This...

...is my happy face.

So I was trying to watch the road too.
You get the idea.

That is how I looked as I drove my van home tonight.

My van. We have it back. And it runs like a charm. Actually, I think it runs better than it ever did, but I'm going to reserve final judgment on that until I drive it for a few days, just to make sure. But I drove it about 20-25 miles tonight and had no problems - so I think we might be good to go for now.

I am so incredibly thankful to have it back. It will make all of our lives so much easier and so much less stressful. And for everyone who helped out while I was wheel-less....THANK YOU. The last month or so has been so incredibly stressful, and just having it back is such a huge relief - not only on me, but on The Dude and the kids as well. It'll even help Ex1, since the majority of kid transportation has been falling on him lately.

One less stressful thing to have hanging over my head.

Life is good.

A glimpse inside my head.

...and it's kind of a messy place to be right now.

Ever have one of those days when you just have so much stuff on your mind that you can't even make any sense out of it whatsoever?

That's me today. This is the 4th attempt at writing this post.

I don't even know where to begin.

I'm tired. I'm cranky. Actually, I'm just downright exhausted, and everything keeps piling up on top of me higher and higher and I'm getting really tired of it.

Between not having my van, and dealing with the recent breakdown of The Dude's truck, and working more hours at work, and him not working because of his injured shoulder, and trying to handle the normal household stuff, and still trying to figure out how to get us and The Dude moved into one house, and our newest project of trying to get him into school in the fall (I'll be dating a college student - how weird is that?), and handling the kids' attitudes, and preparing for summer vacation, and trying to plan a weekend getaway for me and him - I'm pretty sure that I'm about to lose my mind.

Not that there's much of it left.

To be completely honest with you, I had a bit of a meltdown (or three or four) on him tonight. Sometimes the stress just gets to be too much and I lose it, and I take it out on him. And I hate when I do that and I feel horrible about it - yet he just takes it all in stride. I kind of freaked out on him because there was no way that I could plan anything for this evening, because anything that we wanted to do was contingent upon other people deciding what they were going to do - and I snapped. What was the subject of my snapping?

World peace? Global warming? The economy?

No. It was what to make for supper.

And how did he handle it? He got up and starting digging through the fridge and freezer, and he made supper for us and the kids.

What did I do? I let him have control. I walked out of the kitchen and went and stretched out on my bed and I fell asleep. I have no idea how long I napped, but I did it.

I still don't know why he puts up with me - and I told him that again tonight. Whatever the reason is, I'm thankful for it and I don't know what I would do without him. I know that we're going to get through all of this BS at some point in time.....but I really wish that it would happen sooner rather than later.

At some point, we need to catch a break. But at the same time, at least we know that we can handle the rough stuff - because we've sure been through a bunch of it already - and we still kinda' like each other.

Can't really complain about that.

Late night cleaning observations

~ I get much more cleaning done when The Dude is here using my computer - because I can't get distracted by it and sit down "for just a minute" instead of cleaning.

~ Crayon chunks multiply and hide in every nook and cranny of this house.

~ Pieces of crayon wrappers multiply exponentially and find even more interesting places to hide.

~ I am thankful that my kids aren't into Legos - but stepping on a toy car is also painful.

~ Sand should be banished from every playground in the world. Or shoes should be made so that they are sand-proof.

~ Hardwood floors are easier to clean than carpet when sand is involved.

~ The kids bring home entirely too many papers from school.

~ I don't have the burning desire to clean off the top of my desk until someone else is sitting there using it.

~ All couch cushions should be permanently attached to the couch, with no way for anything to slip underneath them. On second thought, hard plastic benches that are able to be powerwashed might be a better idea than anything that is upholstered.

~ Knowing that my mop is broken and unusable makes me want to mop the floors more than usual. Knowing that I can't do that is irritating me to death.

~ Sitting here making a list of late night cleaning observations while The Dude runs home to get paperwork that he needs is just enough of a distraction to make me not want to clean anymore tonight - but maybe if I get off of my butt right now, I can have the top of the desk cleaned off by the time he gets back over here.

More fun and games....

A few pictures from yesterday....

We celebrated Jared's 9th birthday with our traditional cake and ice cream...

And we also celebrated Mother's Day with a big dinner with us and The Dude's mother and brother. However, somehow in the chaos we managed to not take a single picture - I'm still not exactly sure how that happened.

Although....I did snap this one right before the food was ready....this would be my dishwasher - that was full of dirty dishes and had just started to run when it decided to crap out and flood the kitchen. Luckily, I noticed it just a few minutes after it started so a handful of dirty towels were enough to soak up the water, but of course that left me with all of the dirty dinner dishes PLUS all of the dirty dishes inside of it that had to be washed. By hand.

So of course by the time I got done washing dishes, I had them piled up on every available flat surface in the kitchen - and I really need to get the rest of them put away - not to mention figure out why my dishwasher decided to spring a leak. Hopefully that's something stupid, but we all know the way that my luck with anything mechanical has been running lately.

