Little Progress

The biggest perk of setting your own work schedule is...Setting your own work schedule! Every once in a while census will be low and I will get called off. Trust me, I don't mind. It's like adding a whole new day to the week. I've got enough projects to keep me busy through the rest of the year. I've figured out how to add hours to the week, but not moolah to the bank account.

Yesterday, on my new "day off", I worked on some of the projects that I feel like are looming. Really important stuff like a rustic sign for over my kitchen cabinets- the ones I haven't shown pictures of yet. I'm in a race with the landscapers. I want to finish a certain number of my inside projects before they finish the outside. Once they are done I plan on planting my boo-tay in a swing for the summer and keeping the Kindle fully charged. That is, after I plant my tomatoes. Holy guacamole! and salsa! and spaghetti sauce! and BLTs with cream of tomato soup! All of my seeds sprouted and I have twenty four tomato plants. Trust me. No one is more surprised than me! I took pictures as proof and one of a diapered Buddha because he's good luck. Rub his belly on a regular basis and my seedlings sprout. I'm tellin' ya! I never had a green thumb before. The pics are in no particular order because all the time off is tiring! And I'm not lucky enough to get called off for the weekend.

On the Docket

Within my genome you will find a genetic mutation that prevents me from letting the paint dry on one project before I start another one (or fourteen).

Hoppy Easter!

With all my whining, wailing, and gnashing of teeth the Easter Bunny still managed to fit our house into his busy schedule. It wasn't easy, I'm tellin' ya.

"Scrunch, don't you think you should go on a walk with Papa?"

"Why?"

Oh, for the love!!!! "Why???" That three letter word makes me think four letter words lately.

"Because."

"Because, why?"

"Because the Easter Bunny can't come if you're still here."

"Well, it's okay. I'll just hide."

"No. He'll know."

"I can't go. He'll be soooo sad if I'm not here."

"No. You're going. Really fast. Now go!"

Papa, my great helper, took "fast" a little too literally. The ink on the letter wasn't even dry before they came up the driveway. It was still in my hand.

"Oh, look! The Easter Bunny left you a note."

Dang, those Easter Bunnies are fast.

It's not like we wouldn't have had any fun had he not shown up. We might be thirty minutes from Tar-jay and in the middle of nowhere, but the neighborhood makes up for it in other ways. We're less than five minutes to the great Easter Hunt. Scrunch could take or leave the eggs, but the baby piggies she definitely wanted to take.

Hoppy Easter!!

Emma Smith and Easter

Easter Sunday is not going as planned. Admittedly, I haven't planned this Holiday very well. My timing and the Easter Bunny's is completely off. He showed up at Grami's last week and those adorable chicks I had planned to knit are still on the needles. At 5:45a.m. I had a mini melt down in the shower.

My kids are not going to wake up to the Easter Bunny!

bah!

I cried. Lame. Whatever. But I did.

My kids were not going to wake up to Easter Bunny!

Lots of kids are not going to wake up to the Easter Bunny. (...it's not what Easter is about...Their Easter Bunny is serving in our Armed Services...love our troops!!...they have no parents...poor kids starving in third world countries....blah, blah, blah...I know.)

But my kids could have! And they won't because I want Husband to be here for it and he won't be because he has to go his dumb Church calling meetings at 6:00a.m.

I get bent out of joint when my husband has to attend some, o.k. most of these meetings. Every frappen' Sunday! I will wrestle the curlers into Scrunches hair by myself. If I don't cuss before getting there (it's forty minutes away) Sunday will be on an upswing. I know I'm not the only mom. I "get" it. Trust me I do. But I don't like it and my thought process proves it. "...Support the Brethren... Honor your Priesthood holder... These men need to learn to lead the Church....Isn't there someone else?....What the? were they thinking?... We are suckers and easy targets..... Think of Emma..... Think of Emma.... Think of Emma...."

And think of her I did. Oh, how I love Emma Smith!

But when my husband insinuated that he had responsibilities he needed to fulfill and we were not the only ones to sacrifice...Oh, no. You did not just go there!!! Oh, he did. And all hell broke loose and I unleashed a rant.

"That's right! They paid the sacrifice! They PAID the Sacrifice!!! And God love them for it!!! Every woman who had her husband ripped from her home by mobs. Every child who wondered when their Father would return home!!"

Oh, I am good.

Oh. so. good! at these righteous rants.

"They paid so that WE didn't have to!!!"

As I got more and more worked up my righteous indignation, I realized "I was right!!!" But for all the wrong reasons.

It took me a minute and Husband was long gone to his meetings. I was warming a sippy cup of milk in the microwave when I realized it.

He paid so that we didn't have to.

That's what it's really about.

The Easter Bunny will have been here when we get home from Church.

Learn something new every day.

