Not too bad...

Um, Liv, if you're reading this, I have some bad news.  We suffered a slight bit of flooding this weekend due to the aforementioned blog entry entitled "Aloha".  We lost about 1/4 of the carpet in Liv's room, luckily I put in the stick down squares so we were able to just pull up the wet ones and can replace them with new ones.  I did not panic or freak out, you would have been so proud of me.  I was very zen about it, especially after watching the news on Sunday and realizing that we got away with very little damage compared to so many other people.  The rain was freaky though, it never stopped all night, most of the rivers here in the great northwest jumped their banks and lots of people lost everything.  Mike and I were out in the midst of it checking gutters and putting down tarps around the house.  We had to end up stapling a big blue tarp to the south side of the house and sloping it down like a tent to direct the water away from the foundation, so far so good.

We stayed hunkered down for the weekend and watched the rain come down in sheets.  It was cozy.  Grace and I have almost managed to beat Donkey Kong Country Returns but that last boss is a real beezy.  We watched a lot of TV, cleaned house, read, and cooked...my ideal weekend, I never got out of my sweats, I even slept in them.  Ahh.  I even finished wrapping all the presents I have bought so far, that's a big deal as I'm usually up until 3:00 a.m. on Christmas Eve finishing up.  Not this year!

Picking up Liv tomorrow night at 7:00 and then Sam is off to visit Kourtnie and Trevor in El Paso on Wednesday morning, she'll be gone for a week and is sooo excited, it's Trevor's 2nd birthday already.  Crazy.

Aloha!

This blog has become some sort of depressing weather report lately.  Saying that I will go on to mention that we are battening down the hatches for some record breaking rain heading our way, one of our famous Pineapple Expresses.  Sounds so tropical and it is, kind of, it's a stream of rain and warm air caught in a system trough coming from Hawaii and heading towards us, we could get a couple inches of rain.  So Mike is at Home Depot getting some gutter extensions to lead the water away from the house, he added and adjusted tarps to our leaky roof areas and cleaned out the leaf-filled gutters.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we are prepared enough and won't have to deal with anymore water issues here at the homestead.  Liv is arriving on Tuesday evening, hopefully not to another "weather event".

One more week until Christmas Winter Break,  I'm almost done shopping now, awaiting a couple more packages by FedEx.  I will have to brave the elements and my mental state to do some actual shopping to finish up.  I've assigned Mike some tasks, like picking up gifts for his littlest nephews and taking care of Brynn's gifts.  We decided not to buy gifts for each other this year but that always bites me in the butt, so I have been grilling the kids about whether or not Mike is getting me a gift, just in case.  So far they say they "don't know anything" but they are terrible liars and I'm concerned. 

We watched "Eat, Pray, Love" last night, so good and such beautiful scenery.  It was between that and Twilight Eclipse, I figured I'd give Mike and break and chose the chick flick over the tween drama, that poor man.  Anyway, I'm going to grab my couch blanket, a cup of mocha, and watch Eclipse while the Pineapple Express has it's way with us.

Bah Humbug AGAIN

As if my life isn't filled with enough anxiety and depression, cuz that's pretty much my constant state of being from mid October through April, with little sprinkles here and there the rest of the year, my effing roof is leaking again!!!  Flat roof over the bedroom, which we FIXED already, starting leaking again during another torrential Seattle rainstorm last night.  Luckily my hero, Drew, showed up at exactly the right moment, forget that he actually showed up for leftover chili, and saved my ass.  This is a new leak, where the flat roof and the slanted roof meet.  Drew climbed up in the downpour, in the pure darkness, and threw a tarp over the leaky part and stopped the stream of water landing in the center of my bed, on my newish Pottery Barn comforter non-the-less.  It seemed to work, although in order to stop the leak I had to remove the tarp from the other flat roof, over the kitchen, which started leaking on Thanksgiving day.  It's a small leak so I found an old ski jacket one of the kids left in the storage room and crammed it around the stove vent, the source of the leak in the kitchen, and so far so good.  I come from pioneer stock.  In case you are wondering, Mike is out of town, another one of those "Mike coincidences" that pop up so frequently.

Crazy weather has been predicted for the northwest this year and we have not been disappointed.  This morning it rained harder than I have ever seen it rain at my house.  Thunder and lightning, it was like nighttime at 8:00 this morning when I took Jack to school.  I actually like dramatic weather so I'm pretend complaining about that, except when the dramatic weather falls on my super adorable comforter.

Like I've inferred above, my anxiety is over the top right now, I'm trying to finish up my Christmas shopping on a shoestring budget, I'm almost done but my seasonal affective disorder is not allowing me even go near a crowd of any sort.  Luckily our closest shopping center is an outdoor mall, which helps as I'm not forced to get too close to other humans.  Blech.  I've even managed to avoid the Center's annual Holiday Party, which features a chocolate fountain, my worst nightmare.  Seriously, so gross.

I tried to cheer myself up the other night by watching a late movie (anxious sleeplessness), FYI...don't watch "The Lovely Bones" when you are depressed.  Derr.

Bah Humbug

Seattle did finally thaw out.  It's been a beautiful sunny, cold weekend and yesterday was a perfect day to head to the tree farm for our annual Christmas tree hunt.  We found a lovely one, had some hot chocolate and headed back to the homestead for some decoratin'. 



Live Tree



Dead, but lovely, tree.



Grace and I decided to have a little sleepover down in Liv's room to check it out.  She is correct in stating that her bed is very comfy and I slept like a log.  I thought it might be a little creepy in the basement but it really wasn't, it was cozy and warm and the big window is so pretty in the morning.  Only 8 more days until Liv is home again.

