timber!!

This is, or should I say was, our lovely willow tree. The tree where bees liked to hide and jump out to sting Ed when he was mowing (resulting in a trip to the ER). The tree that we didn't mind if it fell on the house (when we weren't home that is...that's how much we liked our house).









But we're starting to like our house. Especially our new siding, steps and driveway and we don't want the tree to fall on it. So the tree met its demise yesterday. I didn't realize how big this tree was until I took the picture below and saw the guy standing straight up next to the cut down trunk and it was taller than him.



I will not miss the tree. Or the bees. Or it possibly falling on our non Adams Family looking house. Good bye tree. We did save some of it though. It'll be displayed in the front garden bed. As wood chips.

a super find

One of my favorite foods are cheese puffs. Not curls mind you. Too crunchy. But I would will myself not to buy them as they aren't the best thing for you.

Then I found these





Oh cheese puffs! Now I can eat a lot and not feel guilty or bad about eating them. Yes, they are a bit more expensive for a smaller bag. I'm learning how to ration and enjoy every single mouth melting bite.

new found word

Roil: To be in a state of turbulence or agitation.

I thought roil was something between boil and rumble. But turbulence or agitation much better describes the state my stomach was in at 3:30 this morning.

This has happened before. When I ate steak. It knocked me off my feet the next day to the point where I was living in the bathroom thinking there was nothing left to come out of me, but stuff somehow managed to be found.

This time it was meatballs. And this time I told myself to throw up as that would make the sick process go much faster. And it sure has.

I also told myself to suck it up as I needed to watch the little one year old today and that I had to make it through and was already praying for strength. 10 minutes later my phone rang and it was her mom saying she was staying home today. I was floored, humbled, in awe and so very thankful that my prayer was answered and not like I expected it to be. I went and crawled back into the toasty bed.

So today I have been feasting on GU2O and Pepto tablets. My tummy is now rumbling with hunger instead of agonizing pain. My back started hurting (just like it did last time), so I knew everything was almost over.

I think my body is telling me not to eat beef. It's not something we eat a lot of, maybe once a month, hence the reason it rejects it in the most horrible way possible.

Of course my favorite treat is prime rib. Oh how I love thee and will miss thee.

mold breaker

Remembering back on growing up, every Sunday was, well, predictable. Church, home to a tantalizing pot roast aroma wafting through the house, eat around the table as a family, nap, homework, church, home for a snack, bed. No tv during the day. No chores. Skirts to church. This was how it was for 20 years. It wasn't bad by any means. That's what was ingrained in my being and the mold that was made for me.

Then I got married.

Today I think I broke almost every Sunday mold. We didn't go to church (but went last night). I did laundry. We watched football. Ed went to the store. I wore pants to church. On some Sundays we eat downstairs. I've cleaned the basement and the kitchen. Ed's working on the car in the garage. I sanded and washed down the front door in prep for painting. He even mowed and de-leafed the lawn.

All this to say that it has been a good day. No rushing around. Taking our time. The house was filled with smells of hamburger (chicken to be exact) soup and skillet corn bread. It's been a restful day even with doing things. While I treasure the memories of growing up, I treasure the new memories being made with my family.

face lift

Awhile back we gave our laundry area a face lift. And by awhile...I mean awhiiiiiile. Here's what our laundry room looked like before:











This was the beautious wall paper and the lovely shade of green paint that was behind it:










With the left over paint from the bathroom, it cost us $4 (bottle of wall paper remover) to redo our laundry area.

Step #2

Today the driveway was poured, rolled and cooled. It took a total of an hour to do the entire thing. Sam can't wait to ride his big wheel on it!

