Juggling

Ever since I became a parent, I've had to juggle.

Schedules. Transportation. Money. Priorities. Childcare.

When I became a single parent, I had to add holidays to that list.

Ex1 and I split just before Thanksgiving, so we immediately had to decide who got the kids for the holiday and who got to spend the day alone. Then Christmas, then New Years....on and on it went until all of the paperwork was signed and dated and we got into a routine.

Even when we did have a routine, things always changed. He has local family and I don't - so I've always tried to be flexible so that the kids didn't miss holiday celebrations with their extended families. Then other kids came along, and ultimately other schedules - and for me, trying to keep all of my kids together for holidays became a huge juggling act no matter what day we actually celebrated whatever holiday it was.

I admit that I tried to be difficult about it at times. Sometimes I got my way, and sometimes I didn't. But somehow I always managed to squeeze some sort of holiday celebration into whatever time the 6 of us had together.

Yesterday, The Dude and I had to make another crazy road trip to Kansas City, and at some point during the drive it suddenly dawned on me that Easter is this weekend. EASTER IS THIS WEEKEND. How did that happen?

My brain went into overdrive while I tried to figure out how to make Easter happen within the walls of the house since it was obviously going to happen in the real world no matter what. I already know that I have no chance of having the older 3 kids at all during the weekend because Ex1 and his wife are returning from a weeklong missions trip out of the country and her parents are in town, so they're going to want the kids. Alex's father already made plans to take him for at least a day or two and I'm not going to stand in the way of that. So maybe we can do Easter the following weekend - but I'm running a half-marathon that Saturday, so I'm going to be useless for the rest of the weekend. So maybe we can do it during the week instead and who am I trying to kid because that would just be insane.

Then suddenly it dawned on me......wait a second. Friday. The kids don't have school. They'll all be here until about noonish when the older 3 have to head back to Ex1's.

The solution was as simple as breakfast. We'll have a huge breakfast Friday morning, like a big Good Friday/Easter breakfast, and they can get their Easter baskets and we can be pigs and eat junk all morning and then the older 3 can go where they need to go and we got our time together for the holiday (and then realistically, I don't have to cook a big dinner because we had a big breakfast so I'm actually getting off easy here) and it's all good.

So while I was in the kitchen prepping cinnamon rolls for tomorrow's breakfast feast, Emily teamed up with the Easter Bunny to fill the baskets (including the eggs that we dyed earlier tonight) and then I got the kitchen cleaned up and ready for morning - including loading up the coffee pot so that it's ready to go.

The constant juggling is hard. There have been times when I've felt as though I've had 87 different things up in the air all at once - some of them were on fire, some of them came at me like bricks while others floated around like feathers, some of them crumbled into dust as soon as I touched them, and some of them slammed to the ground and shattered because I didn't have enough hands to catch them all.

I think that the most important thing that I've learned over the past decade+ of single parenting is that no matter what, everything is going to work out in the end. We might not get exactly what we want but sometimes the best gift we can give our kids is to show them that we can be flexible and make the most out of any situation. We might not get our big Easter dinner as a family, but we're going to have a hell of a breakfast together before they go off in different directions.

And then I'm going to sit back with a giant cup of coffee and relax for a little bit. Just because.

Too Close to Home

This came up on my calendar today, and the timing of it couldn't have been better.

If you've been following the news (or my page) you know that there was a mass shooting very close to here just a few days ago.

So close that the cops tore past my house so fast that I couldn't even tell what color the cars were.

So close that I raced around town, picking my kids up from various places to make sure that they were home and safe.

So close that we locked our doors - something that we never do - until we knew for a fact that the shooter acted alone and was down.

So close that I couldn't tear myself away from the media coverage, my eyes searching the crowds on TV, trying to spot anyone that I knew to make sure that they were safe.

So close that one of my acquaintances was among the injured, and I recognized the name of one of those killed.

So close that I had no choice but to explain to my kids what had actually happened.

Too close.  Entirely too close.

The day after the shooting, it was revealed that the shooter had been served a PFA (Protection From Abuse order, AKA a restraining order) about 90 minutes before he went on his rampage. His former girlfriend filed it on him, alleging that he had physically abused her on at least one occasion.

As soon as that information was released, the discussion of domestic violence began. And of course it's impossible not to read the comments when articles like that are posted. And of course the discussions and the resulting comments and arguments and victim blaming brought back all sorts of not-so-fun stuff from my past - and it's been eating me alive for days now.