Our day started out a little scary, Elke got out of the yard yesterday morning and we didn't find her for 3 hours.  She has been getting out and I warned Mike not to let her out unattended until he fixed the fence.  I awoke to hear him calling her and knew immediately that he probably hadn't heard me (again) and hoped that he hadn't removed her collar like he usually does (she jingles and wakes us up in the morning).  Unfortunately, he had...insert signing sound.   I was trying not to imagine her lifeless body lying in the road and what that would do to my children.  Turns out a good Samaritan found her and took her to the vet to scan her microchip.  I was introduced to a NE Seattle Moms group page and was so grateful to find that this network of mom's led Elke right back to our door, neighbors I don't even know.  It was heartening to see that our neighborhood is a lot more neighborly than I knew.  Today Mike is fixing the fence, it's only taken him five years and a giant scare but he is getting it done.

I'm immersed in Christmas shopping and taking my Ativan so that I can sleep through the stress of it all, and trying not to gain my usually holiday 5 pounds...I think it might be too late for that. 

We are all trying to recover from nasty colds, me, Liv, Sam, Jack and Drew all got walloped but I think the worst is over.  Back to the grind, I can't wait for January so I can start my official countdown to May and camping season.  I don't have a good attitude about January, February, March, or April.

Brrrr!

It's a winter wonderland in Seattle.  Snow has been falling all day and its butt-cold.  Presently 27 degrees here at our house.  I'm not a fan of the cold and this house doesn't do real cold well.  I'm pretty sure it's not at all insulated, from what we saw when we did our kitchen remodel a couple years ago, which was just a wall you could peek through behind the old drywall.  We have radiant heat as well, which is a lovely heat when its 45 degrees out but a weak, weenie, pathetic heat when it's 25.  I've been a terror about making sure we are hermetically sealed, every exterior door has a towel jammed in the thresh hold, curtains are all closed as soon as the sun isn't shining into the window.  We are burning logs, using space heaters, and bundling up under blankets on the couch. 

The great news is that I'm picking Liv up at the airport tomorrow for Thanksgiving break and she was just talking about how much she missed the seasons...ta da, have some winter.  It's not supposed to get much warmer than the mid twenties tomorrow with "bitter wind chills" so all of this will be one giant sheet of that famous Seattle ice.  Viva La Nina!   I'm not sure how I'll actually get to the airport, but I'm gonna do my best cuz I can't wait to see my girl.  Her room turned out so cute and cozy. 

Thanksgiving is at our house again this year and I still haven't got my turkey, I've been busy!  Mom and Steve are coming over and I can't wait to have all my kids together for dinner again.  I also can't wait for a heaping helping of my amazingly delicious stuffing, if I don't say so myself. 

Wine Cellar?

Spent the day painting the downstairs basement bedroom.  I'll post before and after pictures when it's done.  Liv will be down there for at least three months and then...it's mine.  I've had an extra bedroom at my disposal before.  Way back when Samantha was a baby and we lived in a three bedroom house.  I used it as my sewing and ironing room, back in the day when I made sofa pillows covered with geese-adorned and gingham fabric and always made all of Sam's dresses.  Now, I'll use it as an extra room for when Darcy or Olivia comes home and a place to sleep when Mike's snoring drives me out...which is getting more frequent as he gets older and I get grouchier.  A place to read in peace, I'll put my sewing machine down there to taunt me into making more bunting and maybe some geese-free pillows.  I'm going to get to that slipcover for that ottoman soon, probably not.  I'm imagining myself sneaking down there to hide from the noise when another migraine lurks.  It's gonna be sahweet. 

But, I'm thinking it will be a short lived slice of heaven as my always sweet Jack is on the verge of being a typical, sulking, sighing, eye-rolling, annoying teenager and won't want to live upstairs with Grace for much longer.  Sad.  I can't even think about it.  He's entertaining himself by making Grace scream, even as I write.  Maybe I'll turn that extra room into a wine cellar?

Busy, busy, busy...

I haven't added a post for a long time, not because nothing is happening but for the opposite reason.  We got up on that roof at our first sunny opportunity and got 'er done.  Almost.  The outside is patched and a new roof is protecting us from the northwest elements.  We haven't got to the new sheetrocking on the inside yet as that's going to be a little more invasive.  It will involve covering everything up so that the insidious drywall dust doesn't permeate our living space.  We were so proud of ourselves that we promptly took off for Cannon Beach for the weekend.

It was mostly lovely, only one afternoon was too stormy to enjoy the beach.  The kids and Elke love the beach more than anything in the world and I love to watch them have that much fun without the help of any technological devices.  Just sand, shells, and surf.  It's amazing how long that can be entertaining.



Unmitigated Joy

Mike likes the beach too, as long as he can bring his coffee and Blackberry.  He can't do without the technology as long as the kids can...

Argh, nice pirate boots

Other big news this week.  Olivia is calling it quits.  No more ASU after this semester.  She isn't going back.  She's been so miserable and so unhappy.  It's just a little more than a northwest girl can take to be out in that hot, dusty dirt.  She did her best and I'm just happy to have her back.  She and Taylor are applying to Western for the spring quarter and will be attending Shoreline C.C. for the winter quarter.  The downstairs basement room that Sam just vacated will be quickly taken over by Liv and that's what I'm doing this weekend.  Cleaning and painting and preparing.  Liv was worried that we would be put out my having her move back in.  Silly girl.  She's only 18, she's still a baby and I am thrilled to be able to cook for someone who I know appreciates it.  If she were 30 it would be a different story.

Halloween was a success.  Thank Gawd the candy is finally gone.  I picked a bad time to start the Atkins Diet again, it took all my strength.

A milestone and a couple crappy things...

My oldest has flown the nest...again.  We moved Samantha out on Sunday and we only broke one window in the process.  Mike was trying to strap Sam's boxspring onto the top of the Yukon and the bungee snapped and hit the rear window like a gunshot.  Shattered.  Oh well, it's already back to good and Sam is out.  I'm excited for her, she is doing a great job decorating on a dime.  I'm going to start working on turning that basement into a cute Liv's/guest/video game/t.v. room when I have an extra second.  Which I won't anytime soon on account of the third paragraph.

We also scrubbed the front steps so that the little trick or treaters wouldn't slide off our previously treacherously slippery stairs.  We had about four groups of kids, mostly under 6.  Which also means I'm about to gain another 5 pounds finishing off the Halloween candy, why am I not smart enough to buy the gross stuff, like black licorice.  Ack.  Hey, maybe I should keep a pictorial blog of my growing ass...you wish.

