so, over the course of the last several months i have been making a few changes that will lead to a healthier lifestyle. we have always been a healthy family, but i generally felt like i was always running on empty. i know that personalities are different, but i would look at my friends are are extremely “high energy” and long to be more like them. i longed to have the energy to run around in the backyard playing football or watergun fight or tag. i longed to have the energy to tackle the cleaning of the house all in one day to have that “job completed” satisfaction. i longed to want to go for walks to the park or even the desire to go on outings with the kids. the fact was that i had…somewhere along the line…adopted a introverted/home body personality. at least i thought that was the situatioin. it finally dawned on me that that wasn’t it at all. i still wanted to be the energetic/fun loving me that i had always been before and that there was something preventing it. i don’t know how it took me so long to realize that i was……TIRED.

THAT’S IT!!!! i’m tired. i have no energy. i never really feel good. for someone who had perfect attendance in high school and could have had the same in college if i had wanted to… 🙂 …i was sure complaining of not feeling good a lot. i realized i always had a dull headache, or a queesy stomach, or felt like i could not go on any longer without a catnap. i started to think there was something seriously wrong with me. so…after doing a little research (and by little…i mean very little) i decided to make these changes:

1. my bed time was moving up from 11:30 or sometimes midnight to 9:00 sharp.
(i had to move it up in 30 minute intervals to get used to it…it only took 3 nights and i immediately noticed a huge difference) kids would go to bed at 7 sharp.

2. i would not drink any alcohol anymore. we don’t drink a lot, but would have a beer or hard cider after we would put the kids down sometimes. i found that i would instantly relax and loved winding down the day with chad over a drink and tv. however…i didn’t think it was really helping me to live my best life. now, i only have a glass of red wine every now and then because i truly believe in the combination of the reservatrol and alcohol in protecting against heart disease and dementia (which ended up taking my grandmother’s life.) they say to have a small glass a day, but i just don’t like it that much.

3. i also started eating a spinach salad for lunch about 3-4 times a week. i would get organic spinach, celery, avacados, raw almonds, tomatos, and the dressing of my choice and make a salad when i made the kid’s lunch. they would have 5 servings of fruits and veggies a day.

4. i would drink more water.

5. i would cut our sugar. i would cut the kids sugar.

6. we already switched to mostly organic…so i stuck with that. took chase off dairy for his eczema.

7. i need to excercise. i know this. so i still need to put this one in place.

8. i take my juice plus, air born, vitamin b complex, and fish oil daily. kids take juice plus daily.

9. i started a precepts bible study with my mom and that was making a big difference spiritually. started reading the Jesus storybook bible with the kids daily.

so those are the nine. here is how it has gone:

1. november-the entire family had a terrible respiratory virus (not chad) that lasted 6 weeks. literally. it was a bad chesty cough and congestion. 6 weeks i tell you.

2. mid december-a stomach virus hit all 3 kids.

3. a week and a half before christmas-aiden got a double ear infection as a result of the respiratory virus. the doctor said to watch out for pneumonia.

4. a week before christmas and the day of colton’s class christmas party that i was in charge of and chad’s family arrived from iowa-chase rushed to the er. pneumonia.

5. end of january-para-influenza (whatever that is) hit colton and aiden and then i got it a few days later as chad left for cuba. fever and severe body aches. it was lovely. chase never caught it.

6. feburary-colton has wet chesty cough again.

7. a week ago-i begin to feel a sore throat. only on the left side. tell myself it is not really there and only a figment of my imagination. possibly sympathy pains for colton and his cough.

8. a few days after that-the gland in the left side of my neck swells and gets extremely tender to the touch. can see it from the outside. still ignoring it. feeling like death warmed over at this point.

9. 3.5 nighs ago-aiden throws up in her bed.

10. friday-i wake up and realize that something is definitly wrong. go to the doctor and they look in my throat. say there are puss pockets (nice) all over that tonsil and want to test for mono. great. fantastic. ends up being strep and put me on steroids and a z pack.

