So I have heard that nobody can watch the first video because of an error on YouTube regarding copyright infringement. Which sucks because I paid for every single song I used in that video (don’t ever steal music, kids). So now you can’t see how awesome I am at moviemaking (Shout out: iMovie!). I guess you’ll just have to take my word for it.
Or maybe this will work (I do not give up easily)…
Hello, friends! Oh, how I have missed you all. And I have missed writing my stories, but you know the drill… December is a big, fat, hairy beast. And it defeats me every single year. It is my white whale (Call me Five Baby Mama).
I did my best to make our holidays uncomplicated, yet memorable. Full of quality family time, but not so much that we feel the need to move to a deserted island with no forwarding address afterwards. I did the planning and decorating and shopping and wrapping and delivering in small increments all month long so I wouldn’t be stuck down in the basement at 2AM on December 24th with nothing but scotch tape holding my eyelids open while I tried to assemble some crazy plastic contraption with more parts than there are letters in the Chinese alphabet. But December still got the best of me.
The kids started getting sick back at Thanksgiving. I have hand-outs from our pediatrician with the following titles… the stomach flu, croup, infectious mononucleosis, and pneumonia. Fortunately, there was no cross-contamination and everyone got their own special disease. Trust me, that did not happen by accident! And they were all sick at different times, so the “sickiness” seemed to last forever. A big shout-out to Kid B for staying healthy!
Then came December 14th and my heart broke so hard and loud that I felt it on the outside of my body. I don’t normally watch the news because it feeds my anxieties in a very unhealthy way, but no one could escape the horror story. My tears did not stop falling. They still haven’t.
Then came Christmas Eve and our new family tradition of Chick-Fil-A and peppermint milkshakes, and our old traditions of Sheepdog re-telling the story of Jesus’ birth and me reading ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas and putting out a note and cookies for Santa. Our Christmas morning was full of smiles and hugs and Skype and wrapping paper and joyful noises. We are very, very, very blessed.
Kid A asked Santa for a vintage typewriter for Christmas. The Big Guy delivered an awesome one with keys en Espanol. Click, Clack, Moo (egg nog).
Then, since I couldn’t manage to get out of it, we had Christmas dinner for thirty people at our house. No, I’m not kidding. We had to find thirty places for thirty heineys to sit and eat. And we managed to pull it off! So on the night of December 25th, Sue, Tom, Bonnie, Joe, Tooker, Josh, Stacy, Ellie, Braden, Molly, Abby, Cal, Cam, Keri, Charlie, Foster, Luke, Nora, Rob, Kelli, Wilson, Phoebe, Mallory, Quincy, Brandon, Becky, Brady, Cooper and Eden all listened (most without giggling, although Brandon always fails at this) as Reverend Bob gave the blessing. Then we sat down and ate together and laughed and shared stories and memories and made some new ones too.
And speaking of holiday memories… one of my biggest projects this December came in the form of a request from my dad.
Many, many years ago, back when dinosaurs roamed the Earth, he fell deeply in love with a girl named Sue Speed. He loved her so much that he asked her to marry him when they were just nineteen years old. And being a dumb boy, he did it in a fairly unplanned, unromantic way… in the backseat of a car, with his pregnant teenage sister and her baby daddy up front driving. In the middle of the Cardiff Circle. Luckily, Sue Speed loved him back so much that she said YES anyway, and they have been together ever since.
But my dad has always regretted not having proposed with more style (partly because my mom tells him he should). So, this Christmas he had my cousin Ashley design my mom a fabulous new ring, with both old stones and new ones too, and he asked for his daughters’ help in planning a new and improved proposal that would knock her socks off. And we did it. We gathered together as many old (and some new) pictures of our family’s Christmas memories and I put together a DVD that showed them off and then featured our Top 10, with Number 1 being the lame proposal (which we so fabulously re-created using Rob and Kelli as “Uncle Bobby” and “Aunt Janice”), and at the end my dad turned to the camera and asked for a re-do.
