Weekend

The kids' rooms are cleaner than my living room right now. This morning Princess said "Tag! Don't forget to clean your room just in case the House Fairy comes by to visit." They spent all the time they could, getting things straightened up before school which made my little heart go pitty-pat I tell you what. They are most certainly getting a surprise from the HF today.

On Saturday I went to support the Army-dillo (sounds like armadillo) by walking in the 2 mile race to support the Sentinel Foundation. The person doing the registering at the PX assured me that lots of families with kids walked. Well, someone forgot to tell the rest of the families that, so I ended up being the only walker. Man came with me... but I'm not sure why. Duty? Obligation? I told him he didn't have to come but I was taking the kids and we were going to have a good time. He wasn't happy to be there. His argument: "I have to walk for PT every business day of the week and now someone wants me to pay to wake up early on a Saturday and do more PT?" We got a t-shirt out of the deal though. I carried Tag part of the way (poor little asthma lungs), pushed a two seater stroller, and we had to get off the road several times as the 2 mile runners passed us up going and coming, and then the teams passed us up, and finally the 10k runners started passing us up just as the finish line came into sight.

I actually forgot to turn in my racing tag to be scored. I took it over to the score board and the man there got a little flustered. I said "don't worry. I was dead last. We crossed after 47 minutes." "Oh, well, that's ok. Just put it over here." We were a good 20 minutes slower than any other 2 mile participant so we ended up on the score board anyway. The 10k winner looked twice as old as any of the young military there but he won by several minutes. I was most impressed.

There was that family.... kind of in the way, the wife was overweight, the kids slow and one looked sick, the soldier is injured, BUT THAT'S OK. Do you know why? We Army families may not win races, but we finish them. And supporting the Sentinel Foundation was the point of the whole party, right?

The kids played in a bouncy castle, Princess and Tag got to ride Pistol the horse, Tag did some rock wall climbing, and the horse guy asked me if I'd like to try riding Pistol. I said sure, why not. Left foot in the stirrup, swing the right leg over... fail. I made the saddle slide around the horse. My face burned as I refused to look at all the athletic young things surrounding me and my foot got stuck in the stirrup. I laughed and tried to make it look intentional. Um, which it was....n't. The horse man said he could just tighten the saddle and get me up there with a heave. I laughed again, told him I'd try later in life using a mounting block, and let it drop. After that I was all funned out and we went out for Ice Cream. Which always helps bruised egos. Especially if it's a cute little place called (I kid you not) Marble Slab. We go there because the ice cream is just as good, they have cards that get you your 6th cone for free, and they have military discounts. Double dark chocolate ice cream with caramel chip mix in... bliss.

After we got home I mowed the lawns. It's dry enough now that we don't have hurricanes every week that I was breathing in a steady, thick cloud of chaff and dirt. Allergy heaven.

A shower and a batch of rolls later, I was off to the dinner before Women's Conference. I met new people as well as some from California. That was a bit surreal. There was even one sister there who was in CA as missionary, then she came back to live, met her fiance, and now she's living here with her husband for his training. It was just an odd circumstance.

As I was leaving the conference, several of the ladies kept staring at my chest. Which was unspeakably weird. Women can always tell when someone is staring at their chest no matter how discreet you think you're being. I finally looked down to see if I had grown a third bosom only to find the Freida had somehow managed to open my button up shirt right where everyone could see my bra. Lots of my bra.

The next day at church was the first day of our new callings as Sunbeams teachers (which was actually quite delightful. We re-enacted the parable of the Good Samaritan), Man got to be the ward chorister (during which Freida started screaming to high heaven, which meant I had to leave three kids in the chapel with a calling-bound husband and a room full of very kind people who are still largely strangers). I also got to play the piano for singing time which everyone assures me wasn't as bad as I thought it was but I know lousy piano playing when I hear it. I kept a stiff upper lip and did my best to play despite deficiencies and shaky hands, and the kids didn't seem to mind too much when they'd suddenly go acapella.

All in all, it could have been a really rotten weekend. But we had fun and made the most of things. And I got a re-reading of Ender's Game in which was awesome. I gave myself the luxury of a frozen lasagna for dinner one night and fish sticks for another night. Much cheaper than eating out, for sure and it was nice to have a bit of a break.

