I spent the first three hours of today believing my cell phone when it told me the time.

Alas, my cell phone failed to spring forward at 2 a.m. which explains why I lollygagged in bed until 10 a.m. because I thought it was really only 9 a.m.  Actually, now it all seems confusing and foggy, but doesn’t the time change always seem that way for a few days at least?

I’m not sure where the day went . . . after church and lunch, I took my oldest son shopping for sandals, read the Sunday newspaper, worked some, then took the puppy and my daughter to see the sunset.

But halfway there, I could see that the giant cloud-bank would block the view.  We continued on anyway, and took the puppy for a jaunt on the sidewalk that runs along the beach.  Even though the cloud blotted out the sun, the ocean shimmered and we were happy to be there.

The sun set at almost 7 p.m.–not that we could see it.

Now it’s time to make yet another school lunch and head to bed so I can start another week.

I woke up ridiculously early thanks to the puppy.  We had settled into a nice routine in the past weeks–my husband gets up early anyway, so he feeds the dog, then lets her back into our bedroom where I’m sleeping.  Normally, the puppy goes to sleep and we doze until 9 a.m. or so.

Today, she was riled up and ready to play.  When I rolled over she jumped up onto the bed, which is forbidden.  I had to get out of bed myself to get her out of bed.  She sat looking at me with so much delight until I put her on the floor.  We did that twice before I banished her from my room and went back to sleep.

When I finally fell asleep again I had a troubling, complex nightmare that I can’t remember at all.  And then it was time to wake up and hurry downstairs to work for an hour.

I finished working, cleaned up dog poop in the back yard, took a shower and took Grace with me to buy a dog toy–something to entertain the puppy–and then we got some lunch.  We rushed back home in time for me to work my normal four hour shift . . . after work, my husband and I took our teenagers to see “Acts of Valor” (Grace had gone to a friend’s house for the night).

When we got home, I cleaned up the puppy’s accident (guess we should have crated her), then cooked my husband chocolate pudding and finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  Then I took a twelve minute nap before working again at 9 pm.

And here I am!   It’s nearly 2 am and I’ll fold a load of laundry before crawling into bed.

Tomorrow – soccer for Grace and lacrosse for Zach.

Yawn.

Isn’t it strange when you realize that you are no longer responsible for wiping anyone’s nose besides your own?  (Did you think I was going to say something besides nose?)

After spending so many hours submerged in the day-to-dayness of babies and toddlers and preschoolers, you’re suddenly sprung free, able to run errands without tucking them into the space between breakfast and nap-time.

And honestly, you are kind of dizzy from the slow motion suddenness of the difference in your life between then and now.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s hard to even imagine how different life will look in ten years.  I just hope I’m still the one in charge of wiping my own nose.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where did my babies go?

Another week is underway.  Grace and I did as much schoolwork as we could stand.  I worked at my job a few hours more than I was supposed to.  My husband and Grace and I ate salad and soup at Souplantation.

I remarked over and over again about the weather and flowers in bloom everywhere.

I folded some laundry and didn’t cook anything unless you count the chocolate pudding I made in the microwave tonight.  Which leads me to ask:  If you were a Pyrex mixing bowl with a handle, where would you be?  Mine has disappeared and I’m beginning to think that my kids broke it and threw it away without my knowledge.  Either that or it’s under someone’s bed, full of unpopped popcorn kernels.

In more than halfway through The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and all I want to do is read.

The end.

 

After church, lunch and a nap, my daughter and I headed to the beach by way of a thrift store.

I was thrilled to find two Mikasa French Countryside bowls–a serving bowl and a soup bowl–for $1.95 each.  That’s the pattern I picked out when I was getting married and I never, ever, ever find pieces at garage sales or thrift stores.  Until today.

After buying our treasures, we headed directly to the Oceanside pier . . . where we found a lot of other people with the same idea.  I was actually shocked at how many people were on the beach since the last time we were at that particular beach in December, it was nearly deserted.

We walked along the shore, letting the waves lap at our toes.  Grace threw rocks in the waves while I took photos of the sun sinking lower and lower.

It was a beautiful day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oceanside Pier

Last night, I crawled into bed at 2 a.m.  I’d managed to turn in my small writing assignment only 23 hours past its deadline.

Five hours later, the dog knocked at my bedroom door.

