Crazy busy thankful

Life is crazy.

And by that I mean absolutely positively unimaginably insane to the nth degree. And then some.

Popcorn sales for Scouts. As treasurer,
I've had my hands full.

Daniel and I helped unload a tractor trailer full of Christmas
trees. We'll be spending every spare moment at the Scout
tree lot until the last tree is sold.

Sarah celebrated her 14th birthday - and had
basketball games on the same day. The 3 oldest
are all playing now - so life revolves around
basketball AND Scouts.

The Dude and I celebrated our 2 year anniversary.
Still trying to wrap my head around that one.

I sat down during my break this morning at work and paid bills - and officially paid off the last of my debt. All of my old debts from my previous lives, all of our medical bills, all of my credit card bills, the van - those payments are all gone. GONE.

I am literally debt-free..... until.....

The biggest thing of all right now.... is the house situation. I haven't really said a whole lot about it since I posted those pictures - but I'll fill you in now.

I officially made an offer on it last week. The seller countered, I countered his counter, he countered my counter of his counter....and it went on for several days like that. He was being obstinate and pretty much refused to budge on anything. We finally reached an agreement and I did all of the loan paperwork on Monday. The inspection is scheduled for December 9, so as long as everything goes well and there isn't anything major wrong with it, I'll close on January 25.

Here's the catch. The seller - is stubborn. He doesn't want to do anything to the house. He doesn't want to allow room in the price for repairs. He just wants to get rid of it. So, if there's something wrong with it, we'll either have to fix it ourselves or give up on the house. I am trying desperately not to get my hopes up because I know that it'll just take one big bad thing on the inspection to lose this. I have the day of the inspection off from work, and I plan to follow the inspector around so that I can see first-hand what needs to be done - and then I can make a decision as to whether or not it's something that we're willing to do.

Needless to say, I'm an anxious nervous wreck right now. And I couldn't be happier about it.

I guess it's over.

Christmas, that is.

Usually I leave my tree up longer than this, but to be quite honest - it was annoying me. The boys all got remote control cars for Christmas *shoots dirty look toward The Dude* and they have been running them all. day. long. And of course, there's nothing more fun and exciting than to run them into the tree.

The dead tree, no less.

That has a lot of breakable ornaments on it.

And it's dead.

Needless to say, every time anything bumped into the tree, needles started falling everywhere. So it was time. I was going to wait until the kids went to bed to take it down, but once I get an idea in my head I tend to rush right into it (not always a good thing) and so I got to work. It took a few hours, as usual - mainly because I am extremely anal about how the ornaments get put away. But still, I got it done.

And then of course I had the joy of dragging it outside and tossing it to the curb. Literally. It's now sitting out there, waiting to be picked up and turned into mulch by the city. At least I don't have to deal with actually getting rid of it by myself.

Once I got the tree out of the house, I started cleaning up the living room and re-rearranging it to get the furniture back where it belonged. That was another reason why I really just wanted to get the tree out of here - with the "holiday arrangement" of the furniture, we had no choice but to sit on the loveseat to watch movies - and I *hate* the loveseat. OK, maybe not hate - but it's really not comfortable for both me and The Dude to sit on at the same time, because I usually end up stretched out with my feet in his lap while we watch movies. And the loveseat just didn't work for that. So now, we can watch movies comfortably again. It's the little things in life.

So I still have a few more things to put away in the living room, but for the most part it's clean. Or it's clean enough. I do want to mop the floor, but that'll wait until tomorrow. Or maybe the next day. We'll see.

We won't even talk about what the kitchen looks like right now, thankyouverymuch. I'll deal with that tomorrow, without a doubt. I'm not even sure how I'm going to get in there to make breakfast yet - so I might end up cleaning up in there yet tonight. 

In other news, this is never a good sight. 

I knew that The Dude had left for work, because he had sent me a message on facebook telling me he was leaving. And then about 15 minutes later, his boss called here looking for him. He's been having issues with his truck, so I loaded up the kids and took off. We found him about a block from his house, where the truck had died (again). However, we think we figured out what's wrong with it, we were able to get it started and get it back to his house, and I got him to work (although he was late). So tomorrow we work on fixing that - but it looks like it's going to be a really cheap and easy fix *crosses fingers*. The last thing we need right now is more unexpected expenses, since he's now dealing with a broken tooth and is most likely going to be making a trip to the oral surgeon, just like I did. Hopefully his visit goes smoother than mine did though.