We played the DVD on Christmas Day when all thirty of us were gathered together and at the end my dad walked over to my mom and re-proposed. He got down on one knee and talked about everlasting love and still getting excited to see her when he was driving home from work every day and it was sweet and romantic and my mom thought he was nuts. Luckily, she still loves him back so much that she accepted once again.
So, here for your viewing pleasure is the fruit of my labor and a peek into our crazy family antics…
And then I recorded the new proposal…
I am so proud to be a part of this big, goofball family. I wouldn’t want it any other way. Here’s to happiness and health in the new year. Wish me luck in 2013…
I did all of the laundry so everybody would have clean clothes to pack. I charged the pump so we could blow up the air mattress for somebody to sleep on when we got there. I filled the gas tank in the truck so we could get up this morning at 3 A.M. and just drive. I did a little early Christmas shopping for some bigger items so we could drive them up instead of shipping them. I’m not even gonna start on the preparations that Grandma and Grandpa made in anticipation of our Thanksgiving visit… the shopping, the cleaning, the cooking, the “little” projects around the house.
Turns out they were all for naught, though, because we have kids. And kids come with a cornucopia of wrenches that they will throw into the gears of our lives at any given moment. And because of a sick wrench, the seven of us are all milling around our house in Georgia instead of driving somewhere along I-77 watching (or just listening to, if you sit in the front seat and can’t view the screen) a Disney-Pixar movie right now.
Exactly what we were trying to avoid
*photo courtesy of Google Images*
On Monday, Kid A came home from school in tears. She was extremely nauseous and on top of that another girl in her lit class had written an essay about her (a very flattering one, not a mean one) that made her extremely emotional. Since naps are my go-to cure-all, I immediately sent her to bed. She felt a little better after that, but ended up not going to school on Tuesday because she got worse through the night. She had a fever and didn’t have the energy to get off of the couch. She was shaky and dizzy and icky, but I figured whatever it was would run its course and be gone after 24 hours. So I kept on packing.
But by Tuesday at 5 P.M., while standing amidst 6 fully packed duffel bags (Sheepdog, of course, waits until the very last minute to pack. He also feels the need to run every article of clothing past me as he does it, despite my insistence that I DO NOT CARE which damn shirt he wears to drive home), 7 winter coats, 7 sets of hats and gloves, 7 pairs of sneakers, 7 backpacks filled with charged electronics and books, a soccer ball, a football, a few baseball gloves and balls, the travel pillows and blankets, the sleeve of DVDs, the camera bag, the snack bag and the drink cooler, Sheepdog and I made the decision to cancel our trip.
The kids’ reactions were similar… all of them were very sad that they wouldn’t be seeing their Grandma and Grandpa, or their aunt and uncle and cousins. Kid D started to cry inconsolably and he continued through bedtime. Kid E was mad at me. But I saw an ever so slight look of relief pass over Kid A’s face when she realized that she wouldn’t have to fake tough for ten hours riding through the ups and downs of the mountain roads while trying not to even think about throwing up even though she would have the Tupperware vomit bowl within her arms’ reach the whole time. We would also be sitting right next to her the whole time, breathing her sick air and coming into contact with her cooties, pretty much guaranteeing that somebody else would have what she has for the trip home. It was definitely the right call.
The next call I had to make was to my in-laws, who were vibrating with so much excitement in anticipation of our arrival that I could feel it through the phone lines. Ironically, our trip to visit them earlier last summer was canceled on their end, as they were all dealing with some sort of plague that we couldn’t take a chance contracting, especially since Kid A’s boyfriend had just had a bone marrow transplant and was extremely immunocompromised. I was scared that my mother-in-law would be furious or cry or have some sort of extreme reaction that would cause me even more guilt than I was already experiencing, but she was understanding and gracious and so sweet about everything.
So now we are all home. We have the gift of an unexpected day with nothing much on the schedule. Kid A is recuperating and we are all keeping our distance. Kid B went to the movies to see Breaking Dawn Part II (which was AWESOME by the way… best of the series) for the sixteenth time. Kid C and Kid D are running around in shorts outside playing some sort of bucket, snoochie boochie game. Kid E is shadowing Sheepdog while he changes the air filters and applies wood putty to a broken door and generally performs a bunch of Sheepdog chores around the house. I am going to take a much-needed nap. And tomorrow, as long as everybody has been fever-free for at least 24 hours and nobody shows any signs of being sick, we will join two of my sisters and their families, as well as my mom and dad for Thanksgiving dinner down the street.