memories for 25 cents

Yesterday on the way to drop Ed off at work, a sign snagged my eye. MOVING SALE. Course sale signs always catch my eye. But this one screamed at me. I dropped Ed off and set a course for the moving sale. One minute later I was flooring the gas to make it up the driveway to the house. There wasn't much of anything special at this sale. Nothing spectacular or a great find. I really didn't even look once I got out of the car. A man came out and said hello. I said, "I saw the moving sale sign and had to come. Honestly, I didn't come for the sale. I wanted to see the house. I grew up here." He was really surprised and said he was so happy I stopped by and would I like to see the inside? Well sure I would! He was the man who bought the house from my parents back when I was 10 years old and actually remembered them. For a split second worry crossed my mind that if I entered the house, all memories would be confused with the current way the house was vs. the way I remember it in my childhood brain. I took the tour of the house. No memories assaulted or rushed forward. There was only one thought. The house had shrunk. The hallway seemed to have been cut in half. The living room was a fraction of the size I remember. My room didn't look the same without the over sized flowers on the wallpaper that I loved. The family room/breezeway didn't go on forever like it used to. The willow tree that we swung on was gone, along with the sandbox I played in for hours. The pine trees that my parents planted had grown so tall and in contrast made the barn look like a shed. I called my parents while walking around and told them where I was. I took a picture with my phone. The memories are still there. I can barely recollect the way it looks now as the 20+ year old pictures seared into my memories over rode a quick walk through years later. I'm glad I did it though. I always wondered if memories could easily be wiped out and now know that they'll always be with me. The time I dropped the bucket full of sand on my big toe and the nail fell off, when I tried to take the dog bone away from the puppy and it bit me in the forehead, rescuing the baby bunny only to find it gone when my brothers "threw it behind the barn as it was dying", picking double headed daffodils, going snowmobiling in the fields behind the house, being left on my own for the first time and sobbing as I was so scared, getting lost in the swamp next door, eating dinner as a family every night, hitting baby mice with a shovel, being terrified of worms, have my own pet chicken (Chicken Little) riding my big wheel, coming home from school one day to a kitchen splattered with chicken noodle soup and hearing my mom was in the hospital from being burned by a pressure cooker full of soup being unpressurized. The list could go on, but I won't bore you.

Oh...and I did buy a 25 cent flour sifter. I've always wanted one of those.

Do you know the muffin man?

In our home, if I make a loaf of bread, be it banana, zucchini, or any type of muffin, with in two days, it has disappeared. Yesterday I made pumpkin muffins (I figured the muffins would last maybe a day longer than when I make the pumpkin bread). 30 to be exact. 7 are left. Though two went with my aunt and uncle to enjoy with their spot of tea while on the way back home to Northern Ireland. One went home with the little one I watch 3 days a week and the rest have gone into our tummies to be digested. A bit more healthy than the recipe called for with whole wheat flour and organic sugar so I feel a bit better letting the kids snack away on them. All this to say, we love bread in our household. And the aroma was pretty nice too.

step at a time

It all started with the steps. The culprit of all things to come. Steps sink, brick pulls away from house, sidewalk crumbles, brick needs removed, house needs sided, driveway needs redone.

The first step has been successfully completed.
What was there before:













What is there now:

it's not about the money...

There is no other feeling like that of witnessing how a simple gesture can touch someone's heart. This happened on Saturday when Ed handed a check to the man who was making our front steps. It was more than he quoted Ed and the gratitude I heard in Larry's voice turned my insides to mush. It also turned my heart to mush seeing that my husband sensed that this man could use the extra money and followed through on helping him and in turn helping his family. Ed was blessing someone else and in turn was blessed himself. There really is nothing like being able to help someone else.

We're back from a busy weekend at the parents house. The kids had a great time with aunts, uncles and cousins.

Now starts another week. Conferences are this week as are two half days for Sam. More construction will be taking place on the house of which pictures will be soon coming.

Not a very exciting post, but I wasn't going to miss a day!

current state

This is the current state of our house. No siding, no driveway, no steps, no retaining wall..
It looks better already!

Fun Friday!

Seems like Fridays turn out to be the busiest day of the week. Take today for example.
6:45 wake up and take shower
7:15 make lunches and get Sam breakfast
7:30 everyone loaded into the car to take Sam to school and Ed to work
8:00 drop boys off at respective places
8:05 trip to Meijer for supplies for a meal
8:40 home to make the meal
9:00 work
9:10 start meal
9:50 out the door to deliver meal
10:20 drop meal off and stay a bit for kids to play
11:15 off to drop Alina at Miss Kari's house to play
11:45 meet mom-in-law and take to Sam's school for Grandparents Day
11:50 stuff Friday folders
12:40 leave to go get Alina
1:00 pick up Alina and chat for a few minutes
1:30 stop to get a bite to eat
1:40 drop mom-in-law off at her car
1:50 go into office to work
2:50 back to school to pick up Sam
3:20 pick up Ed at office so he can have the car tonight
3:40 home
3:41 crash

1st time for everything

I'm going to try the NaBloPoMo for the momth. We'll see if I can actually do this. :)

Still downsizing

Because of this,











We purchased this.











Which as of yesterday we no longer have so we can go here.








This has been by far our biggest sale yet thanks to Craigslist. Having two vehicles for just over one year was wonderful, but not having the worry of when the blue beast was going to need fixed again is even more wonderful. So once again, we're a one car family which is working out swimmingly.

are their jackets really yellow?

It's been awhile since I've posted. Life has been flying by and I've been meeting myself going around corners. This week has been a low key one so far. A good recouping week. Considering the weekend I came off of.