Lastly, I woke up this morning to the depressing sound of water dripping.  Extra depressing as it was dripping inside my house.  The roof over my bedroom is done doing what it's supposed to do and we are now going to be doing a major tear down of most of the drywall in my room.  We will also be re-roofing as soon as it stops raining.  We live in Seattle so that may be a while.  Oh, and we don't really know how to re-roof, so yeah.  It's grandpa Steve to the rescue, again.  We are trying to figure out if homeowner's insurance will cover this, but I'm not an optimistic person.  *heavy sigh*  I would now like to officially request to the universe that I win the lotto cuz I need it more than ANYONE else in the world.  Seriously.  Sometimes life is a real bitchosaurus rex.

Use Your Words (warning: gross talk)

Just try to come over to my house and use an actual anatomically correct word without causing a riot of giggles.  We had a little house guest this weekend who used the word "fart" a lot.  She also did that word a lot, she said she had eaten a few too many Fiber One bars and she was still trying to pass the fiber.  I smell feel her pain.

We don't say usually say fart in my house, we say Foof or Fluff, which can also be spelled with with a ph.  Sounds nice, doesn't it.  It got me thinking about the alternate words our family uses for various body parts or actions.  I'll list them for your reading enjoyment:

Girls have a Pippalulla (pip for short) and a Poola

We don't use the "v" word unless we are talking about a man with an overbearing wife or girlfriend, you see he has unfortunately become "vaginated".

Boys also have a Poola and they have a hot dog (as in "do you have a license to sell hot dogs?) or the generic "wiener" works.  Generally, we just don't talk about this body part.

On a side note, my brother used to call his hot dog a pretzel.

Older girls and mommy's have "bobbies", we called them "mama's mia's" as children.  The word "boob" gets thrown around a bit as well. 

Going number two is often referred to as "dropping a deuce".  Thank you, Drew.

We pee, but we also piddle or go number one.

If you have an excess of anything then we will "osaurus rex" it.  ie., if you smell bad, then you are a "stinkosaurus rex".  We can really osaurus rex most anything.

If we drive up behind a Saturn (the car), someone will definitely say "move Uranus, Saturn".

We even have alternate names for each other...

Samantha:  Tammy Teetower, Xena Warrior Princess, Samama Jamma.

Darcy:  Boots, Furple

Drew:  Big D, Droopy D

Olivia:  Odideeda, Dids, OC, Vivian

Jack:  King, Jackimo, Shaggy

Grace:  Bug, Booger, AG, Gigi

Brynn:  The oldest and the only one with no nickname.

Even the dog...Elke aka "Old Smeller" or "wolf".

And the cat...Pepper aka "Paprikosh", "superpep", or "pooper".

I'm sure I can come up with some more, I'll work on it.

More Goods and Bads

The Goods:

1.  Samantha has found an apartment she and Eric can afford and is moving out next week;
2.  A big, fall storm has moved in and we are cozy and hunkered down for the day;
3.  This morning Grace and I made 3 loaves of whole wheat bread have already eaten half of the first one..carb overload...ow;
4.  Mike and I removed the crystally chandelier from Jack's room (formerly Liv's room) and replaced it with a much more manly fan/light, and we weren't electrocuted;
5.  I had my hair bleached and I'm feeling light and sunny.

The Bads:

1.  Drew's injury to his front tooth last year took an ugly turn and we have root canal on our schedule tomorrow;
2.  I ate half a loaf of wheat bread today;
3.  Gracie and her bestie Madison had a sleepover last night, not a lot of sleep ensued;
4.  that pesky check engine light is back on on the Audi...$$$;
5.  I still haven't gotten the kids costumes ready and Halloween is a week away.  Grace is going to be a zombie which shouldn't be to difficult, but Jack can't decide, which means I have decided he will also be a zombie.

Only The Leader of the Free World

We knew something was up on Wednesday night, there were no parking signs up and down the street in front of Jack's school, which is a major arterial here is NE Seattle.  Then we heard that President Obama was going to come to our neighborhood to meet at an "average" home for a backyard discussion.  After taking Jack to school, Grace and I followed the signs and found the street pretty easily, as it was crawling with secret service and Seattle cops.  After I dropped Grace off at school an hour later I got ready to head out to work but decided to do a little drive by just in case... 

Holy cow, this was dramatic and spectacular.  I've never seen a presidential cavalcade (is that the right word) before and it is impressive.  This picture doesn't even come close to doing it justice.  All the bike cops had their lights flashing and the line of official cars seemed to go on for miles.  Obama was in the second Cadillac, a crazy tank-like looking vehicle, I could see his profile as he passed.  I was so excited I couldn't work my camera when the car was in front of me, I just waved and looked awestruck.  I ran around the corner after it turned and saw this...

That's his car just backed right into the driveway of the "average" house, which by the way, was really pretty average.  That's a kind of cute secret service agent walking by.  If I had got the call with the invitation to host the President in my house I would have totally and absolutely said "no thanks".  Can you imagine the pressure of having the President in your house?  Nope...no, thank you.  I'd have to really clean, as opposed to what I usually do, vacuum, dust, and spray a lot of air freshener around to mask the Labrador smell which tends to permeate all fabrics and rugs in the house...done.  Oh lord, and the bathroom.  Ack, but I guess somebody's got to do it.

I never got an actual glimpse of our actual leader in the flesh, but it was exciting none the less.  Jack's whole middle school was allowed to stand out front while the motorcade (aha, that's the word) passed by and Jack swears Obama responded to his peace sign in kind.  I choose to believe that really happened.

Jack o' Lanterns

The only thing I like less than carving pumpkins is dying Easter eggs.  Although, this year was less awful than most.  The pumpkins seemed to have less guts than usual, and more seeds? 

Obviously, Jack and Grace are a little too young to handle the butcher knife part of the event, so I end with the job.  Mike was texting Gawd knows who and watching baseball all evening, so...of no help whatsoever.