Blogging use to be my therapy. There's a lot to therapize (new word?) in the infertility to adoption to new motherhood to new fertilityhood with a baby with a couple of extras. Add that life is just sometimes a bit wonky in the hood and there's ample fodder for blog posting. But lately I don't find I need it as much. Tread carefully. For if I had a dollar for every crazy who stopped stopped their meds because they got better... I am the Mayor of Crazytown, afterall.

I don't know if it's the weather, with its signs of Spring and promises of Summer, groovin' to Dr. Dog's Heart it Races, or the fact that I feel like I've been liberated! I have. Didn't you know? I am no longer pumping! Haven't I mentioned that? Oh well. In case you missed it. I'm no longer pumping! I didn't have to haul the damn black Madela bag a single time over the last two weeks and I feel like my life has been changed. It is the little things. Little things and a mental shift made easier by the quelling of hormonal tides.

I am destined to eat all of my words. Sometimes twice. And two weeks ago, the same day I posted that homeschooling wasn't for me, I ran into a woman at the park whose opinion on teaching I respect. She shared with me some information that I quickly ran home and began to study. Among the many things I read (and liked) was a simple idea... If you want your children to love learning, they need to see you learning.

I liked it. The notion of the martyr mother who does everything for and because of her children was blasted out of the park. It didn't sit well with me anyway. Who wants to say that wiping butt all the live long day makes you feel productive and valued? It makes you a liar. When I do and learn things that make me a better person, I am a better mother. As I've slowly let it sink in, I've been rejuvenated. There's energy in learning. I am not a writer, a photographer, a decorator, a horsewoman, a woodworker, a spinning wheel restorer, a gardener, and I don't appreciate good poetry the way I'd like, but I could be, and I will be, and maybe I am.

You Spin me right round.

How do I tell you this story so I don't sound like a Goomba? I don't think I can. I'm too excited. My words and thoughts are all slumble jumbled.

The moral of this story is that I got a spinning a wheel!

Most of the chicas in my knitting group spin. It is a hobby that I've wanted to take up for a long time. I just couldn't justify it before. But now! Now that I've reclaimed a whole two hours in my day by no longer pumping, I think I can make it happen. I started looking into the craft and started slowly and craftily working on my Husband. Then, like Disney princess magic, a spinning wheel literally fell in my lap!

How it went down...

Mom works with Debbie. Debbie knits. Mom showed Debbie pics of my knitting from my blog. I saw Debbie when I met Mom for lunch. Debbie complimented my knitting. I said 'thanks' and somehow the conversation turned to goats and me mentioning that I'd like to spin. We leave for lunch. A few hours later Mom gets a message on her cell from Debbie. "Hey, I've got this antique spinning wheel of my grandmother's that is just collecting dust, do you want it?" Um, yes.

There are a few pieces that are broken and missing but she's in beautiful condition. Knitters are nice so there are a few women from my knitting group doing some spinning sleuthing to find out as much as we can about her. I hope to have her up and running soon.

It is as they say, the real McCoy. An antique spinning wheel from the late 1800's. Her name is Aurora. Wut? People name their cars. I named her after the dawn for she filled my life with sunshine. Not really, but she is named for the spinning wheel on Sleeping Beauty. Touch it and you die!

Merry Go Round

When I set out to paint the kitchen and it's cabinets I didn't intend on triggering the cascade of Spring cleaning that would follow.

I probably wouldn't have started.

Um, I definitely wouldn't have started.

If you're going to take all the cupboard doors off as well as their hardware, you might as well wipe out and organize their contents.You're perched across the ladder and notice the top of the microwave, it needs wiping. You can't wipe the top of the microwave and the oven and then not do the top of the fridge. If you do the top of the fridge you have to do behind and underneath it. Might as well hit the inside while you're there. I thought I was a relatively adequate housekeeper, but what is up with the goop underneath the fridge? While you're sitting on the floors cursing not being born with the adequate number of appendages (like eight)  to re-attach the cupboards so they're level, you start to notice that not much of the grout is it's original color. Most grout isn't gray? The kids love the Home Depot lighting department and I love anything labeled Zep. Their grout cleaner is nothing short of magic. Real MAGIC. You experiment with their new bathroom cleaner while the kids splash in the tub. Wowzas! I love this stuff. What else can I spray? Anything else that gets sprayed needs to get wiped. And round and round. For two, almost three days.

The very last protective coat was applied to the last three cupboards. It dried and I went to re-hang them, but had to pull the fridge out again. For the love! What IS this crap? Wasn't I just here less than forty-eight hours ago? I want off this ride!!!!! So I did the only thing I knew how to make it stop. I packed up and left to a place where there is no laundry, no cooking, no cleaning. And we've been at Grami and Gramps' ever since.

Tomorrow we head home, but I feel a lot better equipped to face the goop under the fridge again. Whatever it is.