There's a Fence Blocking Me

This is one of many pictures that I did not take.

I was driving on a freeway and didn't feel like

it would be very safe to take my attention off the road,

but wanted so badly a picture of the Utah

mountains that I said to my awesome cousin,

Heidi,

"Would you please take some pictures for me?"

And she did.

And I'm glad.

Because it looks like I'm having my annual

(maybe bi-annual or quarterly)

mental freak out.

This time it's my identity.

Well, my future identity.

Who will I be?

What will I do?

Why can't I get it together and keep up the house?

I have a daughter leaving in June to start college.

(That's what prompted the Utah trip-checking out things.)

I have a baby who'll be in school full time in September.

I have a husband who is very involved in lots of things, but still likes some attention.

I have two other tender hearted kids who have their own special needs.

(And I don't mean they are special needs kids, I mean they each have things they are dealing with - that, as a mom, I get the divine priveledge of helping them work through.)

I finished college.

I chose not to have a career.

I (really, we) chose to start our family young.

I (we) worked hard to get my mr. through school.

I told myself that I'd "go for it" when the kids were older.

But now I am wondering how much older.

I worry about how we'll make it,

even though I know it always works out.

And I feel like there is something wonderful hiding behind a fence,

waiting for me to get through to it.

I would really like to know what it is.

My hand on the wheel of an awesome rental car with my dad's hat on the dash.

Conversations

Image from here.

I finished our taxes. I know I should have done this before March 1, as we now have a "student" in the house, but, I didn't, and now we will deal with the consequences. Oh well.
I will do better next year.
And I will learn more about FAFSA.
Yay.

"Precious Father, why have you given me this desire to wrestle and then made me such a stinky warrior?"
--Nacho

 little mr. j has had a weird fever that comes on hard and then breaks (very sweatily breaks).
Then it goes away for a while and then it comes back. He plays, plays, plays and then crashes.
I've kept him home from PreK since Wednesday.
He's been doing better today. That fever tried to pop up again at 10am, but I think we made it go away.
Today was class picture day and I didn't want him to miss that, so I emailed his teacher (yesterday) and asked if it was ok if I brought him in just for the picture and she called back while I was taking a nap with him and his breaking fever on the couch. Her email wasn't working but she wanted me to tell him that they missed him and of course he could come for the picture and she was sorry she woke me up. I believe I told her I didn't mind and thank you, but I'm not quite sure. All I knew was that I was now awake, someone was talking to me and I was wet with sweat.

He smiled real cute for the picture and tried to explain to his friends that he wasn't really there.
He was there,
but his friends weren't noticing.

He has a bit of a snotty nose.
That's it.
Yesterday, during the fever, I asked him how he felt? "Does your tummy hurt? Throat? Are you achy?"
He said, "When I get down from a chair, I walk like a penguin."
OK.
Fever talk?
I don't know, he was pretty coherent.

Right now, he and miss s are watching Nacho Libre in the family room.
Earlier today he and I picked miss s up from school to take her to a doctor appt.
The doctor tried to talk little mr. j into working for her, but when she found out he had weak phone skills, she said she couldn't hire him.  So sad.
But, as we were going out to our car, there were five business men in slacks, light blue polo shirts and a couple of cigarettes having a conversation two vehicles over from ours.
miss s said she didn't think that many people smoked anymore.

They were talking about Nacho Libre.
I think they worked for COX (cable provider).
We use DISH.

Yesterday she told me about a conversation that she walked by at school.
It had to do with underwear.
And Mormons.
And Mormon underwear.
She just kept walking,
but I don't think she walked very fast because she told me an awful lot about that conversation.

Now a joke,
Say this to someone, "What are you doing under there?
And when they say, "Under where?"
You say, "BAHAHAHAHAHA."

And a conversation that my mr sat by during lunch today (it's a copy of an email he sent me):
the mrs,  my total scout mileage is 908 miles for 2010. Attached is the monthly breakdown. Thank you for taking care of our taxes again. I’m eavesdropping on some guys talking about the errors in the Book of Mormon. The interesting thing is they agree it’s a great book and has good content, but they are picking at things like Nephi writing about Laban’s “steel” sword before steel was invented. Now they are talking about how American Indians couldn’t have descended from Lehi because they were here thousands of years before the history of the Book of Mormon. Now they are saying, “I could have written a Book of Mormon”. Pretty interesting...

Take care, your mr

Only his miles were wrong and he sent me a follow up email. And we don't call each other the mr and mrs.

I wonder how all this connects. Because it just has to.
I'm going to go take my temperature.
Good night.
Hug hug, kiss kiss, hug hug, big kiss, little hug, kiss kiss, little kiss.
--from Nacho (& me)

Snippy

These are not mine. Mine cost a lot less than these ones.

I got mine at Westlake ACE Hardware. I don't know which lake it's West of, but if it's the lake I'm thinking of, Ace is REALLY West of it.

The snazzy image came from here.