11. last night-aiden says her neck hurts while pointing at her throat.

i’m thinking that my idea is not quite going according to plan. what about you?

houston…we have a problem.

it seems that i have decided, unconscienciously of course…where most of my big decisions are made, to start losing things. i used to be so super organized. everything had its place. i never had to wonder where something was or fumble around looking for it. even chad’s stuff was under control. he would sometimes wake me up in the morning to ask me if i knew where his wallet was. or his keys. or is sunglasses. or the checkbook. just the other day, he called me to ask if i knew where his palm pilot was. you get the drift. i always knew where the kids stuff was too. they would come yelling, “mooooommmmm. where is the batman costume? where are my socks? where is the leapster? where’s the incredibles dvd? where did i put my shoes?” and i ALWAYS new the answer. you get the drift again. well…it seems that this organized part of my brain that we speak of has left the premises. i have lost my brand new fossil watch. i have lost my one of my favorite t-shirts. i have lost my phone charger. i have lost aiden’s little pearl ring that she got for christmas. i have lost her pearl bracelet from granna. i have lost her silver bracelet with her name engraved on it that she got from chad and i for christmas. (technically…she lost the pearl bracelet. but i am responsible for the other 2 things being misplaced.) i have lost my sunglasses. i have lost my real glasses. i have lost my wooden spoons from the kitchen. and now…i have lost my keys. i ask again. what is wrong with me?

i have a somewhat new “beef”. and i’m not talking about the kind that comes from cows that i haven’t eaten in 16 years. well…except when i was pregnant with colton and had an unfortunate craving for a hotdog. and we are not going to talk about that. i’m still ashamed. anyways…this morning, when i was driving home from taking colton to school, i was thinking about all the things i should do today. it’s friday, and chad has fridays off. so, i should probably take advantage of that and do a bunch of housework that doesn’t usually get done if i have the kids right up under me all day. i should try to organize the closets or something. i should pack away clothes that the kids have outgrown. i should mop the floors while chad keeps them in the playroom upstairs so that they don’t slip and fall on the wet floors. i should go to the school and volunteer in colton’s class. i should clean out the car. i should call my friend, whom i haven’t talked to in a while and check on her. i should start reading that book…a self-help, non-fiction one (ugh.) that has been on my desk for the last week…instead of having my nose in p.s. i love you every free moment i get. speaking of my desk…i should really clean that off. i should be cooking better meals for dinner. why do i even watch those stupid cooking shows if i’m always going to be too scared to actually try out those recipes. i should not be tired today. i’ve been going to bed at 9:00. i should be more like the mom down the street and bundle up the kids and take them for a walk to the park. i should be more like the lady next door and get out in the yard and tend to the flowerbeds. i should not get out of sorts when the kids ask me to change the batteries in a toy for the 184th time. i should not be tired of helping them dress in the 18th superhero costume of the day. i should clean out the pantry and find a place for the recycle bin so that we can do a better job recycling. i should be better at sitting down on the floor and playing with the kids…you know…those make believe games that they play that i really don’t know how to play…mainly because i am too obbsessed with all the toys laying on the ground instead of being in their spots. i am ashamed to admit how many times i have sat down in the playroom to play with the kids and end up, sneakily picking up toys. i keep pretending to play, but they know the truth. i really just want to clean. i should really be better at that. i should not be letting chase play on the computer as much. i should not be letting colton play playstation as much. i should not be letting aiden watch videos as much. i should be better about having behavior charts for the kids and making them “stick to it”. i should have a chore list for each of the kids and spend part of my day teaching them about responsibility. i should be reading my bible more. i should be journaling my prayers…because that way…i won’t get so distracted in my thoughts. i should really be better with electronics and figure out how to do all that “stuff” instead of relying on other people to do it for me. i should be able to go to target, and only get groceries instead of the kid’s clothing department becoming the bermuda triangle where i have a tendency to get lost in for the whole time i’m supposed to be getting food. this would put an end to chad calling me and asking, “you haven’t even started grocery shopping yet???? how can that be????” i should really be more like my friends who have their days scheduled in 30 minute blocks and their kids are never hungry, never bored, always knowing exactly what comes next and what they are supposed to be doing. i should be more like my friend who, without fail, takes her kids to visit her grandmother in the nursing home every week. i can’t remember the last time i took the kids to visit my grandad. i should be more like my friend and know more about all the political stuff going on right now. i should know what each of the candidates say they stand for and know who i am behind. i should be able to type this blog with my 2 year old daughter standing behind me in the chair, pulling on my hair and playing with my necklace…half-way strangling me in the process…and not yell at her to “stop it!” i should be over any insecurities from my past by now. i should be a better manager of my time, a better mom, a better wife, a better friend, a better sister, daughter, niece, and grandaughter. i should be a better christian. a better person. i’m currently reading the Jesus storybook bible to the kids every night…(and don’t for 1 second be fooled and think that i have it all together and , WOW, don’t i do a great job teaching my kids about Jeses. um. no.)…anyways… in this particular book, every story whispers His name. i’m wondering if all of these thoughts i am having are really being whispered by God, or if i am…in the immortal words of carrie bradshaw…”shoulding” all over myself.

