Family and holidays

When winter rolls around, it's harder for me to go see my family and I try to get in one last, big, visit before I get stuck here in the snow up to my armpits. Don't misunderstand, I adore the snow. I grew up without it unless we went to Mt Ashland and I hated fighting skiers and tourists just to play in the snow. Now we have it all winter long and I have been here 5 years, 2 in Bend, 3 in La Pine and I still love it. It's got a couple of negatives though, like being crazy cold (30 below and frozen pipes) and keeping us a bit more housebound than the Rogue Valley's rainy winters.
This time around we had more incentive to go on a 'last big trip' for the season. Normally it starts getting deep in the end of December, but this year it started snowing in early November and stuck. A lot. We're afraid this will be a hard winter and I don't want to miss out on seeing everyone before we hibernate, especially since my uncle Rob just got remarried after moving to Wisconsin. I missed the wedding, but I really didn't want to miss my chance to meet his new wife and see my uncle. i don't get to see him much but we're close and I missed him.
It was also a good chance to see my younger sister. She's a single mom to 4 kids and works nearly constantly to provide for them. She got to take them to school and then she saw them again for an hour before her night job started and there was no way she could come see us. The roads are bad and her car is too, her kids are in school, she has no free time or spending money... you get the picture.
I have a huge family and I miss each and every one of them, I wish I could spend a month so that I could see each of them for a day or two. Now my brother and his family have mentioned they will be up this way in a month and so has one of my little sisters. Well, both little sisters have mentioned coming up, but I think the younger one is too worried about the welfare of her pets and plants to leave them for too long, so it probably won't happen this year.
It's amazing how difficult and convoluted plans can get when it starts out so simple. I just missed them, I wanted to see them before the worst of winter kept us home. Everyone has time off over Thanksgiving and it was a good time for us too, so we came then. Then one person couldn't get the day after Thanksgiving off and she was upset (can't blame her) and there was a difficult time with religious beliefs and misconceptions about my intentions, then there couldn't be a visit without some sort of bad attitude and/or grumpiness.
Thankfully the good far outweighed the bad this time around as it often does and I got to spend time with my favorite people. I even got to see my reclusive hermit uncle! (I have a surfeit of reclusive uncles. This one stands out as he actually hides when I come over, the others are surly, antisocial, or both.)
I got news of 2 more pregnancies and managed to end a conversation about my lack of pregnancies only seconds before bursting into tears. I can't seem to come to grips. Every single month it hurts when AF comes and even more when it happens skip me without the usual happy reason. I love my children and I always will. I was blessed every time I had one of them and I am still grateful every day they are in my life, they're bright, handsome, funny, happy, loving little boys. Right at this time in my life I hope to have another one of those blessings in my life and the very real possibility that it will not happen is daunting and saddens me.
Wow, that got depressing. Good news, let's see.... I'm getting over my cold. The house is warm and comfortable enough that I forget how cold it is outside - til I want to air out the house. It's in desperate need of it, the smells of cooking, trash, little kids and wet dog are lingering. I plan to give it a good deep cleaning this weekend. The youngest and my husband got sick and are already getting better, the two oldest missed it completely!
More positives, we have great neighbors. One of them plowed our drive and the other came and checked on our cats. Sure, she was just looking for a game to play and had to come into our dirty house to get it, but she stopped to pet them and make them feel less abandoned. December 7th is my last dental work of 2010, how cool is that? it marks the end of the first third of my work and the 12 month countdown til I am finished with it allllllll. I do need to get an appointment for my glasses before the end of the year, I need them so badly.

Fall and kids and shopping

Fall, yes. Kids, of course. Shopping? No. Usually I loathe shopping but I LOVE deals. At GoodWill I found two tops with tags, from my favorite store, Torrid. Eee! My size, cheap, and brand new. Can't beat that right?
Not unless you go to Old Navy for the first time ever and happen to be there 30 minutes before closing on the last day of a clearance on sale items. 40% off the lowered prices. I got tanks for $.75-$3 each. I got a necklace and earrings for $4.59 total. It was amazing!!
I needed new clothes, too. Fall has hit in full force and I'm not fitting my old clothes so well. The first snow of the year lasted about 4 days and was just below mid-calf. So pretty yet so early. We'd gotten the boys new coats, but we were missing boots for the oldest and only the youngest had a snow suit. I love warm sunny weather even if I dislike wearing less and less clothing in public, I adore fall and it's colors and smells and the change it brings, but since we moved to Deschutes County the thing I love the most is the snow. I adore the snow. It's so peaceful and quiet and clean looking. I especially love the shapes it makes on branches and fencing and such.
The indoors being warm and cozy and smelling of apples and cinnamon, kids with pink cheeks and messy hair, the neat little squeak when someone takes the first steps across the snow.
I love bundling up, too. Caps, scarves, coats, and boots. So colorful and cute. The kids are getting so big, I want to share with them the wonderful memories I have of family times and first snows, and cider on cold night, games after dinner and the joy of gathering together with loved ones you might not get to see as often.
It's cold gray days like the one we're having today that make me miss my Dandad even more. On days like this he'd brew a pot and we'd stay inside and talk over coffee. I'm sad that my kids will miss out on those moments but I know they're forming their own as they grow. They're getting so tall, smart, and independent and I'm overwhelmingly proud of them. Handsome little men who look just like their dad. Big blue eyes, sweet little dimples. yup, I love those monsters.

Proof that I don't suck as a parent

We were out late visiting Mike's family. It was an exception since we have barely seen his sister or the younger girls over the last year, but we stayed late and then still had to get some things on the way home. Thank goodness for 24 hour stores, am I right?
I was shopping quietly with the younger two, Mike had the oldest with him, when a man walks up to me and says he's glad that he's not the only one that brings his kids to the store late. I must have looked confused, because he elaborated with his experiences, being looked at funny or chided for having children out so late. I made some polite comment about it being a good time to shop since the kids are tired and calm and there aren't a ton of people to dodge. He looked surprised for a minute then told me that he seriously doubted that we needed to come so late for that reason since my children had been so well behaved.
Feeling the glow of a complement from a complete stranger, I walked on to meet up with Mike and our oldest and get the rest of our list. My oldest jumped up onto something that was not meant to be stood on and my middle son quickly followed suit. Both Mike and I said at the same time, Get down, that's not for playing on. From further down an aisle an employee stopped what she was doing, walked over to us and told us that it was a real pleasure to have customers like us, who made our children behave.
Some days I feel like I must have failed somewhere along the line, I must not have taught them something essential, and then a day like that comes along and proves we haven't done half bad. I hoard those moments in my memory and bring them out to replay when I feel like a failure.

Fun in the last of the sun

Around here the cold starts around August 25th, give or take a couple of days. That means more than frosty nights and hats are coming back to our lives - it means the end of garage sale season. So sad, don't you think? Labor Day weekend is a great time for garage sales and we all go as a family to see what deals may come. Today was a day to mark down in the diary... well, it was for me anyway.
We found a sale that we'd been to the summer before last, nice people. Just a garage and a power box most of the year but for part of the summer it homed an RV or two and a bunch of table piled with the most interesting stuff and the best prices. I picked up a handful of books for 25c each, 2 Zane Grey, 1 James Patterson, and 1 Sandra Brown. Mike found a pair of shrub trimmers for 50c, and the best deal of the day - a GREENHOUSE! It isn't huge, but then I plan to start small. $35 for a 7x5 greenhouse is an awesome deal to start with, but I've wanted one SO badly for the last 3 years and we never could afford it. It was delivered tonight at 7:10pm and the very nice gentleman stayed around to chat because he remembered us from 2 years back.
The second place we went didn't have much to speak of, so we quit it without buying anything, but the third was also a place and seller that we knew, this time from last summer and this spring. We got a big shelf, a toy box and some videos for the kids from her. This time I found 2 pair capris (found $5 in a pocket when I got home, score!) 2 sweaters, a tee shirt that says Bom Chica Wah Wah (Mike loves that one, lol), and a gorgeous chocolate velvet jacket all in my size. Not an easy feat, lemme tell ya. One of the sweaters was found in a free box, but the rest were $1 each, $2 for the jacket. I also found a pretty, very new looking maroon leather purse and a black Buxton wallet for $1.25 together, a $3 espresso machine to replace the one that broke on me this spring, a free box of small glasses that I plan to use for desserts, a pair of new slacks in Mike's size, 2 play-tents for the boys room at $2 each and for Mick a book on What to Know about Star Wars and a t-shirt that says Playing Video Games... Be Back Soon.
He has recently discovered Lego Star Wars on Wii thanks to the Hollywood Video in Bend selling it's merchandise and closing it's doors. When they guys all play, they lose touch with the world around them and I h.a.t.e. it, so I only allow them to play it on the weekend - starting after dinner on Friday and ending before dinner on Sunday. That shirt and book are really fitting, lol.
Mase was thrilled, too, since he got a carousel toy for 10c at the first sale and a toy car free at the last. All of us had a fun day!

