i don't know about you, but lately i have had an overwhelming urge to simplify...my life, our home, our schedules. there are too many chefs in our kitchen and i need to take control. along with my urge to simplify was my feeling of being completely overwhelmed by such a thought. i mean, where to begin? well i'll tell you where.
Kristen over at we are THAT family is one smart sweet-tea-loving woman. she recently wrote a post that was instrumental in pushing me into action. now, we're not doing anything drastic like shutting off cable *GASP*. but i'm putting a plan together. baby steps people. baby steps.
i know you'll be waiting with bells (or goofy ass shoes) on, so i'll be sure to keep you abreast of anything pertinent.
hugs and kisses to all,
the queen
i have very fond memories of childhood family vacations. someday i want to be able to take trips with our kids...when mr. husband has a job that doesn't require him to work seven days a week & when we actually have money to spend on taking a vacation. until then, i'll just pine away and day dream about the times we spent getting to our vacation destinations when i was a child.
i can remember planning and packing for days...wanting to have just the right clothes, toys, and snacks in the car with us. usually the day before our trip started, we would make a special trip to the grocery and my sisters and i would each be able to pick out our favorite snack to take with us. i could probably guess right and say that i picked chicken in a biscuit crackers (i loved those!). but i would bet money on the fact that my baby sister chose funyuns. she LOVED those things. picture it -- driving in a van with 5 people. windows up. shoes off. open mouth breathing. baby sister opens a bag of funyuns. the stinch was practically unbearable. after their first appearance, dad declared them contraband for any and all future car trips...along with corn nuts, anything that was cool ranch flavored, and blue suckers*.
my dad has family in florida and when we were younger we visited them a few times. one year my mom's family traveled with us caravan-style. my parents had borrowed a friend's van (which by the way had carpeted walls and a refrigerator) for the trip. my sisters and i, my parents, my grandma, aunt, uncle, and cousin all rode in the van. my mom's sister and her husband followed us. we had CBs. we were so rad. (i know...you're jealous.)
anyway, my dad worked an overnight shift and when he came home in the morning, we left. he drove first. he drove for hours without incident. we stopped for gas, got out and stretched then when we were ready to leave, my mom's brother took over driving. we hadn't gone five miles when our dad started yelling at our uncle. he had fallen asleep. while he was driving. on an interstate. going 80 miles per hour. with our entire family in the van.
i have no memory of my uncle driving on anymore family vacations...until a few years ago when my family went to new york for a wedding. again, my dad started the drive and when my uncle took over, my sister looked up from her magazine just in time to see his eyes drooping and his head bobbing. he is no longer aloud to drive anyone in our family to any destination whatsoever.
most of the vacation memories i have follow this same pattern...preparation, fiasco after fiasco during the trip, and vague-ish memories of the actual vacation. you know what, though? i wouldn't change it for anything. i loved our trips together. even with crazy half-awake drivers, stinky food, us (kids) against them (adults) warfare. it was fun. it was the only thing we knew. i can't wait to have the same kind of vacations with our kids.
me
*as we were driving (over a bridge if memory serves), my dad happened to look in the rear view mirror and almost wrecked the van. "oh my God, she's cyanotic!" we were all like, "what?! who's cyanotic?!" well, it turns out that baby sister's blue raspberry sucker had turned her entire mouth (including her lips) BLUE. he thought she was choking. and, thus, the "no blue sucker rule" was born.
i remember the first time i ever had a bedroom all to myself. i was about 8 years old. before i left for a trip to stay with cousins, my parents asked me if i could paint my room any color what would it be? i told them either purple or blue. when i arrived home from my trip, they had moved me into a room by myself. the walls were painted a lovely shade of blue...baby blue. they had gotten me a new water bed too. i was in hog heaven!
well, little mother hen moved into her own room last week. we had been talking about it for months. she and captain adventure have been sharing a room off and on since he was a baby. but, she's seven now and started first grade last week and it is definitely time for her to have her own room. we moved sammysosa into the room with CA and LMH went to SS's room.
mr. hubby helped moving all of the big furniture and painting. we were able to do it in one day. she loves it! i'm really glad we decided to do make the move. we were really worried about how captain adventure would do with sammysosa. we thought of all of the naughty thing CA could do with SS in the room...climbing into the crib, trying to take SS out of the crib, throwing things into the crib, staying up until the middle of the night...you get the point.
so far, our fears have been unfounded. captain adventure has done really well. it took a few nights to get used to each other, but they love to be together now. sammysosa wakes up earlier than CA and starts singing and talking quietly to himself...he eventually gets really loud and starts yelling at CA to wake up. it is pretty cute.
