Living Amidst the Crazy

In the relay race of blog-slacking, the baton has officially been handed off to me.

At 11:00 Tuesday night, I was trying to unwind my brain, so I wrote a blog post about what was up in my world. When I was ONE sentence from finishing the post, I somehow selected all the text and deleted it before I even knew what was happening.


I groaned, and then had a brilliant idea. Since blogger automatically saves throughout the writing process, 'edit posts' should have nearly all my data! I quickly went there while patting myself on the back for my ingenious plan. I found this:

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Apparently my brain was not quick enough. And the autosave is a little too quick.

So here I am again, trying to remember what has been taking up all my precious time.

On Sunday - Wednesday, I served on an accreditation team with three men. It was non-stop working from 7:00 a.m. each morning to 11:00 p.m. each night, with a few nice breaks for some fine dining. Being the lone female has its perks. Never in my life have I had so many doors opened for me, bags carried, trash cleared, drinks refilled....whoever said chivalry is dead is dead wrong. I think my husband was a little scared I was coming home spoiled rotten.

In the midst of the team visit, my grandfather got very sick. We are expecting the call any day that will put us on the road to Illinois for the funeral.

As a result, we canceled my son's tonsillectomy. It was supposed to be yesterday, but since the doctors did not want him traveling for around two weeks, we are postponing it for at least a month.

Also during the team visit, the girl who lives with us wrecked her car 1/4 mile from our house. Bridges, ice, and rear-wheel vehicles are not a good mix. We are thankful that the worst thing that happened is her car being totaled.

There's the update. I can officially pass the blog-slacking baton to someone else.

The Birthday Fairy Must Be On Strike

I'm pretty sure my little boy did not wish for breathing treatments and Zithromax for his fourth birthday...

And I'm pretty sure that I didn't wish for the over-emotional, jazzed up, jittery child that these treatments turn him into.

Happy Birthday, anyway, little buddy!

Guess what you are getting for your birthday today?

A NAP!

"Look at me, mom!"

We are a little bit addicted to Biggest Loser at our house. We have discovered that it is kind of risky to watch reality TV with the kids, as the contestants are not always the most...um....pleasant conversationalists. This one, however, is one we don't often miss. I rationalize it by thinking of all the great things they can learn from the Biggest Loser:

• The importance of healthy eating
• The benefits of exercise
• How hard life can be if you are overweight
• It takes determination to reach a goal

Why, then, do my children watch the show and only glean THIS??

I'm not too happy with Bob and Jillian for making the white team do this "exercise". Or with the rest of the contestants for cheering him on like he just found a cure for cancer.

A Little Life Update

On a positive note, things are looking up in my technology world. The computer guy called today and he has saved everything off my old computer on CDs. WHEW. My husband is currently looking online for a new laptop to order. YAY.

On a sadder note, my little guy had a visit to the ENT today. His tonsils are huge, his adenoids are huge, and he tries to clear his throat about 80 times each day. The solution: surgery. We told him that taking his tonsils out would help his throat, and that he could eat ice cream and jello and popsicles. He was not convinced. The poor guy looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "I don't think I want to have my tonsils taken out!"

On a confusing note, we have been inundated with adoption questions lately. Having more children was not on our to do list this year, or any other year for that matter. But five, yes FIVE, people have talked to us in the last month about one adoption situation or another. And three of those have been in the last four days. I'm not sure what God has up his sleeve, but I'm keeping in mind that His to do list is more important than mine.

And on a funny note, I was just chatting with a friend on facebook. She told me she had to go sing the good night song to Lance and Guin before she tucked them in for the night. It took me a second to realize that she was talking about her BIRDS! It's so nice to know I have friends that are weirder than I am.

A Little Lost

Nine days ago my laptop quit charging. I thought it was a power cord issue; turns out it is a $350-450 internal issue. Needless to say, we are not going to fix it.

No outlook calendar. Lost email addresses. Very limited internet access. Imprisoned to-do lists and needed information.

If you see me wandering around with a dazed look on my face, please help me.

If I do not show up to somewhere I am supposed to be, please call me.

If I promised you I'd do something and I didn't do it, please forgive me.

I feel like someone has erased my brain.

Happy 36th!

