Busy, Busy, Busy

I'm finally getting a chance to blog. We just went through a little craziness around here. Last Wednesday there was a big storm that zapped the electricity of 500,000 households in the neighboring areas around us. Another storm came through on Friday and affected 200,000 more people (this one mainly affected our area). In our town, most of the wiring is underground so any electrical outage is rare or shortlived. However, the areas that were affected by the first storm had their electricity out for days!! Ted's parents and brother's family were without power. They spent Wednesday night at home and then his parent's decided they would spend Thursday night at our house. By Friday, we had Ted's brother's family of 5 join his parents at our house and we would spend the whole weekend with them. Whew! It wasn't too bad. In fact, it was kinda fun! We have no dining room furniture so we set up a TV and air mattress in the dining room for his kids. My brother and sister-in-law slept on the couches. Ted's parents slept on Sam and Abby's beds and Sam and Abby slept on sleeping bags in our room. I was wishing our basement was finished, but I didn't feel cramped. They all left on Sunday, when there power returned. From there, we had my sister, Becky's baby shower at my mom's house. Both my mom's house and our house were not affected by the storm. Thank goodness!

Even though we had company this weekend, we still did everything we had planned. (Was that rude?). We went on our date night Friday night and had free babysitting! Saturday, Ted painted all of our closet doors. On Sunday, he painted the baseboards. This weekend, he will start cutting and installing the baseboards upstairs. I can't believe this is happening so easily just because we scheduled it! What a concept. Now I'm filling my time with dreaming up organizational ideas for my basement toy closet. Last night I shopped at Target and bought 2 - 9 cube units. They're on sale for $40 (regularly $50). I'm going to put them in our sliding door toy closet and put shelving above it for the bigger items. I can't wait to see how it turns out. I'll take pictures and post them.

Now I'm dreaming up the same stackable system for the hall to our master bathroom. It's just a hodgepodge look right now and it just feels cluttery and overwhelming in the narrow hall to my bathroom. I want to use this system to bring some calm to order to the chaos. I'll take a picture and post the before and afters. We won't be doing this right away because we already have too many projects in the air. But it's something easy enough for me to assemble and all you need is a phillips screwdriver. I already assembled a shoe cubby unit and put it in my closet and my closet looks so much better just by doing that simple task!

Today I cleaned out all the toys hidden behind the love seat in my family room. I'm going to bring them all downstairs. I also have toys hidden in a large lidded basket, my coffee table and entertainment center! I want to move these all downstairs and then rotate certain toys to keep upstairs. I'm going to reclaim all my storage in my family room! I don't know what to do with it now! It feels so rejuvenating!

As for the basement, our workers took two and a half weeks off. Our contractor had to do another project while the people were out of town...then he went on vacation. He will resume this Monday. He needs to finish mudding and taping so we can paint! The final touch will be installing the doors and the baseboards...I can't wait! Oh yah...then we need to do carpeting before we move everything back in. I think the workers will be done by August 10th. It'll take 3 weeks for the carpet from the point of ordering and measuring to the installing. I'm hoping that we can have the carpet installed by the end of August. Then I'll have a couple of weeks to get the basement in order before Abby's birthday on September 22nd.

Notable Quotables

I wrote this blog in March. I published it in April, but it appeared under March. I don't think anyone saw it. I'm republishing it and adding a new quote at the end.

"It's like lifting a building"
This was Sam's response when I asked him why it was so hard for him to give me a kiss on the cheek. He wanted a Tagalong and I told him I would give it to him if he gave me a kiss on the cheek. He refused. I never got that kiss. I knew it would be hard but I wondered how hard. I wondered if there was a cookie as a reward, if he would do it. Oh well. I settled for a very sloppy hug. He's very awkward with affection. I force hugs on him all the time. He fights me off but my dad always tells me, "Trust me, a son always wants his mother's affection."

"Sam, you just missed my big fart!"
My very lady-like daughter said this to her brother after she passed gas on a wood chair (which always makes it louder and kind of echo-y)."Scuse you"What my 2 1/2 year old son, Ben, said to Abby (his older sister by 5 years!!) after she passed the echo-y gas.

"I think it's orange or red rain"
Sam said as he was reaching out the sliding door to feel the rain during a downpour. He was referring to the colors they show on Doppler Radar.

"Don't you have to be married to do that?"
Ahhh...the innocense of youth. Sam said this after watching a couple kissing in the movie "Aquamarine".

