Rejuevination of a Positive Attitude

I am still looking for the fountain of youth....or at least a really good IV tap of positive endless energy.  I hate the crappy doldrums where you look at your day and say "why can't I just go back to bed and pretend I am not responsible for little people?'  

The crap-shoot of the crappy doldrums is not feeling like I am personally special.  Ah yes, I know I am a child of God and He loves me, and God don't make no junk.  Although, it would be really nice to be able to turn around and seem as though I did something extrordinary today.  That is EXTRAordinary, as in beyond ordinary.  What's that one thing I do really good?  Survival isn't on the 'extra' list.  Well, perhaps today it is more than just ordinary.

I just get bogged down with a furrowed brow and can't seem to eat enough chocolate chips to relax it out of me.  I get worried about things that are normally challenging but shouldn't be depressing.  Today's worry list includes:

Bickering daughters - is it just a sister thing and do I have to intervene every day of the rest of their life?

Worth of a Soul - while visiting teaching this morning and felt that same opressive stress I did as a missionary so many moons ago.  Does anyone else feel like too many people are missing the Gospel point and helplessly floundering on the edge of a black abyss?  Why am I the only one caring here?

Useless talents - Why was I given talents that are totally non-applicable to my life right now?

Sleep - why is it that I can only read when I should be sleeping and only fall asleep at the exact two moments that I have a chance to read something important?

Right - worry.  Doubtless I am always concerned about the above, but today they seem to be driving a stake into my brain and weighing down my arms to the point that I would rather just sit and cry.  What can I, pitiful little talentless me, do about all that?  It is gonna take some serious power juice to jolt me out of this one......must be Jamba time ;)  Although not the fountain of youth, if I get enough shots of ginseng and immunity and power in there I might be able to override the lead instincts.  Ah man, forgot that I live in Indiana now, do they even have Jamba?  Please bless that......

So funny I forgot to laugh.

Dear Mother Nature,

That was quite the little joke you pulled on friday.  Oh, I can sense the irony of the situation: me working my little worker bee self ragged trying to get the assumed dry basement ready for a giant carpet remnant go be put down and then WASH!  Really, it could have been funny that right after I spent a very hot and humid afternoon mopping the thick dust and dirt off the basement floor the next day you send torrential rains to seep through my foundation and gloss over the floors yet again.  And I might have right down belly-laughed at the pooled water on my nice, barely laid an hour, carpet had it not been right down rude of you to drop all that plentiful water (for which many a farmer has been praying I am sure) right into the seat of my hard work.  It was a funny joke of you Mother Nature, but I just forgot to laugh.

I was so excited for the 'bright yellow' carpet to come and cover all the asbestos tile.

I know, you're thinking, that ain't 'bright' yellow, it is a might mellow for my taste too.

Thank you newly bought de-humidifier combination fan for drying out the carpet. I love you.

He's the luckiest guy I know

It is not only being very nice to let you husband sleep in on Father's Day, but rather strategic.  You then have time to put up the decorations and get the kids hyped about making the day special for a few minutes.  Silly Josh thought just because I hadn't but the decor up the night before that I had forgotten.

 I was super excited and proud of the kids that this year they were actually writing things in the card for their Daddy, mostly unprompted.  It made it so special to have those hand made, kid thought notes for him.

Furthermore, their best gift to him was building a very fashionable throne room under the kitchen counter.  They made sure it was plush and comfortable. 

I think he is just so darn lucky to have such amazing kids.  I feel blessed everyday to be their mom,  and I think it brought it home a little more to have them show Josh how amazing they are too.  Can't take a moment for granted with these little gremlins, they are slipping away from us.  This afternoon I asked Faith when she decided to grow up so fast.   She thought momentarily then responded "When I decided I wanted to be a Momma and new I had to grow up."  Smarty pants.  But she has got goals.

Slow progress

I am to the point with all the projects etc.  that there is very small progress.  That is the most discouraging stage.  There is still a list of little thing to be done before all is completed, but you can't really tell the difference that it has been done until all the other little stuff has been done too!  Grr.   We have had to switch gears a couple of times now too...what with having to rush and get the upstairs apt livable within one week to have the Elders move in.  It is a really nice apartment and I would be lying if I said I didn't wish we could just adopt it all to be part of our house.  Although we have more than enough room as it is!

In fact, along with getting upstairs all fancied - we have been working in the basement too.  It is summer time now and the weather is hot.  The basement is cool though.  What better time to do projects in the basement than right now!  Also, we are getting some cheap carpet remnants for upstairs and the sales guy wanted to unload some bright yellow carpet remnants too!  BRIGHT YELLOW folks.  That pretty much had my name on it from the start.  Since it is 'just the basement' and temporary fix until we really finish out the basement, Josh has no problem with me putting bright yellow carpet all over the place.  I am happy just thinking about it...ohhh, it comes tomorrow.  In the meantime I am making slow progress getting everything organized down there.....I hate it when things don't have a proper home.

To top off this slow moving progress train, I have several amazing books in my reading repretoire.  However, I am making mega slow progress because I can't seem to get through a couple pages before I fall asleep - honking snores and all!  So not fair.  I am actually making the time to read the books because I need their information, but my brain is on turtle mode!  Not fair.  True, I like sleep, but I really like reading.  I hate having to fight my body on two fronts - "I want to read.'  "No! I want to sleep!"  The voices are getting louder, that's probably why I just shut off and ignore them both.