So, back to the grind. Except I feel like I'm resting today more than I got to all weekend. And I'm watching season 4 of The Office while I fold laundry. Woot!

pics

Mmmmmm, banana cream pie. If I see the cheap bananas in a bag, I grab one and make a pie and a batch of bread. Yes, old bananas are loved in my house.


It was a Monster Tag. (a monster tag!) He was a grave yard lad. (a monster tag!)


Just a random pic of my cute Freida.


She kept this bandaid on for a week. It literally fell of her finger and wasn't helping at all there at the end.

Names

When my sister was younger, she thought her name was [first name] [middle name] McGillicuddy O'Toole Flanagan because my dad would call her that every now and then.

I have a cousin who, until he was 5 years old, thought his name was Presh (short for Precious).

Pebbles just pointed to a picture we have in our home. "Is-sat Jesus Christ Amen?"

All is calm

Today I printed out my Michael's coupon, checked my grocery list twice, and headed out. Freida fell asleep on the way to the store, so walking up and down the rows and rows of delightful craft supplies was calm and brilliant. Pebbles (who is lately more of a Bam-Bam) had fun exclaiming over and fingering yarn, beads, ribbons, buttons, and odd-looking fake pumpkins. Freida woke up about half way through the store but was distracted by colors and shapes enough that she remained quiet. I walked away with a tidy handful of treasures -- just enough for one small project. I'm giving myself time.

At the grocery store we walked up and down the aisles, adding in one or two extras (primarily horchata), painstakingly avoiding the Halloween candy aisle, the chip aisle, the soda aisle, and a good portion of the bakery. I had already had a near miss with Dairy Queen which was advertising a banana split blizzard. But I drove away, dear readers, because I noticed this morning that despite my best efforts to drown some anxieties in ice cream, I'm starting to slim down a bit from walking kids to and from school, keeping a bigger house, and mowing a lawn with a really weird grade in it. I don't want to ruin this blessing and how good I'm feeling.

I realized halfway through this trip that I could walk as slowly as I wanted. The nursing baby was with me and content, the older kids were off doing something constructive, Man was safely at work, and Pebbles was amusing herself by waiting to see if I'd forget her in an aisle and then running to me with a grin and a giggle that made my heart glow. Grocery shopping is not my favorite pastime but I'm so glad that today there is peace.

Chore Charts Part.. oh, I don't know. Let's call it 37.

In my continuing search for the perfect chore chart, I have finally given up and just printed something off the computer. I know, I know, it isn't cute, fancy, it isn't the workmanship of my own hands, it doesn't use cute stickers, cute pictures, or even a gimmick of any kind. How non-Utah is that?

I don't know how to make a file downloadable from a blog (any ideas?) but here's a picture:



The above is Princess' chart. The best part is, it has worked for a whole one day! I've coupled it with the House Fairy idea, but after watching just one HF video I've ingested enough saccharine to go into a sugar coma. Fantastic idea and I'm thinking of making a donation out of pure joy, but I'm still feeling a little ill. The basic idea is that the kids never know when the HF is going to come and see their rooms. If they are clean, the HF will leave a surprise. If not, they'll get a little note that says "better luck next time!" I've told mine that I'm going to pretend to be a HF since we don't do the whole "some mythical person is watching you, so be good or else" thing.

Man asked why I didn't just leave the Fairy bit out and just tell them that they'd be getting surprise inspections. The soldier flavor of that doesn't agree with me either.

I love the positive reinforcement of it though. The kids woke up this morning, having cleaned their rooms yesterday, and perfected them before going to school.

Now, you have to understand that these kids get woken up at 6:15am in order to be ready to walk out the door by 7am. This morning they were ready to go by 6:40 (shoes and all!) and wanted to put a dent in their chore charts and make sure everything was Fairy-worthy. Tag even started a load of laundry for me. That right there was worth the entire effort of printing these things out.

Now, today is day two. If we're still doing ok by these ideas by next week, I'm going to throw myself a little party.

It's either perfect or finished

I've talked about my perfectionism a lot over the past couple of years. It's something I struggle with on a daily, minutely basis. If I know it won't turn out perfectly, I don't start it. If I see it isn't developing perfectly, I quit. It's pathological, it's caused me and the people I love a lot of pain, and it's severely limiting. I analyze everything I ever tell people -- I torture myself with remembering what I said wrong or stupid and it makes me sick. I don't finish knitting projects that have errors at the beginning, and if I tear it out I can't bear to restart because I now know that I might do it imperfectly. I had to quit rereading my blog posts several times to correct errors because it tripled my blogging time and didn't help a whole lot anyway.