and yes. i love to watch old re-runs of sex and the city. there. i said it.

o.k. so i forgot for a split second why i don’t have pets. when i was little, i begged and begged for a puppy. my dad said no, no, and no. finally, when i was 7 and my brother was 4, he caved. we got schotzie. i had her until i was a freshman in college and we had to have her put to sleep because she was in heart failure. i won’t go in to those details because it involves me, on the ground in the parking lot of the vet clinic, crying hysterically and seemingly at the end of my rope. after i moved away to college, my brother got a cocker puppy named fozzy bear. he had her for years and she went to college with him and experienced all his little escapades first hand. once, she jumped out of the back of his truck and broke her leg along with sustaining several other serious injuries. she finally had to be put to sleep because of old age. then, i got atticus (a cocker puppy) and my brother got snaggle (a pit bull). atticus moved with me from place to place and was there for my marriage to chad and my graduate school graduation and the birth of my first born and my pregnancy with chase. he died suddenly when i was in texas and my friend called and told chad and he called and told me. this was terribly difficult. i was in shock and didn’t get to say goodbye. that was it. i told myself no more pets. ever. i’m still not over losing him. well, my brother’s sweet snaggle who has moved to and from austin, san marcos, houston, and finally to alaska died last monday morning. she had tumors that eventually took her lilfe. kevin had her for 11 years and she had been by his side for all of his adult life. it was extremely difficult for him. i think in a past blog, i have mentioned the 2 mommy cats that 2 friends of mine and i rescued from this run down farm. they each had 4 kittens. we kept one of the mommy cats and her 4 kittens for a good while. keri decided to keep the mommy and scout…one of her kittens. we also decided that she should keep boo radley…one of the kittens from the other litter. she may or may not be questioning why she listens to me about now. i loved boo radley. the kids loved boo radley. keri…does not love boo radley. keri loves my children…and could not tell them no. he is black and white and so cute. aiden and i asked if boo radley could come over for a visit about a week and a half ago. he was only supposed to stay the day. but the day turned into 2…turned into 4…and so on. the kids were sharing responsibility for him and we were all trying to convince chad that boo radley should be for keeps. chad was actually thinking about it. until…friday. we took him to his first vet appointment on friday morning for him to get his shots, etc. colton was at school, chase stayed home with chad in case his allergy to dogs acted up at the vet clinic, and aiden came with me and boo radley. the vet informs us that boo radley has worms. o.k. not uncommon for kittens. we just need to have him de-wormed…right? wrong. these worms are on the CDC list. does anyone know what that means? IT MEANS THEY ARE TRANSFERABLE TO HUMANS. alright. no problem. we will treat him and it’s not like the kids have been dealing with the litter. i have. and i wash my hands more than a nurse. so we should be o.k. then, the sweet little vet tells me that he also has a parasite. one that he got from his mother through sharing litter, evidently. giardia. contracted by drinking contaminated water. causes extreme diarrhea. also tranferable to humans. um…excuse me? are you telling me that this sweet, harmless, little boo radley kitten may have not only given us a weird worm rash, but giardia as well? that is what he was telling me. well, not exactly. it would be unlikely that we would have picked up anything due to my ocd and obsessive cleanliness. (can we all thank Jesus for obsessive-compulsive disorder?) he was more telling me how to treat and handle the kitten while he is getting his parasite medicine and all healed up. i’ll tell you how i’m gonna handle it. in my oppinion, he was really missing keri’s apartment and the animal kingdom over there. he actually told me that he wanted to go back to live there. so…he did.

