end up on you tube? Thankful all the neighbors had already left for work when I fell in the dumpster. Also glad I didn't break a bone b/c going to the ER would have embarrassed Brent too." I thought I might elaborate on my good fortune in order to entertain and make others feel better about themselves.

I got up feeling industrious yesterday morning. As soon as the kids were off to school, I decided instead of running as I had intended, I would weed eat and rake the back yard. This is not a job I covet. In fact, the weed eater is my mortal enemy, but I was so tired of all the weeds that I willingly waged war with the evil weed whacker. (I apologize for the accidental absurd alliteration)  

Since I was already dressed to work out, I simply added a sun hat and protective footwear. That was my first wrong turn. Picture it: spandex capris, polar fleece top, J Lo floppy hat, and hiking boots with long socks. It wasn't pretty. Pretty funny maybe, but there were no witnesses, so I didn't really care. It wasn't long though until I had to take the tree limb I had cut (and let fall on my head because the floppy hat was blocking my field of vision) and the full trash barrel of debris to the dumpster. I should include that all the driveways and garages are in the alleys in our neighborhood.  I struggled to hoist the barrel over the side of the dumpster, and it instantly fell straight to the bottom with a sickening thud. When I want to throw out one little bag of garbage on dumpster truck day, the bin too full, and the truck is running behind, but the one day I do the yard work, the truck has come a day early, and there's not one thing to keep the trash barrel buoyed within my reach when it falls in. 

So I climbed up the side of the dumpster and leaned over as far as I could to reach the barrel. My biggest fear was that at any moment a neighbor would drive by and see me in my fancy duds with my rear end pointed skyward. I should have been more concerned about the effect of gravity on my upper body leaning so far over because the rest is facebook history. After I scrambled out with my big ol' barrel in tow, I started thinking about what I would have done if I'd gotten hurt falling in. Naturally I would have called my husband the hospital exec to have the ER expect my arrival. He would have loved that! There are just no words to say in response to a woman in a floppy hat, hiking boots, and fitness gear covered in grass explaining her dumpster-diving accident. So glad we dodged that bullet! He's a lucky man...in more ways than one. 

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!