little mother hen is so thankful for her own room. she loves being by herself and her attitude is getting better. she has been spending hours and hours up there just puttering around...rearranging her drawers, drawing pictures, stickering things. it's too cute!
i am so glad we finally decided to make the move. we're such wienies sometimes.
i have to apologize to you. i have been keeping a rather big secret from you for a long time now. mr. husband and our friend mr. chef have been in the process of buying a restaurant for the past several months. it is now official. they closed on the building yesterday morning.
i am so proud of both of them. they have put in hundreds of hours trying to make this happen and now it finally has. i am so confident in their abilities to run a fantastic restaurant and do it the right way. i can't wait to see them in action!
they have many hours of hard work ahead of them, but they have an amazing support cast in place...i've met them and they're awesome and loyal. mr. husband and mr. chef hope to be open for business sometime in mid to late september.
congratulations mr. husband and mr. chef!
p.s see below for tuesday trivia answers
i always wonder if the things we teach our kids actually ever penetrate their little brains. things like: using good manners, thinking of other people besides themselves, being kind to others, etc. i mean, they don't really listen when we ask them to stop fighting, pick up their room, sit down and eat their dinner...so why would we expect them to listen when we teach them important life lessons?
not too long ago we were sitting in the kitchen eating supper together. mr. husband had made a delicous caesar salad as part of our meal. we were all just eating and visiting when i happened to look over and saw captain adventure starting to stand up. (we practically have to chain them to the chairs at meal times to get them to stay in their seats and eat, so i was immediately irritated...but, something made me hold my tongue to see what he was doing.) i heard him saying to grandma, "can i help you with that grandma jingly keys?" my heart melted. he had been watching her try to use the pepper mill so she could have pepper on her salad and because of her arthritis, she was having a hard time turning the mill. he saw her struggling, thought it through and offered his help. it was the most thoughtful act of good will i have ever seen come from his little body.
so, i guess they really are paying attention to us...listening to our words...paying attention to our actions...taking it all in. cool.
today we went to a local park...one where my parents took us when we were little girls. there is a pond/lake-ish type thing, swings, teeter-totters, a giant climbing apparatus, tennis courts, a shelter for picnicing, and a wide open soccer field. we had a fabulous time. it was the first time in a long time that mr. husband has been off of work for more than 12 hours at a time...we've really been enjoying each other...all of us. mr. husband and i sort of naturally switched off with the kids, as they changed interests at the park...i played with them on the swings and he took them to the soccer field to kick the giant tennis ball we brought. little sammysosa had a great time between the merry-go-round and the swings. he giggled his little heart out.
captain adventure and sammysosa sharing a snack on the merry-go-round
finally a peaceful brother-sister moment. 
i will always
to mr. husband in honor of father's day...
thank you every day for going to a job that tries to suck your soul and spirit out of your body.
thank you for not letting your job be who you are.
thank you for encouraging me to get away on your days off...even when i know you would really love to be the one who has down time.
thank you for calling to check on me and ask me how my day is going, almost every day.
thank you for making me mix tapes with songs that remind you of me and us...too cute and very romantic.
thank you for always encouraging me to try new things when we go to new places...and thank you for accepting that i'm not always brave enough to try them like you do.
thank you for being my friend.
thank you for working so hard for your family. our kids may not understand now, but they will.
thank you for being such an amazing dad...you find interesting and fun ways to engage our children...they love it and so do i.
thank you for always accepting me just as i am...you always have.
i hope you have a very happy father's day.
love,
mrs. wife
i continued to have problems with anxiety and depression off and on during school. i took advantage of programs on campus...the student health center offered counseling (individual and group) and they had psychiatrists who could prescribe medicine. i muddled through and graduated from the school of nursing. looking back, i think that i literally muddled through...i did what i had to do to get by...in a different time, i could have done better. i wonder what i missed while i was treading water. read part 1
while i was home going to the regional campus, an old friend came back into my life. he and i had been friends for years, only to have a falling out towards the end of high school. he offered me his friendship when i needed it most. he did not understand the way i felt or the way i acted (for that matter, neither did i), but he realized that he didn't have to. he did not ask me for more than i was capable of giving. he accepted me as i was. he always has.
eventually, we started dating. over the few years that we dated, i continued to work my way through nursing school. he was there by my side helping me through every sleepless night...when my anxiety was at it's worst, he would drive 2 1/2 hours to spend a brief amount of time, only to have to drive back home for work later that night...he loved and supported me unconditionally. it was just that simple to him.
six months after i graduated from college, we were married. i continued to take the medicine that the doctors prescribed, but i never felt great. i continued to intermittently go to therapy, but i never felt like i knew i could. i still didn't feel like myself.