So here's a list of what's been trimmed, cut down or taken out this week:

a baby field of  love grass

(ok, this was trimmed the week before, but I'm still counting it)

8 wisdom teeth

little mr. b's finger and toe nails

(finally)

my eyebrows

(actually, plucked)

dead decorative tall grass in the landscaping

dead decorative tall grass in the landscaping

dead decorative tall grass in the landscaping

dead decorative tall grass in the landscaping

dead decorative tall grass in the landscaping

crazy knockout rose bush

crazy knockout rose bush

crazy knockout rose bush

(I know this was wrong, but they were driving me crazy.)

And, because I was on a tear yesterday

(it began with the deads and ended with heads),

little mr. b's hair

little mr. j's hair

my toenails

Alyson's toenails

(I was only a witness.)

And,

at exactly 9:23pm on this day, 22 March, 2011,

the next to last baby molar of a certain

young man.

(I wonder if the tooth fairy will remember to come tonight.)

Today the big Oklahoma wind visited again. It was garbage day. It's not good to have a big windy day and a big garbage day coincide. Makes for a very large mess. Lesson: when you live in a windy area, bag your garbage well before you put it in the bin.  Our bins are big. I filled one up with dead decorative grass and knockout rose debris. It wasn't very heavy and kept on tipping over-along with about 5 others on our street. little mr. j and I did quite the secret service project for our neighbors.  Hence the lesson, because no one wants to pick up other people's ickys and blue melted ice cream. After we finished, we retrieved our yard waste from other folk's yards, got stabbed by some thorns and fought with the bin a couple more times. I finally found something big and broken in the garage and threw it in to give the thing some weight. Now it's gone.

This afternoon, when I came home, there was a wind powered tonka truck driving around in our driveway and an empty trash bin with wanderlust traveling down the road, half a house away.

So tonight, I dare you to ask, "why so snippy?"

Sunday School

I hope this week that I'll not be in the thick of thin things.
How about you?

Widsom Lost (actually forcibly taken)

So, I am probably a horrible mother for posting these pictures, but I have to. I can't help myself. This is a memory that needs to be preserved. And since we didn't get to bring any teeth home to leave for that dang tooth fairy, this is the best the girlies are going to get; their painful day told from their mother's perspective.

1. I was so nervous for them last night that I didn't fall asleep until 3am.

2. Getting up super early on a beautiful Spring Break morning to drive them to their pain.

3. Doubting the wisdom of deciding to do all eight teeth in one day and doing it at all while watching the requisite "person caring for the condemned" video. First feeling that I might just loose my breakfast.

4. Waiting and wondering why it was taking so long & then being taken back to the first girl coming out of her anesthetic in a very crying manner. (Said girl also having the breath of death.) Poor thing. She totally reaffirmed my belief that that type of thing is not for me. I never, ever, never, ever, ever want to be put under. Creeps me out. Second feeling that I might just loose my breakfast.

5. Sitting by that sweet girl while she asked me (the best she could through swollen, cotton filled cheeks), "Why? Why? Why did we do this?"

6. Not telling her that I was thinking the same exact thing.

7. Leaving her with her very mature oldest younger brother while I went across the little hall to wait with the other young woman, who came out of her situation in a much easier fashion. Third feeling that I just might lose my breakfast until she started laughing at me, which hurt her, so I stopped making her laugh and forgot about throwing up.

8. Not being able to understand the technician woman who was telling me to pull in to the drive by the building with two car doors facing their building so the girls would not have to walk around the car. (I think this is where my sleeplessness the previous night had the worst effect.) Fourth feeling that I just might lose my breakfast.

9. Walking out to retrieve said vehicle and fifth feeling that I just might lose my breakfast - that this time had absolutely nothing to do with wisdom teeth situation. You see, there is a Purina processing plant near the little medical center where we were. And I have a sensitive schnoz. All I can say is yuck and I am glad I didn't lose my breakfast, because that would have been bad.

10. Taking pictures of the girlies, because yesterday they asked why I didn't put more pictures of them on the blog. Now there are a few more. Yay.

11. Getting situated at home and them crashing on the couch. We let them have the prime couch spots so I could keep a good watch on them. I also made a "chart" to keep track of what I was doing with each girl, so I wouldn't mess any of the aftercare up.  I don't think I did-so far.

12. I am so tired.

13. Goodnight

14. PS- I will be getting up at 1 and 2 am to visit the girls. I will tell them hello from you. They are in their beds now.
15. PPS-Don't you just love the retro head wrap they got? I'm sure it'll be all the rage soon. They were really rocking their post-op icepack look. (They are actually really awesome-like a tube part of a tube sock with velcro to hold it on. The ice packs just slid in the tube.I'm sure they'll be getting good use in the months and years to come.)

Dang Tooth Fairy

Image found here.

The tooth fairy has a bad history at our house.
He/She doesn't come for days on end.
Sometimes weeks.