Saturday Ed scraped off the last of the beautiful wood shakes on the front of our house (will show pictures when the exterior of the house is done). I had the job of holding the ladder. Which is hard to do when a yellow jacket crawls up your pants and starts stinging you (I think it knew its victim had never been stung in her 32 years and was the one appointed to end that record). What does one do? Let go of the ladder your husband is on, 2 1/2 stories up in the air, and pray he doesn't fall at that moment into the pile of broken wood shakes with rusty nails pointing toward the sky, or hold on and let the yellow jacket sting to its hearts content? I did both. I held on with one hand (a lot of good that would've done if the ladder slipped) and started pounding myself silly on the leg with the other hand. I was almost to the point of letting go completely to strip my pants off in the middle of the driveway. But right before that (I'm sure embarrassing moment) that horrible insect, which I know God created, fell out of my pants and I smushed it to the point of no recognition. I was MORE than happy to take two for the team though. Because if it was Ed it happened to, he would've jumped off the ladder from where he was, I would've had to stab him with a needle, get the kids and him in the car, and rush to the emergency room so they could administer drugs and probably fix broken bones. My stings were free. So between the yellow jacket and finding a bat under one of the shutters (which was really cool showing the kids it's wings all spread out and its fangs when it screeched at us), it was enough excitement to last me a good couple years.

On Sunday I filled in for Anne at church. I told her that she really knows how to stretch me. She says she tries. I was having dreams for days following up to Sunday about really messing up. I was more than stressed. I was scared stiff. Low and behold, leading music for a LOT of kids (K-5th grade) was a riot. I messed up. Often. But what can you do? Gotta keep goin'. I really don't know how she does it week in and week out. I came home and laid down. It was only 11:45 in the morning! You rock Anne!! No wonder she's so fit! Next time though, give me songs that'll work both my legs instead of just one. It made it hard walking up and down the steps Monday with only one really sore leg! :)

As for the rest of the week, who knows what will happen! Nothing to write home about so far, which is fine by me.

note to self

Next time I try and explain, "if a friend jumps off the edge of a cliff..do you follow? Of course not!!" I should use more specific applicable terminology. Like, "if a friend sticks his finger in the pencil sharpener and then tells you to do it, do you follow?".

His response: But I wanted to see if it would sharpen my nail!
Me: Did you know that there are blades inside the pencil sharpener?
Him: (eyes big and wide). Oh. Can I have a band aid please?

Today started at 5:15 with getting ready and everyone up to take Ed to the airport for his Catalyst trip. Right now he's sitting in Hot-lanta at the airport until 5. You can read about his Catalytic adventures here.

Alina's been sick the past three days with a temp varying between 101 and 103 degree. The nurse said it's croup. Thankfully, today she's back to her 100% self and has already gone outside in her Sunday dress sandals and ducky jammies to yell at the woodpecker who's making designs on the side of our house. Her fever broke about 1/2 an hour ago which is a huge praise (as I was getting a bit worried)!

So today I'll keep Ed company via instant message, be entertained by a ducky laden 3 year old scream at the woodpecker, sing my heart out tonight at church, continue to remind myself to not forget Sam at school, and quite possibly finish the laundry (now THAT would be amazing if it actually did happen).

William Tell Overture Mom

This tells it all...

The weekend and on

This weekend started out with Sam coming back home from school due to a stomach ache and sore throat. I thought, "I hope it's not strep or the flu". Amazingly enough, it was neither. Throat was due to drainage and the stomach ache was cured by a simple act each and every one of us does. A trip to the bathroom. I think it's been a couple day's since he's visited ours. I had a wandering, bored, nothing else to do but torment his sister, 6 year old on my hands who was asking to go to school. So my amazing husband took his lunch break early to come and pick Sam up to take him back to school. Now I can tackle my list for the day (clean bathrooms, bedrooms, vacuum everywhere, climb Mt. Laundry, mop, work and answer the endless "mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy, mommy" requests.

The parents and Ed's mom are coming this afternoon and staying over tonight. My niece is watching the kids tonight so us adults can go listen to Dan Allender (president of Mars Hill Grad School where we're looking at going for Ed's schooling) speak at the seminary. Should produce interesting conversations.

Tomorrow is pick up day for Angel Food, yell, jump up and down and cheer at Sam's soccer game and then work on house projects. Church will more than likely be attended tomorrow night and Sunday will be a day of rest.

Then a new week starts of which will be filled with the following:
Bible study, DV:FX, Ed gone to Catalyst for three days, an evening out to a wedding as a friends date (I can't wait!!), soccer practice, soccer game, airport trips, school bus driver, Friday folder stuffer, child watcher, everyday house stuff, and I'm sure there are things I'm forgetting (thank heavens for I-Cal!). :)

For now I need to go hike the mountain and clean Le Toilet Lakes.