For the Love of Fall

On a recent camping trip, we were blessed to time our mini vacation along with the beginning of fall. The cooler night temps, waking up to cook breakfast in the brisk morning air, the grass at home finally slowing down its need to be mowed every four days - it was all quite pleasant! Fall makes me ready to embrace change. My thoughts run wild with ideas on how to change my home decor to include warm, fall colors and my dinner menu to incorporate hearty soups followed by warm desserts like apple crisp. I'm ready for a change of wardrobe and cozy boots. I want to snuggle under blankets in the evening with my hubby and carve pumpkins with my children (well, maybe just paint pumpkins - no one likes to pull out the pumpkin guts and I always get stuck with that job).

This year, fall also makes me feel old. Fall is when my first born child came into this world. It's when my life was forever changed by my beautiful baby boy that is growing into a handsome young man right before my eyes. This year brings the thirteenth anniversary of that blessed event. *GASP* Even as I type the words, I can hardly believe it myself. The same boy that once told me, "Don't cry, Mommy. If you cry; I'll cry" still holds my heart in the palm of his adult sized hand. (By the way, that comment was made after I got a speeding ticket. In case you didn't already know, I am sooooooo not a rebel.)

I wake up every morning waiting to see if the son I now literally see eye to eye with has surpassed me in height and to hear if his voice has grown any deeper. While I absolutely love watching him grow and mature, every once in a while, I long for the times he used to curl up in my lap and need me to comfort him. I long to kiss the top of his head and breathe in his sweet scent without him sighing "Mooooooom". I think I should spend the next month enjoying every second I can before he enters his teens and figures out it's not cool to been seen in public with your mom. Maybe I'll even put a brick on top of his head.

We're in this together

My hot hubby (see header if you don't believe me) went on a primitive camping trip this past weekend with four guy friends. They packed up a few belongings that included mountain bikes, kayaks and one very large tent and went on their merry way. I was invited, but no. Just no. You did catch the “primitive” part, right? I need a toilet. And preferably running water. Make that warm running water. Call me spoiled - I'm totally okay with it. I openly admit to the fact that I would have made a terrible wife in the "good 'ol days". When you add those facts with the joy of camping with five grown men and their glory (belches, farts, and general grossness)…. I’ll pass, thankyouverymuch. Here's a video recep of their trip:

I want to take this time to give a shout out to wife whom called her husband 1,000 times while they were gone so she could tattle on her kids. She made me look really good!

I am not afraid to stay at home by myself, but I chose to load up the kids and stay with my parents for one of our daddy-free nights out of sheer convenience. I had an early morning run scheduled for the following day and I needed someone to watch my sleeping babes. My oldest may be twelve, but I'm still not comfortable with him being in charge of anything, let along his living, breathing sister. And I love my Mom and Dad, but I love living in my own home more. I was reminded of that very quickly this weekend. Yay for being an adult! Being treated to lunch was great and they even bought us stuff when we went shopping, but I can only take them in small doses. That's why I cut out as soon as we returned home. In all fairness, I'm sure the feeling is mutual. A backseat full of whining kids probably isn't their idea of fun these days. In case you're wondering, yes, I am including myself as a whiny kid but in my defense, my dad would not just stop the car already and make a decision about where to eat lunch. It was a hostage situation! My stomach was the victim. I don't do well when I have to go long periods of time without eating. He should know this.

I spent the rest of the weekend single parenting it. *Insert thumbs down* I applaud those women and men whom do it on a daily basis because kids will wear-you-smack-dab-out! Physically, emotionally... you name it! I'm very thankful for my husband/refereeing partner. To him, I owe my sanity!

Current Tidbits about Me

1. I'm tired. I've been getting up at the butt crack of dawn this week to exercise because my evenings are just too busy. My body seems to be rejecting this insane new schedule. It is accustomed to exercising, eating dinner and then sleeping so when I go for a run and eat breakfast, it signals my brain to shut down because the only logical thing to follow those two consecutive activities is sleep.*Yawn*
   
   
2. Walgreen's sucks. I've said it before but this time I mean it... I'm never developing pictures there again. I am by no means a good photographer but I have a decent-ish camera. I was in a hurry the other night and needed to order some pics in a hurry and thought Walgreen's would be the quickest option. My daughter needed to take some family pics to preschool the next day and who in this digital day and time has pictures lying around that they don't mind grubby preschool hands touching? Not me, that's who. I hurriedly uploaded some pics to Walgreen's website and arranged to have them ready after a meeting I had to attend that night. One problem... they wouldn't give them to me. I was told they needed a copyright release for any photographs that appeared to be professional. I don't think they look professional at all, but this lady was under a different opinion. When I asked her how I was supposed to provide a copyright release when I don't own a photography business, she just shrugged and said she had to have one. I politely told her she could keep them (yes, politely... and it wasn't easy because my blood pressure had to be through the roof). Their print quality is terrible anyway. So there!
   