Speaking of which, I need to balance the checkbooks and consult with the notebook to make sure that I'm still on track. I am bound and determined to stick with my plan.

He calls dibs.

Today was our official family Christmas. Because of crappy timing, I had to do a whole bunch of shopping at 5am when WalHell opened - so I got about an hour of sleep before I took off to get what I needed to get for the kids.

I found it amusing downright horrifying that this was one of the first toys that I saw. I may have turned and run away from it just as soon as I snapped the picture. What kind of sick, twisted person came up with this idea???

Anyway, some pictures from the rest of the day....

The tree - complete with insanely crooked star -
at about 7am after my round of shopping.

We got the stockings and the kids' new ornaments hung last night.

After The Dude went shopping and brought home some more stuff.
He is too good to us.

Starting with the stockings....

Finally! The gifts!

The carnage. Some of it, anyway.

Human Tetris-Head.

After we got done opening gifts, it was late in the afternoon and thanks to more glorious timing we hadn't eaten lunch yet. Kids and adults both were cranky and there was a great deal of drama, whining, screaming, crying, and pouting. We finally decided to head out to a local Chinese restaurant (you can tell I was tired if I agreed to go there) and we managed to have a good meal with minimal drama.

After we ate, we came back home and then followed The Dude home in his truck to make sure that he got there in one piece, and then I took the kids (all 5 of them) and went back to WalHell to get them some clothes.

I swear, I avoid that place for months at a time and then end up there twice in one day....ugh. But, I told the kids that I wasn't buying them clothes this year - instead, we would go shop after Christmas and they could pick out their own stuff. So much easier than dealing with returns because I don't buy the "right" stuff.....

Then the kids and I came back home so that we could relax before bedtime. After the past 4-5 nights of not getting to bed until 2-4am, I am wiped out. I seriously think that I might crash as soon as I post this.

Oh, but I bet you want to see what The Dude got me, don't you?

After the kids were pretty much done unwrapping stuff he pointed out that there was something in my stocking. I got it down and pulled out a little box.

Surprised and more than a little scared, I opened it. Inside was a ring with matching earrings and a necklace.

I admit it - I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that it wasn't an engagement ring. No matter how much I love this guy, I am still not ready for that step - and he knows it. And he's good with it. And that just makes him even more amazing, but we already knew that. He had gotten me a really pretty jewelry box too, and so he said that this was a start to filling it, because I don't have much jewelry. (Honestly, I sold most of it to pay bills throughout both divorces.)

In our typical fashion, we started joking with each other about how people are going to automatically assume that it was an engagement ring and that he had popped the question.

FOR THE RECORD: 
1. There has been no wedding proposal from either one of us to either one of us.
2. This is not an engagement ring.
3. We are not engaged.
4. At this point, we have no specific plans to make 1-3 happen.

I asked him at one point how we should refer to this particular ring, since it is not an engagement ring. Without missing a beat, he laughed and said "it's the I Call Dibs ring. No one else gets to have you except for me."

Who can argue with that logic? The man is definitely a keeper.

I have to keep him.

The stockings were hung
'cross the doorway with care....

I kind of hinted around last night about a super secret project that I had finished, but I couldn't say anything about it yet.

Part of what I finished was getting all of our Christmas stockings hung up and ready to go. Since we don't have a fireplace, I have to improvise. In our old house, I hung them down the staircase, but in this house I just go across the doorway between the front rooms instead. It works, and they're up high enough that the kids can't mess around with them without climbing - and for the most part they know better than to do that.

Anyway, I decided that since it appears that The Dude is going to be a permanent fixture - he needed a stocking too.

How's that for cementing a relationship? No marriage, nothing official or on paper or anything like that, but a homemade Christmas stocking instead....

I told him that this means that I have to keep him - because I don't go through all of that work for just anyone.