For the most part, I'm over it. Yes, I was a victim of domestic violence. Yes, it was horrible. But my life doesn't revolve around it. It is a part of my past, but it doesn't define me, because I won't allow it to do that. It's not something that I normally talk about on a daily basis - but every now and then, something brings it back to the surface and it eats at me. I think back to all of the reasons why I stayed for so long, and I relive certain moments and I feel the pain and the heartache all over again. And then I look at where I am now and realize that no matter how bleak things appeared to be at the time, I'm in such a good place now. But it's a constant battle in my head - between remembering the horrible times in the past and appreciating the good ones now.

And I know that as a community, we are strong. We are so incredibly strong. The outpouring of support from surrounding areas has been amazing and humbling. Our little rural area of Kansas has been thrust into the national spotlight, and we are shining through the darkness.

At the same time that all of this was happening, probably even within the same 24-hour period, I found out that not only is one of my friends dying from cancer - but so is another one. I knew about the first one. At least I knew that he was sick, but to receive the news that it had progressed so far so fast hit me like a freight train. The second one? I had no clue. I totally missed the posts about her condition until I went looking for her to ask her a question, and found out that she's dying. The freight train backed up and hit me a second time. Once again, I'm standing here questioning everything. Why do these things happen? Why is it always the good guys? Why can't we all just get along and why can't everyone live long and healthy and happy lives? Why does life have to be so damned hard?

It's been a rough few days, to say the least. I've been forcing myself to go out and run even when I didn't want to - because I know if I don't, I'll just sit here and eat everything and be lazy and be miserable and slide down into that hole that I try so hard to avoid. But luckily I have my Sole Sis/Slave Driver who keeps me going. She keeps forcing me to run, but that's what I need right now - because I know that if I don't get out and run, I'll feel like crap from sitting around like a lump. If I do run, I still feel like crap, but it's a good kind of crap (if that makes any sense at all). And the running is getting easier, and I do feel better - and that helps so much with the mental stuff right now.

One day at a time. One foot in front of the other. That's all that any of us can do. Keep going, don't stop, and eventually we'll get through all of the crap.

At least that's what I keep telling myself.

#HesstonStrong

Observations from the day....

Today has been insane-crazy. I'm pretty sure that we reached a whole new level of crazy over the past 24 hours, and it's only going to get worse.

It started with a phone call from my mother to let me know that my father had to be admitted to the hospital after what was supposed to be an outpatient procedure this morning. It's nothing serious serious, but he's 88 years old so there are always risks. They only expect to keep him overnight, but I've learned to brace myself for more bad news when things like this happen. Of course Mom is getting stressed out because we're having our big family reunion next weekend - I told her not to worry and that we'd try to get on the road earlier than planned so that we can get there Monday instead of Tuesday.

Of course, since we had originally planned to leave Monday evening and we now want to try to leave Sunday morning, we've basically lost 2 days of prep time. We haven't started packing anything yet, laundry isn't done, we don't have food to take on the road, and we are just totally not ready.

Along with all of that, there's approximately eleventy bajillion things to do around the house before we can walk out the door and leave it for almost 2 full weeks. The garden still needs to be weeded, the grass needs to be mowed, there's a huge pile of tree limbs that really need to go away to prevent rodents from taking up residency before we get back, the house needs to be cleaned, mouse traps need to be set now that those little a-holes have decided that they like my pantry, I need to get the house key to the neighbors, and so many other things that I haven't even thought about yet.

And here I thought that I was being so efficient by getting the oil changed in the van the other day. "Woohoo, look at me go, getting it done ahead of time." Ha.

Of course while this is all going on, we have a major opportunity for recruitment for Scouts tomorrow and I've been running around all week getting stuff ready for that, including taking about 3 hours to get set up for it this evening (not to mention making some really generic derby cars for people to play with at the event) so that I can maybe sleep a little bit later tomorrow - but basically my whole day tomorrow is shot too.

I have no idea how we're going to get all of this done. None.

But I just keep reminding myself that it will get done. I might lose my mind in the process, but it will get done.

Why is it that there is one wheel missing every time I buy more
than one derby car? 

Starting to weed the garden as the sun goes down was an amazing
 moment of peace in a day of chaos and stress.