Snapshot Tuesday

What's at the top of my to-do list?
--Gotta make my house "babysitter presentable" (which means bedrooms too!) today, because we're going to our Parish mission tonight and leaving Ben and Mary with the sitter. It's our 25 year anniversary and we've built a gym and been celebrating mass in the gym for 1 year while our church has been expanded. We are finally back in the church! Woohoo! I didn't like the gym.

-- My sister Becky is in her 7th month of pregnancy and we're having a shower for her at my sister, Lisa's house (thank God it's not at mine). So anyway, I need to shop for the ingredients of the dishes I'm making.

What have I accomplished?
-- I presented my witness to my CRHP team. Whew. That's done. Now I feel more prepared for the actual retreat.

--I've decided that next year I want to make the swim team commitment. We have a neighborhood team and before this summer, the idea of signing my kids up for swim sounded like one big commitment. Too much for me. Practicing almost daily, meets every week that are hours long. So this represents a huge step out of the cave for me. I think I'll be more able to make a commitment like this next year. The meets are Monday nights so I'll have to get a babysitter for every meet. Parents are needed to work the meets so I won't be able to watch Ben and Mary during the meets. Monday nights are our Men's and Women's Group nights so we'll take turns taking them to the meets. I'm looking forward to connecting to more people during the summer. It will give me an excuse to get out of the house. (I know this one hardly qualifies as an accomplishment, but sometimes, mental shifts are bigger for me than the action needed).

-- I took the kids to the pool by myself and we all came home alive and happy, if not a little tired. If I told you what it was like preparing to go...no I won't. Well...let's just say I got peed on because swim diapers are not made to hold urine and it was a lot of packing for a family to be well fed, watered, protected, entertained, and dried off.

What's bugging me?
--Mary wanted to be held most of the time at the pool. I don't remember such extreme clinginess at this age from the other kids. I'm wondering if she's teething. I thought I felt upper molars come in but she kept wanting to bite my finger off (she MUST be teething!). I keep telling myself it will get better (because I know it will)...but I'm not accomplishing anything around my house because of her inability to be left alone. I guess I should be thankful that at this very moment she is happily watching TV.

--Mary took a crayon to my guitar. Purple.

--I've realized that I've been violating rules # 17, 28, 40, and 72 of the book "Don't Sweat the Small Stuff with Your Family" by Richard Carlson, PH. D.

Rule #17 -Don't wait for bad news to appreciate your life. I'm sick of complaining about a few small problems when I am so rich with blessings it's not even funny. If anything happened to any of my kids, husband or family, I would be crushed. We are healthy, we are able to pay all of our bills, we like each other and we are able bodied. What else can you ask for? I keep waiting for a better stage in my life. What if the best stage is the one I'm living in now???

Rule #28- Stop exchanging horror stories. I've gotten better at this, but not too long ago...I would call Ted at work and tell him about all the horrible events that happened since he left. Life is too short to spend so much time talking about the negative. I'm working on being positive. My decision to be happy.

Rule #40- Don't be a martyr. I hate the fact that I have to write this one down. Who likes those martyr/victim people. I don't! Whenever I try to convince someone that I have it worse than they do...I'm doing just that. Uck. Let's move on.

Rule #72- Stop exaggerating your workload. I blow out of proportion actual events that happen in my day...and yes they may be hard at the time...but it is not my whole day! It just feels like it in my mind. Mary can be difficult...but not all the time. I need to give her more credit.

So yes, I've violated these rules and many more in this wonderful book I picked off my shelf the other day. I need to read them more often as reminders.

What have I said I was going to do but I havenÂ’t?
This is accountability and I just don't feel like accountability right now. I'm eating a lot of icecream...I never said I wouldn't but for some reason I feel bad about it.

What's my latest obsession?
--The basement. Should I buy I brown entertainment center or black (from Target). I really want the black, but the brown may be more practical.

--I'm having crazy ideas like taking the frumpy, never properly tucked slip covers off my ugly couches downstairs and making a fitted slip cover. What am I thinking?? Where will I get the time? Pure motivation and drive can do a lot. I'm excited about picking my own material.

What's been making me happy?
--Thinking about my free time this school year. 5 hours a week with no children!

--Ted and I are planning a vacation for just the two of us to an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica. Any suggestions as to which one are welcome. We don't want to be in the party scene. Our 15 year anniversary is next year and we'll probably go for 5 nights early June. We've never been on a trip like this. Our honeymoon was the closest to this but it wasn't all inclusive. I'm such a penny pincher, it's good for me to have everything included so I'll indulge myself more. I can't wait.

