Just about out of here!

So the time is finally here. I'm off. We're off. We're headed to Japan and China for a whole two weeks.

Ummm, we leave in 4 hours.

I guess that means we should probably try to get some sleep because who knows what these next 14 hours on a plane are going to be like.

Man I'm going to miss my kids!!

Really

So I was trying to get the kids to clean up their rooms tonight. These last few weeks have been a very giving relationship. You give me the time I need to paint, I'll give you full run of the house. It worked great. But now it's time to un-run the house.

The kids were acutally cooperating and not complaining really. A lot of playing in between picking up, which is much better than pouting or arguing! So as my kids clean their room, anything that doesn't belong in their room they put in the hall outside their door (I have no idea why, or where they go this ingenious idea). Getting them to realize they still have to pick that up and put it away is a little harder of a concept. "But it isn't mine" is the common utterance. Well tonight I even got them to pick all of that up. If that is picked up, we can finally see the bottom layer of things-they-don't-have-to-pick-up.

The garbage

I don't know why, but they don't think they have to pick that stuff up. They throw it back on the floor when they realize what it is. So tonight, Bug picked up a piece of paper to see what it was. Decided it was not needed and threw it back on the floor. This was a paper he used to play with that day, and no longer wanted. I asked him what it was. He picked it back up and said "garbage". Then get this... he threw it back on the floor. With me standing right there. Um, hello? The conversation went like this:

"Why'd you do that?"
"It was garbage"

"Who do you think is going to pick up what you just throw on the floor like that?"
"You"

The kid didn't even blink an eye. Yup. Lets just say he didn't leave that paper on the floor too much longer. Lets figure out why there's no picture with this post. Hmm, I have a feeling it wouldn't have been to pretty!

So I'm not really mad though (okay, I was a little steamed at the scene of the crime but am doing much better now), more just flabbergasted. Really? He said that? To me?

I am as HERE as I want to be.

I am trying to be more in the moment with my life. My kids aren't going to stay this age forever, but I WILL always have bills to pay no matter how little or much we make.



My kids aren't going to want to play house when they're 15, but I will ALWAYS have dishes to clean.




My kids aren't going to be so willing to tell me EVERYTHING in their life, but I will alway have a phone call I need to make.






There are too many things I'm missing out on because I'm always worried about what's on the list for the day. Or that I didn't pay a bill. I know I can't just forget all that stuff, but I shouldn't dwell on it. It's not productive. Either go and pay the bill right away, so I can spend that time with my kids, or write it down and work on it when they are asleep. Or just simply say no. I can't do this with everything, but I can do it with so much more than I do now. I always have thoughts rambling through my head. This said, those thoughts are taking me away from all those little expressions Ase makes while eating lunch. Or when the kids play with a flashlight in the dark of the bathroom. It seems I would rather be inside my head, planning on how to make things better. If I would just stop and look at what I have in front of me, I'd realize.

It can't get much better.

Move or no move. Job or no job. This is my family and I don't want to miss out on these beautiful blessings I have been given. I am finding that the GREATEST reward to being a stay at home mom is that I'm able to see all these little moments. These are my "paydays". I would be a lot richer if I didn't pass them all up with unconscious thought.

"I don't need more attention. I don't EVER want to make something into another way of saying 'here I am'. Because I am as here as I want to be."

Time to let things be, and enjoy.

Because I am here.

Yard pick-up is tomorrow!!

My neighbors are going to be so glad to have all my mess picked up tomorrow. Ase will to for that matter. she loves to sit at the curb. She'll sit there for an hour with the newspaper, a book or some snacks. It doesn't matter. And obviously my tree-age didn't deter her any. Love it! The best was watching her try to wave to all the cars as they drove by. The only think making it so they could see her was the pink top!




I just had to put up a couple pictures of our sky tonight. A little dark, but the color was incredible (in the actual sky). These obviously don't do it justice. And the weather was perfect. Still a warm 70 degrees at 8pm. Now that's what I'm talking about!

Sigh and Breath... and then smile

I have three radom tulips that bloom in my yard. They somehow survived the lack of care from previous owners. They are just about on their way out, and had to snap a picture of one of them. I don't know what it is about them, but they are amazing flowers. So bold, yet so delicate at the same time.




