Get Ready for It! (Not Really...)

Allergy season is upon us. I stay drugged up during this time, so I cannot promise coherent posts that make much sense.

(Is that much different than usual? Don't answer that.)

My sister-in-law and I had a Battle-of-the-Messy-House-Pictures over the phone today. I'm not sure who won (lost?), but it made me laugh, and I needed that. 

I am 0-for-2 on my parents' birthdays this year. Awesome. I did try to call today, but didn't get anyone. Maybe Mom and Dad were partying it up all day? 

Christian and Michaela are playing ball at this time. Well, not at this very moment in time, but this season. I have yet to make it to a game, and have only been at one practice...hopefully tomorrow that will change and I will see them both play. 

I volunteered to help with Vacation Bible School this year. After six years of attending our church, it is time. I asked to be a helper in a class; teaching other people's kids is not a gift I possess. (Teaching my own kids is not really a gift I possess...but we struggle through it.) 

I have two very large pots that I don't have a place to store. What would you do with those pots, if it were you? Please advise. 

Christian is down to about 16 days of school. That sounds crazy and wonderful. And a little scary. There are several final projects that are due in the coming weeks; we have some work to do still. 

I have not made much progress as far as the house transformation goes, just to update you. I did organize the small metal cart which houses several school-related items (math manipulatives, puzzles, magnets, Wedgits), so that is good. The rest of the disaster is not so good. I will keep doing a little at a time. Duh. 

These are some of the things on my mind. There are other things too, but we can't stand too much excitement in one post now, can we? 

Here is shocking news: I'm off to switch the laundry. I know. It's crazy around here; you never know what is going to happen. 

Moving Forward

About a year ago I began an exercising regimen and I quit drinking soda. All of that lasted a while, and then sometime during the summer I stopped exercising, and I had a soda here and there...and then by the fall I was right back to my old self again, bad habits and all. 

I've been hemming and hawing on the exercise issue for months now, but tonight I saw a sign near our church about a 5K to help the Lost Boys of Sudan, some of whom live here in Dallas. This is the same race that I tried to run last year and failed miserably even to start. When I saw the sign tonight, though, I literally sat up straighter in the car and felt a little spark inside. 

I said out loud (and no, there was no one in the car with me),"I'm going to do it this year!" and I felt so excited! I have checked the calendar and there is nothing else on it. And do you know what makes this race the perfect one for me to start with?! It is at night!! I do not have to be awake at 6am preparing to run! 

My sister-in-law has been encouraging me to join her as she started exercising a while ago, and I wanted to...but I kept putting it off. I was telling someone about the last few weeks and how crazy they have been. I was out of town with my friends, then I came home and began working on the Goliath costume and spent a great deal of time at church with the rehearsals. Then I went on the trip with Christian and his class. I feel like I am just now catching my breath with a chance to get back to some kind of normal routine. (Yes, I know...to get back to a routine means you must have had one to begin with. Just go with it, okay?)

So...tomorrow is a fresh start. Is this really a second Monday that I'm looking forward to?! Something very strange is going on. Maybe I shouldn't ask too many questions, but just keep moving forward. 

I'm Lazy and I Need to Work on That (But I'm Lazy...)

I have an idea. It was a sudden idea, and one that I think could help us deal with the plethora of items in our home, particularly books and games and other kid stuff. 

I want to transform our home. (This is not the idea I am speaking of above, although they are related.) I'm so tired of living in a house that I hate. And I don't think I hate it just because I don't like the house. I hate it because of what we tend to do to a house (or don't do: maintain tidiness). I think we need to get rid of quite a few things, and getting rid of things is often hard. Why are we so attached to things? 

I'd like to be handy like those folks on HGTV who redo rooms in a day and on a dime. Knocking out walls and creating built-ins ain't no thang. That is what they make you think, anyway. 

It will take a lot of work and I'm lazy. Of course, that just means I need to do it all the more. Laziness is not really acceptable. Is laziness what I want to teach my kids? Of course not! But that is what I am teaching them, at least right now. I went in Michaela's room and asked her to put away a small stack of clean clothes, and to do it right at that moment. She sighed the word yes. I raised my eyebrows at her and left the stack on her bed. But really? She is just imitating me. Alarming as it is, it's the truth. 

Maybe I can give you updates, and keep track of progress here...will you help keep me accountable? 

Home Again

Lying down in one's own bed is practically a delicious feeling. Camp beds are notoriously uncomfortable, but my poor couple of nights of sleeping could just as well be attributed to the terrified anticipation of a centipede crawling across my forehead in the middle of the night.

Fortunately, no such horrid things happened (that I know of), and our final day at camp began early since we had to be completely packed with cars ready to go by breakfast.

Because I have had a long day (and believe me when I say it was already a long day by the time we finished eating our first meal, much less by the time I pulled into the school's drive after hurtling down the highway with Very Loud Boys in my car) I am going to put my burning eyes out of their misery and get some sleep.

Mike thanked me again for going, and said it sounded like it wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be, which it wasn't. Isn't that what we often discover?

Besides, if I hadn't been there, who would have made sure those sandy pants of his made it into his dirty clothes bag rather than his suitcase?! And just for the record, I gave him a squirt of hand sanitizer and asked him to wash his hands exactly ZERO times. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Of Socks and Sand

We all know I have some issues when it comes to dirt and germs. I tend to keep the kids on the clean side, but they do play outside sometimes, and they don't mind getting dirty so I try not to put my issues on them too much.

I think Christian is just fine...don't you?

(His socks, on the other hand, were not, and met their end on this trip.)