I've been away an awful lot

As a result of being away so much I have been neglecting my poor blog. I went down to Medford for my uncle Jim's wedding and then I went back the next weekend for my cousin Carla's visit. Jim was something of a woman hater so it was a shock that he fell in love and wanted to be married again... I couldn't miss that, could I? Carla hasn't been here since August 2002 and had never met my kids, and in the time since I saw her last she has been married and pregnant, now she has a husband, 2 step daughters and a baby girl I was dying to meet so I HAD to go back again. Of course, I couldn't drop in and go so I stayed a whole week. It was wonderful and tiring and I loved it.
I barely seem to find the time to get online anymore and I really should since it's an integral part of my crochet business. Getting THAT off the ground has been proving harder than I thought. Sigh. I'll persevere and who knows, maybe something good will happen.
While I was away for the week, Mike hired his nieces to clean the house before I got home. It was AWESOME!! He found a tall shelf for the towels in the bathroom and a nightstand for my side of the bed (both of which are things I've been trying to get for a while) so I was really pleased to come home. Guys who might possibly be reading my blog- this is a GREAT surprise gift. Keep it in mind, file it away in your mental records under Things I Can Do To Gain Points.
All of this business seems to involve other people. That doesn't seem like a bad thing, but I have hermitous tendencies and living so far away from family and not having many friends allows me to revert a bit. I get nervous. As a result, I talk about myself in glowing terms for a greatly extended period of time. I irritate the crap out of myself but I can't seem to stop. It's horrible. I can only hope that the people who already know me well understand what's going on and forgive me, and that the people I have only recently met or have budding friendships with will tolerate me til I am comfortable enough to quit being a jackass.

Beat It Bug Spray give away

My friend Michelle, owner of R.G.Natural Babies, is hosting give away for a natural, deet-free bug spray. My poor kids have been eaten alive by critters this year; check out the picture of my middle son

It's an uncomfortable visual of how bad it gets. I avoid sunscreen and bug spray as much as I can because I don't want to expose my children to too many chemical sunless I have to, but the natural stuff I've used before doesn't have the same effectiveness as the nasty chemical laden stuff.
The reviews I've seen for the Beat It bug spray revived my hopes of finding a natural way to keep my kids from being insect pin-cushions. I hope I win the give away!
Go here to enter the give away yourself and good luck!

I love food

Seen me in person? Then you know I mean it. I don't just love the way it tastes, I love how the change of seasons influences a change in menu. Tonight was sun tea, grilled boneless pork chops, lemon spinach cous cous, and fresh baby greens from my sister's garden. Did I mention my sister is 18? She rocks and they were sooo good. Even my little one's ate every bite.
Mmmmm. Just typing it reminds me of how good it was.
I tend to bake for my family when I go back to visit and this time was no exception. I made chewy cookies before going down - snickerdoodles, molasses, and chocolate chip. Then while I was there, Nanny commented that her bananas were getting too old to eat and said "I'd like them made into muffins in the morning". She didn't hint or even insist, she simply tossed me an order and expected it to be obeyed. LOL. She's getting to be bit of a tartar but I like to see that more than the weepy, lost woman she was earlier this year.
So I made 2 dozen muffins and for good measure, two loaves of banana bread as well. I figured it would last her til I come back next weekend. Maybe next time she'll demand cinnamon rolls or brioche.
It makes me feel like I'm helping out when I come to see them and bake, or clean, or just spend time talking or listening. (in reality, just talking. I never completely stop doing that)
I sat tonight and watched my kids eat and felt all happy inside. My 5 year old makes yumming noises when he likes something, so I knew he wasn't faking. The 7 year old ate everything, and the nearly-3 year old had 2nds. Twice.


Onward from here is just stuff from my life, not a coherent part of the conversation I had started with. Sorry if it makes no sense!
Our pets have been fighting fleas and losing. *I* fought them and lost, but my husband and children paid the price. I am unscathed while they have red marks on their legs - torso and arms as well, for the children who come sleep on my floor with the animals. We tried flea collars with no result. Baths, too. (OW. Ever tried to give a fully grown female Siamese her first bath?)We tried sprays and powders and nothing helped. The kids look like they have a case of chicken pox and my poor Hawkeye started losing her fur and running a fever, lumps formed on her jaw and neck where she scratched herself raw. She stopped being friendly or cuddly and ran from everyone, flinching if you reached to her. Last thing we tried were those drops that go between the cat's shoulderblades and the next morning she seemed calmer, after a week her fur was laying down and getting smooth again. We came home from our weekend away to find her sleeping in the open on a chair, no fever in sight, calm loving, snuggly demeanor, silky fur, and the lumps were fading. Oh, thank goodness! I thought I was going to lose her. Still has fleas, but they aren't making her crazy anymore.
Of course, this would also be mosquito season, so my boy-children are covered in welts from those as well. They look horrible.

Busy Summer, isn't it?

It seemed like we waited months for sun to come out way again. In June when we were getting our van packed to go to the airport, we did so through snow fall. No joke.
We all wanted warmth and fun and greenery again. It finally came and suddenly I relived what happened every year, sunshine brings extra work and play so everyone is busybusybusy. That means I get busy too, or I end up lonely. Ugh.
Usually we get to see my family 4 times a year or so. Sometimes more, sometimes less, but most of it happens in the nicer weather..... or at least, I meant weather that doesn't risk our van sliding on black ice, off a hillside and being buried in so much snow that we won't be seen til August. Really, the roads are well tended in the cold months and the 2 months that there isn't snow, it stays light til 9:30 pm so we can avoid most of the dangers.
This year we started out cold and missed spring altogether, so when we could we jumped on the chance to go see everyone. It just so happens, that opportunity came when my uncle announced he was getting married.
Say WHAAAAAA?

You'd have to have met my uncle to understand my shock and disbelief. I thought I was being punk'd at first. he was married when I was little, he had a wife and two sons. We played together, lived close by, I remember hot summer nights on the porch listening to all my uncles and dad play guitars and sing. I loved those times. Then the two boys and Aunt disappeared and I heard later when I grew up enough to understand, that they had divorced. Bitterly. Cousins moved away and uncle spent a lot of time drunk, living in a sad, angry, poor way and spouting off drunken crap when he came around. His two favorite subjects were race and women.
To hear that he had mellowed and changed, fell in love and wanted to get married? Blew me away.
We went to the wedding and he managed to dispel the shock when he insulted me, then he took his teeth out and relaxed, dressing down for the reception in a black wife-beater and blue running shorts. I hope he's going to spend the next 50 years a happy man. His new bride seems lovely. Grandma cried.
We spent more of our weekend visiting with my Nanny. Since she lost Dandad on Valentines Day this year, she's been sad and needy, dramatic often and scared to be alone. We spend as much time as we can with her, trying to remind her that she is still loved and has family that will be there for her no matter what. She has my mom and brother and his wife, but I guess living moments from them at all times isn't enough. Either that, or the old adage that familiarity breeds contempt is true after all. Maybe she takes them for granted, but they do everything for her. They are always grateful for our visits, though, it distracts nanny from needing constant undivided attention from them as well as gives her a boost emotionally. Noise and great grandkids can do that :)
We didn't actually get to see my dad and his family much, which was a bit disappointing. We saw them at the wedding, but that wasn't really the right setting for our usual family antics, lol, so we held off and then we left 3-4 hours too late in the day to spend too much time with them before we had to hit the road.
Originally, our plan was to see family last month, have a great garage cleaning and sorting for a couple of weeks, a garage sale for the next couple of weekends, and then go see family again. Things change, we learn to roll with it. We saw family and while we were there we heard about my uncle's nuptials. It was informal and planned for , drumroll... two weeks away. OK, we can work the budget to afford an extra trip. Then I hear that my cousin (totally different part of the tree) is coming out to see everyone for the first time in 8 years. She has two older teens boys, recently got married and became mom to two tween girls and then gave birth to a little girl, as well. Last time I saw her, I didn't realize I was pregnant and she's never seen my kids. Wow, what a shocker of a realization.
Of course, I can't miss this visit - but it comes ONE WEEK after the wedding. It falls on a new payday, so we can manage, but not by much.
I got home at 2 am yesterday and will spend the next 4 days doing laundry, cleaning the house, and generally getting ready to pack us all up for another weekend away.
Plans change again. (did you see me slump?) My cousin is taking her time on her way out here, which is smart with a 5 month old, but she called my Nanny a couple hours before I left for hom to say that she isn't showing up til Sunday/Monday of the next week. That means I'll be leaving again before she GETS there, forget talking at all! So Nanny insists that they will find a way to make it work.
FFWD to now. The plan is that Mike and the kids an I are going down this weekend, again, but my dad is fixing Mike's Suburban for him to drive home on Sunday while the kids and I keep the van and stay the whole week.
I hope this all works.

Starting over

I had been doing fairly well with my little business of crochet... til I had my youngest child. Understandably I was wrapped up in him, but my business suffered. I want so badly to make money from home, I don't want to leave my kids and I would like getting a night job to be a last resort. Crochet is what I love and I am really good at it, I just suck at managing a business.
I placed a couple of ads in Craigslist and in my Melanie's Closet Project Blog in hopes of garnering interest. I also brought it up to the wonderful women on my forum, Granola Chicks. There are many at-home moms and small business operators on there and I am hoping for advice and possibly a referral or two.
I don't need much, just about $250 a month would be perfect. I am also going to be looking up information on business management and accounting. I need to be better equipped for this job or I'll fail again.
It feels so difficult and I know it's ignorance of proper business and fear or failure that make it seem so hard. I have to do something and I would love to make Melanie's Closet a success.
I don't have many readers here, but if you see this and happen to have advice for me or if you're in need of crochet, send me an email or post a comment. And thanks in advance for the help!
I've tried Mary Kay and that was a huge bust. I also applied to ChaCha and they asked me not to reapply, lol, so I assume I wasn't a sparkling example of what they were looking for in an employee. I'm simple and hard working, I am too blunt and honest for sales, and I don't want to leave my kids. Why can't I find a job that works for me?