   
3. Girls = Drama.  More specifically, preteen girls = drama. My son is on his third girlfriend of this school year. (By the way, school started exactly three weeks ago.) I'm trying to steer him in the right direction and help him spot the characteristics of a drama queen, but he hasn't developed a knack for it quite yet. I hope this isn't any indication of what my future daughter-in-law is going to be like. *Update - I just found out my son's girlfriend kissed him at school. Kissed! At school!! Oy! We sat him down and told him that he could get suspended for that kind of crap. What?! He could! Maybe... Possibly... Anyway, I think I just aged by 10 years. Can't I just lock him in a closet until he's 18?
   
   
4. Girls = Drama(2). This one pertains to my daughter (in this case, we'll call her "her father's child"). Why, oh why does she have to be so opinionated? From what color the cup she drinks out of is to what shoes she wears with a specific outfit to how her hair is fixed in the mornings... Should a four year old really care this much? I'll give you an example. We were recently in the market for a new backpack. My daughter's favorite color is purple. Well, it WAS purple... from age one right up until the time that I found an adorable purple backpack I thought she was absolutely going to love. I have to give mad props to the online Land's End customer service rep that let me exchange it out for blue (her NEW favorite color). She quite possibly saved my life. Well, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement but at the very least she saved me a few Excedrin Migraine tablets.

Giddy as a School Girl

I left off my last entry with a promise to update on what progress I made on my chore list this past weekend. I know, I'm slow but bear with me. The answer: not a whole lot. And I'm perfectly okay with that. The tall, dark and handsome gentleman I'm blessed enough to be married to took me out on a date. Yay! No kids, no worries... just me and him. Our evening got off to a fantastic start when we ate at Outback for $11, 20% tip included (thanks to a $25 gift card). For those of you that aren't familiar with me, saving money makes me a very happy girl. Afterward, we did a little shopping and then went to the movies to watch "Salt" - this is a great movie, by the way. The night was still young so we ended the night with a fun game of bowling. Because what's not fun about laughing at your wife that totally sucks at bowling, right?

We slept in Saturday morning and then enjoyed a homemade breakfast of French toast, bacon and scrambled eggs before heading for a workout at our local YMCA. We ate lunch at Subway and enjoyed a movie at home later that evening while fine dining on delivery pizza. It wasn't the healthiest of weekends but that's okay because having the weekend as a reminder of why we're in this thing together to begin with made it completely worth the extra carbs and calories. It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day hustle and bustle of getting kids where they need to be, work schedules, homework, dinner, pointing fingers (that's YOUR kid because MY kid wouldn't do that), baths and bed time. As my friends like to point out, I'm a lucky girl and knowing I get to spend the rest of my life with this man makes me happy. It makes me almost look forwards to getting old. I said almost...

For the record, I did get the kids' rooms cleaned and purged a massive amount of toys (if you see my daughter, you know nothing). I'll save the border removal - which is going to be a PAIN; I tested the corner of my son's room and it was stuck on, stuck like glue - and painting for another weekend. Maybe that can be a family project. Haha! I crack myself up.

Thank the good Lord for Grandparents!

From this day through the entire weekend, I am childless. Both of my children out of town with their grandparents and I am not quite sure what to do with myself. I’m like a kid in a candy store just thinking about the possibilities. There are about five bajillion projects I would like to tackle but realistically, I would be happy if I could cross just two off the list. What can I say? I am a chronic over-scheduler. It’s what I do. I do it at work, I do it at home… if there was a twelve step program for it, I would put signing up for it on my list of things to do. Ha!

The first thing I need to do is clean out my daughter’s room. That’s absolutely at the top of the list. Ms. Priss has an overabundance of toys she absolutely cannot live without even though she hardly ever touches them. (She's always been more of a play with the remote and mommy's makeup kind of girl.) She’s the same way with clothing and shoes she’s out grown. “But I loooooove it,” she’ll say. Already, at the mere age of 4, she's more than willing to wear shoes that hurt her feet because they're cute. I know, I know; I'm in trouble. When she's not looking, I throw away worn out shoes and bag up toys to take to the mission. Somehow, she catches me every.single.time. This time, the evidence will be long gone by the time she returns. Muah Haha Ha!!