By about 9:15pm it was too dark to see what I was doing,
but at least I got everything watered and started weeding.
And it was still 99 degrees outside.

The bats come out around 9pm. And it's really hard to
catch a picture of them with a cell phone.

If it was a full moon, I might have had enough light
to keep weeding.

Got a few things done today...

I started out putting the finishing touches on the dining room curtains, which included washing the drapes. They came with the house, so there's no telling how old they actually are - but they're old. I was feeling brave so I tossed them into the washer on the 'handwash' cycle and hung them out on the line to dry. They survived, although the linings needed to be repaired because the fabric shredded in places.

But, they are hanging back up, complete with the new sheers that I made. I got regular sheers at the Dollar Store and shortened them and added the pleats, and got the full set for about $10.

Someday I might actually hang the birdhouses outside.

Then I went outside. The Dude and I planted some raspberry and blueberry bushes before we went on vacation, and then we just kind of tossed the bricks over there so that we had an idea of how many we needed to do the edging, but that was as far as we got. I finished that project up rather quickly, before the sun hit that part of the yard.

Before...

After...

Then - for some bizarre reason - I decided to tackle the fence around the shed. I've been working on getting this corner of the yard cleaned up because with it being outside of the fence, it looks awful as people are driving past. The fence right there was useless - most of it was just leaning against the shed, and what was still attached to anything was rotten.

Side. Isn't that a lovely fence?

Back - this section of fence was actually in the best condition.
Go figure.

It really didn't take much effort to pull the fencing down. I eventually got a hammer to break apart a few pieces, but most of it was so rotten that I could just pull it down. The posts had rotted off at the bases and I was able to just knock them down too - although they did take a little more effort. I took all of the wood and just tossed it over the fence into the firepit area - we'll pull the nails and burn it all eventually.

What was left of the window had a couple of pieces of screen just nailed over it, so I pulled those off and found out that the entire window was coming out of the wall, so I beat that back in with the hammer and then pulled out the broken glass so that I could put plexiglass in instead.

Obviously, we need to paint it. And plant stuff.

So much better.

Pulling out the glass to put in plexiglass.

We have a little bit of firewood to cut and stack.

Once I got all of that done, it was shower time and then time to pick up all 3 boys from school. We came home and did homework and then ran back into town to get the Traverse from the shop and then grabbed pizzas and then picked Sarah up from volleyball practice.....

Starting tomorrow, life gets more interesting. The girls are already into the swing of volleyball, and with one in high school and one in middle school they no longer play at the same time and the same place - instead it's twice as much running to get to as many of their games as possible. Alex and Daniel start soccer practice tomorrow night, and of course - they're on different teams. The Dude and I are now sharing a calendar so that we can keep track of what we're both doing and can tag team to get everyone where they need to be.

It's a good thing that I "binge slept" last week - because there won't be any more of that happening for a long time.

Progress.....I think.

*gasp*

Two blog posts in two days? Can it be????

Seriously though, I want to do better about this, plus use this as sort of a journal of the last leg of this house-buying journey.

Alex and Daniel didn't have school today, so we slept in a little bit. I had to get Alex to Wichita this morning for an allergist appointment, so when I woke up I knew we had to get moving fairly soon. I checked my phone to see what notifications I had, and there was an email from Mortgage Lady. I read it and quickly grabbed the laptop.

Basically, what she said was that the Rural Development people had already gone over everything, and there were a couple of things that I needed to do. One was to pay off a really really old bill - back in my past life, an old cable bill had gone to collections and stayed there. When we started working on my credit report, we ignored that one for several reasons, but we knew that it would probably have to be paid prior to closing on the house. When my file went to the underwriters, they made me pay off another one that was in collections, but never said anything about this one - so we hoped that they were going to ignore it. Long story short, they didn't ignore it, and I had to pay it. No biggie - I was prepared, plus today was payday from work so the money was already in my checking account. I dug up the number for the collection agency, called them and paid it in full before I even got out of bed.

I emailed Mortgage Lady to let her know. She would need verification as soon as they processed the payment so I called the collection agency back and they said that they would fax her the info.

The boys and I hopped into the GrandpaCar and took off for Wichita. The appointment went well and we grabbed a quick lunch afterwards. Another email from Mortgage Lady arrived - the "dirt work" has to be done.

"Dirt work" - another long story.