My husband turns 36 today. He prefers 26, but since we can't turn back the hands of time, here are 36 of my favorite things about him. Keep in mind, I didn't say THE 36 favorite things. I'm sure I left something really important off of here without intending too, and quite honestly, the toilet seat probably shouldn't make the top 36. Obviously, in no specific order (again...the toilet seat....):

1. I never have to wonder what you are really thinking.
2. You are 100% honest - ALWAYS.
3. You never leave the toilet seat up.
4. Your passion for helping others through firefighting and EMS work is inspiring.
5. You don't mind going shopping.
6. You always carry the shopping bags.
7. You are willing to teach kid's Sunday School.
8. You are a very good money manager.
8 1/2. Sometimes TOO good, but if you threw money away, it would drive me crazy, so your over-practical ways can still make the list.
9. When you made a commitment to me, it was for LIFE, and I never have to question that.
10. Even though you tend to be on the quiet side, you are always willing to talk to me about anything.
11. You will clean up kid vomit. And probably big people vomit, but hopefully you will be getting paid to do it if that occurs.
12. You are a great combination of the practical, logical engineer and the adrenaline junkie, crazy firefighter.
13. You are great at trimming the ceilings and corners of nasty paint jobs.
14. You want to serve the Lord in all you do.
15. You love to camp, waterski, tube, and ride the jetski.
16. You are ok with letting me have girl nights and girl weekends.
17. I never have to wonder if the kids are being well-taken care of when I'm gone.
18. You go skiing with your college friends every year so I don't have to feel so guilty about taking girl weekends. I am sure this is the only reason you go.
19. You love sports, but don't let them run your life.
20. You are willing to watch chick flicks whenever I ask you to.
21. You are sad when you can't give your child the gift he wants the most.
21 1/2. Which is kind of funny since you don't really care about birthdays.
22. You don't mind when I don't cook.
23. You will take your turn cooking and do it better than me (I'm happy to hand over that responsibility at any time).
24. You will take the kids on the amusement park rides that make me want to puke.
25. Not much scares you or grosses you out, which means you take care of all the things that scare me and gross me out (heights, blood, a clogged drain...to name a few).
25 1/2. Although, if you would develop even a small fear of heights, maybe you would stop volunteering to go to the highest parts of burning houses, grain elevators, and humongous churches to change the light bulbs while five measly men hold ropes to hold your ladder up. You should work on that.
26. If we are together, you always put the fuel in the car, even in freezing cold temps.
27. You will play games with your kids even when you really don't want to.
28. You still like to spend time with me.
29. You support me working or me staying home, or some weird combination of the two.
30. You grieved our miscarriages and infertility issues just as much as I did.
31. You finally caved and got a cell phone. By next year at this time maybe you will actually be texting.
32. You put your best into every project you work on.
33. You like that I scrapbook and blog, even though it takes up extra time.
34. You don't like Chinese food.
35. You are able to look past the exterior of a person and really see their heart.
36. You are still smiling even though you don't like it when I blog about you!

Happy Birthday!

Not Your Average Morning

This has been a CRAZY week! Nothing unusually different, just crazy schedules and all of us fighting colds and sore throats. Therefore, I have been looking forward to today for a long time.

Time for laundry, time for seeing if there is a house under all this clutter, time for a little reading....ahhhhhh.

I got up this morning, happy I didn't work because it was my day to volunteer at the preschool, and slowly started to get the boys ready for school. My husband was taking both boys with him this morning since the bus stop and preschool are both on the way to his job. Ahhhhhh.

Breakfast - Check. Boys dressed - check. Lunch packed - check. One set of teeth brushed - check. Ten minutes until time to leave. And I still got to be in my pajamas. Ahhhhhh.

And then the fire pager went off and the husband flew out the door.

Me still in my pajamas.
Haven't even looked in the mirror yet.
Teeth to brush.
Lots of shoes to get on.
Backbacks to gather.
Two kids to load up.
Bus to catch.

AGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was hoping my windows were tinted enough for no one to see me at the bus stop, and wondering if it would be bad parenting for my 3 yo to walk in, check himself in on the computer, and enter the preschool classroom all by himself.

We flew around the house, brushed teeth, I got dressed, grabbed shoes for all, found backpacks and the lunchbox, and were running out the door with a minute to spare......when the phone rang.

False alarm. My husband was on his way back home to get the boys.

I was thankful, I really was, and so were all the people who were going to have to see me. But avoiding the heart attack altogether would have been my first choice. At least now I know I can go from not ready at all to out the door with kids in tow in 8.5 minutes if I really have to.