Merry Christmas!

I know, I know, where I have I been? Let's just say I downloaded 100+ pictures off my camera.....I promise you will see lots and lots more.....let's just get through the next couple of days :-)!

Here we are with the kids at church this past Sunday for their Christmas Choir. Mom and I made Ashlynnie's dress and I decided to make the boys a tie and bow tie to match. There was just enough material leftover to make Addie a poncho:


We will catch up soon....I promise!! Have a wonderfully, Merry Christmas!

Did I ever tell you about that time?

A couple of months ago I participated in our neighborhood garage sale. It's always motivating to have a reason to clean out every nook and cranny of your house.

Cash. Cold, hard cash.

Most of you know my profits from the sale went to buy a new cell phone since someone decided mine was part of the "free" bin on one of the tables.

The tables. Oh, those tables.

Randy arranged for me to borrow them from our church and arranged to borrow Jeff's truck to pick them up and drop them off.

Just drop them off.

He sweetly loaded them up along with any leftover items from my garage sale so I could run them back to the church, but first I made a pit stop by the senior center to donate my remaining items. He did offer to take them for me, but was still at the dentist with Ryde getting their teeth cleaned.

Dentist or drop something off? Um, anything that does not have dentist in it, thank you.

After unloading the extra things, oh wait, did I mention it was a sweltering day and Jeff's air conditioning was broken? OK, sorry, back to the story. It was hot, very hot and as I pulled out of the senior center, I mapped the fastest route to the church and headed west. I came to an intersection and sat at a red light waiting to make a left turn. The light turned green and I slowly started my was through when I heard what sounded like a crash and what felt like the truck falling apart followed by cars honking. In the rear view mirror I caught sight of three folding tables in the middle of the street.

Blocking traffic.

At the soonest possible place I turned around and headed back to assess the situation. Yep, there they were, preventing any other vehicles from making the left turn I just made. Nice. I pulled into the driveway of a house that was on the same street and hopped out of the truck while calling Randy over and over again on my phone. Apparently he was still in the midst of dental work and never heard his phone. As I stepped out into the street, readying myself to pull these heavy tables out of the way, I wondered how in the world I was going to get them back up in the truck.

Eye contact.

That was all it took. One person, a man rather, who was coming up to the light made eye contact with me. With a helpless look on my face I ran up to his open car window (his ac must have been broken too) and asked him if he could help me lift the tables out of the road and into the bed of the truck. He hesitated for a second, looking around for the candid camera crew and quickly realized this girl needed assistance. Together we lifted the tables through stopped traffic while a city police car drove by without even slowing down (thanks a lot!). With sweat running down my flushed face I thanked him for being my angel and we both went on our way.

Well, kind of.

I made it two blocks to a big parking lot where I re-secured the ratchet straps over the tables to make sure I wouldn't cause another traffic jam on the way home. Driving as slowly as legally possible, I made it safely back to our driveway where I left the tables for Randy to return.

Next time, I'll stick with the dentist.

What are the odds?

Nicole and I were talking on the phone last night and she got into this story about burning toast and throwing it outside so the house wouldn't smell like burned toast and we were laughing about keeping it away from their dog and how burned toast makes your house stink forever.

She was making the toast because she was short on breadcrumbs.

Hmmm, funny I was short on breadcrumbs last night and made toast too.

She said it was mostly going to be flaxseed meal.

Hmmm, mine was going to be the same.

"Nicole, would you be making breadcrumbs for chicken tenders? The same chicken tenders we just finished eating for dinner?"

Two sisters, two thousand miles apart, both making chicken tenders for dinner, both burning toast trying to make breadcrumbs that we were out of. Seriously, either our menu needs to be expanded or we have some kind of crazy sister mind reading stuff going on!!

I know, I know,

It's been forever and a day since I blogged. I realize my lameness, but if you were a fly on my wall, you would understand. You could see it's not all bon bons and soaps. Well, ok, maybe you wouldn't wat to be a fly in my house, you'd probably be dead. Those pesky things have increased in this warm weather and I keep the swatter within reaching distance at all times. The kids are getting pretty good at it too....