I sure hope nobody throws a wrench into that plan.
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
I got in a fight and lost. Against the Sun.
I made an appointment with my dermatologist to have her look at a little thing on my foot back in late February or early March, but when I returned from Cabo I had a tan. I didn’t want my dermatologist to think that I was some kind of irresponsible sun worshiper, so I canceled the appointment.
Then came the summertime, and I was an irresponsible sun worshipper. I took the kids to the pool or the beach regularly and, while I sprayed their little backs and fronts and ears and noses and even scalps with hundreds of dollars worth of “the really good stuff,” I will admit that there were some days when I forgot to slather it on my own cheeks.
Summer ended. My tan faded. It crossed my mind once or twice to make another appointment with the dermatologist, but other things came up which required my attention. It was laundry day or dinnertime or someone needed new socks or a new hairbrush or it was someone’s birthday or soccer game or book fair.
That’s weird… “book fair.” Why did “book fair” just come to the forefront of my consciousness? Wait a minute. What day is this? Oh, crap! What time is it? I was supposed to be at the book fair for Kid D ten minutes ago. See what I mean about the other things taking over?OK, I’m back. I barely made it to the media center before his class was shipped out. When I found him, Kid D was just wandering around with his wish list, looking abandoned and sad. But it was nothing a few baseball books couldn’t cure.
So I finally got around to making (and going to) an appointment with the dermatologist on Monday. She told me that my foot thing was nothing and then she did an all over body scan. While she was staring at my cheek I asked, “Oh, so you like my age spot, do you?”
“Sorry, sweetheart, that’s no age spot…” she responded as she blasted my face with her evil freeze bottle.
Mama said knock you out.
So now I have a nasty cut on my cheek that will take some time to heal. In the meantime, I am wearing a band-aid over it because it makes me look more like a tough boxer than a dumb sun bunny. I might even keep the Everlast glove on while I run my errands. What? Don’t you judge me.
The doctor confirmed that I am still allowed to go to Cabo in February. And in the summer I can still go to the pool and the beach too. I just need to be extra vigilant about anything new or interesting, and I have to remember to put the good stuff on me. Every single time.
Speaking of time, take some right now and make your own appointment. Don’t brush me off.
Wait. ”Brush.” Somebody said something about a brush this morning. Oh yeah, Kid B broke hers and she needs a new one. I’ll go to the store right now, I just need to find my boxing glove first.
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
Last night at the dinner table it was just Sheepdog, Kid C, Kid D, Kid E, and me. The Olympics may be over, but… Let the Games Begin! School, sports and activities are already in full swing. Kid A was at ballet and Kid B was at soccer. I was excited because it was the first test of the effectiveness and executability of my New and Improved Plan (NIP) to address school night meals that get all screwed up by the craziness. Mine and the world’s in general, but mostly mine.
This year I am going to feed them all homemade (well, made in my home), healthy meals during the week!
This year no one will come home from a practice and have to eat a bowl of cereal or a Happy Meal because I forgot to save them dinner!
This year I will plan ahead! This year I will have all the ingredients I need on hand! This year I will take things out of the freezer in time for them to thaw!
I get so excited about the lamest things!
Let me explain this NIP… the beauty is in its simplicity. On Sunday morning I print out a schedule for the upcoming week. The family collaborated on a list of favorite meals, which I keep pinned to my bulletin board. On the schedule I write down specific meals from the list for each night, Sunday through Thursday (and maybe even Friday if I’m feeling especially ambitious, but Saturday is my night off, bitches). From that schedule I then create a grocery list of standard and meal-specific things I will need to prepare meals for the whole week. Then I go to the store and start checking things off the list. When I get back from the store, I post the schedule on a bulletin board inside my pantry (because I will most likely forget what I planned to make and when), where I will see it every morning and remember to take out or prepare what I need for that day.