Shortened version - structural engineer inspected the house and it passed with flying colors. On his report, he put a disclaimer that he puts on every single one of his reports saying that there should be dirt put around the foundation sloping away from the house to help with drainage. Rural Development now decided that this HAS to be done. We had a feeling that this was going to happen too, so Realtor Lady already had a spare load of dirt dumped at the house (the woman is awesome). I tried unsuccessfully to locate a wheelbarrow on my way back from Wichita, and instead stopped and bought one. Seriously - I've been wanting one for a while (who in their right mind wants to buy a wheelbarrow? and do you know how expensive those things are? and how hard they are to fit in the trunk of the GrandpaCar?) so I just bought it. Boom.

Came home, changed clothes, bought lunch for The Dude, took that to him, tossed the wheelbarrow in the back of his truck, threw him the keys to the GrandpaCar, and took off to the house.

I spent the next 3-4 hours moving wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the driveway to the side of the house, as well as battling the boys to NOT throw piles of dirt in the driveway, and to stay out of the truck, and to stay where I could see them, and no I'm not driving across town just to get you a drink, yada yada yadaaaaa......

Suddenly another truck pulled into the driveway. A man and a woman got out and the man introduced himself to me as the seller.

Oooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhh......so YOU are the man who has been a total pain in my ass since this thing started? I had to stop myself from saying it out loud. The woman with him was his mother-in-law, who also happens to be his realtor.

Great.

We actually had a very nice visit. We chatted about the house in general and I told them how I had immediately fallen in love with it. I told them about some of our plans, and as soon as I mentioned putting a clothesline in out back, I immediately got on the mother-in-law's good side and she joined in on the conversation. They shared a little bit more about the history of the house and I told them that I was interested in learning anything that they want to share about it. It was awesome, and they admitted that they were relieved that someone wasn't going to just buy it and flip it, but was instead going to fix it up and live in it and love it. I told them about how I had lost everything and was days away from being homeless a few years ago, and how that made this whole process so much more important for me. All in all I think that it was a great little chat and having that face-to-face interaction was a nice surprise prior to meeting over the closing documents.

I did find it amusing that he is planning to pay someone to move the pool table out of the basement just so that he can sell it. I told him that he is more than welcome to leave it there, but he really wants to sell it. I'm curious to see if it actually happens or not - it honestly doesn't bother me one way or another. It would be nice to have, but I can use the added floor space just as much as I can use the table.

Oh, and they're taking the rocks out of the one flowerbed. Yes, the rocks. But, in his defense they're from various camping trips all over the country, so they do actually have sentimental value.

He also warned me that the neighborhood can be kind of competitive when it comes to yardwork.

Ha. Bring it.

In the meantime, more emails back and forth. Mortgage Lady was having trouble getting the verification that she needed from the collection agency, so I called them again. As it turned out, I had to fax them something with my signature for them to release the information to her (and you didn't tell me that this morning because...............?????) and since The Dude's truck isn't equipped with a portable fax machine, I had to cut my dirt moving short, drive back to town, stop at my bank, scrounge up a piece of paper, write out the authorization, and have them fax it to Mortgage Lady. I emailed her to let her know that they now had the authorization - so hopefully she got what she needed from them.

Back to the house to dump the wheelbarrow into the garage, then to The Dude's work to swap vehicles with him, then out to grab something to eat. Then home again.

Baths. Cleaning. Laundry. Preparing to go back to work tomorrow. Hoping that The Dude is over his stomach bug enough that he can handle the boys all day while I'm stuck in Fast Food Hell. Still trying to figure out how to deal with this whole job thing. Making lists of things that need to be done in both houses before/during/after the move. Hoping to win the lottery just to make life easier.

Just another day.....

It's been a little while.....

So yeah. It's been a while since I've blogged anything. I've been wanting to, trust me. But I just haven't had the time or the energy.

Here's a nutshell for you:

Things are still progressing with the house. Like......all we're waiting for at this point is a date to close. The file went from the underwriters to the Rural Development people a couple of days ago, and RD is taking an average of 10 days to do their thing right now. Once they do their thing, all that's left is the closing. So I have reason to believe that I'll be a homeowner within the next few weeks.

