too busy during day
too busy at night
too busy making meals
and breaking up fights

too busy to answer
too busy to think
too busy cleaning kitchens
and the bathroom sinks

too busy to go
too busy to come
don’t i deserve
a nice drink with some rum

why i’m so busy
i’m not quite sure
is there a pill?
is there a cure?

people to help
people to please
on the surface i do it
with nothing but ease

do i need to say yes?
do i need to say no?
when i wonder what they’re thinking
why can’t i say……………..”so?”

too busy to sit
for the love of pete
i KNOW i’m too skinny
I’M TOO BUSY TO EAT!

no matter what
and try as i might
i’m way too busy
even to write

too busy to chat
too busy to ring
too busy to do
extracurricular anything

so my life is officially out of control. well…i guess it is more like managed chaos. i find it harder and harder to blog these days…something that i love to do and used to not have any trouble keeping up with. i have time to check facebook and that’s about it. even regular e-mail is a struggle lately. but…i press on.

our anniversary was on thanksgiving this year, which was fun. we stayed at my parents house for the holiday and they watched the kids for chad and i to go out to eat and to go get our annual anniversary ornament. we got a “hope” ornament this year. that morning, chad left early to go play football in the 1st annual turkey bowl with guys from the church. so when i came down to the kitchen, my dad was making coffee and the kid’s pancakes. he said, “your husband said to serve you a cup of coffee this morning and to say happy anniversary.” i thought…well that was sweet of him. so my dad handed me the coffee and it was in a starbucks cozemel mug. chad had bought it for me during his latest travels to cuba and it is where we went on our honeymoon. i thought it was very sweet.

then, for chad’s birthday, his mom, dad and i got together and got him the thomas kinkade print of fenway park. it came from the official redsox shop right across from fenway park in boston and is matted and framed with the major league baseball symbol and redsox symbol on the mat under the print. he was soooooo surprised and loved it. i can’t believe i actually pulled that off.

today, i am off to take aiden to pre-school and then to the craft store to buy all the stuff for polar express day at the school and the “holiday” party. (they won’t say Christmas…which i think is really dumb). then, i have to go to the school to finish tranforming chase’s teacher’s door into a 3-d gingerbread house. (oh…they will win the door decorating contest…if i have to dress up like a gingerbread boy myself and stand there passing out candy to the judges…) there is so much that i have to do for his class that we will be lucky to have presents under the tree. oh well…every time i walk in to his classroom, chase is so excited that he jumps out of his seat and tells everyone who will listen, “THIS IS MY MOM!!!!” and…he loves walking into the gingerbread house door to get into his classroom. i guess it’s worth it!!

i have a back log of little comments and things that our oldest has said. they are all recorded in random places so that i won’t forget…like post its, grocery lists, and the like. in an effort to clean my desk drawer…i shall record them here instead…….

his comments on aging from a school project last year…

“when i am 100 years old i will smell like i haven’t showered in 30 years and i will have lots of grandchildren and great grandchildren and i might have wrinkles and white or gray hair and i don’t think that i won’t live to be 100 years old.”

i was correcting some of aiden’s table manners (or lack thereof) at dinner one night. i had put a small roll in my mouth and had just swallowed it. aiden started putting the food she didn’t want in her water. i said, “aiden…that’s not using good manners.” colton replied, “but putting a whole piece of bread in your mouth is?” chad and i couldn’t stop laughing…to which colton then said, “that should be a blog.”

our babysitter couldn’t come for small group at the last minute (she watches them upstairs and we are downstairs), so i told colton that he was going to have to be responsible and watch his brother and sister for us during group. i even said, “and i will give you 5 dollars” which is a lot for him!! i thought he would be elated. i saw the wheels turning while he just looked at me. then finally, he broke the silence and said calmly, “15.”

he has been asking for a dog for christmas. he found one on-line that he wanted and called me in to see it. i said, “colton!! those dogs are 950 dollars.” colton said, “from santa………..free.”

the other day, he had a scratch on his elbow. every time he would bend his elbow, the scab would pull a bit. he walked up to me, showing me the elbow and said, “ummmm mom. we’re gonna have to cast this thing.”

i love witty.

i love colton.

Man…things are so busy here that I barely have time to post anything…which makes me sad. I miss recording stories. I feel like I have missed so much. Let’s see…there was Chase’s birthday party at the gymnastics place. We decided on an Olympic theme this year…which was thrilling. The cake was an olympic flag, and we had a medal ceremony at the end where they all got a gold medal and their party favors which included energy bars and gatorade. It was that day that I pulled every muscle in my leg while attempting my old bar routine dismount. Yeah…you heard me right.

Then, there was the New Kids On The Block concert where our horrible seats got upgraded to the 18th row on the floor. I was so excited when they came out that I fell backwards because I was jumping up and down so much. Don’t worry…my friend…(and the chair)…caught me.

Next was the surprise birthday party Chad and some friends threw for me. They got me good. Everyone was acting like they were too busy to do anything with me for my birthday. This was upsetting because it was on a Friday night and my parents had offered to watch the kids. I thought we could do something a little out of the ordinary…but noooooo. Everyone was busy. Little did I know that they had planned a luau in the backyard, complete with tiki torches, music, and amazingly thought-out food. I was so shocked when Chad pulled up the driveway that I sort of froze like an idiot…just staring at all the people staring at me. I was quite excited…….until they made me wear the coconut bra…which put a damper on things for the few minutes that I appeased them before taking them off!!