--My CRHP group. I love getting to know these women in my parish.

--Seeing all the beauty in my kids. When I give less energy to the negative...the positive springs forth!

A Pear to Remember

So I am getting ready to put my fake pears in storage. In a way, it's a sad goodbye...because, once anything gets placed in the dark recesses of my storage room, they are almost always never heard from again. It's a forgotten place. It's a "I might need it again in the future" place, where things are never needed in the future. I've come to learn this as I have made my infrequent, quick visits to the storage room. They are quick because I'm always on a mission to get that one thing, and because it's not the most inviting place to hang out in, I leave quickly. As I leave, I glance at the forgotten, once in their limelight, decorating accessories. They are framed pictures, they are mirrors, they are odd candles, and flower arrangements. They are items that I decided on a whim would no longer "work". But for some reason, kept them because "they might work in the future". Yah right.

When I walk the green mile to my storage room, I'm going to be saying an informal goodbye. I remember how much I paid. I remember the store I got them from. I remember how excited I was when I brought them home. I remember putting them in the perfect container in the middle of my kitchen table. I had such high hopes for them. How they would make me feel when I looked at them. Then, Ben started throwing them like tennis balls. I thought it was a stage, but it continued. From that point on, they were stashed on my kitchen counter, out of their limelight and forgotten about.

Then, 2 years later and only a couple of days ago, I discover I new decorating addition to my counters, a gorgeous pair of coffee and tea canisters (of which I drink neither). I needed to make room for them. What do I do with the pears? Since my sister, Lisa, was with me I consulted her for advice. Always decisive, and without hesitation, she said I should put real fruit in the bowl and set them on the center table. Yes. Real fruit! Then they will get eaten more and oh how great that will be!! Ben is grown out of the throwing fake fruit stage...isn't he?? I can do this! I can have a center piece. I can! I can! I am a grown woman! Take the leap and don't look back! Anxiously I remove all the fake pears and put in apples, oranges and bananas. This is genius! I put them in the center of the table. They looked beautiful.

Ben was an angel. No touching of the fruit except for their real purpose...to eat them. But remember when I said Mary is stepping up to the plate and replacing Ben's antics with her own? Yes. As I was busy doing something while she was happily entertaining herself (which should have been my first warning siren...Mary does not happily entertain herself without some distruction), I found my precious fruit bowl. The bananas were crushed in 1 1/2 year old hands to the point that oozing mush was seeping from the seams. The apples were all sampled. The oranges managed to escape unscathed. Who wants to bite into a sour peel? So much for that. I placed my fruit bowl right back on the counter, out of Mary's reach. We'll revisit the lovely table centerpiece idea when she is older. I will succeed!

Moms Prefer Smell of Their Own Baby's Poop

Moms Prefer Smell of Their Own Baby's Poop
By Ker Than
LiveScience Staff Writer
posted: 12 July 2006
01:18 pm ET
Scientists find that moms consistently rank the stink of their baby's "number two" as No. 1.
In a new study, 13 mothers were asked to sniff soiled diapers belonging to both their own child and others from an unrelated baby. The women consistently ranked the smell of their own child's feces as less revolting than that of other babies.
This effect persisted even when the diapers were purposely mislabeled.
One possible explanation is that the mothers were simply more accustomed to their their baby's stink and therefore found it less repulsive. A more intriguing possibility, the researchers say, is that the mothers' reactions are an evolutionary adaptation allowing them to overcome their natural disgust so that they can properly care for their babies.
The study, led by Trevor Case of Macquarie University in Australia, will be detailed in an upcoming issue of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.
Disgust helps protect us from things that can make us sick, scientists say, but there are circumstances in which the emotion has to be tempered. The caring of an infant is likely one such instance.
"A mother's disgust at her baby's feces has the potential to obstruct her ability to care for her baby and may even affect the strength of the bond she has with her baby," the researchers write.
The finding is among the latest in a series of studies suggesting that humans can determine biological relatedness through body odor. Another recent study found that mothers more accurately identify and prefer the smell of their biological children over that of stepchildren.

I'm sorry, but all I kept thinking was, "I'm SO glad they didn't ask me to be in this study!". I mean, did you really have to stick your nose into a bunch of other stinky diapers?? I smell enough of my own at home! I wonder what they got paid to do that!