I got sunshine!

Today I woke at 5 am to see the sun peeping over the horizon with an orange glow.I looked warm,it should have been cozy... it was cold. Brrr, chilly,enough that I turned up the heaters. No one likes to wake to a frozen nose and ears. By noon, it was hot and sunny and simply gorgeous, so we did what any good loving parents would -we shoved them outside and shut the door. Well...not completely. I went out and took some pictures and enjoyed the sun,too. They also got Otter Pops. Yum. See, I'm still a good mom.
I am so so so so so to see sun. That may come as a surprise since I tend to hiss in direct sunlight, but even people like me need warmth and a little UV action. The birds singing, plants green and blooming, my kids playing in the sun and not wearing coats. Good times.
I stopped exercising a month ago since I was hurting, but I am not seeing it get better any time soon and I have managed to hold my weight steady but that might not last, so I am going back to walking every day. I missed the activity,the feeling of health that came along with it and the good habits it was instilling in my children.
I'm going to take it a little easier on myself than I did before, I'm aiming for activity, not sweating bullets and hurting myself. I would love a bike to ride or a way to go on those gorgeously long walks I used to love.
Back to the point! I m going to be getting active again and I hope to lose about 10 pounds. That should get me to nearly a 22, at least a small 24. I'd be pleased with that.

the things that happen

I have been trying to get healthier and the road has gotten rough a few times. Bouts of insomnia, falling off the wagon in regards to food or soda, pneumonia, travel, you name it. Sometimes the rough spots in the road damage my willpower and I eat more than I should of things I shouldn't, sometimes I'm not able to work out or be active.
As a result, I've lost roughly 30 lbs in the last year, but it was all 6 months or more ago. Since then, I have held steady at 285 pounds.The good news is that I'm still a size 24 and I feel more fit than I have in years. The bad news is that I'm not losing anything.
During my recent vacation to Florida I had alcohol and desserts every day as well as soda and sweet tea. Thankfully the immense amount of walking I did daily countered it and I held steady.
I also stopped my daily workout a few weeks ago as a last ditch effort to figure out why my period stopped. Since it doesn't seem to have been the miracle fix to the problem, I'm back to the daily exercise. I'm also going to be watching my intake again (stopped for a while)
My hips and pelvis were hating me a lot for all the work I was putting them through so I finally took Mike up on his offer to go to his chiropractor for an adjustment. Sure enough, there was a significant height difference, my right being 1 1/2 inches higher. The doctor said he could fix that through a few smaller adjustments over time, but he was unhappy about my answers to his questions so he gave me a further examination. From that, he tells me there is a very high likelihood I have something called myofascial pain syndrome. Never heard of it before he mentioned it so I looked it up when I got home and wow, it's sucky. Almost as sucky as the painful,painful examination.
That was Tuesday and I have another appointment for Friday and again Monday. In the meantime- I have a cold. Yay.
Today I am starting over, back to eating healthier, being active, and drinking more water. I need to lose about 30 pounds to be back to my average adult weight and right now that is my aim. After I reach that I'll take a good hard look and decide if I should keep going.

It's a sad day

Neither Hawkeye nor myself have had kittens before so both of us made mistakes. She didn't know how to feed them and I didn't realize that they weren't being fed. I just figured I wasn't seeing it.
I did notice that she wasn't warming them properly even though she was laying NEAR the box and was washing them. By the time I realized they weren't getting fed, it was too late. They were only a few day sold and it breaks my heart. The first was dead when I got home,the second died an hour after I figured out he was sick. While I was sad and wished I could go back and save them, but it was beyond my reach to help them. The third was a fighter but was fading, we rushed to get her KMR and she improved... til about 8 hours later. I left the kitten on the bed while I went to look up anything I should know about hand-feeding a newborn kitten and when I got back, I found her alone in the cat bed - cold. Her mom laying on the floor nearby watching.
It was obvious she was failing and no amount of warming and rubbing and feeding was going to help.
It was so awful. I sat with her, sick to my stomach, waiting for her to recover or pass on. I know it's hard to watch any innocent baby die, but this hurt worse than I was prepared for. I found myself sobbing and realized that I was combining my feelings on several subjects. I still hurt very deeply over losing my Dandad as well as my 19 year old dog and D's new companion dog I fell in love with and had to get rid of this year and I have been dealing with infertility since last year. If I can't have the baby we planned, I could at least adore the fluffy new babies my special kitty was about to have. Instead I had to watch them die.
My darling husband buried them in the same grave as my Foxy.
This has been an emotional weekend and part of me wonders what I've done wrong. Is there a reason that this is happening, something I did wrong or didn't do at all that leaves me deserving of all the pain? Or maybe I had it too easy for too long and now life is trying to even out.
I recently decided to cut my sister out of my life. Before you judge me, I had 21 years of good reasons. My family deserved a better me than I was while she was still in my life and it was obvious that she was never ever going to change. She has since given birth, my younger sis told me the news while I was on vacation. She had a c-section and then had infections from it. I found myself totally disaffected by it. Normally I am a very maternal, very baby-excited person but knowing the kind of person SHE is and the kind of mom she has proven herself to be ...... I know I will never see that baby. I have a nephew out there in the world I will never get to know. I suppose if keeping my heart from being broken yet again, then it's completely understandable that I have no personal and deep reaction to the news. Last time I loved those boys as much as I've ever loved until I had my own children, only to watch her hurt them and then I lost them. At least this way my family gets a better me, I don't have to watch the destruction or lose a nephew again. I can only pray that the baby's dad is a loving and responsible man who will do anything to keep his son happy and healthy, no matter what my sister does.

And then there were two

Turns out Hawkeye had THREE rolling around in there! Sadly, for unknown reasons one of the kittens was still. But - there is good news, we have two gorgeous healthy babies still. And she is being such a good momma! We have one of each - a Siamese like mom, and a tux like dad. I haven't handled them enough to check the sex but when I know, I will share.
We found Hawkeye and her kittens when we got home from Florida. She seems to have had them only a couple hours before because the mess was still, um, fresh but the kittens were dry.
It was a wild trip and I am so glad to be home. Who knew one could develop an allergy to Florida? We got in Saturday afternoon and spent a few hours crashed at my MIL's house and then got groceries for our bare shelves and went home to crash some more. How do you handle jet lag? It's beaten me twice now.

Cats and kittens, birds and bees...

My brother and sister in law moved to my grandparents farm to help care for them as they grew older and infirm. The couple that had been doing the caretaking before them were friends of the family - meaning I knew the guy before he could crawl, all diapered and toothless and spitting up. He and his wife had a cat, Talula, and when they moved away the cat couldn't come and my brother and sister in law adopted her.
Only to find they adopted her pregnant belly as well. lol.
She is a darling cat, so sweet and cuddly that when she had her kittens I BEGGED to get one. I got two instead. We planned to get them fixed in February at the annual SNIP free spay/neuter clinic but this of course would be the year it's not free after all. We now have pissed on belongings and a pregnant cat.

There is an upside, it's not for long! We are making an appointment to get certain body parts ruthlessly cut off... I mean fixed :) and our queen is getting ready to drop her bundles-of-joy any time now. She is normally stand-offish to anyone but me and pregnancy has made that a thing of the past. She loves to be touched and petted and oooooooh belly rubs or back rubs earn you a friend for life. She was thin and elegant as are most young Siamese, but being pregnant has her eating everything in smell. I would say sight but it's not really a requirement. She'll leap from the floor to anything withing 4-5 feet. Even if it means hanging from my back by her claws. She'll rip open any sealed items in search of more more more.
We got her a bag of kitten food for the last week or two of her gestation since she is so ravenous and it was recommended and yes, she ripped that open too before we could feed her in a civilized fashion.
Last night I was ejected from my room thanks to sleeping lumps of children taking my spot and screaming or crying if I woke them enough to move them, so I slept on the couch, wrapped in a giant fleece comforter. I mention fleece because Hawkeye, our mom-to-be, is completely obsessed with this material. She'll purr with manic abandon and knead her claws into it while simultaneously nuzzling and sucking on it. I pity the children who sleep under their own fleece blankets since she is no great respecter of personal boundaries.
She jumped on me last night while I dozed on our couch and the combination of pregnant over-affection and the fleece blanket over warm body had her over the edge of reason. She kept head butting me in a not-so-gentle way, slamming her forehead into my face hard enough to shove me backwards further into the pillow, nuzzling frantically and kneading at me, spinning in circles and rubbing her belly on me, tunneling her nose under my hands and then meowing in her quiet, trilly sort of way.
Earlier I had noticed a hard patch on her fur when she accidentally sat on my hand (she's a little clumsy right now)and while she was freaking out on me later, I saw a red/pink fleshy looking thing hanging from her. I was started for sure and since I know nothing about pregnant cat midwifery, I ran upstairs to the computer to see if this is something that should worry me. It seems, as best as I could glean, that she lost her mucus plug!!! Nasty, but the earliest sign of impending labor. It could be 12 hours from then, it could be a week, but it means she's a mom soon. I just wish she hadn't been in my face at the time.
This morning I was watching her while she slept in the sunny patch on my bedroom floor, thinking about the dangers of birth and worrying about her when suddenly her belly jumped. A jump, shudder, then a tiny pointy thing shoved against her belly...... a kitten moving!!! I only feel gurgling most of the time when I pet her and I think I felt it/them move twice, a rolling sensation, but never so obvious as this. It was great. I am coming to suspect that she has a very small litter in her, 1-2 maybe. That would be good since she is only 1 and this is her first (and last) pregnancy.
Now I just hope that she either has them before we go on our trip or waits til we get back. Cross your fingers people!