She really did.  I’m not sure how since she has no knuckles, but I headed downstairs to find paper towels because when I walked over to open the door, I stepped in a wet spot on the carpet. Nice.

(Or maybe that was the morning before.)

At any rate, this morning I had to work for an hour, then gather up Grace and her school books for our bi-weekly meeting with her teacher.  I hate going to that meeting because I feel like the teacher is always trying to catch us doing something wrong.  Then after the meeting’s over, I say, “That wasn’t so bad.”

We had to hurry home after the meeting because I remembered that I needed to clean up the yard so the landscaping people could mow the lawn and all that without smooshing dog poop with their shoes.

It wasn’t as bad as it sounds–the cleaning up of the poop–because the weather was so delightful today.  Seventy degrees, pure blue skies.  My roses are growing and look great, a big improvement over last summer’s green-worm-infested leaves.

When the yard was clean, Grace and I headed to Rubio’s for lunch.  We picked up Zach after school–early dismissal–then I started my normal four hour shift.

My husband called to let me know that a college buddy may be stopping by, so at 5 p.m. I asked the kids for help and we did a quick declutter of the house and put the dishes in the dishwasher.  One of my sons can’t understand the concept of cleaning up before company arrives–he considers it some kind of false advertising, I guess.

After the company left, I headed upstairs, read a little (Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) and then took a nap before work.

Starting work at nine, finished up at 12:30 a.m. and now I’m heading to bed.

Tomorrow all the kids have activities, but only one directly involves me (Grace’s soccer) and the weather is expected to be excellent, so watching an hour of soccer while sitting outdoors will be nice.  I’m hoping to stop by the beach at some point.  It’s been too long since I’ve seen the sun set and gotten sand in my sneakers while dodging foamy waves.

Okay, so I know it’s been way too long since I’ve posted here.

And it’s 1:33 a.m. and I have to work at about 9 a.m. and get out of the house by 10:15 a.m. for a meeting with Grace’s teacher . . . then I promised we’d stop by the Dollar Tree so she can get some items for the dollhouse she’s constructing . . . and I have to be back at work by 1 p.m.

So I don’t have time to really write anything here.

But here’s a quick mention of a few things that happened in the last month:

1)  My husband and I went to Disney World.  And I coughed the whole way there (sorry, Man I Sat Next To on the Plane) and coughed the whole time I was there, then coughed all the way home (Sorry Other Man I Sat Next To on the Plane). But it was fun.  And humid.

2)  Work.  More work, work, work.  We had a week where several employees were gone and so I worked a lot of extra hours.  A lot.  Like, maybe 55 hours for the week.

3)  We took Zach and Grace to Disneyland to celebrate Zach’s birthday–which was really 9 days before his birthday, so in reality, we were celebrating his due date.  (The older boys don’t like Disney so they stayed home.)  It was weird being there two weeks after being at Disney World.  The Disneyland castle was kind of pitiful compared to the Disney World Magic Kingdom castle.

What else?  What have I been doing?  There’s more, of course, but I have no idea what.

I do want to talk more about February 17, which was Zach’s due date and also a date that was significant to me for another reason but there simply isn’t time tonight.  Maybe soon.  I hope soon.

Oh, the other thing is that Grace was baptized last Sunday at church.  Only she calls it “bathetized” and I will never, ever correct her  mispronunciation because I find it charming and adorable.  And doesn’t it make sense that it’s “bath-e-tize”?  As in, you get dunked in a bath-tub-like-tank?  I love that.

She was so excited for that moment and before her dad baptized her, he asked her to recite the 23rd Psalm and to my amazement, she did so in a strong voice without any hesitation whatsoever.

I intend to resume writing here more regularly, even if my life continues at this hectic pace.

Happy Friday!  And good-night.

Last week, while my husband and I were strolling around Disney’s Animal Kingdom, a text message appeared on my iPhone.

The message read:

Hey, just so you know.
The sink is leaking all of the sudden.  So, don’t expect the sink to be empty on your return.  we don’t want to make it even leakier.

It’s always something, right?

So, I called the plumber and spent four hours this morning waiting for him to arrive.

The good news is that the sink is no longer leaking.  The bad news is that is cost me $60 to have the plumber gently tighten the hose back onto the faucet with his hand. A simple fix even a housewife should be able to do.  If only she knew what she was doing.