Then there's the job. I've talked about the stress before, and it's really only gotten worse. Although CrankyPants hasn't been as cranky lately, she still has her moments. Not to mention that the job in general just sucks. I'm still not a morning person, and add to that being on my feet for 8+ hours straight without a break, and I'm miserable. I come out of there hurting so much by the end of the day that I can barely walk, and I can't get anything done around the house because I hurt so much.

Then of course there was the whole issue with my van finally self-destructing. It's still sitting in my backyard, dead - and it needs to go away. But I need to find the time to get it cleaned out and list it for sale. Or scrap it. Or something. Add that to the list of things to do.

I borrowed a friend's itty bitty car for a couple of weeks until I could buy my GrandpaCar - literally, it belonged to a friend's grandfather. It's not the most ideal vehicle for us, but I was limited because I can't just go out and finance something while I'm waiting to get the approval for the house. But, it works and it gets us where we need to go. It has a few quirks and needs a little bit of work done to it, but that'll hopefully be taken care of in the next few weeks sometime.

Add all of that to the normal stress of our everyday life, running kids to and from everywhere they need to go, trying to spend as much time as possible with The Dude, dealing with random health issues, handling landlord/maintenance issues in my current house, and trying to maintain some semblance of sanity - and you can imagine how hectic it's been.

Seriously though....the biggest worry on my mind right now is my job. I keep making lists of pros and cons in my head, and I can't really come up with anything good about it except for my coworkers - and I don't have to have the job to keep in touch with them. The hours make it extremely difficult for me to do much of anything for myself - and I find myself getting less and less sleep just to try to get the basics done. The job is making it harder for me to take care of myself - and if I don't do that, I'm just not going to make it. I know that right now, I've about pushed myself to the limit, both physically and mentally. I just don't think that I can do it anymore. Being in the fortunate position of not needing the job to survive makes it harder for me to go in every day - because why would anyone put themselves through this if it wasn't needed?

So at this point, I know that I'm going to quit - I just don't know when. I want it to be sooner rather than later, but I also have to make sure that the drop in my income won't affect my chances of getting the final loan approval. I qualify for the house even without the job income - but I don't want to risk it. I sent an email to Mortgage Lady asking her opinion on it, and I'm waiting to hear back from her before I do anything.

That's where I am. One big stressed out and anxiety-ridden mess.

But it could be worse. It could always be worse.

Where I am...

You may or may not have noticed, but I haven’t been around as much lately. Some might think that’s a good thing (ha) and some might be wondering what is happening.

There is so much going on in life right now. This job is kicking my butt. I know, I know – people work every day and it’s not that big of a deal. But face it – I’m not used to it. I didn’t work outside of the home for years and I was still busy every day. Now, I’m gone for roughly 45 hours every week – yet I still have the same amount of stuff to get done around the house. There’s still the same amount of laundry (if not more, thanks to my greasy work clothes) and the same amount of housework and the same amount of yardwork….. except now that all has to get crammed into the time that I have left.

The Dude helps with the stuff around the house when he can, but as of this week he is now working full-time as well. So now we both have crazy schedules and somehow we have to try to fit in time for us to be able to spend time together along with everything else that has to be done around here.

Fall sports have started, which for me means volleyball games every Thursday night. Emily has a tournament tomorrow morning that is being played about an hour from here, and could last all day long. The girls have practice every day after school, so on the days that they come back here they don’t get here until after 6:00pm. By the time we eat and do homework, we’re all so tired that we crash – and then have to get up early the next day and do it again.

I finally got a new phone the other night – but now that I did that, I no longer have my unlimited data plan, which is what I use to access the internet. We added a phone to my plan for The Dude so we share the (now) limited data – he doesn’t use much, but we have to be really careful about how much we use, or it’ll get really expensive, really quickly. So I’m just not online as much, unless I go to his apartment to use his computer or go to the library to enjoy some peace and quiet. While I’m not online as much, I’m working (still) on freeing up some space on this ancient machine so that it’ll hopefully run a little smoother.

So needless to say, I just won’t be around as much for a while until things calm down a bit. I’m looking into options for cheap home internet so that I don’t have to worry about the data usage on my phone as much, but honestly that’s not a high priority right now. We are still working on getting a house of our own, and that is taking longer than we had hoped – but with each month that passes, we are one step closer. My credit is *thisclose* to where it needs to be, and hopefully it’ll be over the top before the end of the year – and then we can actually start the purchasing process.

