Update on the house

I wrote about six weeks ago to say that the house is on the market. Well.... for the last three of the six weeks, no one has come to see the house. A very quiet three weeks. And we grew lazy. Lazy! Twenty-four hours ago the house was not looking good. So much so, that we joked about how horrible it would be to have a call for a showing.

Then, as I was cleaning the dishes yesterday morning, the phone rang.

It was our realtor's office.

They wanted to know if we could have a showing.... in 45 minutes.

I said yes. (!!!)

And thus began the crazy running around the house. It didn't get perfect, but decent enough for people to walk in the door. I still had dishes in the sink, the garage was a disaster, and the laundry room isn't near 'staged', but it was doable. Especially since I had been under the weather with a virus since last Wed. night. It felt excusable. And I even left the realtor a note saying so.
Then, while I was out for that showing, we got two more calls for showings! I have two more today (so I really need to get off this and do some final cleaning touches)

Three weeks of silence and then three showings in 24 hours!
One thing is for sure: If you aren't showing your house to people, whether they be strangers or friends, it is really easy to let it go. And once you start slipping.... it seems it happens sooo fast, it is not so easy to recover!

I Feel Pretty, Oh So Pretty...

There's nothing like a little 'lift' from your kids to make you feel great about yourself.

My oldest daughter (who is 5) has recently discovered that she has the fullest lips in the family - and inadvertently likes to rub it in.

"mom, my lips are big. Yours are not. Yours are tiny and small."

"yes, thanks Vivianne, I know. My lips are not as full as yours."
Now repeat the above conversation five or so times.

Seriously, even though she is just five, that conversation grew really old this past weekend. I think I am half human, and part bird. I have chicken legs, chicken lips, and crow's feet. Ha!

THEN! We were driving (me and the four kids) in the van on Saturday and everyone was silent. Ahhhh... It was a gorgeous sunny and warm day. Peace filled the van. Then suddenly...
"AGH!!!" a high-pitched scream from my daughter in the rear of the vehicle, "I thought I saw a old ugly witch's hand coming through the window!" she tells her brother..."But it is not a witch's hand...." (she giggles)"It is just a reflection of mom's hand in the window! phew."

Don't I just feel so pretty now?? Growing older is fun. I have grey roots to cover this week before they get any longer, and now I know I have tiny bird lips and old witch's hands... fabulous.

Living it out~

We recently rented the movie Kit Kitridge, an American Girl. I am so impressed! The movie is a high-quality movie, that I definitely recommend, and hope to own myself someday!

Good cast, great writing, good plot - unpredictable ending - even for me. I just loved it.

It is about friends growing up in the 1930's depression. They sell eggs for money, wear 'feed sack' dresses, some lose their houses... (I promise it is child appropriate!) ... and eat at a soup kitchen.

Now, my two oldest girls like to play 'Friends'. It is what I called "playing house" when I was a child. They take on roles of these friends that get together for teas, and church.. you have it.

However....... we were in public today. Just so you don't miss that - we were in PUBLIC today.... when they were playing 'friends' again, but the public didn't know that.

All the public heard was, "And we don't have any food."
"Right. That's why we eat at the soup kitchen".

Ahhh. The joys of motherhood! As much as I want our kids to have imaginary play, I just did not see this scenario coming! haha

Dear Diary,

I am calling this dear diary, because I'm feeling rather personal today. Here's the truth and brunt of it:

I need a little space and air. Not space from my family or life per-se, just ... space and time in the day. I need to stop barely 'coming up for air' but to take a minute to have downtime and breathe.

But let's face it - we don't really get to hit the pause button on life.

I'm just a little bit overwhelmed lately.

