Balancing Bliss

i look forward to this day.........

 when people would speak of their children growing up, turning 18, the last baby, driving, adult only vacations, etc.   i would respond with " i just want to get to the day that all of us can put on our own shoes and go on a bike ride"  i don't want the years to go by too quickly but if i could see the day when everyone could put on shoes and get on bikes.....ahhhhh that would be a moment.

 

 well that day happened this week. it happened without me even noticing. we were ready to take off to the park when i looked up and saw this. took my breath away. then i made them stay and wait so i could run back into the house and get the camera to capture the moment.

 then my heart broke because i think of that other little spirit i know i am supposed to be meeting one day.............i think of it everyday.

 until then..........i love these 3 little spirited ones!

weigh in wednesday week 3.....

 

i knew it was a bad week. too much temptation. the 'newness' of it all wore off some and there was a plate of brownies there to hold me. oops.

 but all is okay because i ate the damn brownie and lost enough to be 5lbs lighter than just a couple of weeks ago!!

 still feeling good about it but i must say that halloween scares me and not for the reason it scares others....it's all about the amount of chocolate that will be swirling around me and some will even come home with us. someone once told me that they gave there kids 3 days to eat their candy....be it halloween, easter, valentines...whatever. i love that. i put their candy out and they can eat till they puke for 3 days and then it goes away. so i have to keep strong through the weekend and then it's GONE!

so happy it's fall. the sade family is definitely getting all 'fallish' around here. luci even brought home leaves today and added them to our pumpkins and mums on the porch. this little momma even made bean soup for the first time.....yes first.......this whole cooking by scratch is all new to me. gaven is so proud of me though. he keeps telling kids....."um ya my mom made that.....fffrom sssscraaaatch".   who knew that 'scratch' meant adding water to beans? i am rockin the house wife duties, i must say.

to do; to do;

 lots going on here. some pics coming in the next day or two to prove it. we have some school projects and halloween costumes to create.

 and don't expect too much on weigh in wednesday.......the scrap on sunday overtook all of my will power. brownies, cupcakes, and candy bars oh my! whoops.

sunny and oh so cold day at the pumpkin patch....

the line to the hay ride

for the love of freakin pumpkins! just one shot.  that is all i ask.

what happened to these days?

still cold and waiting

momma knows how to make it all better

oops missed the tractor

guess who got to drive?!

and the patch

yep that is the best i am going to get of all 3 of them together

off to the hay pile

  
and the last time i see gav until we get in the van....boys

i tackled this one and reminded him that his momma got him a donut and then he was gone

told you it was windy

someone got hay in her pants

love this one! she had every parent there laughing. she would jump up and down yelling 'theres hay in my pants...IT'S ITCHY IT'S ITCHY'  daddy would later drop her pants in the corn maze and get it out

off to find 'her boys'  if you look her feet aren't even touching the ground. oh to be a lil sister

AND THE SHOT THAT MADE IT WORTH FREEZING MY BUTT OFF AND EATING A 6PT DONUT

good things.....

come out after going through closets. i had been thinking 'why is it when we moved we take those couple of boxes we never opened since the last move?' they are only possessions. i don't want to live this life placing such value on possessions, this is something that i am trying to teach my children and i need to live it to show them. and then... when you go back through the box...they aren't possessions, they are memories.  for some memories, it's time to let them go and forget but some are now seen through different eyes. older, kinder, motherly and hopefully wiser eyes. now these memories are gifts to your present day.

pictures from back in the day;

the last oregon grateful dead show before jerry garcia died, crazy night that never ended at page and plant, pic of me with those tickets and the ticket!, my neighbors old vw bus, days at the lake, my dog, and to finish that time in my life.......a picture of me pregnant with my son...hmmmm how did that happen? jk. i wasn't that wild at all but i lived.

how it all started. my daddy's cannon. when i would go stay weekends with him as a little girl he toted this thing everywhere.

my very first layouts.........so very ummmmm? whats the word?? LAME thats it.why yes i did cut a pic of fish into the shape of fish.( when in my dads boat i only wore grateful dead shirts because it made him crazy.) i discovered scrapbooking when i was pregnant with gaven. i didn't know it was 'scrapping' until i went to a creative memories party. thats when i bought my first album and really started scrapping. gaven was a few months old by then and i was consumed with his cuteness and lots of rolls of film.

while cleaning an old very very old drawer in my scrap space i found a LIST of pages in order that i would be making for gavens  album. i checked them off as i went along. so happy to know that scrapbooking is not about lists or limits. stacy julian opened so many eyes......love her.