So it's probably a good thing I didn't have a computer the last couple of days. I was just in one of those spaces where I don't think I was to pleasant to talk to. Or be around (those poor kids). I was sick of everything, but had no way to get away from any of it. I ended up doing nothing all day and then staying up until about 2am, watching old Oprahs and for some reason that's all I needed. I was back at work.

I've since taken down some more forest in the front yard, painted two more rooms, changed some more door knobs (we're at 25 now!), changed the smoke detectors, changed out yet another light fixture and fixed two leaky faucets. It's been good. Really good. I also almost caught up on the bills and budget. That should probably be top priority at this point, but I thought that was easier to do while the kids were awake, so I'll paint now. I just finished the final coat on the bathroom, I may have to do the hall in my room, but I'm undecided. so I'm waiting for some more opinions before I make myself to do. If I can avoid it I will. I never thought I would say I was tired of painting. There really isn't much left in this house to paint. Just the stairs and railing, the crown molding in my room (I'm desperatly waiting for Matt to be around so I don't have to try and reach that again) and that should be it. We've then painted just about every square foot of this house. Wait, I've just about painted every square foot of this house.

I have a feeling if we move I'll jump right back into the painting again. That's just me!

First Spring BBQ

Mmmmm. This Friday and Saturday night Matt and I went out.

Without the kids.

Whoohoo! Matt turned in his final two projects this weekend. He is done. Well, after the Japan trip. It was wonderful. We actually spent some brief time together. We grilled outside. We had some of the best hamburgers, carmalized onions, polenta and some ice cream to top it all off.



Bug loved spending some "guy" time with his dad on the grill. It was sweet. They made the whole dinner, well except the ice cream ;)... on the grill. He was in heaven.




The girls both loved having their dad home too, but the best part for Ase was getting to be outside! It was a wonderful night. We were all tired and exhausted from the week/s, but the time together was something very much needed. Now I'm in withdrawl. Matt's gone for the entire week, and I'm back to my huge list of repairs.




Funny how one day can be so splendid and the next so lonely. That's life, and I can't complain too much. If there weren't the hard times, I wouldn't recognize the good ones. So I have to say I'm grateful for them all, but right now I'm ready for more the the good ones!

Can you Here or There? Can you find it anywhere?

So although it's way past Easter, in all my yard work I've come to realize just how many Easter Eggs may lay hidden with the possibility of never being found. Atleat by the intended recipient. There are some eggs I've found from way before we ever moved in. Candy still in there! It's actually kind of fun to think of all the years this house has seen, with all the kids and Holidays. We weren't the first to intorduce this house to all there is, we are just adding a little to it's history. So in leu of what I've been finding outside, I just had to ask.... can you find an egg anywhere in this photo. It's there, I promise!

Let the birds sing

Every night we say bed time prayers with the kids. For the last week, every night, Nutmeg has a request.




"Please let the birds sing to me while I sleep."




It seems, when she wakes in the morning the birds are chirping outside her window, and she thinks they've been doing the entire time while she's been asleep. My favorite though, is that she noticed. How many of us even take the time to notice, let alone pray to hear the birds sing?

Oh the lessons I can learn from my kids!

There's more than a beginning, middle and end

Hello! It's been some time. There has been much prep work going on here for our move to Chicago. Yard (me), painting (me), cleaning (again- me) and finishing our last week of school (him!). Whew! Hopefully I'll have some pictures of the yard up soon. We've had some horrible wind which blew a bunch of stuff on the newly mulched beds, but it still looks much better than it did! And of course after doing all this to the house it just makes me want to stay all the more. (by the way...the girls in the picture, I love these guys. I don't know what I'd do without them in my life)

Tonight I heard something which I really liked. It was said that life is no longer viewed as having three major parts to it. The beginning, the middle and the end. Now there are many short stories to make up the big production. There is no longer young, mid-life crises, and old.

There's the twenties when you start to take control of your life. There's the thirties when you really are finding out who you are. The fourties you grab the bull by the horns. The fifties are when you have the time to be who you have always wanted to be. It keeps going. The 80's aren't just something you reach. They are something you achieve. Being old isn't the end of the book. When I hit thirty, it shouldn't be that big of a deal. I've moved on to another short story, which I can make even better than the last. That's how it works when you write, or do anything for that matter. The more you do it, the better you get. So each of our stories should work this way too, right? There is no order. Each production is unique to the writer. I think that's the best part.

This is ours to write, and there is no wrong other than to not write at all.

So I am going to write.