Back to my point.

We have been getting read for our annual trek up to the lake and it has been CRAZY around here. So before I go (we leave tomorrow morning for two whole weeks!), I'll give you a glimpse of one of my days this week:

• 5:45am Wake up, get ready.
• 6:30 Meet my friend Carrie for breakfast (aside from riding in the car, this will turn into the only time I sit for the day).
• 8:15 Head back home, make waffles for the hungry kids and hubby.
• 9:30 Finish up dishes and see Randy off to work for an unexpected overtime shift.
• 10:15 Pile the kids in the car and head to Old Navy in hopes to find a pair of shorts.
• 10:35 Give up at Old Navy and try Kohl's. Let's just say a trying on clothes with four kids in a dressing room is....interesting. I'll just leave it at that. No shorts, but I did get two really cute summer dresses for 70% off!
  
• 11:35 Get gas (the gas light is screaming at me from the dash), drive through the bank and make a deposit.
  
• 11:45 Head back home to make the kids lunch.
• 12:30 Finish up lunch and get Ashlynn and Ryder ready to go to a friends house to swim.
• 1:00 See Ashlynn and Ryder off.
• 1:15 Nurse Addie and put her and Gage down for a nap.
• 1:45 Pick up the family room and exercise (thanks Colie for the Chalean Extreme!)
• 2:40 Eat lunch, finally.
• 3:00 Head up to my sewing room to finish some mending projects for friend.
• 3:30 Call mom out of frustration, my machine is not doing what I want it to do. She refers me to the manual, um, I guess I could have tried that first. Thanks mom!
  
• 4:15 Race out the door to drop off the finished mending and pick up Ashlynn and Ryder.
• 4:35 Drop off mending, pick up kids, head home.
• 5:25 Arrive home, speed to make dinner for the boys to pick up (I make dinner Monday-Thursday for Randy's brothers-just a little side job that helps with the grocery bill).
• 6:35 Randy is home from working overtime and we eat dinner.
• 7:25 Start on dishes and get Addie ready for bed.
• 8:00 Put Addie to bed and head out with Gage to pick up a portable DVD player for trip.
• 9:15 arrive home and put the kids to bed, Randy was not feeling well either, so I tucked him in too.
• 9:30 Work on some more laundry and pick up the family room, which is a disaster for the twentieth time of the day.
  
• 10:00 I can still hear the boys awake and I give them a "warning" to quiet down.
• 11:30 Head to bed.

There you have it, my life lately in a nutshell. And now we are off the the wilderness of no computers, traffic, dealines, errands, to-do lists and so forth. If I get a chance between relaxing on the shore watching the kids play in the water, going for coffee and the cutest Little Gift House in the world, hitting golf balls with Ran, fishing and eating, maybe just maybe I find some wifi and blog a little. Maybe.

Otherwise, I'll see you in a couple of weeks!

An Open Letter

Dear Ants,

Where do I start? Wish I could say "long time no see", but now, winter and your subsequent hibernation does not seem long enough. Opening the laundry room door yesterday and spotting your rough draft of a trail did not cause my heart to skip a beat for joy, but rather knowing the dreaded battle has begun. As I watched, I could almost hear your scouts alerting the family back at the nest with glee, "we found the mother load, boys!". If we could just work out some sort of arrangement, like, you guys stick to under the stove and refrigerator, there would be plenty to keep you busy and add to your 09/10 winter food stores. But no, like most species, you get greedy and that isn't enough to keep you satisfied.

Last year, I'm sure you remember, I gave up by mid-fall. I fought so hard to keep the counters wiped, the boric acid "available" to you, the floors mopped, and the food put away. Alas, it was to no avail. I could not stop you and conceded two-thirds of my kitchen to your colony. Yes, you happily gathered and I'm pretty sure chuckled each morning when I woke to see hundreds of tiny black specks moving furiously over my counters, knowing full well I had exhausted my ammunition....and my will.

Not this year. This year will be different, I will not and cannot give up. I will be triumphant, I will be victorious. You will not win. You will not win. You will not win!