With this kind of organization and service of regular, healthy meals, I can even get away with occasionally (or always) using cheaters and shortcut ingredients like organic frozen vegetables, prepared sauces and marinades, or meatballs not made from scratch.
My Slice-O-Matic sat, unused, in its original box for like 10 years until I finally sold it for 50 cents at a yard sale.
Last night during dinner I was patting myself on the back in reference to my NIP awesomeness. Then Kid D rained on my parade by announcing that he would not be able to eat the “sweet potatoes” (which he hates) on his stir fry plate. I clarified that they were actually carrots (which he loves) and he should gobble them right up. He presumed I was lying to get him to eat something good for him, but I swore a courtroom promise. Kid D still wasn’t convinced, so Sheepdog explained that their unfamiliar shape was due to the carrots being cut up julienne – style. And while I embraced the parental back-up and the notion of a man who knows his way around the kitchen (or at least the Food Network), I immediately shot Sheepdog a look that silently implied, “Why do you even know that word and did you have to trade away your man parts when you were given such information?”
Kid D just said, “Well, that puts the fudge in fudge-ina!” as he finished his dinner. I don’t really know what that means, or even if I should punish you for saying it, but I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
You know how especially this time of year everybody has to have something weird and specific for school or sports or work or a hobby or whatever and they need it right now? Just within the past week or two I have had to provide six individual flowers, a funny hat, Swedish fish, a baby picture, a bag of pretzels, a foam roller, a metal dog bowl, a plain white t-shirt, a South African recipe, a bag of Pepperidge Farm Milano Double Fudge cookies, a food that starts with the letter “U,” an unopened sleeve of plastic cups, 2 inflatable pool swim rings, seven metal stakes, and a cut-up lemon. And there’s never much notice because everybody is trying to cram everything into the last few weeks before school lets out and summer begins.
Plus, we are still attending all of the regular season practices and classes and now their accompanying End of the Year/ Season parties and celebrations as well. So our family calendar and all of the driving and carpooling and shuttling has been kicked up a notch. And not even my regular stockpile of supplies can be counted upon for all of these strange and urgent requests. (My father-in-law thinks that between my garage, basement and pantry I have my own Kroger going on and he’s not too far off the mark). Still, I find myself running to the store almost every afternoon lately to fill the demands that I do not have already on hand, and that means “running in” with some, if not all, of my kids. Ugh, the herding turtles suckfest. My patience is at an all-time low.
I have tried bargaining with what I have available, but my kids never agree to bring in freezer-burned edamame when they are supposed to be showing up with Sour Patch Kids. Picky, picky, picky.
Since I am rarely up for carting these kids around with me to the stores last minute, I like to ask Sheepdog to stop instead. I can justify this pass off of parental responsibility because (a) he is either alone or only has the older kids with him and they can get in and out of the car by themselves and they can usually be trusted in a parking lot, (b) it is way past dinnertime and when he goes out and the odds are reduced that he’ll get caught in the middle of a bitch-slap fight for the last rotisserie chicken from the heated display, and (c) he will use any excuse to go out and pick up a few extra Hershey bars or sleeves of Smarties for his late night snack… “they just fell into the cart!”
Sheepdog is a great team player and he always goes without complaint. But even patient Sheepdog gets frustrated with the traffic and the scavenger hunt and by the time he has gone to a second or even third store to get some rare item, he has little or no patience left with the people at the register. This is how it went when he was once checking out with a disposable camera, a very specific (and not easy to locate) type of long-hair conditioner, and some candy. He was already tired and overworked and ready to be home eating his treats. Calgon, take me away.
“Will that be all, sir?” asked the clerk.
“Yes. Oh, and I have a CVS card,” replied Sheepdog.
“What?”
“I have a CVS card,” he said again with his irritation showing itself in tone and volume.
“Huh?”
“I… Have… A… CVS… Card.” I believe his patience evaporated completely with the last syllable.
“Sir, this… is… Walgreens.”
Oops.
