See It, Say It, Do It

You know how you can start not to see things the way they really are?  Oh, you see them with your bodily eyes, but after looking at something for long enough without taking any action you begin not to see it. 

I have been looking at, complaining about, and ignoring the mess the disorder the chaos in our home for quite a while now.  I would love to say that it's just since we moved, but that wouldn't be true.  The fact is that it's been that way for a long time.  I also would love to say that this chaos just happened to me.  I am an innocent bystander!  I was waylaid!  I'm a victim!

A victim of what?!  Has some thug come along and tied my hands and feet together and put me in front of a speeding train?  Am I powerless to do anything around here?  Honestly, sometimes it feels like that.  I can feel so overwhelmed by all that needs to be done that I give up before I start doing anything. 

Having my friends here recently and having my parents here right now have been enlightening experiences...I have been looking around at our house through different eyes, someone else's eyes.  What do people see when they come in the front door?  Clean laundry waiting to be put away. (Not your normal amount, but more like a criminal amount.  I'm not sure what that means, but it sounds serious, doesn't it?)  Toys scattered all over the floor.  Books in piles EVERYWHERE.  Socks at the bottom of the stairs.  Mail piled up on the bookshelf.  An ironing board, for crying out loud.  It's getting worse by the day!

I feel like I'm this pot of water that won't boil, but someone has just turned up the flame.  Now there's some major heat coming by way of total humiliation at (just the thought of) someone, say from church, stopping by.  I don't want to feel that way!  I want a home that I can be happy and content to invite someone into.  (I tried really hard to make that sentence more grammatically correct...but dangit, what I ended up writing is what I want to say.  So there.)  I've written about this before, and I always come to the same conclusion-this time, I'll do better!  I'll wake up tomorrow and there'll be a fresh start waiting for me!  In many ways I think that can be true.  School is getting ready to start.  I can use the time up until then, while my parents are here, at least to begin to get a handle on things.  It would be so much better for the kids to have an orderly home, to grow up in a home where things have a place and they get put there.  We all need to work together.  Oh, these habits are so hard to start when things have been so crazy for so long. 

What got me thinking about all this tonight goes back to my longing to declare,"This is not my fault!  It is out of my control!"  I know that's just not true.  I do have some control.  I have choices to make.  They are just not easy or fun.  I suppose I have to grow up.  (Imagine me stomping my foot right about now and whining,"But I don't want to!")  My kids need a grown-up parent.  My husband needs a grown-up wife. 

Pppptttthhhhbbbttt!

I have to get it out of my system, all right?

So, I have a mini-plan for tomorrow (you know how much I love a plan, yes?)...I will put the ironing board away.  I will put the clean laundry away.  I will ask the kids to help me put away the toys and books (and pray that Eliana doesn't come following behind us undoing all that we just did), arrange the furniture in its proper place, and throw away all the trash that is in the living room.  That will be a start. 

Now, my eyes hurt from all this seeing, and my brain hurts from all this thinking and planning, so I've got to go to bed.  Plus I need to rest up for all the hard work we're going to do in the morning...starting with getting my feet on the floor and getting breakfast for the kids.

They're Finally Here!

My mom and dad arrived today! 

Michaela has been wearing a little dress that my mom made for her out of some fabric that she kept from my grandma's house when they moved her into a retirement community.  She has been so excited that her grandma was coming that she couldn't wait for her to get here and see it again.  She even wore it to the airport...

My mom noticed right away and said,"Are you still wearing that?!"  I think Michaela was five when she first got it.  It used to come down to her knees; now it's a tunic!

Dad got the bags in the back of the car...

He thought he was here for a vacation, but the kids had other plans.

I think Christian had him play at least three games this afternoon, look through an entire kids' cookbook, and watch Star Wars. 

We also had plans for Dad.  See those hideous blinds behind the couch in that picture above?  They are so ugly but we haven't been able to replace them with anything until tonight.  So Dad and Mike put up a new curtain rod in our room and we moved the curtain rod that was in there into this other room, which is our schoolroom/guest room.  Yay! 

Some real privacy.  And blocking of the morning light.  My parents are grateful for that one.  They are not a permanent solution (they hang about six inches above the floor) but it is so much better than those silly, holey blinds.  I am grateful that we are able to make these changes.  Our home needs so much work, but something like this might motivate me to get busy and start getting things in order around here. 

Or it might make me say,"Hey, no one can see in here anymore.  I'm going to go eat some ice cream."

At any rate, I'm really happy that my parents are here.  We are going to cram in all sorts of fun over the next week and a couple of days.  Here's what we want to do:

• trip to Ikea
• celebrate Eliana's birthday
• road trip to San Antonio
• sewing on some curtains for the kitchen
• hang curtains in Michaela's room
• do some organizing around the house
• plant a garden out back

Just kidding on that last one.  I think the San Antonio trip might have to wait for another visit...maybe after we are a little more together.  Wait, if we do that, then we might never go.  I suppose we'll have to see how it all plays out.

One thing I'm sure of is that there will be a lot of fun.  And a lot of lovin'.  And a lot of pictures.

Swimsuit Competition

I've mentioned how much Eliana loves to go to the pool, as well as how much she loves to wear bathing suits and will pick one out to wear even around the house if she is able to do so.