   

     We ended up with these beauties

Another view...

And with dog... 



I forgot my camera...again.

Yesterday we went to the pumpkin farm.  I determined that this was my 22nd annual visit to a pumpkin farm as a mom.  I don't think we ever went as children but I also don't think that pumpkin farming was a thing in So. Cal.  We got our pumpkins at the grocery store, same place we got our Christmas Trees.  My kids would pass out at the mere suggestion.  I do love our traditions, I'm not complaining, it's just a lot of pumpkin farming.  We went to a huge farm in Clearview called "Bob's Corn".  The pumpkins were not stellar, not enough sunshine this year, they were all a little green and some had already passed over to the other side.  Our rule is that the little ones (Jack and Grace) can not get a pumpkin any bigger than they can carry around.  Jack really pushed that rule this year, I thought the poor guy was going to pop a hemi, lots of straining and groaning.  He finally ended up rolling his pumpkin down the hill on the way to the parking lot, I overlooked the fact that he was cheating because caring would take effort and some sort of action on my part.  I forgot my camera, bummer because Jack looked hysterical.  We actually did get lost in a corn maze.  And we paid $20 to do so.  We ended up getting out of there less $50. and up two large squash.  Tradition, ahhh.  The slaughter commences tonight and I will try to get some pics.



Speaking of squash, tonight I'm making baby back ribs and butternut squash risotto.  A perfect fall dinner.  On Monday I'm going to start of little pre-Halloween diet and then I'll start my pre-Thanksgiving diet the day after Halloween.  Another tradition.

More Sick, More Weird, and Oprah.

I'm home with this.

It's that time of year.  Blech.  They fall like domino's and I think that Jack is the last one.  I had it, Drew brought it, Liv came with it, Sam has it now, Grace just got over it, and Mike always claims to have whatever I have, whenever I have it.

It's always the same menu, Top Ramen and Sprite.  Top Ramen is banned in my house except in the case of extreme poverty and illness and the kids take full advantage of each and every sniffle to score a bowl.  I'm embarrassed to buy it and find it necessary to inform my checker of the facts behind my purchase.  There's something about spending 25 cents to fill my child with fried noodles swimming in heavily salted, artificially flavored liquid that makes me feel sheepish.  I don't care about the big bottle of wine, super-plus tampons, Monistat, or moist flushable wipes. I'd seriously rather be seen buying condoms (sorry).  I'm weird like that.  I bought the six pack so I don't have to go back for more. 

On another note...Sister Wives is on Oprah today!  I have to say I'm not fond of new wife Robin, she's a cryer.  She annoys me.  Kody is exhibiting a bit of creeper vibe lately too.  Good stuff.

Another Happy Birthday...

Having five children means lots of birthdays.  I have a little bit of an April cluster, I have no idea why but three of my five were born in April.  There is another mini-cluster in the Fall, Grace is September and Samantha is Today!  Happy 23rd birthday Tammy Teetower! 

I think that no matter how many children one gives birth too, the event is indelibly and forever burned into your memory.  I can conjure up that moment in a flash.  Sam's birth was my first and was the most difficult, they used forceps back then and she was facing the wrong direction.  After a long, exhausting, 26 hour labor she was pulled and twisted out of my body with the use of a medieval torture device.  She was also my most difficult newborn, colic was our life for 10 weeks, non-stop crying for 4 hours every night.  It would start as soon as her dad got home from work, she would turn bright red and scream, and then it would stop as quickly as it started, exactly 4 hours later.  She didn't take to gaining a sibling too well, she really liked being an only child and welcomed newborn Drew into our house by promptly peeing on the floor even though she was fully potty trained.  Potty training restarted and it took months to get back to trained.  She really taught us.

Sam has had her fair share of issues, 2009 was a horrific year for her and us, but we got her back and she's is working hard to rebuild her life, credit, and relationships.  She confounds me at times, but she is a great girl.  Sweet, fun, and she cares about those she loves.  Little kids love Sam most of all, that speaks volumes to her sweet spirit and sense of humor.  I'm proud of you Sam, I love you!!

Sam and I picked up Liv at the airport on Thursday night for her whirlwind weekend visit.  It was bittersweet, it was fast, it was fun, it was over too quickly.  She requested her favorite meal, chicken pot pie, for dinner on Friday night, but was to busy to fit in any other dinners.  She had lots of friends to see, she had the Husky game on Saturday, lunch with her dad on Sunday, a little bit of homework sprinkled here and there.  But, we did get in some time shopping and lunch on Saturday and baking cookies to take back with her.  I was worried that the separation would drudge up the whole separation sadness, and it did, not like the first time but I'm really feeling her absence again.  Six weeks until Thanksgiving.  :-).

The Goods...

Life is good because:

1.  Everybody is healthy;
2.  My migraine finally went away;
3.  Mike is finally home after 10 days on the road (mostly playing);
4.  I am refreshed from my girls weekend in Portland;
5.  It's not currently raining;
6.  I got a little teenie raise, but every penny counts;
7.  Liv will be home in 2 days;

Not so good:

1.  It's migraine season;
2.  Liv lost a filling and she's like 2000 miles away and she won't be here long enough to see the dentist.

More goods than bads = smiley face.

Sick In So Many Ways...

I'm home sick again today.   Sore throat, lack of sleep, mental illness, etc.  I could probably make it in, if it weren't for my extreme fear of infecting my office neighbor, who has been struggling with illness all year and is in a compromised state, immune-system wise.  Plus, it's a girl's overnight to Portland with my bestest buddies on Saturday and I'm determined not to be sick for that.

There are definitely some big advantages to staying home sick.  For one, I'm alone!  Just me...I won't even let the dog and cat in the house cuz they might ask something of me.  Food, water, scratch!  I cleaned through my discomfort yesterday, because I could.  You know you are a domesticated animal when cleaning without anyone home is more appealing than a trip to Hawaii.  My usual cleaning day is Friday, my day off.  Mike usually makes sure he's home on Friday so he can follow me around and talk about stuff that's interesting to him, and I can grow a brain tumor.  I try to clean but I don't feel productive with him around, so I usually end up at Costco or Target, after a long soak in the tub with the door locked.   *sigh*.  Hey, maybe that's why my house is always a mess? 