Wish Sheepdog some more patience for tomorrow…
Oh, hello. I’ll bet you thought that I forgot about you. Well, I promise that I didn’t. I have been appropriately guilt-ridden for not properly tending to this blog over the past few weeks (months), but frankly there are six other people who live in this house who have become increasingly demanding lately and they tend to yell and cry right in my face when I ignore them. This blog just silently nags at me. What with the squeaky wheel and all, appeasing the natives comes first. Then I tend to collapse into my bed, exhausted.
I honestly can not believe the speed at which time is passing. I feel like I’m living in some kind of crazy warp. Every day I wake up and I blink and it is night. I am trying to enjoy the little things and live in the moment and all of the stuff that they tell you to do in the country music songs, but it seems an impossible task when complete months are whizzing by me without fully registering. For example, just last week I went to the bathroom and saw some blood and presumed I was dying rather than believe that four weeks had passed since my last period. It in fact had, but it felt like there was just no way that was possible.
So I find myself re-adjusting my daily schedule. I am playing virtually no video games and I hardly even recognize the Atlanta Housewives anymore (Kim’s son is probably in high school now, for all I know). Santa brought me P90X2 for Christmas (by the way, he and the pleasantly plump Mrs. are on the Biggest Loser this season, which is totally freaking my younger kids out) and I have been working out almost every day as well. The kids’ sports and activities are back in full swing, as is school (picture me Tebowing for the short Winter Break). But I love, love, love writing this blog, so I just have to make a few more adjustments so I can fit it back into my daily life. Or I have to invent some kind of machine that can create more hours in the day. I should get Sheepdog working on that.
Did you see the game last night? This kid is something special.
I think it was Kid C that noticed me mumbling something one day as I was walking from the kitchen out to the garage. She was waiting for me in the car because I had to drive her somewhere. As I climbed in to my seat she asked me, “Did you just whisper ‘BRB,’ and who were you talking to because the door is closed?”
For those of you who don’t text, or live in this century, or maybe still use a Palm device, I’ll explain that “BRB” is short for “be right back.” And apparently I have been saying it to nobody in particular every time I go out for a while now. I didn’t consciously realize I was saying it at all.
So I thought about it while I was driving around. Maybe I was saying “BRB” to the house. Maybe I was saying it to the people who were inside (although sometimes there were none). But I’d really like to think that I was saying “BRB” to my blog. Because I really do miss it. And in my weird time warped existence, maybe I am just now getting right back. So here’s to many more blog posts in 2012, and me finding the time to write them!
Also, effective immediately you can find This Is How I Do It at http://www.tihidi.com (the “wordpress” part is now unnecessary). And some of you mentioned that you stopped getting notifications whenever I publish new posts. Wordpress still can not figure that one out, but you can re-subscribe by entering your email at the top right of any page. As always, thank you for reading and I hope you are enjoying the peek behind my curtain.
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
Today was officially the first day of preschool for Kid E. I have to say that it was kind of a letdown. We didn’t make a big deal out of it last night. We didn’t pick out a special first day of school outfit. I almost forgot to take him in on time (and no, it was not because I was playing video games… smart asses) and I didn’t even stop to take his picture out front. I already did that stuff three weeks ago when he went to camp. He gave me a high-five then went into the room without so much as a glance in my direction. So I just paid his tuition and went outside to my car. It was then that I realized that I had my freedom back, at least for three and a half hours each Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I got kind of tingly thinking about what I was going to do today.
As I was climbing into the driver’s seat I heard music pumping from the speakers outside of the pizzeria next door.
Sit down, take a look at yourself
Don’t you want to be somebody
Someday somebody’s gonna see inside
You have to face up, you can’t run and hide
Damn you, Little River Band.
I really do not like it when the universe smacks me on the head and demands that I pay attention. But there was my message, coming at me on the voices of Australian rockers. And I have learned that you either pay attention to these messages, or you’d better get ready for a fight that you will probably never, ever win.
So today I will make a plan. Today I will set goals. I will write them on paper and I will post them where I will see them every day. And I will be productive and proud.
So actually I thank you, Little River Band. And I think that’s Australian for “light a fire under your butt.”