Today really was different

This as my backyard at about 11 am. I went to the sink to wash my hands, looked up and all three were looking in my kitchen window. By the time I got my phone for a picture, they were further out and despite the semi-lazy look of them in the photo they were moving constantly and fast as though they knew they were going home soon and wanted to squeeze as much fun and adventure as they could into the time they had. I'd never seen these horses before but they were clean, fed, and shod so I assumed they were someone's babies... just not the kind of babies that wanted to let me keep them in my yard til the Sheriff's car showed up. They took off around the side of my house and to the front yard where our neighbor's two horses were and all 5 took up screaming, peeing, and head bobbing for a few minutes. Then off again, across the dirt road and away behind and empty house. The tracks lead to the next street and I heard them talking to each other but didn't see them. Right as I was walking back home the Sheriff's car went by - a good response time, just not fast enough for horses on the lam!
Mick slept through it but I got a couple of pictures and the younger boys got to see them up close. Hope the adventurers get home safe and sound!
This reminded me that I never told you all about my very first call to 911. Recently I was on my way to City Hall in Bend to pick Mike up from work, all three kids asleep in the back seat of the van. I drove under the Wilson street overpass and was shocked to see a man contemplating a jump into the southbound traffic. He looked so utterly sad as though he had given up, holding on to the railing but facing the street below. I called 911, busy signal. I hung up a moment because I was fighting the memory of my mother's refrain, "You never call 911 unless there is a REAL emergency!" Oh, wait, this qualifies.
Amazing how inane the mind can be when faced with something so unexpected and serious. I got off at the Colorado exit and when I stopped at the intersection, called again. This time it went through and the operator asked me what my emergency was. I got one word out... "I.." before the information on my location must have come up on the screen because the operator suddenly interrupted to ask me if I was calling in a jumper on the overpass. Since I was, I said yes, he told me there were 2 cars on route, I said thank you and he hung up. It was somewhat anticlimactic considering it was my first 911 call and it involved a disturbed and very sad man attempting to take his own life, but my next thought (inanity strikes again) was 'They record those calls and I said 4 words. I yes thank you. How dumb am I going to sound if they need to play that recording ever again?'
Because Mick slept through both of these rather sudden occasions, he is understandably eager to be involved somehow now that he's awake. I asked the children to let me know right away if they see a car in the driveway or hear a knock since I am hoping to hear back about the horses. Mick came up to me a few minutes after that to say "I hear... knocking?" I did too but in a vague distant way that didn't sound right.
I checked the front door, barren of life. So I followed the sound upstairs and into my room where it became mixed with feline growling. It all suddenly clicked and made sense. My very pregnant Siamese was in the top shelf of my walk in closet hunting the sound, growling and desperate to attack the unseen and unreachable prey - that turned out to be a woodpecker on the outside wall of the house.
This is one of those days, one of those weird days where everything is just a few degrees Off, know what I'm talking about? Uh, yeah. Things never seem to fit right, there is no rhythm or discernible pattern. Not always a bad things, but the unexpected is a little less safe, I think.
Let's hope nothing else happens!

There is good stuff, I promise

As most of you know, I am overweight and battling it. Today was a huge slap in the face of that goal. Oops. But I am keepin' on keepin' on, I won't give. And for good reason. I was worried when I lost 6 pounds in two weeks then stopped. I didn't give up, I forged on. I increased my workout time, I upped the intensity, I more than doubled the miles.
Still no scale change. I measured myself and I have lost a small amount in inches, but not enough to show the amount of work I am putting into my journey to transformation. BUT....
I am happy enough. I say that because I would love to have more obvious changes. It was my goal to lose 8-10 pounds a month and in this month I have actually gained a little - mostly water weight I think since it comes and goes overnight, but still. Gain is hard to see in bold black numbers. That's the bad. The good? I look better. It's nothing drastic and amazing, but my calves are muscled and hard again other than the soft spot on the inner side of my knees, my thighs still touch (let's be honest here, they always will, even when I was fit they touched) but it's not at the knee or even at the halfway mark - it's less than halfway. My saddle bags are shrinking visibly and the cellulite on the back of my thighs is fading. Enough to make me think of shorts this summer if it keeps up!
My core is tighter, I feel fitter and my belly doesn't sag like it used to. My butt is SMALLER. Hows that for a good change? My shirts still fit about the same, but my pants are loose and flowy now.
Not a 22 yet, but edging up on it! I can't trust the numbers and I promised myself to look for the changes in how I felt, how clothes fit and what I looked like, not BMI or pounds so I am holding true to my promise to myself. And I am changing. Oh, lordy I never thought I would see the day I could work out for an hour or bike 6 miles and LIKE it!! I need to be more careful about my food. I never thought it would be SO hard to eat 5 small meals a day. I mean, I snack and I make healthy little meals for the kids all the time, it should come easy. No way, it's hard!
I think I may need to make my snacks and have them in the fridge and then have food combos ready and on hand so I don't go for the fast and fatty stuff in the fridge. I need to set a clock or something so that I don't forget to eat or put it off.
On the upside, water intake is easier now that I have my metal water bottle. It's always with me and since it has a screw top, NO KID SPILLS!!!!!
OK people, I'm forcing myself to make things a little more positive. I'm changing my goal this week since the small meals are so out the door.
This week- One day this week find an alternative to working out in the house.
Make and package snacks.
Write a meal plan for 7 days and make sure the food is on hand.
Water and green tea only.
Here's hoping!

still in the gray

I have a wonderful life, I love my husband and kids, I normally enjoy all of this a great deal. I am still sad today and I think I've pinpointed a large contributing factor.


I'm lonely.


It's not a new concept to me, I've always felt that way. Only I had my family around me then so it cushioned the pain a bit. Now my family is not only far away, they have changed.I've tried to make friends where I go but it never seems to work out the way I hope and plan. I fell in love with a man I saw for hours each day and we still have a happy marriage, but now with work and commute, I get him 3 hours a night, shared time with the kids.
My attempts to make friends has never panned out for long - well once, for a year. I miss PEOPLE and ACTIVITIES. I miss going for walks, having casual visitors, playing in the park.

Warning: Unloading Zone!

I have few friends. The ones I have are wonderful and I cherish them. I have a good number of online friends and I love them too, some of them I love enough that I wish they lived closer and we could all be neighbors and have chats over coffee and let our kids grow up together. Seriously.
As much as I love to share the good news and fun times, I also share the bad. I whine. Yup, I know it's a surprise that a pulled together, with-it woman such as myself could lower my standards to actual whining, but I do. I learned a long time ago that keeping it all to myself makes me angry and bitter and a little crazy and that leads to no friends at all.
Right now, I don't feel like I have anyone to cry to and it's hard. My husband has heard it all and he's a Fixer. You know one, I am sure. The kind of person that assumes because you're talking to him about a problem, you must need him to do or say something to make it all better. I, on the other hand, am a Venter. I want to take care of it myself, I just need to blow off frustration about it before I bust a valve in my head and end up crazy. Er. Again.
I vent a lot to my friends and family and sometimes they need a break. I'm not necessarily a negative person but I feel strongly and my venting reflects that. I am emotional. It takes a lot to sit there and be my Shoulder-to-Cry-On.
My favorite forum, my collection of friends - they are true blue and would be there for me. I am the one holding back there because I know that my Cone of Silence is about to allow in a few new members and I feel I can't share my innermost thoughts anymore.
That leaves me with you, dear blog. I know no one reads this, so I can vent away without fear or reprimand or efforts to fix the issue. There is no issue. I'm just sad.
We planned to have one last child to complete our family and since in the past I could get pregnant by thinking too hard about babies, I thought our biggest problem would be our fears- DH scared of twins, me scared of not having a boy. I was wrong. We planned to TTC in Jan/Feb 2010. It was planned out and we agreed on it. then I stopped having a cycle at all in September 09. There was an attempt to correct it through medication and I had one period. I believe things happen for a reason, the Grand Design, I have faith that things will turn out how they should. I have tried not to cry. I just wanted another baby. We have the money and space and time and love. I'm a good mom and it's with intention that we would be bringing a new life into this world. Every time my period is supposed to come and doesn't, the bruised feeling in my chest grows a little more. It could be so much worse and I feel guilty about my sadness - it's not as if I lost a pregnancy or a child. There are three beautiful children in my life and I adore them. I'm trying to accept and move on, but it just hurts more and more. I let it slip to my SIL that I am considered infertile, hopefully it's temporary but this moment it is what it is. Wrong person. I didn't realize til I said it that I was being horribly insensitive to a woman who fought infertility to have her two kids. She was sweet about it, but I really should have kept my mouth shut.
I took a test last night and got the usual - negative. I acted like it didn't matter because Mike has already been through enough tears with me and to burden him with my sobbing over something so selfish didn't set right.
I go through PMS, crying at the dumbest things, mood changing in an instant, swollen feet and stomach, cramps... then nothing. I swear the world is bombarding me with commercials and TV shows with babies and pregnancy. I see rounded bellies everywhere. Tiny baby clothes too cute for words in every store. Even my CAT is having babies.