Less than a week until Liv is home.  It's heartening to see how fast the last 7 weeks have passed, we have another long stretch to Thanksgiving until she's home again and that feels less daunting than before.  *smiling in anticipation*

Too Much?

It's Halloween at the house.  A little early maybe, but when summer is over I'm ready to immerse myself in Autumn.  I hate winter in Seattle, drippy, slippery and mildewy.  Ick.  This house is useless when the temperature drops below 40 degrees, you can usually find me beneath a pile of blankets on the couch or cooking something just for the warmth the stove offers.  Both of these activities tend to result on an extra 10 pounds of flab that comes to visit most every year.  Hate winter.  I really don't know what I'd do without my heated car seats, not to mention how amazing they are when I have cramps...worth it for that alone.  Liv may find me at her doorstep more than she thought.

 But, I do love the fall.  Halloween and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays

We threw about every Halloween decoration we had at the mantle and called it good.  It's hard to see the spiderwebs strung all over the place, but there's a lot.  Apparently the bird's name is Kevin.  Yeah, I don't know.



The ladies are back!

                          Oh, Gawd, I just spotted my twisted reflection in the glass, I'm the fourth witch.

  But ya'll already knew that.

Fall also brings us to soccer season and so far every game has been sunny and warm.  That's usually how it goes.  The beginning of the season we are in t-shirts and flip-flops and at the end I'm hiding in the car snuggled up to the afore-mentioned heated seats.

 Too cute!

P.S...Gillbert is still alive and blowing a crazy looking bubble nest. 
P.P.S...I love how google ads pulls content from your posts and tailors then to their ads.  This morning I was a Mormon who loved to throw birthday parties, Ha!  Oh crap, I said "mormon" again.  I'm gonna have to spice this thing up. 

I want a sister wife

Did you watch it?  I did, and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm feeling a new obsession coming on.  My fascination with polygamy is well-known, click the obsessed tab on my facebook and you'll see an ad for 'Big Love' pop up.  My favorite book this summer was 'The 19th Wife', although the Lifetime movie was super lame.  I also loved, loved, loved 'The Lonely Polygamist'.  My interest is likely a result of my deep Mormon pioneer roots, although nowhere in my lds history can we find any indication of polygamy in our family.  We can barely stay married to one person, let alone 3 or 4.  Plus, that pesky Bill Paxton crush I've had since Twister probably makes the lifestyle seem more appealing than it should be.

Gets ya thinking though.  Although, this could never be something I could tolerate in real reality, it seems to have it's merits if you are to believe what this show is bringing.  Sister Wives is TLC's newest reality show...Kody Brown and his three wives have been married for 16 years, have 12 kids and another on the way.  These woman have enviable relationships with each other, they take care of each other's kids, the one who wants to work outside the house does (and comes home to a prepared dinner), the others stay home, one is in school training to be a psychologist(!).  Kody is the husband and appears to be a fantasy man.  He's cute in a surfer dude kinda way, he dotes on his children and wives.  The wives come in all shapes, sizes and degrees of attractiveness and he appears to love them all just the same.  The children seem completely well adjusted and happy, in fact their productivity makes my kids look like lazy slugs (not that that's difficult).  They do yardwork, cook, clean and take care of each other without even a sigh or eye roll.  Seriously. 

I'm anticipating a lot of angst in the episodes to come.  Kody is bringing in a fourth wife, cuter and younger than the others and she comes with three kids of her own.  I smell draaammma.  These are definitely not the Duggars.  Oy!

Two Weeks

Two weeks from tonight I get to give Olivia a big fat hug.  I can see Liv anytime I want on Skype, which is very nice and I'm grateful to whomever invented Skype.  But it's not the same.  I had a dream last night that I was hugging Olivia and I started to cry  in my dream because it felt the same as when I had to say goodbye in that hallway 6 weeks ago.  I'm a little worried about what it will be like to say goodbye again, I think it won't be as terrible as it was the first time.  But, I do think it will be terrible just the same.  Ack, I'm obsessing about her leaving and she isn't even here yet!  I'm hoping our budget will allow me a visit to Tempe this fall, I know I could use the sunshine in my eyes, but mostly I think 7 weeks is too long to go without seeing her.  It's family weekend at ASU this weekend and Dave, Greta, and Jack are going down tomorrow.  I'm happy she will be with family, I know they are really looking forward to seeing her and her new digs. 

I'm  immersing myself into Halloween decorating this weekend.  It's officially Autumn, although it's felt like Fall in Seattle since mid August.  It's just me and Grace, Mike is away playing golf in Bend with his buddies, Jack will be in Tempe, and Sam will be where she is most every weekend.  The weather forecast for Seattle this weekend is sunny and 73, maybe all those green tomatoes hanging on their sad-looking yellow vines will ripen?  I know I'm going to camp my ass on a lawn chair and soak up as many rays as I can.

Origins

When I was in junior high back in Southern California, way back in the 70's (late 70's!) we had a little humiliating something called "secret admirer days".  This was a handy and tangible way for you, and all that knew you, to gauge how popular you were or weren't.  It involved notes and little candies or balloons that would be delivered to you in whatever class you were in 6th period.  It usually coincided with a holiday, like Valentine's Day.  In would come a group of perfect girls from the cheerleading squad carrying armloads of ammunition with which to destroy our self-worth.  We would all sit there in our desks trying not to look to hopeful, trying to look like we didn't give a Hoover Dam whether we got a secret admirer gift or not. 