having a school aged boy has taught me some things. one, of which is that any guy…no matter their age…when asked how their day was, will answer, “fine.” i used this tactic all last year while colton attended kindergarten. i always got the same generic answer. “fine”. everything was always…”fine”. i would ask about what he was learning; how his relationships at school were; who he was eating lunch with; and how he felt about the things that had happened that day. it was like pulling teeth…that weren’t even loose. so, this year…i had a lightbulb moment that has changed our painful, generic afterschool conversations into ones that tell me everything i need to know about my oldest son and his school experiences. i started thinking…i already know what he is learning because the work comes home in his folder. i already know that he is a terrific reader because i know that he is in a special reading group for the students who are above grade level. i know what he is learning in math because i see him counting money and telling time and telling chase about subtraction. i see the story problems and the way the teacher is teaching them to make charts to figure them out. science experiments come home and we have so many art projects that we may have to buy a bigger house so that we can have an extra room for art projects alone. i hear him talking about martin luther king and can see that he no longer calls his black friends “brown”. i have figured out that i can find out everything i need to know about colton’s day at school and most importantly, how he treats his friends, who he is spending his time with, and how he feels about himself with just one question…

…”what happened on the playground today?”

i think we all have the post holiday blues. it has been hard to get back into the swing of things…including writing on a regular basis. i could not believe that my last post was before christmas and about my big television debut. speaking of, chad gave me an “oscar” for christmas. it was presented in front of our families for best supporting actress in a holiday special. it looks like a real oscar trophy and everything. i was sooooooo excited!! finally…my ship has come in! another favorite gift of the season was the wii that my parents got for the boys. oh my gosh!! everyone loves that thing. i think that i had to kick chad and my brothers in law off several times so the little ones could play. it was on all day for the first few days. colton thought he had a promising future as a professional bowler until we took him and all his cousins bowling for real and tested their newly developed skills. colton and his competetive personality was none too thrilled with actual bowling. he got so mad that we had to pull the “never quit” speech out of the parenting handbook repituar. i have no idea if i spelled repituar right, and to be quite honest…i don’t care. then, surprising everyone, chad’s family got together and gave us a “theater” room. we turned what used to be the office upstairs into a home theater and we love it. they got us a big flat screen that hangs on the wall and a dvd player with surround sound. davey hooked it all up for us while he was here because, lets face it, if he didn’t…it would still be in the box. not that chad’s not handy. ummmm…what he lacks in “do it yourself home repairs technique” he makes up for in style. and the ability to do complex math problems in his head. it really comes in handy. it does. really. so…my oscar sits on a shelf in the theater…displayed proudly. and we are really enjoying our theater. we love it. the kids are coming down off of christmas too and are having the occational squabble. well…maybe i down play their sibling rivalry a bit. this week, chase came to me and told me to call santa and tell him to put colton on the naughty list. i’m not recalling exactly what colton’s offence was. today, they were playing football in the yard and colton decided that tripping chase was an acceptable form of tackling. aiden screams like she’s being tortured if colton even attempts to touch her toys. colton has lost wii and playstation 8 out of the 11 days of the year. chase has lost computer privilages too many times to count. and aiden has sat in time out more than her little mind can comprehend. i think she’s beginning to feel at home there. well, that’s about all i got for now. hopefully, the next time i write, i can spread a little more cheer.

alright. i didn’t tell this story to many people…due to the fact that i didn’t want to look like an idiot. but…it’s safe to tell! some of you may not be interested in this at all, but those of you who know me well and know my life-long dream of being “discovered” may appreciate this.