So, let me say again something I said yesterday: I finished a project.

Now that the older kids are in school, I've found freedom and time that I never knew I'd have ever again in my life. Slowly, some of my creativity is coming out to play and the first thing I've done with it is make a new Family Home Evening Chart Thingy of Power. Why of Power? Because I freakin' finished it, booyah!

I started with an oval board, painted it burgundy, but couldn't find the little wood cutouts I wanted. I ended up making little dangly things with our initials on them out of beading supplies, but then couldn't find cup hooks in the right size or color. Apparently no one makes the tiniest cup hooks in anything but brass. So I did a redesign. I also decided that my handwriting was too lousy to actually paint or write on the board itself and got stickers, but was not pleased with how they looked so I actually used my very own handwriting on the darn thing in silver paint pen. And yes, it's done. It's DONE!!

But I can't show you a picture until I have better light for pictures. The stinking thing is so very imperfect and I did have to make some concessions on its appearance because it could either be perfect or done. I chose what I've heard is the higher road. It isn't the highest road (perfect AND done, darn it!!) but it's higher than tossing it in the heap of all my other projects.

I'm tempted to just start all over again but this time find all the things I need and change the colors to allow for the brass hooks. But what would I do with two of them? I'd put the first one in a box and move it 3-4 times around the country before getting tired of the guilt and throwing it away. No, my beloved little project deserves more than genesis and immediate rejection.

Maybe I could sand it and just start...

No.

But I do need to touch up the paint over there...

Leave the Chart of Power alone.

Just a little? Just enough to straighten out that one crooked word?

SILENCE!!!

But...

Tsssssh! No! No. Negative. (Thanks, C! I say that all the time now)

Now... we need to start having Family Home Evening.


Oh, by the way, Man and I have new callings at church. We team teach Sunbeams (the 4-5 year old kids), and he is ward chorister (using only his left arm) and I am primary pianist. Boy, they sure didn't waste time heaping a few of those our way, did they? Man also already has a full home teaching route and I'll be getting my visiting teaching route in a couple of weeks. And the primary presentation is at the end of October!! Ack! Can I learn the music by then? Not perfectly, I'm sure. Ha!

Finishing things

Pebbles always falls asleep on the way home from walking the kids home from school.

I finally finished a project. I think it's the first time I've finished a project in a very long time. It all started...

Oh, bother. It's almost 11 and I have to sleep. But don't let me forget to tell you all about the FHE Plaquish, Plaguish, Shan't Languish, Chart of Power!

It isn't as impressive as it sounds, but... ok, more on that later. To sleep, my dear ones.

GPS

GPS. In the very first care package my mom sent me when I moved out on my own, she included a compass. Why? Because I'm directionally impaired. I usually have to drive somewhere (actually behind the wheel) 3-4 times before I can do it on my own, depending on how complicated of a route we take. So, with all the moving we've done/will be doing, we decided that a GPS would be a good purchase. We got it before the move out here and I tell ya, it saved our tails on a number of occasions even with Man ("he with pizzaboy/cabbie directional sense") in the van with us.

This female robot voice gives the directions. Which I think is hilarious. You know, a female voice giving the driver directions. On the other hand, I'm sure that it's mostly females using the device in the first place, so maybe it makes women drivers less irritated if it's one of their own making the suggestions.

She sometimes says weird things. When she says "as soon as possible, make a legal u-turn" which really sounds like "as soon as possible, make illegal u-turn" which I'm sure wouldn't hold up in court at all, unless you really want to tell a judge about the voice that tells you to commit moving violations.

It tries to take you on what it's sure is the fastest or shortest route, and you can also have it take you on a route using a few as or as many highways as possible. Getting to know this city a bit, I've learned the fastest way to get to the mall despite the GPS's earnest desire to take me on a ridiculous surface street route, so I go to the highway and then pay attention. Sometimes I like to take a street that I know is parallel to the one I'm going to have to end up on anyway because there are fewer stop signs. The GPS doesn't know about the stop signs so at every intersection it says "approaching left turn", then readjusts the route and again tries to get me to take a "left turn". After it exhausts all the left turns, it sometimes tells me to make "illegal u-turn", but sometimes it just gives up and tells me how to get there how I want to get there.