Let me just be clear here,  I was not popular.  I was fine.  I had lots of friends, most of whom were Mormon like me, my family didn't have much money, my Dad was weird, I was shy, I was a "goody-good" (which is an actual 70's term).  I wouldn't usually get shut out, but I wasn't floating away with armloads of secret admirer balloon admiration either.  My secret admirers weren't really very secret either, my friends and I would send them to each other as part of a pact to not look too pathetic.  Then, about half way through my 7th grade year I started receiving actual secret admirer cards.  They would be signed from "a little brown wren".  Now the cleverness of this nomenclature was not lost on me, my name was Renae Brown...get it...Brown Wren?  This made the mystery ever so much sweeter, I was sure that I was receiving these cards from the most clever, most foxiest and poetic boy at school.  I knew it wasn't from my Mom because my Mom seemed barely aware she even had children who attended school.  We were kind of left to take care of everything "schooly" on our own.  Which, by the way, is a terrible strategy.  So who?  A teacher...that would be so creepy.  None of my friends fessed up to it.  Bottom line is that I never figured it out.  I continued to receive them every secret admirer day for the whole 3 years I was in junior high.  Never freakin' figured out who it was.  I choose to believe in the foxy poet theory.  So that's what up with the name, aren't you glad you asked?

Happy Birthday Gracie and...follow thru!

Yesterday my baby turned 9 years old.  I'm not a fan of 9.  It's a big year and it has always seemed to be the line between little and big kid.  So, I guess that means I don't have anymore "little kids".  Gulp.

Grace decided that she wanted to go to Cheesecake Factory because they have the "world's best mac and cheese", and Grace should know cuz she is a mac and cheese expert.  Grandma and Grandpa decided to join us, which was fortuitous as they picked up the tab. 

I had one of their "weight management" salads, everything else on the menu will cause me to immediately gain 5 lbs, literally.  Grandma and I had the Pear, Endive and Blue Cheese.  Delish and allegedly only 450 calories, although I'm always sure they are lying about that, part of a world wide conspiracy.  The treadmill lies to me as well, I halve the number of calories it says I burned because I am jaded and sceptical about everything.

Grace's first gift of the morning was this...

Officially now named Gillbert.  That's after being named Mickey for most of the day, then Luigi, then Yoshi.  Please don't die Gillbert, I'm too busy to deal with that life lesson right now.  She also got a new bike, a lot of art supplies, and Grandma and Grandpa brought a the Just Dance game for Wii.  So fun, we were all really dancing up a storm this morning.  (Note to self:  sports bra)  Hysterical to watch Jack dance to Katy Perry's Hot and Cold.  He is one cool dude.  Lolo brought a cute new outfit and Grandpa Gary brought cold, hard cash.  Grace then got a little sad because she was sure she was getting a full-size bed.  Sigh.   All of the people, all of the time, can not be pleased.  She also requested a giant cookie instead of a cake, like the one we had at Oregano's in Tempe.  Gooey and hot with vanilla ice cream on top.  Drew brought her two gifts, a Disney DVD and some Aqua Sand.  He can be so endearing now that he doesn't live here anymore.  All in all, a good 9th birthday.

 Hello....

I KNOW!  This turned out so stinkin cute.  It's now hanging in Grace's room over her bed and I am incredibly impressed by myself.  I have already found some crazy cute Martha Stewart double sided Halloween paper and have the bias tape and rickrack ready to go.  You can't tell in this picture, but the bias tape is purple and the rickrack is green.  I just fainted.  In fact, yes, I die.

I'm feeling crafty

Fall always brings me to a strange place.  I feel the icy fingers of depression starting to pull at me, I have a hard time sleeping with the anxiety that accompanies the depression and thus have a really hard time getting out of bed.  I start craving carbs and more wine and chocolate.  I start looking forward to Halloween, which is one of my favorite holidays (maybe the creepy darkness matches my mood?), and Thanksgiving (a carby, drinking holiday?).  I live in abject fear of Christmas, seven kids = a budget-busting, stress-filled month.  I'll post later about my goal of trying to enjoy Christmas this year and changing the way I mentally and actually handle the gifting situation. 

Fall seems to intensify my obsessive-compulsive, controlling tendencies.  Poor family.  I'm just plain crabby.  Bitchy.  Moody.  Intolerant.  Inpatient.  It's not really a good time to touch me...seriously.  I can handle the little ones, in fact I sort of crave their affection, it's simple and asks nothing of me. 

Before this post turns into a more major (I know) downer I will shift to some of my ideas for coping with the afore-mentioned situation.  Crafts?  Let's see...keeps my hands busy, keeps my brain busy, has a positive result (!?), and it's an alone thing, which I really like.  Baking?  I do have that shiny red mixer sitting on my counter top waiting for me.   Also keeps my hands and brain busy and results in a happy family.  All good.  Reading?  Yeah right.  All I have to do is sit down and even appear to be relaxing and I am accosted by well-meaning hordes of people (of all sizes and ages).  Plus my kindle broke on our road-trip, which I have been too depressed about to even address.  Gah.

So...I have decided that my first crafting project will be this...

How to make bunting  

I love bunting.  How cute would this be hanging in Grace's window...purple, green, and blue.  Or hanging in Jack's room in patterns of plaid and stripes.  Or in Halloween prints, or over the Thanksgiving dinner table, or strung over the Christmas tree?  How about in Sun Devil colors for Liv's dorm room!  It's creative and cheap and fast.  I like it.  Now I just have to dust off my sewing machine, go to the fabric store, go the the stationary store, find an uncluttered spot in my house, and find the time.

First Day Drama

Gracie and Jack started school on Wednesday.  Grace for a full day and Jack just for an hour, I think he spent more time deciding what to wear than he spent at school.  He wouldn't allow a first day of school picture so I have no photographic proof, but he looked good.  This morning was his 2nd official school day and he was completely exhausted.  He is already tired, lots of sighing and staring off into space before it was time to go.  Luckily Samantha will be able to drop him off at school most mornings as it is on the way to her nanny job!  Yay!  And yay for all the poor people who will have less opportunity to get a viewing of me in my bad morning hair, no make-uped, wearing my jammies and Uggs, drop offs.  I'm sure Jack is relieved as well, though he is too kind to say so.  Back on the ADHD meds for him next week, maybe a little less sighing and staring and more focus will ensue.  I helped him out with his first essay last night and it was highly apparent that he still needs the Vyvanse.  Without it, he does his homework like someone who had three glasses of wine and their favorite song is playing in the background, loopy and highly distracted. 