Halloween was a success even though the party I was throwing for the kids ended up having to be cancelled due to Colton having a fever. I let go of control this year and let each kid pick what they wanted to be. (I used to have them all coordinate) I knew that was going to eventually come to an end. It was fun while it lasted. Colton was a football player. Chase was an astronaut. Aiden changed her mind at the last minute and was Tinkerbell instead of a kitty cat. I did not have to buy anything this year…which was lovely. I had already bought some decorations for the party…so we put orange and purple lights on the front porch and had pumpkin candles lit. My parents and my brother came over and went trick or treating with us. Kevin and I still dressed up, as we were already planning to for the party…that was not had. It was such a fun night because the whole neighborhood got into it. Even a lot of parents dressed up. This was great until a man in a mask jumped out of the bushes at this one house and I ended up screaming at the top of my lungs. My brother started laughing at me and the kids ran off in the other direction…not because of the man in the bushes…but because of my stupid screaming. The man felt so bad that he took his mask off and profusely apologized.

In other news…Colton has been given some trading cards by his friends at school. Yesterday, I asked him to explain them to me and show me how they play with them. They are called Yo Gi Oh! and they all look very scary. The text on the cards are in a different language…so I was not really sure what the “monsters” were supposed to be. I did see that some of them were called “demonio“…which was a red flag…even with my lack of any understanding of foreign languages. I looked up the word and it means demon/devil…as I suspected. Sooooo…I told Colton to put them in his backpack and wait for Daddy. Who would have thought we would have to sit him down and tell him why we have to take a child’s card game away from him…due to the fact that he was playing with pretend demons. Now I feel like I need to walk through the house with a crucifix and oil praying against any Oh Gi Oh! weirdness. Scary.

ok. so here is our big magazine cover. 2 days of photo shoots and a few phone interviews and voila…the finished product. (i love that chase is yanking my hair in the picture they chose!)

to see it, go to www.planaheadgetahead.com

then click on “download current issue of plan ahead. get ahead.

chose the link…
“Finding Balance: Balancing spending today and planning for the future. Wondering if you’re on track. Typically ages 35-49.”

you will see the pictures and article.

thank you…we will be signing autographs all month. 🙂

depression sunk in yesterday and i could not put my finger on exactly why. i have everything to be grateful for. my house survived. we have power restored. we have food in our pantry. and so on and so forth. but…i still felt so “wrong”. i had those feelings that make you want to curl up on the couch, send your kids to play in the playroom or put a movie on, and hide under a heavy blanket until you drift off to sleep…hoping that things will seem different when you wake up. as i sifted through my emotions and tried to define what it was i was feeling, i was able to come up with two words. i felt sad. and i felt angry. ok…that was a start. so…why? why were these emotions surfacing today? as i talked through it with a friend, i realized that everywhere i looked…i saw loss. there is a whole spectrum of loss that is surrounding us, our church family, and our community. when these are combined and you experience them on a daily basis…they become somewhat hard to swallow.

just in the last week, i have found out that the schools were severely damaged…causing teacher’s to lose their entire classrooms. some of the kids are going back to school to enter an empty classroom, with no supplies or desks. some kids are being routed to different schools entirely. our kid’s school was severely damaged and we have not found out yet the exact conditions of what we are sending them into next week.

i have walked through a friend’s home who lost everything. possessions from furniture to clothes to baby albums were destroyed.

chad is leading the relief effort and we see him for brief time periods right before the kids go to bed. the poor guy lost his voice the other day from sheer exhaustion. i think he goes to bed at 2 am and leaves the house by 7. i miss him. the kids miss him. but we know that he is doing what he is supposed to be doing and i’m so proud of him.

on friday morning, i attended the funeral of a 7 year old, little girl who had been battling cancer for a lot of her precious life. her little sister sat in front of me sobbing for her sister to come back.

friday evening, i loaded the kids in the truck to go pick up oakley…our new puppy that we had been talking about and waiting months for. they were so excited and it had been a source of joy and excitement that seemed to be alluding us all. we picked out a cage, a collar, a leash, food, shampoo, a bed, and had a cute little tag for his collar made, reading “oakley“. the time had finally come and you could feel the happiness coming from the kids in the back of the truck as we pulled into the driveway of the breeder’s house. as we drove home…oakley in hand and 3 very excited children, chase began whining. i turned around and he was covered in hives. 1 night and lots of children’s benedril later…we made the tough decision to return oakley. the kids said a heartbreaking goodbye and left with my parents so that they did not have to go with me to return him. they were so sad and so angry. and so was i. i drove him back to the breeders and said goodbye to what i realized had been aiding in getting me through the evacuation…the sadness of the destruction…and the loss that had encompassed this community. i realized that new life…even a puppy’s…brings hope with it.

today, i dropped aiden off at preschool, and the boys and i went to the store to get the stuff to make treats for some of the families who’s homes we are working in. we came home, made the treats and delivered them. we went to what is left of a single mom’s house. a group of volunteers from church were tearing out all of the walls, cabinets, and bathroom tiles. when i saw all of her furniture and her children’s things out on the front lawn…ruined from flood surge, i all of a sudden felt really dumb standing there with peanut butter rice krispie treats. they have lost everything. there she is…with a broken wrist…trying to move furniture with one hand. like sugar is going to help that. it’s just sad. everything about it.

i saw something written this afternoon that brought a peace that i have not felt in weeks…

“He is big enough to take every bit of the pain and anger you can throw at Him and love you through it all.”