Sincerely,
Lizzie, a.k.a. The Ant Victor

They are going to last FOREVER.

In my ongoing effort to prove frugality trumps "going green" I bought some of those 'special' light bulbs. Actually, I was at Costco and had the traditional incandescents in my cart when I read the side of the box and saw that hour for hour, I would get more time out of the CFLs. So in my frugality I traded boxes. More hours for less money? I'm there.

Let me just say, have you used them yet? The color is hideous. I mean hid. e. ous. It's like the worst dressing room lighting of the century. All of a sudden I get all panicky with flashbacks of trying on swimsuits and various other items that cause you to gasp, while the salesperson inquires if you're all right. Breathe, just breathe. Ok, oh yes, I'm just sitting in the family room trying to read....it's just that pesky lighting.

Sorry to repeat here, but have you used them yet? Let's just say the hall is not the best place for these things. Every time I go to grab something out of the closet and flip on the light for two seconds to see what I'm grabbing, I'm met with darkness. They take, like, fifteen minutes to actually light up and be useful. so, ofcourse they have a longer life, I NEVER turn it on. Seriously, never. I just use my bedroom light to cast enough light into the closet so I can see.

Then I heard there is mercury in them, so if you break one you are supposed to call the EPA. Hello, I have four kids under six, I'm sure my entire house is a walking EPA violation. I can hear Ashlynn speaking to the EPA rep now, "Oh, a broken light isn't so bad, you should see when we clean out the refrigerator. And Mommy is always telling Gage to take things out his mouth. Chemicals Gage. No, no."

I know there are all different types of CFLs now and I'm sure I just bought the really lame ones, but they ARE really lame. For now, I'll stick with the traditional incandescent and rely on my obsession with making sure they are off until needed.

Attempting.

To get things back to "normal" that is.

I keep staying up until the wee hours of the night cleaning and organizing, only to have it seemingly all undone the next day. Why do I even bother??

The basement was the major project, seeingashow that's where Ashlynn does her schoolwork. What's a few cobwebs across the desk or some dead spiders in the corner? Surely we could use them as some sort of science experiment as evidence of radon gas in the basement.

Ashlynn and Ryder are keeping careful count of their toys. In my clean-up craze I announced that we would be eliminating 80% of their stuff. They have absolutely no concept of what that means except mom was "real serious" when she said it and she really likes to throw *cough* give things away.

Thankfully Addie is still averaging ten hours a night, so if I don't get a full night's sleep, it's really my own fault. No wait, I blaming that on the Olympics. The good stuff doesn't even start until ten and it's not as if you can just walk away from 'no commercial interruption live gold medal match beach volleyball'. Maybe next week........

Been crazy round here.....Happy Spring!!!!!

We've spent the week enjoying the gorgeous weather and welcoming SPRING!!!! Yeah!! Though it's supposed to drop back down for the weekend, we are enjoying the emerging warmth and subsequent thaw.

Some crazy house projects have been brewing and we went to the zoo again today. Will post some pics tomorrow....hopefully. Linda and I are taking Ashlynn and Ryde to go see Horton, so we'll see what's left of the day! :-)

Sunday funnies....

Sunday morning I was being a good wife and ironing a shirt for my dear, sweet husband. The steam in the iron was on and I had my trusty can of spray starch....I thought.

The shirt was not ironing up well, but it was black, so I figured it was "good enough". Since beggars can't be choosers, Randy dressed without even noticing the poor workmanship.

Then last night Paula came to our room with a tall can in her hand and a funny look on her face. See, the iron is in her room and I left it up-who has time to wait for the iron to cool and put it away before church?

"Oh, no Liz. That was no big deal, but did you use Lysol when you ironed this morning?!?"

Use what?? Apparently in my haste I grabbed the can of Lysol on her dresser thinking it was the spray starch and actually used it to iron Randy's shirt. Now I know Lysol is super potent, but have you ever used spray starch? I hate all those smelly things and just try to get away from them as soon as possible.