I'm so FREAKING READY.

Grace was completely ready with her outfit, she has known what she would wear for a month at least.  Her backpack has been packed for a long time and I'm sure she would have packed her lunch weeks ago if it wouldn't have been lethal to do so.  I wish I could transfer a little of Grace's obsessive compulsive tendencies to Jack, they would both benefit.  We all would.

Grace was thrown for a little bit of a dramatic loop on that first day.  She had a substitute teacher and we were informed that her assigned teacher had decided to take a year's leave of absence at the last minute.  I tried to fish around for some gossip about what might be the reason but they were very tight-lipped.  Hopefully, nothing too serious, maybe she just felt that if she had to deal with even one more child she might jump off a bridge, not that I know what that feels like.

Haters

Today we went up to school to find out which lucky teacher will be Grace's third grade teacher this year.  Ever since we found out that her kindergarten teacher switched to third grade this year Grace has been chanting "not Ms. Sch******l, not Ms. Sch*****l" under her breath like that Brick kid in The Middle.  Which in my world meant that there was no chance in hell that she was getting any teacher other than Ms. S.  It's kismet baby.    In saying all this, what I am NOT saying is that Ms S. is anything other than completely lovely.  Truly.  In Grace's head it's really that she is being taught third grade, which she has stated recently is really the first "cool" grade, by her kindergarten teacher!  The horror.  It's probably like getting a call that you have won a fabulous prize only to find out that you have won a season ski pass...and you DON"T SKI.  (not that I am still bitter about that)  First there is excitement and then there is sadness, followed by anger and, apparently, resentment.

Anyhoo, the hater part is that I couldn't help but notice that every kid staring at that list hanging on the door was hatin' on some other poor, not-present kid, with statements like "NOOOO, not Eric, he pooped his pants in 1st grade!" or NOOO, not Bill!  He totally has ADHD!"  or NOOO, not Sookie, she likes Bill and totally uses Hannah Montana quotes CONSTANTLY to impress him."  That last one was actually real, and, yes, I have changed the names to protect the innocent.  And, by the way, Sookie should totally like Eric, he's way hotter.  But, I digress.

And I'm mad that True Blood isn't on this week.  Why are we skipping for Labor Day??  That's so lame. Still disgressing... Hope your heel heals soon, Liv.  I love you!

My Latest Phobia

Okay, so I keep hearing about how bedbugs are the latest plague.  I gave this a bit of thought whilst we are on our road trip, inspecting sheets and pillows for any sign of the little blood suckers.  I felt pretty good about the fact that I saw no obvious signs of bedbug (is this one word or two?  I'll just switch back and forth to be half right) activity, I'm not a hotel room fan by any means and am always semi-grossed out by the idea of a hotel room and what activities may or may not occur there.  But bedbugs are in a whole other realm of grossness.  Apparently they are nearly impossible to get rid of, in fact, even moving doesn't work because they just hitch a ride to your new abode and continue to terrorize.  Ugh.

After the fact, I am doing some blog surfing and come across the fact that there is actually a Bed Bug Registry.  This is good, except when you find that one of the hotels you stayed in on your trip had a bed bug report in this very registry.  Namely the Flamingo Hilton.  Figures.  It only had one or two reports, not a lot for such an enormous hotel, but enough to cause me to FREAK OUT.  Crap.  We are getting ready to paint our bedroom so this gives me a reason to tear everything apart looking for the aforementioned signs. 

I looked up all the other hotels we stayed at and am pleased to announce that none of them had any reports attached.  My dilemma now is that Mike stays at a lot of hotels on his work trips, some not so nice.  Now I will have to have him check every hotel he is even thinking about checking into on the BBR to make sure he isn't bringing home any more boarders than we already have.  Mot to mention than now I have another thing to think about at 3:00 in the morning, along with motorcycle accidents, alcohol poisoning, job loss, teen pregnancy, cellulite, bills, blah, blah, blah.

Here's the scarier part...if you pop in Seattle as a location it throws back a lot of hotels with bed bug reports, including the Arctic and the Edgewater.  Gah.  It's just a matter of time.

Happy Birthday Me!

 My life is now complete. 

Other than playing with my new toy, I am also having fun playing with Mr. Trevor...

Trevor and Kourtnie are leaving on Tuesday, Sam starts her new job on Wednesday, and Drew moves out on Wednesday.  School starts in a week and a half and I add a few more hours to my schedule the following week.  This summer went by so fast but I'm looking forward to the fall, mostly because I am anxious to see Liv.  I miss you!!

On the other side...

Cutest Sun Devil ever.  We miss you already Liv!

Grossest motel room ever...somewhere called Willows, California...sounds way prettier than it was.

Me and Liv in her new home away from home.  :-(

We saw a lot of cacti.  They are pokey.

We left Liv on Monday the 16th, and headed to Vegas to meet Mike and Jack.  Sam flew home after a night in Sin City with Momma...woohoo.  Not the way she expected to see Vegas for the first time, I'm sure.  She gambled and lost a grand total on $2.00 in a penny slot machine.  I lost $20 in the dollar slots and it took the same amount of time.

Gracie and Jack didn't like Vegas.  Me neither.

Jack taking a beating from Rocky at Planet Hollywood Las Vegas

Then the gorgeous St. George Temple.  St. George was hot, we had the bestest frozen custard in the world at Nielsen's Custard.  Nice pic, Jack. 

Next it was crazy beautiful Zion where we literally had to kick the squirrels to keep them away from us.  Damn tourists.  We had a picnic in the park next to the lovely Virgin River.  The most beautiful place in the world, I need to go back and spend more time hiking this incredibleness.

I'm so glad we took the opportunity to travel and see Utah, it helped to take my mind of how sad I was to leave Liv behind.

Me and Mike at Ruby's in Bryce Canyon.