I can't wait for the day when the female robot voice says "well, forget you woman. See if I care. DON'T take the approaching left turn and DON'T blame me when you roll into Albany when you were trying to get to Abilene. If you need me, I'll be mapping you a route to HECK, lady. Yeah, oh, by the way, here's another left turn you could.... oh, for the love of Pete! I just don't get any respect..."

You know, if female robots ever PMS. I'm sure that's what one would sound like.

Goofy Glasses

Today was Goofy Glasses Day for Tag. They are learning the letter G all week (all week?? Princess had a letter every day. But I digress.) but I couldn't find any goofy glasses at the store despite a none too tiny Halloween section. So, I improvised.




If you click on the picture to see a larger version, notice what parts of his face you can see in the light of the glow sticks.


And another Texas sunrise. Just gorgeous. These Ike clouds are so fascinating.

I spy, with my little eye....

I was going through my site counter stats and noticed with a shock that someone from the Department of Veterans Affairs has been looking at my blog!! And someone from Denmark! And someone in Alaska! Ok, so I know who the person in Alaska was, but the DVA thing made me wonder, all of a sudden, if Man has superiors who are just checking up on me every now and again.

I suddenly want to either do something extremely goofy, or go and erase all of my goofy stuff. Do you ever have that feeling? I guess I havn't quite outgrown a slight impulse to laugh at authority.

And who the heck do I know in New York, you know? This whole blog thing started out with just a handful of friends and relatives taking a peak every now and then and I keep forgetting (you know, every time I come here to bleed) that someone I don't know quite so well is taking a peek into the depths of my life and thoughts.

Ok, so maybe not the most brutally honest, clandestine, yet (ahem) wonderfully intricate and profound workings of my mind.

But I did something stupid the other day. You want to hear about it? Of course you do.

I was going to visit post one day. There's something in the military called Force Protection Conditions (you can read about them here) and we are in FPCON Alpha, which means there is a low level of general threat. Which makes sense, us fighting something like 7 wars at once and all. As a result of this, we have papers posted everywhere reminding us not only what FPCON we're in, but also how to recognize a Muslim extremist (as opposed to the vast majority of perfectly nice, Muslim moderates) and what to watch out for in unidentified, unmarked packages left in public places. (I call them UUPs, not only because I like to name everything, but also because it's fun to say "watch out for the UUPs" which is pronounced like "yoops" as in "yoops, I shouldn't have left that brown paper wrapped Christmas parcel in the front seat of my car, because a bomb squad is here to detonate my vehicle, so how am I going to get these groceries home?") These signs are all over the commissary. Which is totally something I want to think about while grocery shopping, especially if I do something dumb and bring all four kids with me.

Anyway, back to me being stupid. I was going through the ID check point at the front gate (which is always an intimidating experience, being faced with three layers of road barriers arranged in a maze, as well as tire spikes and even more road barriers that rise out of the ground with a click of a button. I'm sure it's a red button.) and handed my ID to the security guard. He looked like a nice guy, and there was a fully armed and armored service person standing right next to him. I was exhausted and right in the middle of last week's "please ceiling, fall on my head" personal drama so I do what I do best: make stupid jokes to alleviate my stress. So I recalled Bill Cosby's funeral bit ("Doesn't the deceased look like himself?") and smiled and said "don't I look like myself?" The security guard sort chuckled nervously, looked back at GI Grim (who, did I mention, had an M-16 in his hands?) and said "ma'am, I'm sure you do every day of the week." I thought about how I woke up this morning looking more like a brutalized banshee, laughed a said "well, I don't know about that. Have a nice day!"

As soon as I started to drive away I realized that right about then I should be crashing into a road barrier and hearing huey's descend upon me, just in case I still looked like a banshee and they thought that meant that I was a Muslim extremist. Which I'm not. Besides, I'm a very tall white woman with 4 white kids in my minivan. How extremely Muslim could I look?

I kicked myself in the rear all day about that and couldn't bring myself to mention it to Man, in case he thought they would try to detain him the next day on account of having a wife who doesn't know when to shut up. If GI Grim can't keep me quiet, what would?

-sigh-

So, if someone from the DVA is reading this and I have "made stupid remark to gate guard" on some sort of secret, personal record, just know that I'm very sorry and it won't happen again.