We both started laughing until I was crying and we decided we had to tell Randy. He said he wondered why his "cologne" smelled funny after he got dressed, but then forgot about it at church. He told me not worry, I wasn't fired from the job, but there was definitely room for "improvement" :-).

Hey, at least he was disinfected for Sunday morning service.

Chris, potato peels and the garbage disposal.....

So the other night I was making dinner and had a sink full of potato peels. Eight potatoes worth of peels to be exact. Still hearing dad's voice ringing in my ears from childhood "the garbage disposal is not meant for that much stuff", I intended to put them in the trash. Well, what would you do if the trash can was completely full?

Empty the trash, you say? Um, how about just run them down the disposal, just this one time. I flipped the switch and away it went for the first couple of seconds and then all of a sudden they were spitting back up at me and the water was NOT draining down the sink. Crud.

What now, you say? I stuck my hand down in the drain to get it unclogged ofcourse(yes, I turned off the disposal first). If only it were that easy. There wasn't a peel to be found, just a sink of soppy potato peel bits and water.

Fortunately a light bulb turned on in my head and I remembered I have a plumber for a brother-in-law. Unfortunately, he lives seventeen hundred miles away, but surely he could "walk" me through this little problem over the phone. He answered right away, thank goodness, and exlpained exaclty what I need to do.

"Do you see a ninety degree attachment coming off the disposal?"

"Um, yes."

"Good, now just take that off and clean it out, you'll probably have to clean the p-trap out too".

"Um, Chris, what is this allen wrench thingy that says I should use it in case of a clog so I don't have to call a plumber".

"Don't use that, you would have to take the whole unit off. Trust me, don't use that". (Thinking in his mind-aren't you already calling a plumber?)

"Um, ok."

So I follow his instruction and get the ninety and p-trap off, clean it out (it was FULL of the peels) reattach and turn on the water see if we had success. The sink starts filling with water, again. Crud. Take the ninety and p-trap back off, realize I didn't clean it out that good. Re-clean it, thank you screwdriver (very versatile tool), and try again. This time before putting it back together I ran the water and disposal (yes, a kaleidoscope of peel bits went everywhere under my sink), just to make sure it was clear.

Now I have the whole thing back together and working, but it wasn't a pretty site under the sink. I did manage to catch most of the water in a container, but the peel bits could not be contained.

Well, I suppose it was a good excuse to clean out under the sink. Thanks for coming to the rescue, Chris!

They're gone.

Well, apparently when your husband is out of town for almost two weeks, you go a little crazy. The following episode didn't help.

This all takes place at a busy fabric store while in line:

Ashlynn: Can I have (everything in the store)?

Me: No, Ashlynn I just need some thread real quick.

Ryder: Can I have (everything in the store)?

Me: No, guys I just need to get this thread and we're out of here.

Ashlynn (at a decibel loud enough for everyone in line to hear): You never get us anything, you only get yourself everything.

Me: (If looks could kill)

Ashlynn: I can't hear you.

Me (in a hushed tone): You are in sooooo much trouble.

Ashlynn: You really need to use your inside voice. I can't hear you.

Ryder (not quite as loud as his sister): You never get us anything,, you always get everything. I want candy.

Me (trying to wish the whole thing away, while turning five shades of red, while holding a fidgety Gage): We'll talk about it in the car (while still giving the "if looks could kill" look).

After a lecture in the car about disrespect, obedience and listening I decided the consequence would need to be big. So today I went through the entire house and collected every single toy they own, put them all in trash bags and into the storage room in the basement. Funny thing, the kids were actually helping sort and put them away-with gusto.

Now only a few of Gage's toys remain and they have all been playing really well. They've been pirates, acrobats, and musicians. I think I'm starting to like this no toys thing.

Too busy, again.

Well the craziness of festival #1 is behind us. This week I need to focus on preparing my 1/2 HOUR speech to our young women's group on Saturday. Thanks to Colie for getting lots of good info and "writing" my speech for me :-). Hey, even President Bush has his peeps.

Will try to post more this week and not be so CRAZY BUSY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!