So many things that are changing in our lives right now – at times I sit back and think about all of it, and it can be a little overwhelming and chaotic and stressful to say the least. But I know that we’re moving in the right direction, and we’re going to just keep on going until we get to where we want to be. I know that we're going to get there - it's just going to be a little crazier than usual along the way.

Questions and answers

Every now and then, when I can't come up with anything to write about, I ask the people on my facebook page to ask me questions so that I can answer them in a blog post. We did that tonight, and here are the questions....and answers!

Wendi asked: Any advice for a mom and daughter who are going to do their first 5k?

Resting after a 5K is always important.
Just ask Emily.

Coming from someone who runs jogs occasionally gets out and walks as a hobby and not seriously, the best advice that I can give is to just get out there and do it. Don't worry about your speed or your pace or anything like that - get out there and have fun. Of course, you should train beforehand, but you have to do what works for you. There are lots of great websites and apps that can give you pointers, but for me, I found that the best thing to do was to get out and walk/jog as much as I could in the months/weeks leading up to a race. I tried to steadily increase my distance but haven't really worked on speed yet. Hopefully when life calms down a bit I can get out there and do it again.

Shannon asked: Do you watch any reality tv, like The Voice?

Honestly, I don't watch any TV. Shocking, huh? But, I don't have cable (another bill from my past life that needs to be paid off but it's not a priority) and although I have a converter box to get the local stations, it died. So I have a TV that is useless, other than for DVDs. I don't even watch anything online because my internet connection isn't good enough - and honestly, I don't miss it. Once The Dude and I get moved into our new place, we will have cable though - and really at that point the only shows that I plan to watch regularly again are Parenthood and The Biggest Loser.

I did watch the first(?) season of The Voice, and I really liked it!

Sherrie asked: What compelled you to blog? Do you regret it?

See that picture of my boots up there at the top of the page? A couple of years ago, I had posted that picture on my personal facebook with a caption that said something like "oh, my old ugly boots, how I missed you!" because it had just gotten cold and I had dug them out of the closet, and I love those boots. Anyway, my friend Kat over at High Heeled Country commented and said "you should start a blog!" Discussion ensued, and I was convinced to do it. I believe someone actually said "I bet you could get 30 followers in no time!"

As for regretting it, the only thing that I really regret is not staying totally anonymous. There are many more things in my life that I could write about, but without anonymity I won't do it. And because this has gotten so much bigger than I had ever planned, I do try very hard to keep some things private - like our last names and specific information about where we're located. I don't ever want my kids to be embarrassed by anything that I've ever written.

Brandon asked: If you were a woodchuck and were able to chuck wood, how much wood would you chuck? On average, of course...

Enough to build a dream house for me, The Dude, his mom, and all of the kids.

Bianca asked: You share so much already!! Ok. If you could go anywhere on vacation, with no worries about cashola or the logistics, where would you go and, if you don't mind sharing, why? 

Right now, that's an easy question to answer. I would without a doubt head back east to Pennsylvania to see family and friends, take the kids back to DC (for more than a few hours this time), and visit our friends in Virginia again. My parents can't really make the trip out here anymore due to their age and health so it's up to use to get out there to see them. We make an almost-annual trip to do that and had planned to do it this year for a family reunion and high school (not a) reunion, but finances won't allow it. We have to focus on moving instead. Sometimes being a grown-up stinks.

Pam asked:How awful or not as bad as one would think is working where you do?

It's both. Since it's fast food, when we're busy, we're busy. Today, I ran my butt off from 6:30am until 2:15pm without a moment to breathe. People are cranky, coworkers snap at each other, and there are times when I have to do so many dishes that I could be buried under the pile of them and no one would notice. But, at the same time, the vast majority of my coworkers are really cool (even if I have clothes older than some of them), most of the customers are decent, and when I'm on drive-thru first thing in the morning I get to see some amazing sunrises. And occasionally half-naked people. Or men in dresses.

Bruce asked: If they made a movie about your life...what actress would play you?

Oh, that's a good one. I think most of them are too glitzy for me.....but if I had to choose I'd have to say Sandra Bullock. She's one of my favorites and she just seems so down-to-earth and easy-going.

Gayle asked: What kind of work do you do?