it’s kind of a long story…so i’ll be brief and leave out the details. (so out of character for me. 🙂

before leaving for new york, i joked many times about getting discovered while i was there. childhood dreams die hard, right? one night when chad and i were there, we happened upon the reveal of the macy’s christmas window display. now, i had no idea what a big deal this was. i had heard of the window display but didn’t know how “famous” they were. we went to macy’s around 4:00 and the big program thing where they reveal the windows was to start at 5:30. they were having one of the main actresses from dream girls singing and the little girl who plays jane banks in mary poppins on broadway was acting in the little skit. willard scott was reading twas the night before christmas and santa claus himself even showed up. they interviewed the guy who created the window displays, who turns out to be a pretty big deal in new york, i guess. they blocked off broadway and the crowd thickened quickly. chad and i sat in the bleachers that were set up across the street enjoying the cold night air and caramel apple ciders. we thought we had lucked out and had one of the best seats there. they led the whole crowd in christmas carols…which excited me because i was actually getting to sing on broadway!! chad took a picture to prove it. well…skip to the end, where chad and i are trying to make our way through the crowd with snow-like confetti falling all around and lots and lots of twinkly lights. i had seen a lot of cameras and assumed it was the news stations getting shots for the late news, when all of a sudden, a felt someone tap my shoulder. i turned around to see a camera man next to a guy with a big long fuzzy microphone on a long pole. he said, “you’ve been requested.” then…the next minute was a blur. they pushed me into the artist who designed the window displays and said, just talk to him about the displays.” so i did. i had to then fill out a waver to give them permission to use the footage if they needed it and said it was for the holiday window display special on HGtv. i figured there was no way that i would get on national tv, but thought it was pretty cool anyway. chad and i tuned in to the special the other night, and with about 3 minutes left in the 1 hour special…there i am. smack dab on the t.v. screen. we couldn’t believe it. my mouth dropped open and chad literally jumped off the couch and did a little victory dance. it was quite cute. my parents had it on and my mom was so proud. afterall, it is her favorite t.v. station on earth. it airs again on sunday, the 23rd at 4:00 and on christmas day at 10:00am. who would have thought…

…turns out i actually got discovered. even if it was by HGtv. 🙂 have you ever thought about the little things God makes happen? the things that are just especially to make you smile?

Tonight I learned a very important lesson…

ALWAY CHECK A LITTLE BOY’S POCKETS BEFORE DOING LAUNDRY!

I have seen the cute, old-fashion depiction of a little boy in overalls, with dirt smudges on his face, a slingshot hanging out of one pocket and a frog in the other. However…I thought those times had passed. With Sony Play Stations and Wiis and videos and computer games, it seems we’ve lost the innocent and magical games of childhood that called upon the use of a boy’s imagination as opposed to their parent’s money. no longer can an old, tattered football compete with Madden NFL for the play station or a stick be magically transformed into a gun…which saddens me. Fantacy football has taken the place of guys getting together at the local highschool field to play a game of touch. I wonder if these guys still have the same “brother-like” relationships as they used to. I know I’m not a boy and I may not have validity enough to speak about these boyish things. But as I did my own little boy’s laundry tonight, my mind wandered to these places. This past weekend, Chad went and purchased rocks to line our flowerbeds and a huge mound of mulch to put in them. The kids had a blast “helping”. They dug and hid “treasures” and climbed and rolled in the huge pile of dirt in our driveway. Chase had the smudges on his face that i spoke of earlier and for some reason they made me happy. The boys were taking a break from technology and were playing things that required imagination…and were loving it. Well, as I transfered the washed, wet, dark load into the dryer tonight, I started noticing a lot of…what looked like dirt…falling from the clothes. It just kept coming. I could not figure out where it was coming from, but it had filled the washing machine and was filling the dryer before I realized what had happened. Chase had decided to fill ALL his pockets with mulch. It was all over the laundry room, all in the clothes, and all in the washer and dryer. Now, I know I’ve been accused of being neurotically clean…but seriously. I just washed dirt.