I won't even mention in this slowly made blog post how defeating it was to go on a 3 mile run this morning at my slowest pace EVER.  Progress...I went running.  Slow....that's just slow.

Moving on now...  steady wins the race.

life is plastic

it's fantastic!

Birthday BOY

Danny turned 4 on June 14th, 2012

I super love celebrating birthdays for my kiddos - especially those so very deserving.  I feel so very blessed to have a boy as good as Danny and wish I could spoil him every day, because he spoils me!  He prefers Mama cuddles still and will tell me at various points of the day if he sees I am a bit subdued 'Mama, I have some of my best cuddles for you!"   Danny also told me last week that "I was born to be funny!"  He certainly keeps it light hearted and loving around here.  

The loot.

We adopted an 'open presents all day long' policy.  It seemed right, why have to wait until the end of your birthday when you can spread it out through the whole day and get instant gratification for having been a great person for four full years.

 Danny chose to take us to the Zoo for his birthday.  We love being members so we go right when it opens and see the animals that are most interesting and then go home without worrying that we didn't see the whole zoo.  The cool part was that three of the sea lions were also celebrating a birthday on June 14th.  The came over and shared at least 15 minutes of birthday party action with Danny, the must have known somehow.

Still our Golden Boy - hair, smile, everything is pure gold!

 As all boys should be, Danny has been in love with horses for years.  We have been trying to get him on a horse ride for a couple of birthdays now.  How providential that for a 'nominal' fee the zoo has pony rides.  Danny picked out this stately steed as the one he wanted to ride.  Always cautious, Danny picked a good 'starter' pony. These critters were so docile, almost bored, while taking kids around a track twice and then it parked itself.

 It really was the perfect sized pony and Danny felt confident by the second round enough to boast that he was a cowboy that could ride with just one hand.

 With all the home improvement going on Danny has been asking for his own tool set.  He is such a careful boy we had no hesitation in getting him real tools.  He uses them appropriately helping Mom or Daddy and then puts them meticulously back in his tool case.  What a perfect little man.

 The love of Captain America has not worn off- should a love of heros every go away?  Thankfully, the cake design was simple enough for me this year that I could actually pull it off!  Thanks to a new convection oven and following a frosting recipe I succeeded in making the most moist delicious frosting cake ever.  I am so pleased it was for Danny's birthday since he deserves the best!

To top off the perfect day, we headed to Danny's favorite place  - BASEBALL!  Luckily we have a minor league team here in town and the brand new stadium is super close.  The lawn seating was still great seating and Danny was interested in the game through the full 9 innings.  Sadly our Tin Caps lost after holding a lead for 6 innings.  But we loved every moment of it.

Danny sporting his new hoody, appropriate for the game.

 There were fireworks after the game, but we headed to the car and watched from there to beat the 5000 strong crowd out of traffic.  They did a pretty nice show for Danny ;)  We were sure happy to have our friends Lindsey and Jason along for the game and fun.

The kids got on the megatron a couple times for their fine dancing.

Despite it all

Science Central: they had a whole exhibit on the sport/science of skateboarding.  Danny and Faith were moving so fast between exhibits I hardly had time to read why skateboarding warranted a whole exhibit space.

Oh yes, the home improvement projects continue, yet, somewhere in there I realized that the kiddos still needed the time to be kiddos and have fun outside of the construction zone.  I set the goal that we would still have at least one cool outing each week to explore our new town.  Thanks to Groupon, we went to check out the Science museum.   They have converted the old boiler building for the city energy into the science center.  They still have some of the giant machines in there, which take up some valuable space in my opinion.  It was crazy crowded and there were a couple end of year school field trips there - overall incredibly crowded.  But we did our best to have some fun.  All the while I was still having to switch over power companies and do some necessary 'work.'  

Those little needle boards X 10.  Although, you still can't get much more than your hand or a bit of your arm outlined in it.

Love Danny's tongue action.

Back at the house - Josh played plumber and got our new kitchen sink and a decent garbage disposal put together.  Perhaps it is a good thing to have had to live with a sink that didn't drain and having to pull all food scraps out of the catcher with your bare hands *gag*  to finally appreciate a well draining sink and functional disposal.  The sink got put in with the new countertops and I couldn't use it all for a full day....no functional kitchen without a sink is funny.  All is in and working.  Now we are a few cosmetic steps away from having the home 'fixed.'

We frankenstiened a bit of the old pipes to make them work with the new sink and at one point Josh made one of the angle cuts a bit much, at which point he pretended to fix a minor drip with all purpose glue.  That held for about a week and then he did the real deal with teflon tape.

Lucky for us, we hadn't built the back of the kitchen  island bar so Josh could do the construction on the piping from the back rather than through the tiny door in front and working upside down.  Renovation has its good parts.

 The kids have been party to some of this work as well.  For keeping their rooms tidy they earned these little lawn chairs.  It is so cute to see how they arrange them around the yard.  They sat patiently all morning watching the pool fill up.

 Once full, the pool has been the best location for kids to be during the last bits of construction.  Despite being super tired, they will always play like champs together in the pool, which is super nice since the girls recently discovered that they are 'sisters' and 'not always friends.'