The house is on the market.
I can not keep it clean.
I can not keep it clean.
I can not keep it clean. ergh.
I feel I barely have time to pay bills and some of them are 'behind'. Not so behind that I'm like, yikes, we are gonna lose the house, but more like, 'crap, this was due yesterday' (or last week)...etc.
I have not had time to work on some picture books (from March) that I thought would be done by now.
I'm basically 5 years behind in my hobbies (scrapbooking specifically)
We barely have enough clean underwear and socks to get all six of us through the next day in clothes. ... and I'm behind on changing sheets - which really puts the laundry behind!
I am behind on the family budget.
I have felt like I barely even have enough time to whip up a meal here and there....


So... ugh. Tired of "barely" and "hardly" keeping up on my life, and here I am announcing that to the world! Calgon! Take me away!! :)

Today I decided to take a minute for 'me' and exercise - I figure if anything it will give me more energy to work. But maybe, just maybe, it took up 30 minutes I didn't have to spare! haha!

Have a great day y'all! Hope you are getting done more than me!!!

Home sweet home

This is how we 'camp'. It is quite comfortable and quaint.

Here's the drill, we drive up to our campsite (because we sure as heck don't hike to our site with all this stuff!) Then mommy and daddy (and now Alex because he is finally old enough) get out of the van and pitch the tent. The girls wait in the car until it is finished and then they are in the tent with me as I set up 'house'.
This year they kept asking me over and over again why I said, "set up house". I thought that was cute, but it is really true. Even for just two days, we have all the beds to make up, a kitchen to set up, a clothes line for towels (or a tarp in bad weather).
I enjoy it, although the weather and the temperament of the family can make it fun or really challenging. Though even the more challenging years (like setting up in the rain as night fell) are still looked upon as fond memories! :)


This year we set up the tent in the midst of 40mph wind gusts. Alex and I were holding on to what esentially was a 12x15ft kite for dear life!! That was fun, and will probably rank right up there with the rain set up! ")

More of our camping trip ~

Animals abound!
We went on a hike around BEAR lake Tuesday afternoon.
The kids were super fascinated with all the chipmunks and took to feeding a couple of them. That is, until we ran out of granola bars and the kids just let the chipmunks sniff their empty hands.

The chipmunks didn't like that so much and let Avalon know it by just barely nipping at her fingertip. (It didn't hurt her)


We got 'home' that night (to the tent) and as night was falling Patrick spun around while at the table to a noise behind him. Four feet behind him was this deer. So weird. It just stood there. I got a few shots before it slowly meandered off. (Don't deers usually jump and scamper at the nearness of humans??)


That night, in the wee early hours before dawn, the wind picked up high in the trees. But.... I also heard some rattling of our pots and pans and stove on the table. Not the whole time the wind blew, but just for a brief moment when I thought... that maybe I heard someone in our camp. I thought I heard someone walking near/around the tent.
I woke Patrick "up", and we both listened more intently. Maybe it was the wind. Maybe it was the deer back to explore. Maybe it was a bear. I had to pee, but didn't want to make a single noise. I wanted to peek out and see if I could see anything - but I know myself. I would have been frozen stiff and completely panic-stricken if I saw a bear. So I decided to just lay there and wait for morning.

That next morning, when we packed up for home and checked out we learned that there was indeed a bear in the camp last night! Whew. I'm glad I didn't see it. I wouldn't have been able to sleep a wink. He may not have been at our table... but I'm so glad all food, candy and mints were in the car and that whatever was out there did us no harm. Tell you what though - always exciting... always exciting....

I totally forgot this one!

This is a good one - yesterday was picture day at school. Kindergarten pictures are a big deal for me, and thus for the family. So, this is what happened yesterday before I realized kindergarten pictures were yesterday:

We weren't late, but we didn't have 'extra' time yesterday morning. We got to school on time, but we were lucky to get there. You know those kinds of mornings right??? Not crazy, but you are glad to have lunches made and kids not going to school in their pj's.

Well, I picked out my daughters clothes. I usually do. They were cute. Most her clothes are, I think...but they were just average 'play' clothes. I did however let her do her own hair. Not a good idea most of the time, but I thought... what the heck - it doesn't matter. No one cares. Just let loose and be care free.... Anyway, picture day isn't until Wednesday and we can do her hair up cute then...

