Randomness.

Just because. I'm in the mood to write, but I can't get my mind to go in one direction, so you're getting random thoughts. I want to get back into the habit of writing regularly, but I'm having issues with it....

So apparently it's Wine Day or something. Like I need an excuse.

OK, that makes me sound like a lush, and I'm really not - but I like wine. And there are days when I'd like nothing better than to kick back with a bottle and just relax and get over the day.

Today is one of those days. So I'm partaking. And I'll hate myself in a few hours when the alarm goes off, but whatever.

I didn't have a good time at the gym this morning. Not that any time spent on the treadmill is necessarily a good time, but today really sucked. I fully intended to do 3-4 miles when I got there and after 2 miles I hit the 'stop' button and quit. I just couldn't do it. But on the flip side, my sole sis and I have really kind of pushed it this week and we're tired. So tomorrow is officially a rest day - at least from running. Not like I'll actually rest....

I haven't been writing. I miss it. I have tons of things that I want to write about, but I have a million reasons excuses why I haven't written lately. The ridiculous Tooth Fairy Letter made a ridiculous comeback and as usual, the haters came out of the woodwork to remind me yet again what a horrible mother I am. And yeah, as much as I try not to let it get to me the comments still sting a bit. There were a few that really got under my skin, and I might address them at some point. Or not. Haven't decided on that one yet.

Things with Mom Cave Designs have been gaining speed. That's a good thing. Getting weighted blankets out to people that need them has been amazing and enlightening and overwhelming and eye-opening, among other things. I love that I'm able to do it. I really do. I have ideas and plans and all sorts of fun stuff in my head but I just haven't had time to put them into action yet. I need an assistant. An assistant with deep pockets would be great, but for now I'd just take any old assistant.

The weather right now is awesome here in the middle of the country. I'll take shorts and bare feet in February and not complain about it.

Life is good. Life is really good. There are so many things going on right now and I can't even begin to explain all of them. For real.

And finally, cancer sucks. Seriously. Cancer sucks ass. I'm sick and tired of it taking the good guys. Just for once, I'd like to see it take one of the assholes - but no. Not today. Today, it took one of the good guys. He was an acquaintance, a facebook friend, a fellow alumni from my high school - not a "friend" per se, but still.....it sucks. RIP, Dave.

And with that.....I'm done for tonight. I'm going to try to write on a more semi-regular basis again.......but "try" is the operative word here. Life is crazy. We'll see what happens.

Observations from the day

Today has just been one of those days when I kept seeing things and saying to myself "I should write something about that" but then when it came right down to it, I couldn't come up with the words. So instead, you'll just get my random thoughts and a few pictures.

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For whatever reason, whenever the sky looks the coolest, the stupid panoramic feature on my phone camera refuses to work. So instead of getting a really cool panoramic view of this....

I end up with this kind of garbage....

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Facebook is such a funny place. For real. I enjoy it most of the time, in spite of the haters. But it's so ironic that I can post things about having a glass or 3 of wine when most people know that I'm the only adult in the house and no one bats an eye (having one right now, thankyouverymuch) but when I post a picture of a lightbulb, it sparks intense debate (not just tonight - every time I mention that I use CFLs it happens).

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And this one....this one might just be my most favorite observation of the day. It would have been cooler still if I had noticed it two days ago, but still - I'll take it.

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.

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.

Day in pictures

Walking to school.

Walking home from school.

Love this old bridge - and it's still used.

A box of gaskets.
On top of a pile of laundry.
On top of my unmade bed.
Because that's how I rolled today.

My empty driveway after my van was towed away.
*sniff*
*PleaseLetHerComeBackFixedQuickly*

Just trying to catch the colors.

"Mom, I'm stuck!"

Aunt Doris's peonies.

Pouring rain water out of the swing seats.

I really need to mow again. Already.
Totally not complaining though.

Ah, the irises. Symbolic of so much for me.

Randomness

I dumped the pictures off of my phone tonight, so that's what you get. Random shots of the past couple of weeks or so.

Trip to the dentist.

Doesn't even bother him a bit.

Do you really need an explanation? 

Chocolate chocolate chip muffins - one of the kids' favorites
for breakfast.