Hey, it's a step, right?

Not sure if he's more proud of the stocking
or his silly football team.

A little less nakedness.

Our poor Christmas tree has been naked far too long. I bought it almost 2 weeks ago, but we just haven't been able to get our acts together long enough to get it in the house, upright, and decorated.

Actually, that's not true. I got it in the house and fought with it and got it upright last week. And then it crashed.

No, it got pushed. Of course it was an "accident" but regardless I didn't have time to mess with it again and so I just leaned it up against the wall and left it there until I had time again.

Yesterday I started working on getting it back up straight. Things just didn't work out as well as I had hoped (at least partially because of 5 little attitudes) and I ended up sending a rather panicked message to The Dude to come over and help me. So we finally got it back up......but we won't talk about how much fishing line is being used to hold it in position.

"Upright" is all that counts, right? Right.

Anyway, we started decorating it tonight. We got an exceptionally late start on it and rushed through it, but I wanted all of the kids to be able to help. Of course there's always the one who refuses.....*smiles through gritted teeth*....but still.....

I like a lot of lights - and I start by wrapping the
first strand around the trunk.

Not as many lights as I wanted, but it'll do.

Hanging the first ornaments.

Very focused on the job.

I swear....I hate this worse than tangled lights.

Finished for now.....but not complete yet.

I still have to rearrange a lot of the ornaments, add a bunch more, and add the tinsel before it's done. But this is how far we got with it tonight before I sent the thundering herd to bed.

Yes, we have a lot of ornaments. Someone *cough* got this brilliant idea when the kids were babies - and the idea was to get each kid a couple of ornaments every year for Christmas. We use a Sharpie and write their names and the year on each ornament, and then they're wrapped and put in their stockings. It's a fairly inexpensive stocking stuffer, and they get to accumulate ornaments that they can take with them when they move out of the house. Well, some years - the ornaments went on sale before Christmas, and so they were really inexpensive, and *cough* someone *cough* might have gone a little crazy and bought maybe 4-5 ornaments for each kid, without doing the math and realizing that purchasing that many would add up to 20-25 new ornaments each year. *cough*

Yeah....so.....we have a lot of ornaments. And that's why we usually get a 9' tall tree - but we went smaller this year.

Along with the tree, I figured that I'd get the rest of the decorations up too - and that can be a pain when someone is vertically challenged.

Do as I say, not as I do. But take pictures of me while I'm doing it.

This is where the stockings get hung too - once I find them.

That's as far as we've gotten. But it's progress at this point. My tooth is still killing me (especially after I got desperate and ate solid food tonight and got a piece of chicken stuck in it) and I'm down to something like 35 hours before it gets pulled. Yes, the one with the phobia of dentists is counting down the hours until this thing is ripped out of my head - that's how bad it is.

It's been a crazy busy weekend. We had basketball yesterday of course, and Jared's Christmas program was Friday night, and it was super intense and emotional. One of his classmates is dealing with a brain tumor and they had him on Skype during the program, and they sang to him and waved to him and it was beautiful and touching and gut-wrenching and the tears were flowing. But, he got to come home on Saturday and was able to attend a chili feed that was held as a fundraiser for him and his family - so Jared got to see him and talk to him for a few minutes, which was wonderful. Seriously, for all of the whining that I've been doing about my tooth, seeing this little boy putting on his game face and fighting for his life just makes everything else seem so trivial. I got to visit with his mother for a little while, and she was amazing - I can't even being to imagine how I would feel if I were in her position.

Don't take it for granted. That's all I can say.

Follow-up, catch up, and staying up.

First, the follow-up:

You remember when I went for my first mammogram the other day, right? Well, I got this little gem in the mailbox today. I really didn't feel like I had to worry about anything, but getting the confirmation is always nice and crossing anything off of the "things I should potentially be worried about" list is good.

So ladies, if you're over 40 and you haven't gone yet, DO IT. It's easy. It doesn't hurt. Just do it and get it over with so that you can cross it off of your list too. Please.

As for what's been going on for the past few days (since I haven't blogged in what seems like forever)....