Old Blog Day

Yes. I actually have old blogs! Ok they're not quite a year old. But I thought I would dust them off occasionally and post them when I don't have time to write. This one I wrote 9/21/05. It's titled "Things About Me"

Some of these things are things my close friends know, they're all probably things my husband and sister know, but most of these things many people don't know:
--3 weeks after getting my driver's license, I ran into a car while looking for the house of a boy I had a crush on. I hit my face on the steering wheel, bit my tongue, and totaled our family van. I got 12 stitches.
--I married that boy 7 years later.
--I play guitar.
--I'm the third child in a family of 6 kids.
--My husband and I both have an adopted sibling.
--I used to be deathly afraid of speaking in front of people. My heart would race and my voice would quiver. I overcame the fear when I started volunteering on youth retreats and giving talks.
--My mom had seizures while I was growing up. When I was in college they discovered and removed a benign brain tumor. She's fine today.
--In college, a friend pierced my ear with his earring in a bar. It was dumb...but, you know...it was college.
--I avoid things like 12 hour sales because I hate competitive shopping. I'd rather shop on Ebay.
--I don't like long lines. There are not many things I will wait in a long line for. It feels like a waste of time. I will do stuff at odd times to avoid lines.
--I was the Senior Class Homecoming Maid for my high school.
--I love baby feet.
--If I could have only one make up item...it would be mascara.
--I am fascinated by Amy Grant.
--I've never tried drugs or pot (unless you consider alcohol a drug).
--I used cloth diapers on my first child.
--I played soccer in highschool and as a "club" sport in college.
--My jobs have been: McDonald's restaurant, Mexican restaurant hostess, day camp counselor, front desk attendant at my college dorm, usher at my college arena, Target floor sales, catalog company-- order taker, customer service rep, supervisor, assistant manager and manager.
--I got asked not to come back to my front desk attendant job because I gave the key to a drunk guy (who lived in the dorm)... to his girlfriend's room (he told me she wanted it!)
--I'm happiest when I have some freedom to act on my spontaneity.
--What I like about myself: I can talk to ANYONE!
--Least favorite trait: Poor sense of direction. Oh yah...I'm terrible with names.
--I was voted "Most Friendly" in my Senior class.
--I love to sing. I sang in a choir in highschool and college. I've sung in a couple weddings, but don't consider myself to be a soloist. I do miss choir singing. I hope to do it again some day.
--I was very shy as a youngster.
--I'm very open and honest.
--I love to watch people. If I had super powers, I would turn myself into a fly and would just watch people. I'd love to watch my kids at school, or Ben at Mom's Day Out, or fly inside famous people's houses.
--The thing I most disliked about my 20's--was how self conscious I was.
--The thing I love about my 30's--is not sweating the small stuff.
--When I was younger, I dreamed of having bigger breasts. Now I don't care.
--My mom would call me insightful and sensitive.
--I like writing poetry. I will share some one of these days.
--I'm so practical, I used to have a tough time buying knick knacks for the house. I could only do picture frames. Gradually, I branched into candles for decorating. Recently, when the power went out, Sam proclaimed, "I never knew we had so many candles!!!"
--I'm very frugal. I have a tough time spending a lot of money on clothes, purses, and shoes.
--When it comes to date nights, I'm not as frugal. I enjoy getting a babysitter and eating out.
--I shop at Target, Kohl's, TJMaxx, and Marshalls. But I don't shop very often.
--I've recently (within the past 3 years) discovered the joy of home improvement.
--I've flown in a hot air balloon. It was AWESOME!!
--I love a good book and a good movie, but I don't have time for either of them right now.
--I hate spending more than $2.00 on cards when it's something that someone else wrote and most people throw them away!
--I'd be a horrible monk. I'm too distracted in prayer. I can't focus on one thing for a long time unless it's a project.
--I love Disney World.
--Unbalanced things bug me. Ted planted some bushes in the front and they are not evenly spaced and it drives me crazy!!
--The angriest I felt I as a child was when my little brother threw all of my baby gerbils into a plastic helmet and the cut them on the plastic edge. They died.
--The meanest thing I did as a child was with this young girl who was cute and got lots of attention. She told me she wasn't allergic to poison ivy so to test this, I took a poison ivy leaf and rubbed it all over her face. Her mom found out about it and this girl became more perfect as the victim and I felt horrible (I don't think she ever broke out in a rash so either she wasn't allergic to poison ivy or it wasn't a poison ivy leaf to begin with).
--I dream about... spiders, losing things in bed, not being ready for a soccer game, missing my stage cue (haven't had that one in a while), and forgetting that I was supposed to be going to class and realizing I've missed half of them. Can someone analyze this?
--I enjoy expressing myself, verbally or in writing.
--I find humor in a lot of things.
--As a child I was embarrassed because my Dad sang too loud in church and everyone would turn around to see who was singing so loud. I wanted to crawl under the pew.
--I don't leave the house without... my makeup on.
--I can have great ideas, but not always follow through with them.
--I liked math in school and disliked political science and history.
--I've always wanted 4 kids, because I thought pairs were better than an odd numbers, and more was better than less.
--I like reading People Magazine.
--I like being around people who are comfortable with themselves. Self conscious people make me feel self conscious.
--Today is my daughter, Abby's birthday. She is 7.
--I enjoy taking pictures and capturing a moment. I like action shots over posed.
--Sometimes I can go on and on, when I really need to stop! Like now!