Enjoying some froyo.

Compare their heights - does it really look like there's 3 years
between them?

Sunset tonight.

Waiting patiently for food.

Also waiting patiently.

1. Why I will never buy New Balance sneakers again, and
2. Why I splurged on a new pair of sneakers tonight.

So....we're supposedly getting something like 7-10" of snow tomorrow (according to just about everyone on facebook). I think we might get *some*, but I don't think it's going to be that much. And yes, I am well aware that I'm going to have to eat my words one of these days, but in 15 years in Kansas I don't think that I've seen one single winter storm live up to the hype before it hit. So for me, tomorrow is business as usual, although it will actually involve a trip to the grocery store - not for storm supplies, but because we are out of just about EVERYTHING that is necessary right now. And it's driving me insane.

Of course first, I have to meet a kid at the doctor's office for a potential toenail removal....

And I want to go through the boys' clothes to get rid of a ton of stuff.....

Wednesday night chaos....

Yep. Business as usual.

Cake baking, quilt making, building burning...

Over the past day or so, Alex has gotten to bake a cake. His Blue & Gold banquet for Scouts was tonight, and part of that banquet is a cake decorating contest. And although I have mixed emotions about him being in Scouts - the fact is that he's in right now, and he will continue to participate until a decision is made otherwise.

Anyway....the cakes were being judged in a number of categories, but we decided to go for the Most Patriotic and/or Most Colorful categories.

He helped with every step along the way....

Dumping the mix into the bowl.

Separating the eggs. Love this trick!

Mixing mixing mixing....

Adding food coloring to the batter.

The finished layers.

Stacking the layers.

Frosting!

More frosting!

Flags. And sprinkles.

Can never have too many sprinkles.

The finished product - from the outside.

And the inside.

We had hoped that the cake itself would be red, white, and blue - not pink, white, and light blue. But at the risk of having everyone oozing food coloring out of their pores, we opted to not add any more color to the batter. It still came out pretty nifty though - considering that it's been many many years since I've done one of these cakes.

If you're curious, I used a thing from Pampered Chef to do this - I think it's just called a checkerboard cake pan or something like that. I don't know if they still make it or not. It's not difficult, there's no magic involved - but it is a little bit of a pain in the butt, especially if you're in a bit of a hurry when you're doing it.

Anyway, he didn't win any of the prizes, but that's ok. We had a blast making it, and it tasted great.

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In the midst of all of this, I was working on a sewing project or three. And while I got a lot of it done, it also further reinforced the fact that we have GOT to get out of this house and into some place bigger. I can't deal with having to combine my sewing space and my sleeping space - since I worked on my project until the wee hours of the morning, I ended up sleeping on the couch because...well, because I couldn't find my bed.

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This afternoon, I was outside changing the blinker light bulb in my van, and I heard sirens. I looked up and saw a cop go tearing past on the big street nearby. I didn't think too much about it. Then I heard and saw a second one. No big deal - they almost always travel in pairs. Then I heard a third one and when I looked up I realized that he had stopped and was blocking traffic on the bigger street. Curious, I put the light bulb down and walked to the end of my driveway and looked - and to my surprise the business three doors down and across the big street from me was on fire. As in - thick black smoke pouring out of the roof and the back of the business. 

Within moments every piece of emergency equipment was there and traffic was a standstill. People pulled into the parking lots of other businesses and got out to take pictures and to watch. Nice Neighbor had walked down there to give one of the employees a coat to wear (it was cold)(and that's why she is Nice Neighbor) and she said that there were only 2 employees inside at the time and they had both gotten out safely. The business had been remodeling, so I'm willing to bet that something electrical started the fire.

Alex came outside to watch the fire trucks for a little bit, but we were getting ready to leave for the banquet and it was cold - so I didn't let him stay out too long. But he still got a kick out of it, and we are thankful that no one was injured.

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So now, after running around like a crazy person for the past few days, my feet and ankles are killing me. Alex went home with his father tonight so it's just me and Daniel - who is currently snoozing on the couch. But I promised Daniel that he could sleep in my bed tonight so I think I'm going to go uncover it and we're going to crawl into it. Tomorrow is another day - and I can take care of everything else then.