My son’s room could use some work as well. He has less junk but more funk. I guess that’s the norm for a preteen boy but oh.my.goodness does he have to do whatever it is that smells that badly in my house?! Ugh! We received some hand me down furniture from his great-grandfather back a few years ago so I bought him new bedding then but I’ve never repainted and it is way past time for that. There is also a very juvenile looking border with puppies and sports equipment around the top of his walls that needs to go. I'm sure he'd be thrilled to see it gone when he gets home.

Which reminds me that the hall could use repainting as well...

Then there is my hubby who is so excited about some alone time. I don’t want it to sound like I don’t want to spend time with him. Really… I do. But there's so much to do and so little whine free time to do it in. And what I'm really not keen on is the idea of mountain biking with him and his friends on Saturday morning. (I’m still working on getting out of this one.) Biking, I’m fine with. Biking up and down hills, through muddy rivers, around pointy rocks and trees… *Gasp* Do you hear me? TREES! This may not seem like such a big deal to some of you more coordinated people but I'm fairly positive if I'm riding down a hill towards a tree, my body will become a certified tree magnet. And when I do fall off the bike, because let's face it - that's inevitable, I would land on one of those aforementioned pointy rocks. I'll start praying now for rain. Sleeping in sounds sooooo much better.

My entire house could also use a decrapification. It's everywhere. The worst rooms are the kitchen, where mail seems to always pile up no matter how good my intentions, and our music room, which is where junk goes to die.

There's also some small redecorating projects here and there that I have wanted to tackle...

I'm tired just thinking about it. Stay tuned and I'll let you know what actually gets done. I know you're just dying to know.

:)

"A" for Effort

My husband does 90% of our laundry. I *mostly* love this about him. I'm not trying to blow pixie dust up your tailpipe to make you think he was always this awesome; it took having our second child before he realized I was taking on more than I could handle as far as day to day household duties go. We both work full time so I think a more equal split was only fair. I'm glad he agreed. I prefer to do most of the cooking and he doesn't clean to suit me so the laundry was the obvious winner.

"Doing laundry" entails washing, drying and sorting the clothes. Everyone is still responsible for putting up their own clothing which means our 12 year old put his own away (more like he opens his closet door and throws them in) and I put the rest away but I'm not complaining. I'll take what I can get. Last night as I was hanging up a load of dark colors, I ran across one of my new dresses. As in "I just bought it this past weekend and have only worn it once" new. I held it up and sighed. It was at least three inches shorter than it was just a few days ago. "I'm guessing you dried this," I said with an obvious ill tone. I couldn't help it. "How am I supposed to know what gets dried and what doesn't. You should really label that stuff." *Sigh* At this point I'm just giving him "the look" when he adds, "I don't know what the big deal is anyway. You have beautiful legs." Nice try, buddy. I'm still mad, though. Sort of. Okay fine - I'm smiling.

Yeah, he's totally off the hook.

I am NOT his girlfriend!

I have a male co-worker that spends countless unwelcomed hours in my office every week complaining and commenting on everything under the sun – his son’s baseball team, his middle son getting into the school they wanted, and work crap. For anonymity, let us call him “annoying guy”. For the most part, annoying guy is in and out quickly; I politely smile and nod at his stories and then he goes on his merry way. I consider this a win-win. Here lately, however, his stories are becoming more drawn out and frequent. I cannot tell you how many secret eye rolls I give this guy. In my head, I’m saying really, really bad things to him. I may or may not even be secretly flipping him off. When his presence becomes absolutely ridiculous, another co-worker with visual access to my office phones my husband with orders to save me. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see his number pop up on my caller ID. Yeah – I definitely owe that guy one. Or maybe ten.

I promise there is a point to this particular rambling. I will get to that now. At a party this weekend, I learned that I have become known as annoying guy’s girlfriend in our company. The example given to me was “So, does anyone know where annoying guy is?” “He’s probably in his girlfriend’s office again.” UGH!!  This makes my skin crawl! And this is what I get for being nice. My mission this week (and I definitely do choose to accept) is to make him feel completely unwelcomed so that he stays the heck out of my personal space. My strategy has been to not make eye contact, take bathroom breaks when he appears to be heading in my general direction (even if I have to go so often that people think I have the runs) and keep my radio turned up to a volume that is hard to talk over. Check, check, and check. So far today, I haven’t had to talk to him even once. Here’s hoping the rest of the week is just as successful so I can keep my secret flip offs to a minimum.