Did I Ever Say I Was Consistent?

I am probably driving all of you "consistent" people crazy. What happened to "Snapshot Thursdays"? I don't know! I try to schedule myself and it never works. I like direction...and Snapshot Thursdays gave me a way to summarize my week when I didn't know what to say. But that was assuming I had a chance to write at all. These days, I just need to do a "snapshot" when I got a chance. Blogging really is my friend. It's just hard to come by this summer. I have to adjust to each new wave of changes and I'm finally figuring this one out. Finally. You might also be wondering..."When is she going to continue her diary writings?"...and..."Why doesn't she blog more often?". I'm tellin' ya. Hang in there. Life is crazy. This is when I have the most to say and the least amount of time to say it. I often think when things slow down I'll have more time to blog. I dream about the day when the kids are all in school and I'm home cleaning house, making lunch dates and getting things done. But what will I talk about then?? Who wants to hear about Miss Organization with more time on her hands than she knows what to do with it? No one. And how much will I really sit at home anyway? Will I be out and about all the time? I think it will be a mixture. I like home. I like making my home a comfortable, clean place to be. It's never clean, but I really appreciate it when I can clean. And really, things are not that crazy. I don't have my kids in five million activities. We're just all hanging out...doing our own thing...enjoying the "free form" of summer. No packing lunches, no following up on homework, no carpooling, no making sure a uniform is clean for the next day. Yes....live it up now because in 6 weeks we're doing that stuff all over again.

The banging is still going on downstairs. They have most of the drywall up. It is actually looking like a room. I really can't wait. They've turned the lights on so we can actually breathe a sigh of relief that they really put enough in. Ted and I spent our weekend spraying doors and rolling baseboards in addition to watching my sister's four kids while they helped on a youth conference. The kids were great and we had a lot of fun. Yes... I know. Can you believe it? It feels so good to say that. It feels good to say that we got all that painting done, too. We're realizing that summer is the best time to get some of these unfinished projects done, so we are getting back to our upstairs and finishing that job of replacing old baseboards and closet doors. We did the doors last winter and just kinda dropped the rest. Last night we realized we need to schedule this stuff so we just wrote everything in on the upcoming weekends. That felt good. It's scheduled. It'll get done.

We also scheduled my crop nights which also fell off the face of the earth. I get one night every other week, just to work on cropping! I was supposed to do this before and summer just threw us for a loop. Hopefully, this consistent cropping will help get me caught up.

I'm so disorganized in my thought process on this blog. The other thing I wanted to mention is what started this desire to schedule some stuff. I looked at the calendar and realized Ted is in a friend's annual Golf Tournament this week and he is taking a day and a half off work and is playing Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Can you imagine doing your absolute favorite activity for three days, you still get paid and you don't have to get a babysitter???? I was jealous. Poor Ted...he can't have any fun without getting a litany for him. But it doesn't make me angry at him or think he shouldn't do it. But for some reason, I don't feel I can do these things as easily. I have to jump through hoops. And then there is the mommy guilt. He said, "But you CAN do stuff like this. You can schedule a crop weekend." But that requires finding other busy moms who are actually free for a weekend to get away and crop. Men are just freer. They can take vacation days! Waa Waaa waaaa. I'm really not trying to complain. I'm in such a better place...but this kinda stuff just stairs me right in the face and says, "Naa na nahh na naa nah". So anyway, after I vented some of this yucky stuff, and added that I would LOVE it if he took vacation to do finish our upstairs....that's when we whipped out the calendar and scheduled away. See...if you just heard about our scheduling, you would think, "What a perfect couple. They have all of this stuff they are getting done and she is scheduling crops for herself!". Now you know the whole story.