Tonight that is going to change.
I hope.

I talked to one of my friends about their family's tooth fairy and she told me that once, their fairy forgot to visit for over a month.
Guess how much that child received when the fairy finally visited?
Yeah, a lot.
I guess that fairy must have had much guilt.

Our fairy probably doesn't feel guilty yet, probably just shame.
I'm thinking mr. b might do well tonight.

I'm also thinking that an enterprising child might use the delinquent fairy situation to his/her financial advantage.

Here's the plan:
-loose the tooth
-quietly, while everyone's distracted, make the "guess what?" announcement
-hide the tooth
-once a week, while everyone's distracted, make the "no tooth fairy visit" announcement
-after a sufficient amount of time, make that announcement in a much louder voice, stressing how long it's been since the tooth came out.

If that child lived at my friend's house, they'd make some serious cash.

One week from tomorrow morning, miss h and miss s are scheduled to each get four wisdom teeth removed.
I don't think the tooth fairy's going to go for those.
I think their mouths might have already tapped out their tooth fairy accounts.
Especially after their procedures.
I guess we'll see.

Alright, I've got to go check on little mr. b.
Good Night.

Sunday School

I am forcing myself to come to Sunday School tonight.
I know it's good for me. I know I'll feel better after I write.
It's just so hard to sit still here and focus, when there are a bunch of other things I could be doing-like reading that book I had a hard time putting down last night or getting a drink of water.

But, I am sitting here in the little office with my mr. who is not talking to me because he is writing a talk. (Yes, another talk, can you believe that? Actually, he's going to be speaking ~ giving a talk ~ quite often now. He got a new *calling a little while back.) He's going to be speaking in our *ward this coming Sunday and I am going to miss it because miss h got the news she was waiting for and we are going on a little journey to visit her soon-to-be new living situation.

my mr. was asked to talk about "the more excellent way." I don't know exactly which scripture this is based on. I would look over his shoulder and be nosey, but I'm not going to bother him. He's very focused.
I looked "more excellent way" up and found two scriptures. Here they are:

1 Corinthians 12:31
But covet earnestly the best gift: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.

Ether 12:11 (This is in *The Book of Mormon.)
Wherefore by faith was the law of Moses given. But in the gift of his son hath God prepared a more excellent way; and it is by faith that it hath been fulfilled.

We had *New Beginnings this last Wednesday. *Bishop gave a talk to the young women and referenced the more excellent way. He talked about the situation with Brandon Davies at BYU. He talked about how if we can choose to live the more excellent way, how much better life can be, how much more joy we can have.
And I totally agree.

miss s, miss h, and I had a conversation about BYU and the Church universities last week, when a student at their school was horribly beaten by another student.  They were very shook up. The little fights happen quite often & they've grown used to them (sad). But this one scared them.

They wanted to know what a Church school would really be like. Really, people don't swear in public? They wear modest clothes? They don't talk about sex and alcohol and drugs all the time? They care about their future and are doing something about it? (FYI-my girls have good friends, who make good choices, but they are in a public high school-they are exposed to what the world has in it.)

How fortunate I was to be able to tell them that if they go to BYU, they will be surrounded by people who have the same standards and values as them. Yes, there will be some people who will push the limits, but for the most part, they will be living in a wholesome environment that will allow them to focus on what is really important and not on the distractions the world has to offer.  It's ultimately up to them to choose the more excellent way, but given that environment, it will be easier and I think that after being exposed to what they have in the past few years, they will appreciate it so much more.

So, guess where miss h and I are going this week?
Yep, she got into BYU.
We are going to Utah.
And we are excited.

And, if you are in the congregation next Sunday, please smile at my mr. for me.
(The girls have instructed him to not be "dry" in his speaking, but I seriously doubt he will use the words this speaker used a little over a year ago.)
And, if it looks like he's scowling at you, he's not.
I promise.

Good Luck this week & remember to choose "the more excellent way!"
 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*calling- in the LDS church, we get "called" (asked through inspired leaders) to do certain jobs in different organizations, we have a "lay ministry" meaning that is voluntary service
*ward- a geographic area that defines what congregation people attend
*Book of Mormon- Another testament of Jesus Christ, we use it right along with the Bible. If you'd like a copy, let me know and I will get one to you
*Bishop- our ward's leader
*New Beginnings- a yearly event in the Young Women's (ages 12-18) organization where we introduce the program to the girls coming into our group in the current year and new members (my calling is in Young Women's).

Dear Amanda,

Picture from here. Where I wish I'd bought the pineapple from.

Whew. What a week.

(Actually, what a two weeks.)

And I still have much to do.

So, I will leave you with a

thank you note that I

need to get written.

And it might be telling about

the state of my mind

of late.

Dear Amanda,

Thank you for finding the pineapple in the car.

I had been wondering where that funky fruity smell was coming from.

I looked and looked but couldn't find the source.

You did.

Thank you.

Love,

the mrs.