blurg.

please weigh in on what you would have done. i'm really curious to get opinions:

tim sold his nissan 240 sx to a guy from fort riley last night. the guy was really excited and happy with the car, we signed over the title, money in hand, car was sold.

on his way back to fort riley, somehow the fan ate the fan casing, spraying shrapnel in the engine, cutting a fuel cable, thus killing the car. total freak accident that was in no way a pre-existing condition of the car.

the guy calls tim in the middle of the night, tim drives to mcpherson, reclaims the car because he feels bad for the guy, giving him his money back, even though he knows it was in no way his fault, and has the car towed (fortunately for free-AAA) back here.

now we have the broken car, and although i'm very frustrated, i kinda feel like it was the right thing to do, but still feel kinda torn. so what would you do, cause either way someone is out of luck.


discuss.

blessed

although today certainly had it's "if you whine one more time, my head is going to explode!" moments, overall, it was a very blessed day.

my fabulous nephew/partner in crime and decoration who helped me turn ben blue last summer (the link didn't work for some reason) came over this morning and made my day a happy, productive, more quiet than usual day.

seizing the coolness of the morning, we went outside after our late breakfast and i got to work on cleaning out the garage ALONE!!! while nephew extraordinaire entertained the boys. normally the boys are right with me, doing and undoing whatever i am trying to do. so, although i had tried many times, cleaning out a very messy shed with their help just wasn't working. to have the luxury of working on the project alone was beyond words wonderful. the task itself was really gross and overwhelming, but i made really good progress and am quite satisfied with my accomplishment. major, major, major! accomplishment!

while i was cleaning out, nephew asked if they could play with the (unused)tomato cages that were laying next to the garage. i made a lame joke about pretending to be tomatoes, he humored me and laughed, and then i said sure. i thought maybe he was going to make an obstacle course with them, but instead he put them on the boys and they thought it was really funny. ahh the simple pleasures.



i may not have gotten a garden planted this year, but these little creatures have been growing like weeds and might earn me a purple ribbon at the fair.

then nephew laid them end-to-end and challenged ben to crawl through.



we can't resist a challenge in our family. ben was quite pleased with himself and i have to admit, i was pretty proud to. it was quite reminiscent of the ridiculous things we did to entertain ourselves growing up and it made me happy that ben was game for such quirky goofyness.

they also played jail and alien with the cages, all without anyone being impaled by the pokey ends.



while the boys played and i cleaned, tim was able to focus on returning calls for a car we are selling and was actually able to hear the people without the boys being crazy yahoos in the background. we received a great response on our craigslist post for the car and if all goes well tonight, we will have the car sold in just a little over 24 hours since posting. God is good.

although we are both sad to get rid of "daddy's fast car", it was not practical and at this stage in our lives, we couldn't justify the expense of it. but gosh was it fun to go on dates in that noisy car! hopping into a four-door cavalier just isn't quite the same. just thinking about it makes me want to call tim and cancel the sale. alas.



tim saying goodbye.


while i was taking a few pictures of the car to remember it (sniffle, sniffle), i noticed a katydid on the window. although i didn't notice the reflection of our house until after i took the pic, i really like all the layers in the shot.



after tim left for work, i got out the boys' little wading pool and they had fun cleaning/filling it. give my boys water and scrub brushes and they'll be happy for a long time. as long as i don't mind dealing with the mess and accept that they'll be totally soaked when they're done "cleaning", it is a great activity when i need a break.

one my way to walmart after returning my nephew my mom called and invited us to dinner-could my day get any better?! my parents have been immeasurably helpful with tim's crazy schedule and we go over there a lot. in exchange for fabulous food, i beg to clean her kitchen in an attempt to earn our keep. we truly are blessed.

to top off the day, before i sat down to dinner, tim called with exciting news about his job. although nothing is official, he may get promoted several months sooner than we had thought he would. i was so excited and relieved and proud of him, i nearly cried while on the phone.


thank You, Father, for all these blessings. when i am weak, these days where i can almost literally see Your hands at work renew my spirit.

now off to collapse into bed.

t.i.r.e.d. !

(too lazy to upload pictures. maybe someday. it's good exercise to use your imagination.)

i've been quite a busy little bee lately-hence the absence. (sorry to leave you dangling in suspense, elizabeth.) okay, honestly, i've been plenty lazy with a few spurts of super productive.

the day of my last post, when i escaped for some craft therapy, i came home to a half way painted master bedroom. whah, what?! yes, instead of cleaning the house and taming the boys, tim plugged the boys in and started painting the bedroom. we had given the room up to ben last fall but were ready to reclaim it and hoping to put ben and max together, finally. painting the room had been on my to-do list and i had already bought the paint but just hadn't tackled the project yet. it had been a nice, soothing "herbal" green before, and i now wanted it white. plain white. after laying in bed and being nauseous while pregnant with max, the color wasn't very soothing to me any more and i just wanted a clean look. but i knew it would take several quotes to cover and was waiting for a magical, elusive burst of energy to start.