For my easy-going friends
... and for my Type A peeps - Holla!
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
Sheepdog and I are always entertaining the idea of moving. The kitchen is too small, the garage is too small, and I can’t see who is pulling into the driveway because there are no windows on the south side of the house. Problem is that the real estate market is still swimming around in the toilet, so we would lose money if we sold now. Additionally, we like lots of things about this house… the general floor plan, the schools, the neighborhood, and the location.
So we continue the crazy dance and we change our decision just about every other month. Remodel. Move. Remodel. Move. Definitely we should remodel. Absolutely we’re going to move. And so it goes…
You never know which one of us will get the bug to switch up the current plan. The catalyst can be anything from a shift in the global political scene to an accidental stumbling upon House Hunters. Last week the stock market was doing a really fine roller coaster impression. Not much surprise when Sheepdog then called out “Remodel!” So I drew up a wish list and some rough sketches and we met with our contractor.
What we want to do is a decent-sized project. We want to blow out a wall to expand the kitchen. That means taking real estate from the existing screened porch and enclosing that room to make it part of the house. We might as well put in some mudroom cabinets and a bench and a side porch with a window while we’re fiddling around in there. We also would like to take the existing deck (which is untapped real estate now because it is either too hot or covered with pollen) put a roof over it, add some walls of windows (that we can close occasionally to keep the pollen out) and make it a 3-season porch. And back to the kitchen… there are some tweaks in functionality that I’d like to see occur in there, so let’s just gut it and start over. Oh, and I’d like to re-do the master bath while we’re at it.
Yes… a “decent-sized” project. We should just move. Ugh.
This house is currently favorite on http://www.realtor.com right now
It has over 22,000 square feet of house and costs just under $7 million
Sheepdog just shakes his head at me. What? A girl can dream, can’t she?
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
First order of business… how many of you were compelled to check my spelling of “prerogative” from yesterday’s post? Apparently, I have been working on the false belief that it was spelled p-e-r-o-g-a-t-i-v-e for many, many years. I looked it up in no less than five places and I still didn’t feel comfortable spelling it with an “r” up front. I honestly thought it was some kind of universal joke, like when the idiot masses say, “lemme axe you a question” or “irregardless.” But with both the ex- Mr. Whitney Houston and Britney Spears (who remade the song) spelling it the way of the former on iTunes, I finally decided to accept “prerogative” as gospel.
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I don’t want to jinx anything by saying so, but I think that we are all adjusting nicely to the new schedule. By this time last year, Kid C had already been sent home sick from school and was battling a nasty virus, which I think went on to crush me and Kid E as well. Kid D had decided he did not want to go to kindergarten and had thrown a tantrum to end all tantrums by the front office of the school (hello and nice to meet you, school principal!). And Kids A and B were already crushed by an early onslaught of homework doled out by teachers who seemed to have some kind of anger management issues. This year, even with Sheepdog traveling for work since Monday, we are chugging along nicely.
But don’t worry. I am not getting all full of myself because this is just The Wiz version of the fall schedule (where we just Ease on Down the Road). The real thing starts in a couple of weeks when we have to figure out how to drive to all of the sports and activities (practices and games), all of which are very likely to be scheduled on the same day. And Sheepdog will continue to go out of town for his job (have you noticed the increase in food-borne illness outbreaks lately? Holy E. coli-tainted cow!).
But I am not complaining. Having a full schedule means that we have healthy kids who are active and involved and are getting exercise and all of the good things that come from being part of a team. And my husband has a good, steady job. And those are all very, very good things for which I give thanks every day.
In the interim, while we still have the time for it, I have decided to spoil the kids with their favorite after-school snacks. They’re made with apples, grapes, raisins, peanut butter and Nutella. I don’t think I have ever seen my kids get so excited over food as they do when I make these things. The 50′s stay-at-home-mom/ housewife part of me gets gooey with pride. But then probably I’ll snap back to regular me and make them eat cereal for dinner while I drink some wine. We don’t need these kids getting spoiled or anything.
Wish me luck for tomorrow…