I decided that a sunset would make everything all right, so after work I grabbed the puppy and my keys and headed for the van.  The door did not open when I clicked my remote thingy.  (That’s the technical term for it.)

Weird.

But okay.  So I put the key into the ignition and . . . you know where this is going, right?

NOWHERE.  Nowhere at all because the van wouldn’t start.

I immediately blamed the kids.  They carried groceries in last night . . . did they leave on a light?  Or leave a door open?

Luckily for the kids, none of them are only children, so they always have someone to blame . . . who knows what happened.

All I know is that the van won’t start.  It emits a sickly click-click-click-click while the lights try to glow.

My husband came home and asked for jumper cables and we risked our lives to connect battery to battery and . . . nothing.  What?  Jumper cables scare me.

Tomorrow, we will try to solve this problem.  I fear that it will cost money I don’t want to spend on cars.  I never want to spend money on cars.  Or plumbers.

I just hope there will another sunset since I missed the one tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This sunset was back in October . . . I missed the sunset tonight.  But you already knew that.

 

 

A week ago, I went to bed at 3 a.m. only to crawl back out of bed at 4:30 a.m. so I could be in the car, heading to the airport by 5:30 a.m.

My husband and I were heading to Orlando, Florida, for an early celebration of our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.  We planned to fly on separate planes–JUST IN CASE–and my plane left was scheduled to depart at 7:45 a.m.

And . . . this was shocking . . .there was absolutely no line at the security checkpoint.

Of course, that did me no good since I was at the wrong terminal.  Apparently, when you fly to Los Angeles, you fly on a commuter airplane which is at a different terminal.  I stood on the curb, waiting for the bus, hoping for the best.

I caught the flight.  I dozed on the airplane.  I switched flights in Los Angeles and arrived in Orlando, about an hour before my husband.  I was sitting on the shuttle bus to Disney World when he texted me that he’d arrived.

By Thursday evening we were in Epcot riding a few attractions before heading back to our hotel restaurant for a late dinner.

We spent the next forty-eight hours walking miles in the Florida humidity, taking in as many Disney attractions as we could–first the Animal Kingdom, then Epcot, then the Magic Kingdom.  I came home on Sunday with blisters and he stayed on for a few more days for church business meetings.  It was fun but so strange to be there without kids.  I can’t remember the last time we went anywhere without kids for more than a few hours.

I took this picture of a hippo swimming by.  It amuses me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Since my return home on Sunday night, I’ve been working frantically to catch up on the work I left here at home.  And I’ve been trying to nap as much as possible.  I’ve had a cold for two weeks and I’m just now getting over the cough.

The plumbing under the kitchen sink sprang a mysterious leak in my absence.

On the plane home, I read half of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  I wonder when I’ll get around to reading again.

My 13-year old son has been on a school study trip to the East Coast since January 29.  He will arrive home on Thursday night.  He sent me a postcard with a note written in pig-latin and a few random texts.  This is the longest he’s ever been away from home.

Tomorrow morning my husband returns home at 11:20 a.m.  Which is great, except for the fact that just tonight I checked the flight schedule and realize that I have a big problem.  My daughter has class tomorrow–and will be out at noon–and my husband must be picked up at the airport at 11:20 a.m.  And I can’t be in two places at once and it’s too late to call anyone for help.

So . . . uh, wish me luck.

I’ve never felt more like I’m running on a treadmill with the speed turned up too fast than I have lately.

Last night at 1 a.m., I wearily entered the kitchen so I could make a school lunch before falling into bed.  (As it turned 0ut, I really was catching a cold, so I was not imagining my fatigue.)

My son’s Physical Science textbook was sitting on the kitchen counter with a scrawled note from my 13-year old son:  “Please, this needs a book cover.  Thanks.  From your son, Zachary D. H.”

I love that kid.

So I made his lunch.

Then I cut apart a paper bag and created a sturdy book cover for his book.

Finally, I found a Sharpie marker and wrote “PHYSICAL SCIENCE” on the spine and front of the book.

And then I carefully wrote this note in big black letters on the bottom front of the book:
“My mom covered this book because she loves me.  My mom rocks.”

I wrote similar notes on the front and back inside covers.

I am pleased to report that my son’s science teacher asked him if his book was covered and then my son had to show the book cover to his teacher who was reportedly quite amused.

Ha ha ha.