so i came home to even more house chaos than when i had left. praise the Lord i had the strength to bite my tongue and just thank tim for starting the project. it was very sweet of him to help me (as he knows one of my love languages is acts of service, along with quality time ((joel)), but my goodness did my tongue hurt. tim is not a project kind of guy and will do whatever it takes to get the task done as fast as possible. (or whatever it takes to avoid the project completely.) in the process of helping with this project he scratched the wood floor and broke the glass in a very sentimentally valued, large piece of art. as i came into the bedroom to behold it's glory, which he declared done, i observed walls that looked what could be best described as sad green walls that had been white washed. he had already done nearly two coats, but they would definitely need more. i painted for awhile but then just had to let it go for the night and thanked tim for giving me the motivation to start.

the next day i first tackled the house, then over the course of the next couple days, finished up the painting. once it was done, tim admitted that it looked so much better than his version and apologized for the floor and picture. although we've moved our dressers and bed in and are using the room, it is far from my done vision. i wish i could reveal an awesome, totally put together project but i'm trying to get creative (read thrifty)and it takes a lot more time and energy than just going to the store and buying a room in a bag. but i already love it so much more than before and nothing, NOTHING beats getting to look out the window at night to a starry sky and wake up in the morning to cool breezes. and that's what money can't buy.

so that was and continues to be a big project, along with consolidating the boys and their stuff in one room, cleaning out and organizing clothes, and restoring our upstairs to a lounge/storage room from a bedroom/closet/storage room.

to aide the cleaning out and organizing, today, a friend and i started our garage sale. the house already feels lighter and maybe i'll use some of the cash to finish up my projects. but it was a big undertaking. probably it's own post. several rooms had already been purged in may, knowing we were going to do one some time this summer, but all of them got cleaned out this last week.

last night we stayed up too, too late getting stuff ready and i only got four hours of interrupted sleep before heading back to the garage sale, zombie style. of course, instead of writing all this i should have went to bed, but i needed to wind down a little and wait for ben to fall asleep because he's....sleeping in our bed. the boys in the same room isn't working so great, but, eh, we have a king sized bed.

so cheers to getting stuff done, even if it means i'm totally pooped!

craft therapy

yesterday i was having a really challenging day, feeling really overwhelmed by work, the boys, the house, life. because it was tim's day off, i left, with no boys and no plan. after dropping off paperwork at work and clearing my head over a sandwich and a newspaper, i headed to the goodwill. i love thrift stores and was not disappointed yesterday. this happy print was just what i needed to lift my spirit.



yes, it may have been a bed sheet, but it didn't have to be used as a sheet. for $2 i got several yards of adorable, soft knit fabric, begging to be crafted into something for a sweet little girl.

after a quick call, i headed to my sweet momma's house and this happy little room.



i should have taken more pics yesterday because this one really doesn't do it justice. on the shelf is a cute row of thimbles and a pincushion that reads "i (a heart) my mom" spelled out in needle heads that i did long, long ago. i love her little craft room, were the sewing machine is always set up, she has every color of thread i could need, and sharp scissors always in their place. but most importantly, she kindly, with the bribe of a shoulder rub, threads the machine for me and even makes me bobbins. yes, i own a sewing machine. but it is not magically threaded by a fairy who then offers helpful tips and keeps me company.



not wanting to deal with a pattern, i invoked the help of my paternal grandmother, eyeballed the fabric,and started cutting. i used the elastic edge of the sheet as a waistband, sewed up the side for a skirt, and made a hem. once it was done, i walked over to my brother's house (who lives in the same neighborhood) and tried it on my niece, the intended recipient. she showed her approval in her own 16 mo. old way-namely, not pulling it off. because it was a little big, i went back to the happy room and sewed up the side a little more. then i made two more for two other nieces.



when all was said and done, i had this much thread left:



it felt so good to accomplish something, with no interruptions from the boys and no demands being placed on me. granted, the skirts were pretty wonky (and wrinkly), but i don't think the girls mind and fortunately they have very kind mothers who don't judge or look too closely.

honestly, more therapeutic than the sewing was getting to see my adorable nieces, along with their cute brothers and understanding parents. by the time i wandered home, my boys were beautiful again and tim had undertaken quite an interesting surprise.

oh this crazyhardincredible life i live.

he said whoops.

tim broke our computer, so i have been disconnected from the interwebs. it's been a blessing in some ways, but really, really annoying at other times. ol timmy boy always complains about how slow and buggy our computers get, but he's the one who makes them that way. good thing he's cute. (he hears that a lot at our house. our vanity is the only thing that keeps our family together.)

i don't really have anything to write about. i'm at my parent's now, with no children, and i'm ignoring them while they pray in the other room just to write this. and check facebook of course. so to a certain someone who demanded i write something-yes watermellen, i'm looking at you- here it is. there were also demands for funny but i don't think it's going to happen. when the computer gets resurrected i've got some pretty good pics to post.


i think i better give my momma my attention. i luv ya folks, but she's my momma for pete's sake and she's pretty fantastic.

that'll do.

after the last couple posts, it's only fair to share our very good day today.

tim had the day off, which is becoming like a holiday around here. back when he had a "normal" schedule, the weekends weren't really that big of a deal. now, i look forward to days off oh so much.

after i fed the boys breakfast, tim took them on an "adventure". (pretty much any activity that is daddy only is called an adventure because when ben was little (and max now), ben didn't like going places without me. so if we played it up as an "adventure", he was game. and really any amount of time spent with tim IS and adventure, because no one, including him, really knows what's going to happen.)having tim up and functioning before 9:30 is a pretty big deal, so having all three of them out the door by that time was HUGE!

tim took the boys to his mom's while he got some jobs done and i got to have quiet, uninterrupted work time. by the time i saw the boys in the afternoon, they were the cutest little guys i had ever seen. amazing the power of just a few hours to refresh the momma spirit!

we stopped at freddy's on the way home for an early dinner, so when we got home we just got to chill as a family. so. nice.