I won!

I entered the give-away for the Avon bath and perfume set and I won!! I am so excited to try a new scent after all these years.
I won in another way, too. We agreed to sell our too-small-for-the-family car to the neighbors, who had only one child at home and were in need of a vehicle. We thought we were giving them the kind of break we'd been given, the kind that allowed us to get back on our feet. Instead, they took our generosity and ran with it. Literally. 18 months of lies and sneaking and we're finally through. We got a call that 3 days ago the car was repossessed from one of the two addresses the loan company thought might be our run-away neighbors. After nearly 2 years of treating us like blithering morons, they called 6 times withing a few minutes of losing "their" car. They were angry and then calmed down enough to ask us how they could continue buying it.

Are you KIDDING ME!?!? These people have BALLS. They ruined our carefully restored credit and in our efforts to keep our commitments, they forced us to make the payments they didn't make resulting in us tightening up our budget in any way we could. They took food from my children. When our attempts led us to overdraft fees and a bounced mortgage check we decided that a bad credit score wasn't what we wanted, but keeping the house was more important than a black mark for 7 years. I wish their daughter a happy, healthy, normal life. They, on the other hand, deserve every nasty fruit grown from the row they plowed and seeded with dishonesty and selfish disregard for anyone but themselves. Yeah, I sound bitter, but not in general, just toward them.
My lesson is that no matter who you are selling to/buying from, get it in writing, notarized, and don't procrastinate or let it slip by out of kindness. You and your loved ones come first, kindness to others is a virtue, but one that shouldn't hurt your family.
And because I have to spill my innermost thoughts ....
Lately, I've started to feel older. I felt 24 for years but this year I've noticed the loosening skin in my face, the dark circles that never go away under my eyes, the way my body melted away into flab. My children are getting bigger and in my eyes, more wonderful every day. I came to terms with them growing, but I can't handle seeing the same changes in my father and mother that I see in myself. They aren't allowed to grow older.
I already started changing my life to make better choices and live healthier for my children, but as I get older I am starting to do it for myself, too. I've discovered that I want to be attractive and energetic again. I am not going to accept aging without a fight. I am tightening up and starting to lose the softness once more revealing glimpses of the girl I used to be. I'm eating better and taking my vitamins. I'm paying special attention to my hair and face, both of which have been showing signs of being near 30. Extra conditioning, gentler care, and yes, I am buying lotions and potions for my face - ones that have made a big difference in my looks.
All of it makes me feel better about myself, I get a little more bounce to my step when I catch sight of myself and can see I have reversed at least 5 years in my looks. Self pride looks good on a girl, too. It helps that my DH really appreciates the efforts, too. He's been encouraged to make some big changes to his life as well. I think its' working for him. :)
Despite the awful weeks of snow and hail between the wind and rain of spring, we have had some sunshine and a bit of warmth. Enough that the grass that was neglected for years has been peeking through. It gives us a bunch of ideas for the yard that have me all a-twitter and itching to get my hands dirty. My tomatos are getting bigger and so is my basil. Next come wildflowers!

today

I am all over the map today. I cry then I get mad, I feel all happy and at peace , then I get frustrated. In an hour.
I've been there before, I know I can handle it and keep my cool, but it doesn't make it any easier to take. Like knowing you can take the pain at the dentist doesn't make that an enjoyable trip, kwim?
So while I am battling a rare bout of temporary mental illness (totally joking, I am mentally sound... I think) The kids have been great. Well, good. Well, not breaking things. Much. OK, they have been difficult, but they've been worse, ok? Mason appears to have grown a bigger bladder and Someone-who-shall-not-be-named has been pissy when I ask him to contribute help.

I just erased a long winded Angry Wife rant. I just want it to be easier, dig? There is no reason this life of ours has to be so hard.

Avon Eternal Magic giveaway

I have been using the same perfume since I was 13. Not the same BOTTLE, mind you, but the same brand... if I use any at all. I've been feeling like trying out something new, but it's scary since so many scents I've tried give me a headache or make me sneeze. This one sounds so nice that I want to try it! A friend of mine is an Avon rep. and supplied the items for a giveaway on another friend's blog, My Kinda Rain. It's a great blog you should check it out. - Eternal Magic body wash, perfume and lotion.
I did finally figure out how to add a button though! Just for you, Lori.

Theme of the day is POOP

Both literal and figurative. I loved working out but frankly, for the past week I haven't cared enough to get off my big blubber butt and do anything. I feel all whiny and lazy and just icky enough to not feel the burn.
I'll do it tomorrow while the guys are asleep, maybe it'll get me back in the zone. Pray for me people.
This last week -
I've been threatened by an angry man with an ax handle while at home alone with my kids.
My dog has been playing too rough with the neighbor's dogs and since mine is stupid and gigantic and it wasn't his yard,guess who's to blame?
I would have put up a fence, but the same jackass waste of flesh that has effectively stolen my car also stole back the fencing we bought from him.
I've had a conversation or two this last week that made it clear my MIL's dislike of me at a core level, on principle - yeah, not so much grown out of as I believed. Any unhappiness, smart mouthing, swearing, consumption of alcohol, and religious indifference rests squarely on my shoulders. I am Da Debbil.
A repo agent knocked on my door, looked in my windows and garage and took pictures of the address to have proof she was here. That's always nice.
You know what I needed today? Poop. Yes, at least I got what I deserved ONE day this week. This morning my youngest, who always tells me when he has to poop, didn't have a word to say. I found him diaperless and disgustingly messed up in my room. For one shining moment I had a glimmer of hope that he had been in my bathroom for the use of the toilet.
Nope.
I went around the house twice trying to find it and had no luck. I washed him up and then washed all of the places I could see he had been. Two hours later, my middle son comes running up the stairs and in his charming way, wordlessly hiked a foot on to my lap as though I were a bar at a dance class. I was confused til the silent yet wild gesturing brought my attention to the poop allllll over his foot.
I gagged a lot and cleaned him up. I gag when dogs lick my toes as well, there is something about those two... hrack. OK, moving on... I followed the tracks down from my chair in the office to my bedroom, my bathroom, back out to the stairs, down to the living room, across the dining room to the kitchen. Where I found my clean dishtowel carefully laid over the site of the crime. Over that was a dining room chair.
That's not the end of my journey. The dog who can't be outside anymore has attached himself to my hip. He gets the worst gas. Disgusting stink. More gagging. Now that he can't go outside alone, I have to put him on a chain if I don't have the time to stand out there and watch him. Only problem is that he sees the chain the way some people see another person in a public bathroom - and it shuts it all down. He already has a tiny bladder and I let him out 8 times a day average. But now I let him out and in at least twice for every urge because he CAN'T GO when on the chain.
It doesn't make it any easier that I haven't felt well in days. I sometimes feel hungry but end of eating half of my meal before I'm done. My stomach feels heavy like a rock and all my food stays right up to the top of my neck.

Moral of the story? None. People suck. Poop is nasty. I have too much of both in my life right now. Save me.

I am beginning to see the light

I have known people who can't stop themselves, they HAVE to work out. Even more annoying than the great physique and the looks they give anyone eating fat in any form, they have to TALK about the gym or reps and call muscle groups by name.
I don't care about being tight, ripped, shredded or whatever painful euphamistically given name one wants to use. I just don't want to be FAT. And it's not even for my looks, (though that is a nice side effect) I am doing it for my health and for the future health and well being of my kids. If they learn to eat and sit like their parents, then we are dooming them to a short and medication filled life lacking in self esteem and youthful joy.
I have been making little changes, tiny steps for 2 years now. Learning about portion size, making healthier choices, then cutting out the really bad stuff for me and then adding daily exercise. Once I talked to the doctor, I had to scale back the intensity but up the duration. Instead of 20 minutes of hard stuff, now it's supposed to be 1 hour of slightly gentler workouts. I have been adding a few minutes here and there til today I hit 40 minutes. I still feel like Jello, so I think I'll be hovering there for a few days, but it's worth it.
My body is showing small improvements, little changes like the cellulite on my thighs starting to fade, my abs pulling in my stomach a bit, calves becoming less lumpy and more shapely. I dig it.
I am really loving my workouts now, I think I am even beginning to enjoy getting all hot and sweaty! more than anything, it's good to know that my efforts may not have made me slim and pretty yet, but they have made a big impact on my health. i am not in danger of diabetes :) thank you doc!

popping in

Mike and I had doctors appointments yesterday and it took up the whole dang day. I felt icky that night and have been fighting nausea all day today. I am so sick, be back later, when I feel like one of the living.