7th grade was probably the worst year of my life. i had grown tall in a time where tall was not “in”. i was skinny and lanky…waif-like…when skinny, lanky and waif-like was not considered beautiful. my arms were long and my legs were longer before the clothing industry came up with the idea that every girl’s body type was, indeed, not the same. the guess jeans with the zipper at the ankle was all i ever wanted…thinking they would make me cool…only to find out that the guess jeans with the zipper at the ankles would be about 3 inches too short for me. i would wear them anyways because i thought they were better (in my mind) than the knock-off palmettos that had the same triangle on the back pocket. i was proud of my jeans…don’t get me wrong…but they didn’t make me shorter. and they didn’t make the cute boys look at me more. and they didn’t make the popular girls want to be any more my friend. misguided, i was. my mom had a rule. i could wish for the popular things…the guess overalls, the liz claiborne purse, the jeans with the real guess triangle on the pocket…but she would never buy them for me right away. even though we had the money, i had to wait. i had to wait until christmas, or my birthday, or for another reason that warranted buying them. she knew then, what i know now…that “so i would be accepted” was not a reason she wanted to promote. what she also knew, that i know now, is that it wouldn’t work. several moments in time stand out vividly in my mind from 7th grade, as if they were yesterday. one, when the most popular boy in my grade, whom i had had a crush on all year, came up to me in the hallway. my excitement was so off the charts that i’m sure it was seen on my face and heard in my voice. had he finally seen me? he must have noticed my jeans! only to have him ask me to tell my best friend, catherine that he liked her and to find out if she returned his feelings. obviously she would. second, when my stomach would start hurting so bad and i would feel so sick that i would go to the nurse and she would have to call my mom to come get me. i would lay on the couch the rest of the day, wondering what was wrong with me and my mom would have a worried look in her eye and a loving touch in her hand. then my stomach would start hurting upon time to leave for school…to the point of tears…and she took me to the doctor. she knew i wasn’t lying. the doctor said it was stress. that something was going on in my life to promote the physical response and that this was the way my little body and mind were handling it. my mom wondered what, on earth, i had to be stressed about. see…this was before “stress” in children became better understood. and third, when i was accused of something that i didn’t do by a popular girl and everyone believed her. i was at my locker and kids were saying mean things to me and hurling insult after insult until they felt i had had enough and believed the things they were saying. little did they know…i already believed the things they were saying. i didn’t need their help to feel bad about myself. i didn’t even stand up for myself. i guess i felt like i wasn’t worth it. nor would anyone listen to me anyways. i was never gonna be who i wanted to be…even though, at the time, i didn’t even know who that was.

fast forward through high school, college, and grad school where i finally hit my stride and had enough accalades to bury the deep hurt and memories from 7th grade deep down inside. fast forward through tall and skinny becoming what girls want to look like and the clothing industry making clothes geared toward our body type and the short people having to hem them to fit. you’d think that would make up for those bad memories. just so you know…it doesn’t. i’ve learned to be okay with my weight and celebrate my height…but the demons are still there. as an adult, my clothing is not attacked anymore, but my character has been. not often…but it has happened. and those memories and feelings that i had when i was in 7th grade come flooding to the surface. i’m still not good enough. i’m still not accepted. i still need to change who i am to fit the mold that will make me worth it. i still want someone to understand…to know exactly how i feel…to comfort me…to know me.

last night i was sitting in the darkness of my living room, dealing with hurt feelings…where the only light came from the twinkly lights of the christmas tree and garland on the fireplace. i could barely see the nativity scene on my mantle and the baby Jesus being held by his mommy. i thought about him as a baby, and a boy, and a man. i thought about how other kids may have made fun of him and then i started thinking about how he was ridiculed and mocked as a man. i thought about how he had human emotions and how he must have felt. if i felt hurt by being misunderstood, how must have he felt…when the whole world misunderstood him? it wasn’t just the kids in the 7th grade…it was most everybody. he knew he was the Christ. a King. the great I AM. God in the flesh. the savior of the mockers. the one who came for us. He knew what He was here to do for us…

and He hurt.

just like i hurt.

He knows me…

and i was comforted.