These rock formations in Bryce Canyon are called hoodoos, it's like being on another planet.  Really eerily beautiful and the kids learned some things about geological history.

Next stop was Park City, Utah.  Totally upscale but rustic ski town.  We rode the luge slide and the alpine coaster.  Unfortunately the zip line was closed to anyone under 100 lbs due to wind, Jack really wanted to go on that.  I made myself go on the ski lift, 40 feet above ground, and I'm so glad cuz it was beautiful up there.

We spent two nights right there in the village in a cute condo with a loft for the kids.  We then drove to Salt Lake City with a quick stop in Provo....

The mother of all temples in Salt Lake.  I really wanted to sneak inside but I'm pretty sure I would burst into flames.

Inappropriate but funny.

Spent my birthday in Boise, which is surprisingly charming.  Dinner at PF Changs, followed by a power outage at the hotel.  It was over 100 degrees so our room got a little stuffy.

Spent Sunday driving home from Boise.  It only took about 7 hours, less then we thought.  It's so good to sleep in my own bed and I'm pretty sure I'm not going to complain about Seattle weather for a while.  We loved our trip though, we saw so many amazing, beautiful things.  Next year Yellowstone.

I'm counting the weeks until Liv comes home...October 8th can't come fast enough.  I'm not so sure I'm going to get used to this.  It's just very weird.

T minus 7

7 days from today.  The contents of Liv's room are stacked in the corner ready to go.  Being positive, looking forward to vacation time and seeing Gammy and Rhonda. 

A First...

Jack and GRACE went off to spend two nights at our neighbor's cabin in Eatonville.  A normal event in most cases but in this case it is crazily abnormal.  Grace has never spent the night at anyone's house but Auntie Lolo's IN HER LIFE.  Never.  I kind of tried to talk her out of it for a second mostly because thinking about her stress was causing me to stress out and I just don't feel like being stressed right now.  At the same time I was a good mom and talked to her about trying new things, being brave, yada yada yada.  To my utter surprise and delight she decided to give it a go and marched off with a pillow in one hand, backpack in the other, and a giant smile on her cute face.  I  talked to Jack about keeping one of his giant denim blue eyes on her at all times, especially as their cabin is on a LAKE.  Ow**stress**.  He said he would.  I said no fighting as this would embarrass me in front of the neighbor and they also agreed that they would not argue.

We talked to them last night and they were both happy and said they were having tons of fun.  I admit I had to medicate myself with a few glass of wine.  There was actually a two hour time span where there were no children in the house,  just me and Mike watching tv.  Mike briefly had a crazy idea about what to do with ourselves, like I said...we watched tv. 

Earlier that day we discovered that we had a bees nest in the mud room closet, which would explain all the bees in our house for the last two weeks.  They weren't aggressive at all so I wasn't too concerned, bees are good.  But the nest is scary and sci-fi looking so we decided we had to take steps to get rid of it.  We headed down the City Peoples and they recommended a fogger, we let a couple of those things off and killed a lot of bees.  We could see the bees through the french door glass.  It was not a quick death.  I don't feel good about myself today.  I going to have to find a way to counter-karma this and quick. 

Camping in Chelan

Chateau de L***m (stalker-proofing)

Sleepy Camper Girl...

Our million dollar view, for 25 bucks a night...

                      

Scootererers...

                                                                Elke hearts camping

In my dreams new camping rules:

1.   Daily showers are no longer an option, pew.

2.  12 beer per day limit, that would put some people under the picnic table.  ahem.

3.  Dog will get a vigorous brushing before being allowed in the trailer.  Hairball city.

4.  Incessant texting is banned, I feel like I married a 15 year old girl.

Barring implementation of the above rules, we had fun.  Mike and I are embarrassingly tan, only 1 sunburn (sorry Grace).  Same time, same place next year!   I can't wait.

Equal Time

Sam, Jack and Grace are sad.  They are sad because this blog has featured Olivia so prominently, they are aware that this blog was re-created to be a way for Olivia to keep up with what's going on at home whilst she is attending ASU, so very, very, very, very far away.  But they are feeling left out and second fiddleish.  So, in fairness, I am going to feature them more often, which will be the case anyway when Liv is gone. 

Jack had an adventure in foreign currency this weekend, he decided he had to have some trick wheels for his scooter before he leaves for Chelan on Friday so he ordered from the first website he found that supplied his desired items.  This website is based in the UK.  He put in his order and wondered why he wasn't offered free next day shipping like the offer stated.  Hmm.  He felt like he may have paid a little too much, but these particular tricked out wheels were so worth the $55.00 he would spend.  But wait, what is that little sign next to the 55?  It's weird looking, not like a dollar sign at all.  What could that be?  Well, what it was was a sign for the British Pound.  Oops.  I say, "I think the Euro and the dollar are pretty close, lets check a currency converter and see what the pound is doing".  Not good.  Not good at all.  It turns out 55 pounds equals about 88 dollars.  He canceled his order and learned that the internet can be tricky and evil. 

Grace has a new best friend named Henry.  Henry is two and a half years of chubby cuteness.  Henry's mom broke her ankle so Grace has been hanging out with Henry, keeping him busy, reading him stories, preventing him from running into the street, etc.  She takes this job very seriously, so seriously in fact that she worries about making any plans that might interfere with her Henry-watching.  "What will Henry do when we are on vacation next week?" she asks.  She is late for dinner every night on account of her responsibilities across the street.  She will be a fabulous student, wife, mother, friend, and employee...she takes her responsibilites very seriously.

Another Milestone

Congratulations again, Liv.  How the heck did you get here so fast?  I'm not ready for you to leave me, I need the next 8 weeks to go by ssssllllooowwwlllyyy.  Maybe you'll change your mind and go to Western after all?  Why would you do that?  Maybe because you cannot bear to be without your mother and her amazing mothering skills.  Because you need me to make you warm wheat bread and kiss your boo-boo's.  Sam and Drew didn't leave me, boy didn't they.  I guess they love me more than you do?  I'm going to miss you soo much.  I'm not going to think about this again until the month of August arrives and then I'm going to pass out.