The Shrinking Woman project

I haven't exactly been shy about my weight or the efforts I have been making to lose a few of those unwanted pounds. I have been big all my life, but my average adult weight was 250. At 240 I was really happy with how I looked. Over the last 8 years I have ballooned up to 320 and down to 250 3 times. Both of my grandmothers and my mom are diabetic now and my younger sister is hypoglycemic. I NEED to lose weight and teach my kids how to eat well.
I started out with using our recumbent bike and some hand weights til a friend told me about Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred. It looked like simple, easy moves, just 2lb weights needed and it was 20 minutes a day for 30 days. I ended up doing a couple of weeks of it and saw wonderful results but it was too hard on my 300 lb body. i know she says 400 l people can do it, but who is really going to wake up every morning and do something that hurts? I was spending a few hours recovering and falling behind on my housework and being grumpy with the kids, too.
Mike and I talked and decided it might be better to do a half and half - walking and The Shred. I don't have a work-out friend or someone who can keep me motivated so I have to keep MYSELF going.So far, I am diggin' it. I lost three pounds in the last 7 days and I feel great. I haven't seen a drastic size change, but I FEEL wonderful, I am sleeping better, and cellulite is fading. It's not gone, but it's so much smoother. If I keep it up, I might be halfway to my goal weight in a couple of months.

And the sun also shines...

Everyone knows of a song that speaks of a day where nothing goes right. Everything goes wrong from the moment you wake up (or don't, if sleeping through the alarm makes the list of things-gone-wrong) be it tiny as a run stocking or broken zipper, or be it big like losing someone you love or getting fired. We have all had those days, we get it, we feel for the singer.
Sometimes life feels like some celestial being put that song on repeat and got distracted. When those days happen it feels like there is no possible way you will survive even one more itsy bitsy fiasco.

This is what makes it allllllll better for me. Ignore the mess, I do. Please click on the picture so you can see the whole thing, I can't figure out how to get it to show the whole picture.
First, they were watching TV and didn't notice me.


After the flash caught their attention-



And 5 seconds later when the Ham tendency came out in them as a group.

Sigh. I am such a sucker for blue eyed red heads. They may drive me batty some days but even then they are the most beautiful, precious, inspiring thing in my life. I can't believe how blessed I am to be their mom.

Worry just compounds itself

I worry about things like my teeth going bad, my youngest son not shaking off this cough, money being really tight this payday, my niece hating her home life, my sister not recovering from the loss of our Dandad, Nanny's cancer returning, my mom not having health care when she has diabetes, high blood pressure, and needs glasses and dental care. The more I worry, the more stressed I get and then there are other thigns for me to worry about. Like enough stress that my body stops functioning the way it should.
I try to enjoy each day and not worry. Not nearly as easy as it sounds because my stomach knots up the instant I turn my thoughts back to the issues at hand. I know it will all turn out for the best. I breathe deeply, let it go and try to just move on.

I am officially a super big dweebA

A few months back a friend of mine suddenly had a link in her signature that said help me hatch my eggs, click here!
So I did. She was hatching dragon eggs. They ended up so cute and she had soooo many that I clicked on yet another link... the one that said Want your own eggs?
They died. I came back to dead broken shells. I was so sad that a friend of mine stole a couple of eggs to hatch and give me. It doesn't really work that way, so I had to get my own, and a few more friends followed. Now there are dragons galore in our group and I have 4 adults, 4 eggs. The first two eggs died, the 4 eggs that I got next hatched while I was sleeping but this morning I checked on my next 4, they were fine. a few minutes later they got cracks. Then the cracks got bigger. Then there was a hole... now the holes are getting bigger. I am as excited as if they were real, living creatures hatching. Silly, right? I normally don't play games like this, but for some reason this one has me.
Come take a look, they are hatching RIGHT NOW!!
http://dragcave.net/user/Meroluni

Who knew enchilada sauce was so wise?

I have had a blah day. Not good, not bad, not even boring just.... blah. The kids all seem to be feeling better with the exception of my oldest whose stomach ailment has turned into a gut ailment and he's NOT happy about it. I planned to make bbq chicken for dinner but then I saw a can of enchilada sauce and though Mmmmm that sounds good!
Normally one might make the next step checking the fridge/freezer for the rest of the ingredients for the meal. Me? I open the darn can and pour it into a pan then stand staring at it stupidly as if I expected the fully made meal to come out instead. My middle son walks in, looks at me, then the pan, then back to me and says, "what are you doing, Mom?"
"Making a big mistake, it seems."
After a moment of thought, he asks "What big mista......ay... ake did you um, make, Mom?" (If you've spoken to the boy, you understand)
"I poured a can of sauce into the pan hours too early an I'm not even sure I have the stuff I need to make enchiladas."
He laughed at me and said "That's not a big mistake, Mom, it's a little one.Don't worry." All the while he's making exspansive and then minute gestures to visually back up his opinion of the size of my oops.
I wanted to explain to him that it was a big deal to me, but then I thought about how silly I must look to a 4 year old, frowning over a cold pan and an empty can because I emptied it too soon. It's small beans, lady, get over it!
We don't have and meat defrosted and we are out of tortillas... part of my brain says 'so defrost the darn meat and MAKE some tortillas, it's not hard, you've done it before.' The other part is whining 'what a dumb move that was, why weren't you thinking?'
Kids have this bizarre way of seeing the problems that irritate and anger adults as no big gig, but the things we brush off as minor and not worth worry as huge, monumental and life altering. I remember once my grandfather telling me he would take me with him to the grange to get chicken feed one afternoon. I went playing down by the crick and forgot the time. When I remembered suddenly I scrambled up the hill and onto the bridge only to lose my grip and fall into a bunch of blackberry brambles. I tore a toenail off and had thorns where they seriously didn't belong, but my worry wasn't that I fell off a bridge or nearly put out an eye - it was that I might miss going to grange and getting chicken feed. It was ridiculous when I look back -
1) I knew my Dandad would never leave without me if he offered.
2)I got to the grange at least once a week
3)there was nothing special going on, no side trips to get ice cream, no chicks or ducklings to play with at the grange... I didn't even get out.
It's hard to remember how kids feel sometimes. Like the problem they face that moment is the biggest ever and could potentially break their heart.
And to kids... man, I thought the adults were all SO dang uptight! They didn't understand that my world hung on the one and only problem in my heart at the moment and though it may change later, right now it's the most important thing to me. Whether or not they agreed with it's importance or understood WHY, if they didn't support me, help me, then it really did break my heart. Not just the problem, the adult who didn't take me seriously.
I know, a lot to glean from a can of enchilada sauce right? My children remind me every day how to keep life simple, how to take a closer, clearer and less selfish look at the world without trying to make it all fit in the columns we adults think it should.

It's just not getting better

I know he was 79. It was a couple of years coming. He was sick and not himself and he never would have wanted to be kept around that way. It doesn't make it easier.
I expected to have come to terms with his death. Instead I feel normal and fine til I remember his I want to tell him, til I miss him and look forward to visiting, or just remember in a split second the way he hugged or his smile. Then it comes rushing back that he's not going to be here to see my kids grow up, he can't greet me with a hug, he'll never be there again and it HURTS.
There's no warning, just a memory then pain. While my sister and her kids were here we went to dinner at a local place and there was only one other person there, sitting with his back to us. Amidst the chatter from the kids and the confusion about orders, I noticed my sister get very still and start to cry. She collected herself enough to tell me that her middle girl asked if she could go talk to Dandad and pointed to the other patron. I turned around and sure enough, he looked exactly like my Dandad from behind and, like my sister, I burst into tears.
One of the kids piped up right then to say he needed to go to the bathroom so we jumped at the chance to run off and clean our faces up. I cleaned up, saw her eyes and had to go hide in the stall and cry again.
I jsut can't get my heart to understand what my head knows - that he's gone and Ill never see him smile again or tell me how proud he is of me, never laugh and tell me how big the boys have gotten. I miss him for me, *I* want a hug, but more so, I miss him for my kids sake. They won't remember him and will miss out on such a great man in their lives.
I believe that everything happens for a reason. When we moved to Wyoming I thought it was beautiful. It didn't have greenery and trees and I seriously missed those, but the people were wonderful and it had it's own beauty. We could have been happy out there, but a couple of things went wrong and they snowballed til we were forced to scrape ourselves together and come home, tails tucked.
It gave me nearly 5 more years with Dandad. If we'd been in Wyoming still I wouldn't have been able to spend time with him while he still remembered me, he never would have known the younger two of his great grandsons, and I wouldn't have gotten to tell him how much I loved him, how much he meant to me.
Life is good, it really is. I love doing little bits here and there to make our new house a home. I love watching my kids grow. Family are far enough away to not rule my life, but close enough that I can go see them often. My grandparents were my example of a good marriage and my involvement with them, their home and farm, the family get-togethers... formed my life long goals. I wanted a big family and land enough to have my own giant garden, animals too. There is lots of work to do, but I have my dreams now. He was able to come visit us and he was so pleased.
The night we saw Dandad in the restaurant, we came home and put in a CD of kids music and danced for a half hour with all 6 of the older kids while the youngest slept and their daddies watched us in amusement. It occurred to me and my sister at the same moment that we were building the memories of the next generation. WE were now the parents and someday the grandparents. We were having our family gatherings, big dinners, twilight games of hide-and-seek, sleepovers and playing games while the grown ups talked and laughed.
It was a good moment, a great feeling to realize that while Dandad is gone, his memory and his influence never will be. Maybe someday I'll stop crying when I remember he's not here anymore. In the meantime I will content myself that I know he was happy with he life he saw us building and would approve mightily.