Today Michaela and I (well, really just Michaela because I lay down on her bed and just watched and maybe closed my eyes a hundred few times) went through her fall and winter clothes from last year to see if anything fit.  The clothes were mixed together in big Sterilite bins with the things she has definitely outgrown which we are saving for Eliana.  Among those things are bathing suits.  The bathing suits, along with a great pink and orange pile of shorts, tanks, dresses, jeans, and pajamas, were strewn about on the floor of Michaela's room.

Can you see where this is going?

Eliana frantically cried out,"Bathing suit?!  Bathing suit?!"  It really was something in between a question and an exclamation.  She desperately wanted to put on the swimsuit that was floating in that sea of capris and sundresses. 

Michaela handed one of them to me (because I was laid out on the bed, remember?  She's such a helpful girl...) and I helped Eliana put it on.  Then she spied another one.  She grabbed that one and wanted to wear it, too.  Well, a third one appeared and she snatched it up and brought it over to me as well. 

Who am I to argue with such a fashionista?  I put on all three suits (not on me, I mean, on Eliana), one on top of the other.  It was the easiest thing for me to do, since it made her so happy at that moment and required the least amount of movement on my part.  (I have been tired lately due to my bad sleeping lately-see, I just said "lately" twice.  I can't even write straight.  Think straight.  Whatever.)

From the front you couldn't tell too much...

but from the back, it was pretty funny.  And she was very proud of her ensemble; she even wore it to dinner.

It could be a look that catches on, you know?  Especially for the indecisive...

I'm So Sorry!

I feel like I must apologize briefly for the totally disgusting post that I put on here a couple of days ago-the roach post.  It was a bit therapeutic for me to write it, due to my ABSOLUTE AND UNIMAGINABLE FEAR AND PARALYZATION because of them.  Before we moved here we were actually warned about how big and unconquerable they are, and since we've been in Dallas I've been plagued by the nasty buggers (ha, ha, no pun intended...just trying to keep it clean here at fivewalkers); I think they have been spreading the word about how to have a little fun at the expense of this ridiculous human over at (insert our address here).

All of that is to say that the other night when Eliana cried and I opened our bedroom door where she sleeps in her bed at the foot of our bed, and saw those two roaches one on top of the other RIGHT IN BETWEEN ME AND MY GIRL I thought I was going to have a heart attack.  In other words, I thought I was going to die.  That is to say, I almost keeled over.  I had to call my husband at his office (he was working late that night) and have him come home.  He said,"Can't you get her out?"  I said,"ARE YOU CRAZY?"  He came home right away.  Speedy like Superman.  Minus the cape.  And the tights.

I'm still getting to my point.  The post right before this one that I'm writing is a perfectly normal one, a little peek into what our day looked like.  Anyone who checked the blog out for the first time and saw that, then thought,"Oh, how cute they (the kids) are...how fun!", and then continued to scroll down to read more and came to the gross-out post...oh, I just feel awful about that.  Not awful enough to remove it, mind you, but pretty bad that someone new might have had that experience.  I say this because all kinds of new people left a comment on the Math post.  It kind of cracked me up, because it seemed like such a mundane thing for me to write about. 

I obviously underestimated the power of the brownie, which is ironic since I myself am so seduced and enslaved by any chocolate dessert item under the sun, or beyond it for that matter.

So to all the folks who stopped by and read my nice little Math post and then were bombarded by the horrible story and images (actual and imagined) that followed, I send out my most sincere apologies.  My only excuse is that to write that little bit of twisted narrative helped me sleep that night, when I finally succumbed to the elusive state of dream weaving at 4 am.  On the couch.

A Math Lesson Is a Recipe for Fun

Since we (and by we right now I mean Mike) homeschool Michaela, her school year never really ends. She's had several long breaks but has continued to do schoolwork throughout the summer (though not as much as she should have done, for sure). The last few days, however, Mike has been getting her used to the idea of getting back into a more normal school schedule, and has been reviewing as well as moving ahead in her Math text.

She would never say that Math is her favorite subject. (And I have to admit it was never mine...it didn't come easily for me and I don't like to do things that aren't easy. Fortunately, she hasn't inherited all of my tendencies...) What we have learned, though, is that sometimes it has its benefits. One might be when you're studying fractions and part of the lesson involves measuring out the ingredients for a brownie recipe, baking them, and eating them!

That is such a coincidence, because I love to make brownies, and then eat them! I love Math!

Melting the butter was the first step, and because of the size of my beloved metal cake pan we had to double the recipe. Bonus! Michaela had to add her fractions to figure out how much we needed of everything.

She had no problem figuring out the amounts. She impressed me further by not only doubling a given measurement, for example 3/4 cup, two times, but also by telling me how else you could name the measurement. She easily went from 6/4 cup to 1 cup and 2/4 to 1 and 1/2 cups. I thought that was pretty cool. I couldn't do that until I was 24. Or percentages. Just ask my mom.

Eliana is always around whatever we're doing. "Smile, Eliana..."

Ooh, we need to work on that. "Try again!"

Alrighty then. Maybe later, eh?

Although this was not his Math lesson, Christian didn't mind helping out one bit.

And after it's all done, when you've measured everything out correctly, the results are quite satisfying.

Even Eliana agrees that Math is a useful subject.

And as for fractions...this is how the brownies got divided up:

1/4-Michaela

1/8-Christian

1/16-Eliana

1/16-Mike

1/2-me

That seems fair, right? I cleaned up the mess...