(uncle sam wants YOU!)

around six i gave the boys a snack and sent them outside to burn off energy, where they made grass hats-putting freshly cut grass on their heads. (my Godfather/brother/neighbor came over and mowed our foot-high yard last night. i almost cried.) after the grass hats, tim gave them baths and they went to bed.

THEN!!! i got to go on an awesome date with my husband. an already great day totally blown off the charts. i got "cuted" up because i was tired of being a troll mommy and we went to timberline. the food was soooo good and it was nice and mellow because it was a late dinner. in an alternate life, tim and i meet up for late dinners often at quiet spots around town. but tonight i was just happy to get to tell a story without interruption, no potty breaks were needed, and the only food i cut was my own.

on the way home, i was cold, so as a joke i put on ben's sweatshirt.



it was a lot easier going on than coming off. i got stuck for a bit while tim laughed at me.



i love this dress. i can't help but feel happy and carefree when i wear it. (except for the windy day that i wore it to mass. that's a doozy of a story.) and my red shoes. they also make me happy.





our days haven't been quite so "challenging" lately. i've been trying to reach out to our support network of family and friends more, which helps break up the monotony and keeps me and the boys from getting totally done with each other. it's silly really-we chose to live were we do so we can be close to our families and dear friends. but i don't like to "bother" them and ask for help. but my boys really are wicked cute and quite fun and for the most part, it's more like sharing the boys with our loved ones than bothering them. i just have to put my obnoxious pride aside that tells me i should be able to do all this on my own. supermom i am not. but that's okay because God has given me what i need. and then some extra blessings on top of that.

so reach out and feel the love. and pray out loud. i find that really helps!

hmmmmm.

that last post is a hard one to follow.

the sunday evening after i posted it, the boys and i went out to my brother's house. my dear friend and sister (in law) commented that she had read my blog recently and was happy to hear we were doing well and were finding a new balance with tim's job and our family life. i was puzzled, having posted the blow-out "tired" post most recently. but she was referencing the post before that one, written only a couple of days before "tired", which talked about how it seemed like tim's schedule was settling down, the boys and i were happy to be able to be getting outside, etc. yes, i realized, that in the span of a few days i offered totally different view points of our life. talk about bi-polar.

but that's just how i am. when things are crappy, it's hard to remember that that's not how my life ALWAYS is. (which is another reason this space is nice-i can go back and dwell on a really good moment when there have been too many rotten ones and the fog is getting dense.) i have a hard time keeping perspective, but verbalizing often helps me.

my bi-polar posts were also proof of how one week seems much, much longer these days. sometimes tim gets two days off in a row. the day before the two day stretch, once the boys are in bed, i feel like i can breath. finally, we'll have some time with him and we can get some things done. and then the days blink by. and the other five days and the crazy schedule seems like they stretch on for weeks.

the good part of all this is i have come to appreciate my dear spouse and parenting teammate sooooooooooooo much more. i see and feel how much better our family is when we're all together. sadly, i used to often take tim's good traits for granted and often focused more on the areas that needed improvement. although i'm still not a perfect wife (please resist outbursts of laughter at that heinous understatement), i try to be more thankful for all the things tim does really well and to verbally tell him how much we love having him around and how much we just...love him.

after writing that last post, i did at times feel like, maybe in fact, i am just a bad mommy. but i know that's not true. your kind comments reaffirmed that. but what really affirmed it for me was:

last weekend i sat behind two of my brothers' families during my nephew's First Communion. i'll admit, i was very distracted by my beautiful nieces and nephews, but more, i was taken by the beauty of watching my sisters as mothers. these are women who are also tired. women who have given their bodies over and over for their children, lost too much sleep, have husbands who are gone more than they would like. mommas who stay home with their babes at this point in their lives because they know that that's what is best for their families. i got to see little glimpses of their true love for their children-subconscious things like stroking their hair and kissing their heads, checking on them while they sat or played underfoot as the congregation stood, holding them even though their arms were tired. no, they may not always gush on and on about their children and how motherhood completes them and how they couldn't possibly be any happier. true love isn't defined by warm fuzzies. i looked up to the cross and thought about true love. sacrificial love.

so sometimes i might feel like a bad wife and mother because my thoughts and feelings aren't always pure bliss. and while i do truly believe that we called to be joyful in our vocations, when i'm not so good at that, i'm reassured by my actions that, yes, i really do love my guys.