Sort of a pointless update, but you love me so it's ok

Dr.Weeks, my favorite OB/GYN ever, put me on progesterone pills. 10mg a day for 10 days.
Yeah, it sucks. It's supposed to mimic the natural hormone levels just before a period. Then, when I quit taking it, the sudden drop in the levels should kick start a cycle. If it works I'll be so happy, but having a real PMS after months of nothing is like a slap in the face. Who wants that? Not me.
I'm cramping, emotional, sore, bitchy, and apparently acne, nervousness, and fatigue are side effects of the pills. Yay for me. Pfft.
In other news, my little sister and her family are coming to visit. I got a call from her, asking if it would be ok to come visit from late Wednesday to Saturday.
Um. Well, of course I would love a visit form all of them, they are always welcome. My hesitation was only because she was a little hesitant herself. Being me, I couldn't help but ask... Soooooo, what brings you up?
Juan said he took a day off and wanted to come up and visit. Dunno why.
Oh. Not sure what to do with that. Glad he wants to connect with us?
I stayed up late Monday and when i got ready to go to bed the clock on my computer said TUESDAY. Damn, that means I only have one afternoon to clean the whole house! It is never good enough, but this time it was such a mess that I knew I would need more time than one afternoon especially because I workout in the morning study at noon and care for my monsters in between.
I cleaned the spots on the carpet, did a bunch of laundry, some dishes, got the co-sleeper and swing set up, and the boys room clean. OH, I washed the dogs and brushed D, to. He's no picnic, people. He loves it and behaves, but it's a second workout in one day and then he follows me around begging for it never to end. I put up a bunch of pictures and hung the boys dry erase board, a shelf for the cute little alphabet train my Nanny gave the boys, and a couple of posters in the boys room, too.
Mike is picking up the food we'll need for the next few days since we'll have 4 adults and 7 kids in the house. I still need to clean the guest room (Mase made it snow all over the upstairs with the insides of the shredder. Whee, let it snow.) and get the bed made up. dang it, I still need to clean The bathroom and get some towels washed. Sigh Tonight is gonna be even more tiring than today was.
I'm looking forward to the kids all getting together for a few days, they just didn't get to spend as much time together as I would have wished on our last visit. then again, we only expected to stay two days and it was for a somber occassion. There is tons of room and I made sure to tell Bert to bring really warm clothes for the short people so they can play outside.
I get to have girl chat and a baby boy fix. mmm, warm soft little baby boy. I miss my kids being that age and I was hoping to already be expecting by now, so a fix will be great. I'm hoping that we make meals that Juan will eat and that he doesn't feel left out. He's a very quiet man and even when he does talk I don't understand him very well. It's funny, but awkward.
I'll be back Sunday.

Plans change again

We have three beautiful children and enough love, time, and money to care for them. After my first child, I never wanted another - not because it was so awful, but because i loved him so much that I didn't want to deprive him by splitting my time and attention between him and another child. We got pregnant anyway since someone upstairs decided it for me. We were in an awful place for a new baby, both in life and in location and I spent 9 months stressed and worried and unhappy. He arrived and I fell in love. In the hospital the day after he was born I was already talking about another child, only this time he would be planned so that there was no negatives to fight, only a joyful experience. Our last was a gorgeous boy as well and much loved, wanted, and spoiled.
They try my patience on a regular basis (today is one of those days) but I adore them. I wanted another but Mike didn't, he even looked at getting snipped. Of course, he chose not to go that route after all but he didn't think we should have any more. Getting accustomed to that idea wasn't easy but there wasn't much in the way of options for me if my husband said no. A few months later I was shocked when he said we should consider one last baby. So shocked that I didn't believe him and ignored it. He brought it up a few more times and assured me he wasn't just humoring me, he had really changed his mind. I was ecstatic when we set a date to TTC, the end of January or beginning of February.
My happiness was greatly curtailed shortly thereafter.

First was the news that my older sister had decided to have another child. Now, if you don't know the whole story then that might sound petty, but let me assure you that it's not a good thing and greatly re-enforced the type of person she was and how little she cared about anyone but herself.

With my youngest boy's 2nd birthday came weaning. My other children weaned and a cycle regulated just about right away, but this time instead of my erratic cycle getting even, it disappeared.

I found out that my cold wasn't what it seemed and I had pneumonia so I had to go on an aggressive course of antibiotics and an inhaler.

My dog, companion of 19 years, sweet darling dog died. I was broken up.

Then my grandfather nearly died and even though he survived, it was clear he wouldn't make it very much longer. He was alive long enough for me to say goodbye and died Valentine's Day. I'd never lost anyone I was so very close to and it was devastating.

I put on 30 pounds and then lost 20 of it through diet and exercise.

All of these things alone could have caused it, all together it would have been surprising if I had a cycle at all. I thought at first I might be pregnant, but I didn't feel it, you know? This last month I thought I ovulated and there was a chance I was pregnant but it only felt that way for a week then I went back to not feeling pregnant. If we were going to have a child, I needed to figure out what was going on with me so I made an appointment with my ob/gyn. He's weird and quirky, but he suits me and I trust him.
I had the gamut of testing that would come at a normal check up as well as checking my ovaries for cysts and getting a qualitative HCG. Negative. Healthy as a horse. Dr. didn't want me to go a week longer without a cycle since it would greatly increased the possibility of cancerous cells so I am now on progesterone. It's supposed to have me kick-started and cycling again in 6-9 more days and if it doesn't then I need to go back for further testing and examination.

Who knows if I'll have another child. I would love it because I love being pregnant and love having children, they each feel like a true gift. We have the time,money and room, most certainly the love. But plans change sometimes and all we can do it change with them, right?

Life Likes Curveballs

As a child, I never thought Santa was real so I was spared that disillusion. But I remember clearly the day I learned that old people die. The idea that someday I would lose my grandparents had me in deep fear and tears for days. Nanny and Dandad mean the world to me and the fear of losing them haunted me every day after my childhood revelation.
I grew up, moved out, fell in love and married. I became a mom three times and we bought our own home. I came to visit every 2-3 months and did everything I could to make sure they knew how much I love them and that they are important to me. When Dandad got diagnosis of emphysema, I was so scared of losing him but I was told he could last for his natural lifetime. Before I could really some to terms with it, he got pneumonia and was nearly lost. While he was in the hospital it was discovered that the scattered thoughts and confusion he had weren't oxygen deprivation but Alzheimers.
I spent all the time I could with him before he was lost in his own mind, giving my children as much of a chance as possible to form memories of him. It was so hard being there, KNOWING he knew what was happening, feeling that every moment with him had to count forever. Even more difficult was when he was in the transition between being himself most of the time and knowing what was going on to no longer even being aware that he wasn't himself.
James Malcolm Fulton, 79, passed on Valentine's Day. On Thursday was his funeral and burial. The service was emotional and teary eyed, so many people loved and respected him. The burial was moving, too. I collected shells from the 21 gun salute to keep as a memento and to give to my sons when they get older.
He was a wonderful man and helped make me the person I am and I will be forever thankful that I had him as long as I did.

Ah, life changes on me yet again

A couple of months back I got sick and it never got better, just worse, so I went to the doctor who diagnosed me with pneumonia. I was on an inhaler as well as a course of strong antibiotics and while it made a big difference, I still had chest pains and felt weak and breathless for weeks after the course of meds was over.
Mason weaned just before his birthday in October, just before I got sick, and I expected to go back to a normal cycle instead of the 53 day cycle I've had since he was 6 months old. Instead, I stopped having a cycle at all. Of course, I thought it was due to my illness, or the meds, stress, emotional pain... I was under a lot of ... oh, EVERYTHING.
Then it occurred to me that I might be pregnant but I didn't feel like I was, so we tested every week for 6 weeks with negative results every time. I missed a second 53 day cycle and I had PMS like normal, but again, nothing.
I waited til I missed my second cycle and still got a negative before I would make an appointment to see my ob/gyn, and with things going on lately I kept forgetting to make the appointment til today. SO - I see the doctor on the 22nd.

Life moves on.