during the first few years after i began my nursing career, i had less than a handful of panic attacks...always at work...always when it was very stressful for everyone, including me.
then i became pregnant. although we were overjoyed with the news, it presented a few problems...for one, hormone overload + anxious/depressed woman = problem...not to mention that most anti-anxiety and depression medication is NOT approved for use in pregnant or breastfeeding women. so, after talking to my ob-gyn, i decided to quit taking my medicine. i tolerated the change surprisingly well. i had the occasional panic attack when my mind would wander...mostly about the baby and the pregnancy...but i was doing really well, so i thought.
then came baby. a few weeks after she was born, i experienced what i now know to be a mild case of post-partum depression. i think that's pretty normal to a degree...there's a lot of hormones coming and going piled onto an over-stressed woman who now has an extra human being to be responsible for. for lack of a better description, i worked through it.
about half way through my freshman year in college, i started having what i later learned were panic attacks. at the time, i thought i was losing my mind (literally). i had never heard of panic attacks or anxiety...
imagine walking through a dark forest and hearing something behind you-- only to see a bear walking your way...you change course and walk faster, only to have the bear follow you...you are hyper-alert now...you start to run, the bear starts to run after you...your heart is pounding, you're breathing quickly (too quickly...you're hyperventilating by now)...you're running, but the bear is only steps behind you...you're sure you're going to die soon...heart pounding out of your chest, out of breath...
now, imagine feeling all of that without the bear being there. yeah, it kind of sucks. imagine feeling that way pretty much every day, all day long...not having any idea why you feel that way or what started it or what will stop it.
i started feeling pretty hopeless...stopped going to classes...eventually stopped leaving my room. i was sure it was my roommate...she and weren't getting along and that was stressful. she had what i considered to be an easy major and i was in the nursing program. she played. i didn't have time to. so, i moved into a single room.
that only made matters worse. i was completely isolated. i was in a new building with people i didn't know trying to figure out feelings that i didn't understand.
to be honest, i don't remember how long i lasted in the single room...a few days maybe...i can't remember. i was completely dysfunctional. i wasn't eating. i wasn't going to class. i wasn't passing the classes i wasn't going to. i wasn't leaving my room. i wasn't talking. it was bad. at that point, my mom figured out that i needed to be home. she drove the van down, we threw my crap in some boxes, and she drove me home.
during the months after i left school, i went to therapy and saw a psychiatrist who could prescribe what he thought was the right medicine. i started feeling better and went back to school at a regional campus for the spring semester. with the support of family and friends, i did well in school and life, and the next fall, i was back at my old campus.
i continued to have problems with anxiety and depression off and on during school. i took advantage of programs on campus...the student health center offered counseling (individual and group) and they had psychiatrists who could prescribe medicine. i muddled through and graduated from the school of nursing. looking back, i think that i literally muddled through...i did what i had to do to get by...in a different time, i could have done better. i wonder what i missed while i was treading water.
i don't even know where to start...
everyday my husband gets up and goes to a job where he treated like an easily traded commodity. he takes a disgusting amount of use and abuse by his new boss. he puts up with unfounded accusations. he tolerates his integrity and loyalty being questioned. he does these things because he has a wife and three kids and he loves us. to him, it's just that simple.
when i think of the past 4+ years and all of the personal sacrifices he and our family have made for this job, i am sad...and angry...and disgusted. because for all of his loyalty, all of the hours he puts in (80+/week), and all of the time he has sacrificed away from his family, he is repaid with despicable treatment.
my husband is a man of integrity. he is honest and forthright. he is loyal to a fault. and get this...he actually treats people how he would want to be treated. he is kind. he is genuine. if there's something he wouldn't say to a person's face, then he won't say it at all.
his blood sweat and tears have gone into that place...a place that repays him with personal attacks and slanderous statements. my heart is broken knowing what he goes through every day...not knowing if he'll still have a job at the end of each day. and it's too bad that the customers they serve are oblivious to what is going on. i wish they knew. if only they knew just how they were being bamboozled by the higher-ups, they'd be shocked. i hope that it all comes out someday. i'm sure it will. it always does.
picture it...sicily...1921...
so, as you may or may not know, grandma jingly keys is living with us. (and when i say us, i mean my mom, dad, husband, 3 kids, and me.) before coming to live with us, she was living alone in an apartment and getting along just fine...cooking for herself, bathing herself, etc...