I have this phobia of dentists. We've talked about it a little here and there on my facebook page. Anyway, I had my wisdom teeth pulled back in 1993, and I've been to the dentist once since then. If you do the math, that's once in 19 years.

Smart thing to do, right? Wrong.....

Years ago....probably 6ish or so....I broke a tooth. It has a filling in it, and a chunk of the tooth broke off. I went to a dentist to see what could be done with it, and since he wanted something like $600 to do a root canal and a crown, I didn't get it fixed. It didn't hurt, so I just didn't bother with it. Recently, it started to feel uncomfortable, and I realized that there was a crack in the other side of the same tooth. I figured out that I was going to have to do something about it, so I called and made an appointment with the local clinic, and the earliest that they could fit me in for an extraction was January 12.

Then it started to hurt. Like, really really bad. So I called another dentist who was recommended by a friend and he got me in immediately (yesterday) - come to find out that the tooth is abscessed and needs to be pulled. Like, NOW. (I still can't afford a root canal and all of that jazz.) But, I have to go to an oral surgeon to do that because it's an upper tooth and the roots go up into (or too close to) my sinus, and the roots are curved too much for him to do it. So Tuesday morning, I get to go deal with that, and until then I am on antibiotics and miserable - but, I had totally forgotten that I would have to be on antibiotics anyway because of my prosthetic hip. I don't remember the reasoning for that though....

So that's why I haven't been around much for the past few days. Fun, huh?

Poor tree....

And now, because I haven't been able to function, and because I opted to sleep for a couple of extra hours this morning after I took the kids to school, and because I had to go to basketball games this evening for close to 4 hours, I have a ton of things to do. There is so much laundry piled up in my laundry room that I'm almost afraid to walk in there, lunches need to be packed for tomorrow, the Christmas tree needs to be righted after it took a nasty spill last night and is now just propped up in the corner of the living room......so I guess it's a good thing that I got that couple of extra hours of sleep this morning.

Me vs. The Tree

We bought our Christmas tree the other day, but it's been sitting out on the front porch in a bucket of water, waiting for the living room to be clean enough for it to fit somewhere. So today, while I was down to only one kid, I decided to at least get the tree inside the house.  Of course, that involved cleaning the living room, and pretty much completely rearranging anything that wasn't already bolted to the wall. Seriously, anything that's more than about 3' tall in this house is bolted to the wall because the entire house is...... wobbly. Plus, I have kids (in case you didn't know that). Actually some stuff that was bolted to the wall got moved too, now that I think about it.

Then it was time for battle. I have this really bad habit of buying really big trees - but with the amount of ornaments that we have, it's pretty much a necessity. And besides, I like big trees.

Doesn't look that big while it's just laying there...

Photography by Daniel....

The fight was on.

My head got eaten by a tree!

Still fighting....

And about an hour later...

No, I will not buy a fake tree. Yes, I understand that they are easier. Yes, I understand that they save money and natural resources and create much less of a mess to clean up after the holidays are over.

Know what? I don't care. I like real trees. I will always have a real tree. I've heard all of the arguments and I've even looked into buying a fake. But, no. I won't do it. Period. End of story.

Once I got the tree upright, I decided to go ahead and get the outside lights put up, since it was warm outside. Stupid weather.

How many moms does it take....

They're up - isn't that good enough?

Weird. My kid was outside playing in the leaves
without wearing a coat while I was hanging
Christmas lights.

Ghetto-tastic. Now if I can just get the second string of lights fixed,
I can do the same thing on the other porch too.

I'm going to attempt to get the lights put on the tree in the next day or so, but we won't be able to actually decorate it until at least Friday. The older 3 kids won't be back until Wednesday, but they have church. Thursday, we have basketball. So Friday is really the first chance that we have to do it as a family.

However, nothing's stopping me from going through the boxes of ornaments between now and then to *ahem* reduce the number of ornaments that the kids feel must go on the tree. Some of them are just downright ugly - but I keep them for sentimental reasons. Weird, I know. Don't judge.

For now, I just have a ton of cleaning and laundry to do (go figure) since I worked on the living room and the tree most of the day - and then I have to plan out my week. Too much to do, and too little time. As usual.