I have had a hard road lately. Without exaggeration I can say that losing my Foxy girl was one of the worst pains I have ever felt. We were together for 19 years and the last 5 of it I was worried with every change of season that she wouldn't make it. She wasn't sick, just little thReally,ings that started getting progressively worse.
I had a year of knowing that every time I let her outside or every time I woke her in the morning, she might have slipped away. Really, I wanted her to go in her sleep, to not hurt, to save me from making a choice. Sadly, I was too weak to let her go when she was ready.
When she passed, I had made my goodbyes and she slipped away in my arms, peacefully and softly like I had hoped she would. It hurt so much, I was sure my heart would break, I literally felt it cracking. I cried so hard. Then I stopped feeling at all, I couldn't smile, I knew there were times where my kids needed a sign of approval, happiness, love... and I was empty. After a while, I started to smile again.
Before she died, we knew what was going to happen and Mike told me that he thought it would be a good thing to get another dog in a month or two. At the time, I was surprised. If a relative dies you don't 'get another'. How can you replace an individual? I did keep it in mind and I made a promise to myself. When I can remember her without crying, without such pain and loss, then I will consider his suggestion.
I would have kept avoiding it altogether, but my family made me take a long clear look. My D'Oji is suffering, he's lonely and sad. When we let him out he would sit by the front door instead of running out to play or explore. He's never been alone since we got him at 6 months old.
My older two boys understand clearly what death is, what it does from a biological standpoint (you would have to know my kids to believe me) Mick is ok with it, Mack is ok too, but he feels the loss since he had claimed Foxy as his own special dog. Mase is the worst. He knows she is missing, he asks about her every day, he is concerned and keeps thinking I left her outside. It's hard to hear though it is getting easier.
I faced the idea of adopting another dog and found myself surprisingly good with it. After a few days of looking at our options, I am starting to get excited. Mike has been very understanding letting me set the pace.

First, we need to figure what bred we were looking for. We thought about another chow mix, but I think that would be too much like replacing her. We have tons of room indoors and out and already have a large dog, so a large breed is good. With three children, two cats, and a dog already, the new muttley will have to be gentle and easy going. Mastiffs, St.Bernards,and Great Danes fit the bill and are often passed over because of the room and time needed to keep them. We have tons of room indoors and out as well as the time at home to keep the dogs company. Danes and mastiffs are good indoor dogs, too.
Three days ago there was a dog up for adoption that I noticed but hesitated to make an offer because of the commitment level. We keep our pets for life and they are family, so I don't want to jump into it. Today his status was changed to urgent and I wrote to make contact. He's good with animals and kids, no mention of age, but he's a Great Weimar and a sort of silver-blue color.
He is about 2-3 hours away.
There was another that stood out to me the moment I saw her. She's a brindle mastiff/dane mix and 4 years old, also good with other animals and kids. She is closer to us, only 30 miles away.
Both of them line up with what we are looking for so I made contact on both. Now I'm sitting here feeling anxious and excited, like I just asked someone out and I'm waiting for an answer. It also means I'm risking rejection. I never thought it would be this scary. Both of our dogs were rescued and our cats were adopted from family.
I hope one of them might like us and say yes. If they both say no, we'll have to go back to the beginning and start looking for the right dogs again.
How can I be so nervous?

Good Bye Foxy-girl. You're missed.

I am so sad. I loved her so much and we were together for 19 years, but I really thought that her age and my having children would make it easier to accept losing her. After all, it was inevitable. I was seriously rocked by her passing, it hurt more than anything has ever hurt before. for days I couldn't muster a smile or a laugh or joke... and if you know me at all, you know how hard it is for me to not laugh.
I remember when I first met her, she was a fluffy little red ball playing in a back yard with a group of children. I was a little jealous since I was working and would have loved to be at home playing with a puppy instead. I worked next door to her once a week and I saw as she got bigger she was less important to her owners. She was left outside alone with a dog house and food/water bowls under a tarp. She was lonely and I loved her already, so we lunched together once a week til her owner told me not to pet her over the fences as she had been running away frequently.
It was hard to leave her alone when every time she saw me she would greet me with a 'boooo'. Something between bark and growl, it meant she was happy to see me. One day I showed up to find her chained to the dog house on the other side of the yard. A few weeks later I came by to clean up after a violent storm I saw the tree next to her dog house split by lightening and she was STILL chained next to it.
My stepdad and I talked and decided to give these neglectful people a chance to do the right thing and give her to me. I had already rescued a male calico kitten that month. His name was Oscar and I wanted to keep him, so badly. I wasn't allowed, so I gave him to my sister and her boys. He wasn't happy there, so when I got older, I took him back. He loved my father's home too much to leave, so we parted ways there but I saw him often and it was so good to see him happy.
back to Foxy! They were grateful to get rid of her, they asked that when we came by to get her, please leave a note so that they didn't have to call the pound and see if she ran away again. I was even angrier when I came to get her because the chain that never came off of her was attached not to a collar as I assumed, but to a choke chain with inward facing spikes. she was fluffy, I understand it was hard to get her collar tight enough to keep her put without choking her, but that was disgusting.
They had named her Cocoa, of all things. She was a bright red fluff ball with white markings and red freckles on her feet.. like a red border collie. Cocoa? pfft. Her new name was Foxy. She and I were inseparable for years, til I was 18 and moved out. I couldn't take her with me and it was awful to leave her behind, but she stayed with my mom and dad and their little dog who was great with Foxy. I visited as often as I could and I cried more often than I should have.
I moved three times between 18 and 21. Then I met Mike. Wonderful, sweet, loving Mike who made me happier than I had ever been in all my memory. We stayed in my apartment for a few months after getting married and then we decided it was best to move away to be on our own for a while. We found a place that was nice, bi enough for us, and allowed dogs. I finally got my Foxy back and the two people that were closest to me were together in the same house. She was wonderful when we got a little black kitten, Mojo Johnny. He would even sleep on her, so sweet. While I was going through pregnancy aversions her licking made me intensely angry. She was great with the baby, too. 6months after the baby arrived, I got a call from Mike at work telling me that a client called him to say Foxy had gotten out of the yard and was about to be taken to the pound. I didn't even look in the yard, I just ran down the street to get her. While the dog that was caught trying to get into the neighbor's yard was adorable, it wasn't my Foxy girl.
he was a big dog, looked like a chow/golden retriever mix with a little rotty tossed in. So skinny that my fingers could meet around his stomach and so cuddly and darling that he was in love with everyone he met.
After he was taken to the pound, I couldn't get him out of my mind so Mike and I waited
til his quarrantine was over and went to see if he was a good fit for our family. Poor Mike, never had a dog (unless you count a few months when he was 5) and here he was with a cat, two dogs, a wife and a baby within two years of meeting me. We named our new sweetheart D'Oji. D-O-G. It fit, what can I say? If he hadn't been mistaken for Foxy, if she hadn't liked him, then he would have been in the Roseburg Oregon shelter til he went mad or got sick and died.
Those two were like bookends through our moves to Nebraska and Wyoming, the loss of Mojo Johnny, the birth of our second child and back to Oregon, the birth of our third boy, and move to La Pine. Foxy loved living here in La Pine. SOOO much room to roam, plenty of hot sunshine and cool green grass, a big porch out front and out back. Doggy heaven.
We finally got the chance to buy our own home and she was still with us. I thank God for that. I wanted her to be buried at home and that wouldn't have worked out if we were renting still. Doubly lucky, we made friends with our neighbors, who were somewhat hermity like us. One of the neighbors works at the emergency animal clinic.
foxy was healthy always, but while I was 8 months along with my youngest, Foxy had what we thought was a seizure. It turned out to be vertigo, extreme sort. It left her with permanent damage, a tilted head and bad balance. She had already started getting hard of hearing and a little myopic, but after her vertigo it got much worse. She was virtually blind, seeing movement and not much else. The vertigo combined with her poor hearing made it hard for her to get where she intended to go, spinning in circles or placing her forehead on the ground if she got too confused. She also had a touch of arthritis in her back legs and it progressed rapidly as well. Falling down left her in bed for two days at a time, not getting up to go outside or eat during the recovery.
2 weeks after we moved to our own home, she went missing. We are a few block from the entrance to a state park where there is a river. We received a call from a kayaker who found her in a log jam, in that river... 15 miles down stream. He fished her out and warmed her up. We took her home and to a certain extent she recovered, but she started spending more time in bed, not wanting to be brushed or washed, barely eating. She had never been the type to run off, but she was taking any opportunity to go back to the house we had rented first in laPine, a few blocks away. The fear and dread in my stomach every time was killing me and it was because I knew she was trying to go off to die alone. I kept her around, I forced her to keep living for me. This last time she left, I knew it was the end. Thankfully, someone called animal control and while having her out down was painful, I didn't have to wonder about her and where she ended up, she didn't have to die in the snow, alone.
Foxy was put down on Sunday, but our friend and neighbor Jenny who works at the emergency animal hospital. It was quiet and peaceful, she was cuddled next to me, warm and soft. I stroked her head and ears as she fell asleep in the dimly lit little room. We brought her home that night and she'll never leave again. I will be planting a rose bush over her grave and I think of her all the time. she wasn't really a dog in my heart, she had her own mind and only stayed with me because she wanted to. I feel honored that she loved me that much and I wish there was a way to tell her it was returned, three fold.
D'Oji is lonley now and Mike has talked of a new companion for him soon. I think it would be good for him, poor lonely boy. it feels almost like a new generation reliving the past when I see my big gold red dog cuddled up on the floor with our new black kitten, Radar. I will never get over her, the pain will always be there,but so will the wonderful memories. Thank you for being with me for 19 years, Foxy.