yesterday, everyone but grandma left the house. my parents were gone for a total of about 5 hours. hubby, the kids, and i were gone for what seemed like a week, but in reality was only about 7 1/2 hours. before we left, we made a list of everyone's cell numbers and the number of my other grandma who lives in town, grandma poo's dead. my mom then proceeded to tell her that these numbers were for emergencies and she and my dad would be back early in the afternoon. before they left, my mom even made her a sandwich, fruit, and a cup of soup and had it all ready in the fridge for GJK when she was ready for lunch. my mom asked GJK if she knew how to work the microwave to warm her soup, GJK replied yes. (i know, because i was there.)
ok...so several hours later, my mom called me and told me that in fact, grandma jingly keys did have an emergency. (my heart was in my throat at this point). mom said that GJK had to call grandma poo's dead because she needed her soup warmed up and couldn't figure out how to use the microwave. also, she was cold and wanted the fireplace on. (i'm sorry, what?! did i hear right? or did i just have a stroke?) i asked my mom if she sat down with GJK and explained that needing her soup warmed up and being cold did not qualify as emergencies. mom did, in fact, tell that to GJK...who said, "yes it was, i needed my soup".
really? her point of reference for emergencies is needing soup warmed up?
i don't even know what to say about this...except that i'm going to ride this one for a l-o-n-g time. in fact, i called grandma poo's dead this morning and said that i needed her to come over right away to put toothpaste on my toothbrush. i think she might have peed her pants she laughed so hard.
we've been having a number of conversations about possible summer activities. i have never been one to "overschedule" our kids...mostly because then, i'd be overscheduling myself, since i am their taxi and chaperone. we've always done little things like the library reading program, swimming lessons, and of corse play dates with friends. however, we've been reconsidering our position on summertime activities. due to captain adventure's recent and increasingly prevalent shenanigans,we've decided to look for some things that he and his sister could be involved in. here's what we have so far...
little mother hen is already going to reading camp for 4 weeks. captain adventure is now going to 6 1-week sessions of camp at his school. they are both taking swimming lessons. LMH wants to take gymnastics (like her mother did when she was a girl, by the way.), and a 2 day martial arts class. captain adventure wants to play t-ball.
so, it looks like we're going to have a busier summer than i planned. that's ok. with the chaos in our house right now, i think this is a good idea. they need a little more structure than we have right now...and they need more of a schedule than we have right now. truth be told, their brains turn do mush every summer if i'm not providing constant brain stimulation (kind of like mine did when i quit work). right now just isn't a good time for me to be consistent with that. there's too much craziness around here. i know that we're definitely going to be busy and it certainly won't be a summer of laying around, but that's ok. we may end up regretting our decision to do so many activities. i doubt it though. i guess we'll see.
well, grandma jingly keys has officially moved in. things are going as well as can be expected so far. we're all going to have to adjust to 1. another person and 2. another person who has different needs than the rest of us. of course, captain adventure had adjusted himself right into gram's lap at 5:00 this morning. he came downstairs wearing nothing but a pull-up and said, "i so cold gamma jingly keys". so, she opened up her blanket and invited him in...he willingly accepted her offer. that's where mom found them when she came down at 6.
i hope gram doesn't mind that her every move is going to be watched and shared by 3 little ones. i think it's pretty cool.
i recently stumbled upon this on another blog , thepaynechatelaine, and it really spoke to how i have been feeling for a very long time. i have not been a regular attendee of church in quite a while. i could spend from now until a week from next friday talking about all of the reasons why i don't go to church, but i won't because they don't matter. while i was watching this video, i realized that all of my reasons weren't important because i was making a choice. i was making a choice to let all of my hang-ups get in the way of me worshiping. the songs, the ritualistic behaviors, the robotic feelings...none of that matters. what matters is what i do to worship God. what matters is what i feel in my heart about the Person that i am worshiping. it doesn't matter what i think about the songs or the way the message is presented. i need to stop being focused on how i feel during and after church and focus on worshiping and praising my loving God.
i have been very upset with myself for a long time because i believe it is my responsibility as a parent to provide our children with a place to worship...to teach them about God...to teach them how to pray and be good role models in the church family. we have always taught them about God...we read the Bible and Bible stories together, they went/go to a church-based preschool, they are all baptized, and once-in-a-while we take them to church. i want to get them and myself involved in our church again. this past weekend our baby was baptized...he's 15 months old a that was the first time he has ever been to church. that's a problem to me. i want to break the cycle. i need to get my head right and make a better choice.