I do find it ironic though - that dishwasher was given to me as a Mother's Day gift in about 2001ish - and it died on Mother's Day.



Alex had a Scout meeting tonight, and since we still don't have my van back (maybe tomorrow) we walked - which isn't that big of a deal since it's only about 6 blocks to get there. After the meeting, we decided to buzz over to the library since I had gotten a message that one of the books that they were holding for Emily was there and we had to go get it. We went and got the book, and started walking home. We got within about 2 blocks of home when Alex realized that he had left his Scout book at the library. So we turned around and walked back to get the book, and then turned around again to go home.


By this time, of course Daniel decided that he just couldn't walk another step - so he ended up on my shoulders. Thankfully he's still small enough that I can do that - but it does make tying my own shoes a little bit more difficult. But, that's what kids are for, right?

He did it!

I was going to post a whole bunch of pictures of my yard and flowerbed - you know, the whole before/after thing - because we spent most of the day out there working and getting things cleaned up and prettified.

But honestly, the best part of the day was right here....

 First time ever - on two wheels. And he did it all on his own.

 And yes, you can hear me squeaking like a deranged chipmunk. Stupid allergies.

Random observations and happy stuff

I know I've been doing more random posts lately, but that's pretty much how life has been going for us. Nothing is nice and neat and tidy anymore - including my brain (not that it ever really was)...

HAPPY DANCE: The Dude got his truck running again! He showed up here around 6am this morning, got the boys up and ready for school, and then took them to school and let me sleep in a little bit before he took me to work -  AND he gave me a ride back home AND we picked the boys up from school. It was so nice to not have to walk everywhere for the first time in weeks.

RANDOM COMPLAINT: Thanks to my latest allergy attack, I have totally lost my voice. It squeaks in and out occasionally, but for the most part all I can do is whisper-yell. I have come to the conclusion that trying to yell at/for the kids with no voice makes me sound like a pissed off chipmunk. Seriously. Stop laughing.

HAPPY/HOPEFUL: The Dude took some more car parts to the guy who is fixing my van (we bought him some other parts as payment for fixing it) and the guy said that he had my van about 95% taken apart and from what he could see, there was no other damage to the engine from the blown head gasket. I still refuse to believe it until he's completely done with it, but at least it's looking promising at this stage of the game. And we might even have it back by the end of the weekend.

RANDOM ACCOMPLISHMENT: I have been totally slacking on laundry lately - between my work schedule and having to take the extra time to walk everywhere, I've just been washing and drying everything and piling it up in the laundry room. But I can now say that all of that in the picture is folded and put away with the exception of a few random things that still need to be done - and I've also done and put away about 4 other loads tonight. Baby steps.

RANDOM WEEKEND PLANS: Tomorrow has been deemed Official Yardwork Day. The grass needs to be mowed and the flowerbeds need to be weeded - and it's all going to get done tomorrow since the weather is supposed to be decent. Sunday is Jared's birthday - so far he has requested cinnamon rolls for breakfast, Snickers/peanut butter ice cream with his cake, and meatloaf for supper. And a football - but it has to be a real one, not a dumb one.



On that note, one more laundry flip, and then I'm going to dump all of the stuff off of my bed, and I'm going to go to sleep. I will kick these allergies if it's the last thing that I do.

So I was walking to work...

Since both of our vehicles are dead, I've been walking back and forth to work a lot over the past couple of weeks. I don't always go the same way - but I made sure to go a certain way today specifically to get pictures of this.

Doesn't look so bad from here...

Then as you get a little closer, you realize exactly what is going on...

Yes, that is a dog - doing its best to scare the living crap out of anyone who walks past its 6' tall privacy fence.

The first time I walked through here, I had my head down and my headphones on, and all of a sudden there was really loud barking and growling coming from above my head. I'm pretty sure that if someone filmed it, they are very rich right now because I squealed and jumped and just about ran, thinking that I was about to get attacked. There are at least 2 dogs in that fence, and they throw a royal fit every time I walk past - because of course I keep forgetting about them and so I keep walking past them. Like an idiot.

Just a few blocks away from the psycho-dogs, I get to walk past some Kansas skyscrapers.

Hopefully, today was the last day that I have to walk for a while. The Dude *thinks* that he has the truck fixed, but I refuse to believe it until I actually see it for myself - because I just know the way that our luck runs. I did manage to hitch a ride home after work with a coworker, so that was nice. And a friend took the boys to school for me this morning - and that was a huge help.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

In other news.....in case you didn't catch it on my facebook page, it appears that the Tooth Fairy has to make another visit. Luckily, a letter isn't necessary this time around since the boys don't seem to trash their room as much as the girls do.

Now I have to go throw a load of laundry in the washer so that I have clean clothes to wear to work tomorrow....and I think I'm actually going to try to get to bed at a reasonable hour again because for whatever reason, my allergies are kicking my butt. Blah.