Scream

AAAAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Boredom

OMG, I am bored! I have decided to start selling jewelry and I can't start for another month, but I am anxious and ready to get started. The house is mostly clean, except for the bedrooms and about two loads of laundry, but I don't want to clean anymore. That is all I have done all week. But I love it being clean. But when I clean bedrooms, it is not just picking stuff up out of the floors. That is straightening. When I clean bedrooms, I mean pull everything out of the closets, out from under beds, dusting, cleaning out drawers, getting rid of clothes that don't fit, shoes that I never wear. Each room is at least a day long. So tomorrow, I'll keep the main rooms straightened, and if I can find the motivation, I'll start on my room. I am so ready for my room to be cleaned to my standards of clean. Not just straightened. Right now, I am heading into the craft/sewing room to get lost hopefully in something brilliant.

So Screwed

I have to get organized. I am driving myself crazy!! And I really screwed up the finances this time. I scheduled an online payment for my house before payday. Well, when payday rolled around, I forgot that was scheduled and I paid other bills. Now, if and when that house payment clears, I will be screwed. And I know it is coming. It is what I deserve for my lack of organization. If we can just make it through until next Friday.... I've told Mr. Wonderful who claims that he is not going to worry about it and that there is no point in being mad at me because that won't change anything either. So he says.

I do make a promise to myself and my God that I will be a better steward of money. I have promised myself that before, and I never kept my promise. But this time, I am making the promise to God. From this day forward, I will be a better money tracker, a better bill payer. Not just for my sanity, but for my hardworking husband who is allowing me to stay home again with our last child. Things have to be different. We are going back to one pay check and have to get back in that frame of mind. No more eating out, no more shopping.

With the purchase of our washing machine last week, I have totally embraced the cleaning thing that I have always hated. I love having a clean kitchen, clean dining room, laundry being done, etc. I can't wait to clean. As a matter of fact, I am off of here to do just that.

surgery?

I have surgery scheduled for the 30th of this month to fix a deviated septum and turbinate reduction. I am totally terrified. I don't know why. I have asked God for peace about the surgery. I have asked others to pray. But still no peace. Only today, I read about the unsuccessful side of this surgery. If any of you have had this surgery, please let me know your experiences with it, whether positive or negative. This will help me decide if I want to go through with the surgery.

Also, please be in prayer for two family members. My nephew, Spencer, has what seems to be staph but maybe just an infection from an ant bite. Doctors have given them conflicting information about what needs to be done. He put a bandaid on it today and the bandaid actually pulled part of the sore off and so it was drained at the doctor, but that is what one doctor said did not need to happen. Please pray that he will have some relief from this and that the procedures that the doctors are doing are successful.

My sister, Brenda, aka Mom on the Go, is also having health issues. She has been for quite a while. But just lately, they have begun looking at MS as a diagnosis. Please pray that this is not the case. While I would love a diagnosis of what is going on with her, I would love for that diagnosis to be something treatable. I also pray that her symptoms do not increase or amplify.

Thanks for your support.

The Juices are Flowing

The creative juices are flowing again. It feels so good to be behind the sewing machine again. I have instituted a schedule for the kids for the remainder of the summer which enables me to have time to do what I enjoy. It also gives me specific times to be creative, to be domestic (including cleaning which I hate to do!), but also makes the kids responsible for the messes they make. There are two scheduled pick up times for them. At those times, they must pick up any messes they have made that morning and that afternoon. If they finish with what they dragged out, then they move on to their rooms. But since it can all be overwhelming to kids, I am starting small. I set a timer for 10 minutes for pickup, and then 10 minutes in their rooms cleaning up. Today, they had one task--to put away toys. Tomorrow their one task is to put away clothes and shoes. While they are doing their pickup, I have time to get lunch fixed. It is working out much better for me than them. I love knowing I only have to clean for a specified amount of time before I am on to something better.

One of the creations from this week may just be the most unnecessary makeover ever--my mailbox. But it was so drab and dreary, I decided to give it a facelift. I hit it with a shot of black spray paint and some adhesive vinyl and voila. I love the way it turned out.
I have been sewing baby shower gifts, but wanted them to be something personal. I am so tired of the pinks and whites of store bought gifts. Yes, they are beautiful. But I wanted something with some zing. So, I stepped behind the sewing machine. It's been months since I have sewn, and I love the sense of accomplishment that I feel every time I complete something. These are the shower gifts I completed today.

Weird Vacation Apology

Vacations are relaxing, refreshing, an escape from reality. That is, unless you take my children. My sister, Leigh, and I took her two teenagers, "my" teenager, and my three little ones on vacation. In trying to conserve money, I chose to stay somewhere off the beach, somewhere that Google Maps told me was only a 25 minute drive from the beach. Well, that turned out to be a lie. It was closer to an hour. But we arrived on Wednesday afternoon and did a little shopping. Like the idiot that I was, I took my children in the bookstore. NEVER. AGAIN. We checked in around 4:00, all of us not in the greatest of moods. I took my 3 to see Ice Age Dawn of the Dinosaurs, at which time Baby K started whining to go home. Said whining lasted the rest of the trip. Thursday the plan was to get up and go to the beach after breakfast. We did not even start towards the beach until around 10:30, had to stop at Wally World, and did not arrive at the beach until around 12:30. It was upon arriving at the beach that I realized that I hate the beach. Okay, I do not hate the beach all the time, but I hated taking 3 crabby kids to the beach. The teenagers got hungry and I was bored out of my mind by 3:00, so we packed up and headed back. Those three hours were the only three that we spent at the beach. Friday we went outlet shopping at Foley.

I do want to apologize to Leigh. I do not think you had a good time, and for that I apologize greatly. It was not my intention to go down there and only spend a few hours at the beach, because I know that you love it. And if it is possible, I think you enjoyed my children even less than I did. Not because we don't love them, but because they are horrible. They are brats. And I really am sorry. Next time there will be better research done for hotels, and ours will have a pool. It will be no where near a city that drives me crazy. And it will be less a few children. I really am sorry.

But it sure does feel good to be home. We did not even eat out this morning. Just picked up some food and ate on the way home. We were home by 10:15. So relaxing? No. Refreshing? No. Escape from reality? Nope. A heaping dose of it.