I also noticed that she had two barretts in her hair. A teal blue on one side of her head... and one lime green on the other. The blue wasn't soooo bad. Her outfit was navy, but the green.... lighten up I tell myself. She is in kindergarten. No big deal.

She is also wearing every necklace and bracelet this side of the Mississippi. I tell her to only choose one of each and that is what she can wear to school.
So my daughter goes to school in a nice outfit, but I could have done much much better if I had only known. She is with 'half done' hair with two different color barretts, a shiny plastic gold necklace wrapped twice around her neck over a navy ghingham ruffly shirt, and a glow in the dark yellow plastic bracelet on her wrist.

Now my *favorite* part of the day.... she comes running out after school with a friend by her side and the other mother says to her daughter...."How was picture day honey??"

And I yell.... "NOOOOOO!"

Oh well... guess I can take Kindergarten pics myself this year....

Just another manic Monday..

oh, oh... wish it was Sunday...whoa-oh-oh...

So it was a Monday in it's truest form. We woke up this morning to my husband's car battery being dead.


The 'baby' is suspected of getting a cold/teething... something that is making her a-mighty fussy.

And... (as another story altogether..) our refrigerator died last Friday. The new one was supposed to be delivered today, but.... can you believe it, the warehouse had no information on the purchase or delivery.

ugh.

It all worked out. The car got jumped lickity-split. (Although I was blamed for leaving a light on in his car when I drove it last Friday. But, bo-yah baby... I didn't drive your car last Friday, or for the last two weeks actually - so there. Then he blamed it on our 7 year old son - yeah right. Alex was out there just driving around with the lights on....)
Anyway.

The baby - well.... she never really 'fixed' herself, but I don't really see a 'cold', and we all survived the day. She is safe, I am still sane. (just go with me on that one...)

The fridge - my husband summed it up the best with this statement: The dog that barks the loudest gets the attention. I called thrice. (like that usage of our language???)My husband called the manager. Long story short - we got a fridge today. And a really cool one too. It is a 'top-of-the-line' floor model that was on crazy sale in order to rearrange the sales floor. Sweet. Works for me. In fact... that's how we ended up with our bed, and our theater sound system. (I know we are sounding spoiled, but we're not. Well, not that much.... but we are really really good shoppers.)

We've been camping

Things I have learned camping:

1: You can never bring the correct amount of clothes. Last year we had a two month old. How dirty can she get camping right?? Well, she had two blow-outs in the first few hours and dirtied almost all the clothes I brought for her.

This year I was sure I could keep that from happening. We all had two each of pants, shorts, tees, and long sleeves. Unfortunately, for three year old - she fell twice in the first 20 minutes of being at the campsite. Fell all the way forward and also back on her bottom. One entire outfit was dirt from head to toe. Oh.. and I forgot to pack her any PJ's. So.. the one clean outfit was what she slept in, and she had to wear the dirty clothes each day. Under packed again.

My son purposely chose to wear one outfit the whole time. We brought back several clean clothes for him.

The moral is, you can never get it right no matter what you pack for any child.


2: I love the outdoors. Even though we were cold (first night), dirty, dusty, too cold for a shower, and didn't have a 'good' night sleep; we all still had a LOT of fun. My kids are incredible campers. They are seriously good - well behaved, know the 'drills' of camp life, good attitudes, etc. I love making fires in the fire pit. (I made a one match fire!) I love the forest floor. I love the smells. I love that we camp by a place with real toilets too.

3: Marshmellows should only be given to a child (girl) who is wearing a ponytail. My three year old brushed her hair out of her face while eating a gooey marshmellow.
She had gooey marshmellow in her hair. Until we got here to the house. Eww.

4: There is nothing like a family trip to the mountains. Romantic, fun, adventurous.... I mean, our trip to Disney early this year was amazing too, but for like... 1,000 dollars less, this family trip rocked too. So you can do amazing things with very little money.
Obviously, the kids loved it -