In a nutshell, it's fast food. I can't say which one (not that I would anyway) but while I'm there I mainly run register, prep all of the food for the grill on the mornings when I open, clean the dining room, and do lots and lots of dishes. It started out as just a few hours here and there while the kids were in school, but it's kind of fun...... on the good days. So I work when I can, without taking too much time away from the kids.

Suni asked: How do you manage I stay sane, or semi sane with how you busy you are?

Ha! Sane?? You call this sane???? OK, seriously..... I don't know. This crazy life is just normal to me. I live by my datebook, which keeps me somewhat organized but for the most part it's just what I'm used to at this point. When I don't have anything to do, I go insane with boredom! Playing around online and blogging is a great stress reliever for me, as well as sewing and doing crafty stuff, so I have my outlets when things get to be too much.

Such a slacker

I haven't really posted anything for the last week or so, and most of it's because life has been so uber-chaotic again. So here are some random tidbits just to get everyone caught up....

Random sighting on the way to WalHell the other morning
to get a certain little boy his birthday present.

So Daniel turned 6 years old the other day. It's hard to believe that it's been 6 years already, but it has. 

Yes, he still sucks his thumb. We're working on it.

Birthday donuts.

Irresistible.

All he wanted was that blasted blue
soccer ball.

Recovering from birthday spankings from
The (Very Scruffy) Dude.

Delayed cake and ice cream when I could finally get
all five of them in the house at the same time.

Killing time at a park in between girls' basketball games.

Love seeing them actually getting along and not
beating the hell out of each other.

I have no words.

The park was covered in honeysuckle. Such a heavenly
scent that took me right back to my childhood.

Killing time at another park this morning.

It's never going to go away. On my blog, I can see what people
type into search engines to get here. Over the past month, these are
the most popular searches. 

And just because The Dude is so awesome, I have to say this....

He hasn't been working lately, so I've been picking up some more hours. But in order for me to work, someone has to watch the kids. By default, it's him. Without him, I wouldn't be able to do this, and I am so incredibly grateful. He has leads on a couple of jobs, so we're just waiting to hear back at this point - and then once he starts working, I won't have to put in as many hours.

So the other day, he had the boys and my phone. So he took them out to eat at our favorite Mexican restaurant and caught this picture of them enjoying their chips and salsa.

And then today, while I was at work and he was keeping an eye on 4 of the kids instead of just 2, he managed to surprise me and put an end to my dish jenga days - and he fixed my broken dishwasher. I thoroughly enjoyed loading my toxic cancer-causing ugly plastic dishes into the energy-hogging inefficient water-wasting cancer-causing-dish-detergent-using dishwasher tonight instead of washing them in the sink. So sue me. I have better things to do than to wash dishes.

And we are officially on the prowl for a house. We looked at a couple today, and both of them had potential, although one had way more potential than the other. Of course, along with more potential comes more money, but.....we'll see. The realtor that we are working with seems really cool and she knows what we're looking for so we're actually going to meet her again tomorrow and look at a couple more that she thinks could possibly work. We really want to get moved before school starts in August, but I don't know if that's going to happen or not - but one way or another, we will get moved. Soon. All of my kids will be in one school district next year, or I will lose what little bit of my mind I have left.

So that's the past few days in a nutshell....hopefully things will calm down around here and I'll be able to keep up a little better.

Some relief

Not so long ago, I posted a bunch of pictures from a local-ish river that had all but dried up from our drought. It got even worse after those pictures, and it's stayed that way pretty much all winter.

But, we managed to get some snow, and some rain, and so things are starting to turn green again and the river has regained most of its water. Today was the first chance that we got to actually stop and take some pictures. It was even more fun because it was a rare occasion when I only had Jared and Daniel with me, so they had a field day running around enjoying themselves.

Make sure you look at that other link to see how dry it actually was - but this is what it looked like today.

No walking across it now...

And yes, I totally did a Rocky and ran up the steps.

See the splash? That was a really
big rock.

After we got done playing here, we went out for ice cream and then came home and hung out for a while until the other kids came home. The Wounded Dude came over this evening and hung out while I worked on some crafty stuff and we got to watch a movie together before he went back over to his place (he fell on the ice and messed up his shoulder - we'll know more about the extent of it on Tuesday) so at least we got to spend a little bit of time together.

The rest of the week is going to be crazy. We have appointments left and right for all sorts of fun (and not so fun) stuff, and work, and kid schedules, and who-knows-what-else....

One day at a time...