when i consider my current living situation, i am reminded of the waltons. in the days of the waltons and other families like them, it was not uncommon for several generations to live together under the same roof. of course, in those times, nursing homes and assisted living apartments didn't exist, so the living arrangements were a natural progression of life. it was such a different time...two or three generations of women raising the children...grandpas, dads, and sons working together on the farm or at the mill...children at every stage of life living together under the same roof. they would scatter every morning...the children would go to school, the men would go to work, the women would start their housework or baking...and every afternoon, they would all return home and settle in for the night...preparing for supper, doing nighttime chores, completing homework...then they would all sit down together for supper. in the evening they didn't have 350 tv channels to choose from. they sat around and listened to the radio...or grandpa played the banjo...sometimes the women would pull out their knitting or needlepoint. it was a time to be together.
we (hubby, the kids and i) are living with my parents right now. we need a bigger house. we thought that the best way for us to sell our house would be to move out of it. so, my parents graciously offered for us to live with them. (well...maybe i graciously offered their house to us...but they never said no.) i'm sure we all trip other sometimes. i know our kids are loud. there are more dishes and laundry and more cooking and cleaning than before. but, it works. at least i think it does...we haven't gotten our pink slip yet. the kids love being with their grandparents. my parents love seeing their grandchildren when they wake up in the morning and snuggling with them before bedtime each night. i love having my kids and my parents in the same house.
recently my parents decided to ask grandma jingly keys to move in with us. after considering (for about five minutes) she accepted their invitation. so, for the past few weeks, we've been getting the house ready for her...french doors, new carpet, painting, rearranging the furniture, packing, moving...it has been really busy around here. i have to say that i am really looking forward to her living here. what a neat experience for our kids to have...living in the same house as their parents, grandparents, and great-grandma. i think its amazing. i am so excited for them.
we still have quite a list of things that need to be done before she can move in. every day, we do a little more. i hope it will be soon. until then, we'll be waiting for grandma.
well, i'm not going to mention names, but there are some people in my life who do nothing but suck me dry. when i meet their every whim and request, life is good. however, when i am unable or unwilling to accomodate, all hell breaks loose. there's a lot of manipulating, whining, manipulating (did i say that already?), double talk, and broken-record-like repetitiveness. (and, before you ask, i'm not talking about my kids.) the thing is that if i had met them anywhere else (like, if i had met them at work or at a party or something), i would have already cut them off. too bad for me that i'm related to them...and that isn't going to change.
they whine because they don't see the kids as often as they'd like. yet, they live and work within 10 miles of us and rarely call, stop by, or invite us over. they have hurt feelings when they don't get to talk to hubby when they want to. NEWS FLASH: he works 800 hours a week and doesn't get to see his wife and kids...why would he want to spend any precious time off with people who whine at him and manipulate him? (ok...800 hours is a little bit of an exaggeration, but he's gone a lot.)
they whine if we don't spend as much time as they think we should at their house...yet when we stay a little longer to visit, they don't have anything to say. it's the same blah blah blah over and over. we have very little in common, and they couldn't carry on an actual conversation to save their lives. i'm not kidding. for example:
me: hi. how are you?
them: good. (note, there's no reciprocation of the greeting or friendly question)
me: so, how's your mom doing?
them: she's getting along good. (note, there's no expanding on this...there's merely a simple answer)
it is very frustrating. this is not what i signed up for. this is not the kind of relationship i want to have with them. but, it is what it is.
got any suggestions?
if you are reading this and you know who i'm talking about, please don't mention names or relationships.
at grandma jingly keys' house, memories were made by the minute. some of my best memories of her revolve around her kitchen table. first, let me describe the table...round and big...it was probably close to six feet in diameter...off white with charming 1970s-ish gold flecks. when there were family parties, we'd crowd around the table elbow to elbow and eat (faygo chicken, corn, crockpot o'mashed potatoes, and, of course, gram's delicious cookies or texas sheet cake). we had a lot of family meals and parties there.
my earliest recollections are of her making oatmeal cookies and caramel corn at that table. when i close my eyes i can still smell her kitchen on those days. sometimes i would help her count cups of sugar and oats as she measured for her quadruple batches of cookies. when i was old enough, she would let me stir the boiling hot caramel for the caramel corn. her home is where i learned to bake.
we would chit-chat as we worked. she used to tell me stories from her childhood. i'd tell her about school and my friends. sometimes we'd talk about what was happening on her shows (ryan's hope and AMC). once in a while, she'd pour me a small glass of tab. i was in heaven!
sometimes, she'd do office work for grandpa's business at that table. i'd sit with her and "work" too...typing on her typewriter, writing letters, and sometimes coloring.
i can remember her changing the babies' diapers on that kitchen talble. she'd lay a bath towel down, get a warm wet washcloth (no wipes back then) and get to business.
gram and grandpa certainly got their money's worth out of that gold-flecked table. that's the kind of kitchen table i want to have.