Ted really is a supportive guy and a good husband. He handles what's before him and takes one thing at a time. He doesn't get overwhelmed, or underwhelmed. He's consistent, he's fair. He doesn't anticipate, nor does he dread. He lives in the present. I said to him last night, "Aren't you excited that you get to play three whole days of golf? Aren't you just so appreciative that you can just schedule this and just do it?" He said, "I actually haven't thought about it much. It's not here yet." I'm the kinda person that thinks way beyond the black and white. I look behind everything I see to find what's really dwelling there. I want to know why and how. I probably think too much. I anticipate, I dread, I get excited, I feel exhilarated, I feel depressed, I feel overwhelmed, I feel bored, I feel, I feel. I am WOMAN!!!

Tune in next time, for another jumbled mess of thoughts, with way too many emotions and inconsistent, nonsensical ramblings.

Day One of the Basement Remodel

These are pictures I took "Day One" of the basement remodel (June 27). I had to clear out the basement before they started their work so it's not a legitimate "before" picture. We had it set up with an old carpet on the floor and separated into a playroom and a family room. I couldn't wait to get rid of that old carpet...it was 25 years old. Uck. It was a gift of the previous owners and it always felt dirty and old to me. I can't wait to have new carpet, but new carpet is expensive so we'll see when that happens. We knew it was something we could do later so we went ahead with the renovation not knowing if we could totally finish it. That's ok. However, I am having a Women's Group meeting at my house at the end of the month and I would LOVE to have it all finished by then....but we are doing the painting and the carpeting ourselves. Anything we do ourselves takes longer. I mentioned my desires to Ted, telling him we should order the carpet now (free financing through Home Depot) so we can finish it in one fell swoop. Ted is a "wait and see" kinda guy. I'm not good with "wait and see". My mom would say that all the time..."Let's wait and see". Is this necessary? Free financing! What difference does it make? Ok, patience, Missy. You can temporarily set up furniture in the room before you put in carpeting! What's the big deal? The big deal? It's like putting clothes on before taking a shower! It's out of order! Ok. I'll stop the conversation with myself.

Besides all the hammering, things are going pretty well around here. After Mary clings to me for first part of the morning, she actually separates and plays better on her own. Ben just seems easier to please and content. Sam and Abby are quite self sufficient and don't cause any problems. My summer has made a turn around and I'm grateful to God for it. I'm finding energy to do the things that have been bugging me. I'm definitely more productive when I'm happy.

Back from Eminence--Circle B Campground

We just got back from Eminence, Missouri and I have to say it was the best time I've had in a long while! It was just what I needed. We had 8 other families with us not including my parents and my younger sister, Becky. We had so much fun. The kids really cooperated to contribute to the success of the extended weekend getaway. Thank you God! I have to say it was better than my experience at Gulf Shores. I guess Gulf Shores gave us a good warm up to this trip. We were better prepared and the younger ones seemed more laid back. I also think all the people there helped to contribute to the fun factor. I'm telling you...the fun factor was huge. We had a campfire every night with s'mores and other yummy campfire goodies made on those iron clamps. One night we even had campfire music to the tune of 3 guitar players! We went on a float trip with Sam and Abby and 9 other canoes in our group while my mom and dad watched Ben and Mary. Saturday night Ted stayed back with Ben and Mary while I took Sam and Abby to mass with my family and then out to eat. Any down time we had was spent lazily on the rocky shores of the Jacks Fork river. I was in heaven. There was no sand to bug Ben...no sandy car rides to and from the beach...and unlike Gulf Shores there were lots of trees for shade and a cool breeze wafted through them. I guess I'm just a Missouri girl after all. Actually, I don't want to cut down Gulf Shores, Eminence wouldn't look that great after a hurricane either.

The picture to the left is some of the women, or should I say "mom's", who came on our trip with us. We decided on a last minute "mini-float" with our kids innertubes. The boys watched the kids while we laughed and floated (and I'm sure we all took a potty break)...ok...I'm sorry...TMI.

Anyway, I'm loving me new attitude. My decision to be happy...despite the fits, despite the messes never get cleaned, despite the house maintenance that is left undone, despite the constant needs of the young ones. God's giving me neat little things to smile about that were probably always under my nose I just was too focused on the other things to notice them. I'm sure I'll hit a slump again, but I hope it's not for a while, and that I remember what I've learned.