this sweet little girl with a crooked grin that i still have happens to be me at the same age of my sweet little girl is now. what i learned from looking at this pic (and i do every time i see it in someone elses home) is that i remember that day. i remember. that means luci is making memories right now. sometimes we think at this age they will forget that we were bitchy or busy but maybe they won't. maybe these will be their first memories, so make them wonderful.

to

i am really making progress on my room. just a few weeks ago i was trying to find bedding for it and wanted to make it all sophisticated with matching everything. the more i went through stuff.....i remembered that just isn't me. so i am filling up the place i retreat everyday with things that i love... makes sense now doesn't it?

and how cool is it that my retreat opens up to my other favorite retreat??

thinned out my paper so much that i probably have 1/2 of what i did and now i can thumb through easily.

some board books i have started/finished/and am inspired by......the reason i do it all

now wouldn't it be ride of me not to get her space all organized too? i am to guide her right?

off to enjoy some fall sunshine and make some memories 

getting on..........

slowly and sometimes painfully i am tackling our home. it's actually coming together quite nicely. better than i imagined once we get rid of the mess around it's masterpiece.

and happy happy news.........I FOUND MY COMFORTER TODAY.....just in time, it got down to 30* last night. the five of us in 1 bedroom is going better than imagine also. creativity is sparked with less don't you think? the boys have their bunk beds, brian and i are on the other wall in our old bed and i put luci on her toddler bed mattress which i pull out from under our bed like a trundle. working out. we will eventually get them to return the mattress or we will have to get it professionally cleaned. our window has been open since saturday and it's still smelly. make your own conclusion.

tomorrow is looking full. the boys have conferences and then we are meeting our neighbor at the park so i can do a little photo shoot of her baby in the leaves. on thursdays i now go play racket ball with an old friend and then go back to her house to watch greys. pretty stoked about that.

i will add pics when i get my organization project more complete and yes there will be a before and after.

weigh in wednesday week 2.....

i lost 2 more pounds this week!  i was going for 2.2lbs so i would have lost a total of 5lbs. when meg told me to just take off my pants and get weighed in again, i decided 2lbs would be just fine.

i find that after a good weigh in i just eat like i can 'afford' to do so. must stay on track there. so for those of my friends who have never had the privilege of weight watchers, it's like this;

* we eat real food

*we keep track of how many 'points' we eat by the calories matching grams and also fat grams. they give you a slider and it's really easy to do.

* you given so many points a day determined by your age, gender, weight. it maybe the only time being short and chubby has ever worked for me!

*we weigh in once a week and have a discussion on something to inspire you for another week.

*it's a really balanced supportive group of people.

so in 2 weeks i am 5lbs less .....more or less. what is .2lbs anyways?

fraud...

just wanted to say that mattress world will not do anything about a $1000 mattress we bought from them that had pee on it.

it's not like we bought one at goodwill.

so when things get tough, i usually flop down on my bed and have a good cry. GUESS WHAT? i can't even do that.

i want to say how pissed off i am BUT really we have been pissed on now haven't we?

must be a comedy...

horror movies don't last this long.  here is what has been happening

* my room has been taken over by the smell of cat pee

* i got the kids room finished except getting luci a quilt but it doesn't matter anyways since her parents are sleeping on her new big girl bed while she sleeps on the floor.

* i finished my scrap room.....85% at least which is better than the rest of the upstairs

* tears streamed down my face when i walked up the stairs and there sat a crib mattress and baby toys. the crib has been occupied by any given angel for almost 10yrs and i thought i was ok with putting it away until the next baby but i guess it was just a hard day which turned on the emotions at 11pm when i turned to my husband and said "you better give me another baby as soon as we get a house"

* my son dropped his laundry basket on the way down the stairs hitting a small table with a glass bottle filled with glass pebbles sending both shattering in a 10ft radius , yay me more cleaning.

* later that night i was putting something in our cupboard when the cinnamon sugar fell out, hit the floor knocking the lid open and sending cinnamon sugar in a 10ft radius, and yay me more cleaning.

* luci got lost any cartoon privileges because she spent over an hour being wild after bed time. she is keeping her little self busy by building a marble contraption involving 18 books, a stool, a pokemon box, and 40+ marbles. no mess no mess at all. at least she is busy.

* eli blu lost the bike lock so he cried all the way to school since he couldn't ride his bike. while looking for his bike lock i found his picture money in a pocket that he had to have turned in on picture day which was last week.

* i want to devour food to shove down these emotions but i can't or i won't have a good weigh in wednesday.

* my lovely husband thought yesterday was a day to invite someone over for dinner?! at least he cooks

* brian bought an 8x10 rug while in portland and was airing it out on top of my van.....it rained last night.

* i need to put some of this in our very large closet upstairs however it is not unpacked and i am afraid to do so because it will just create more of a mess. it's that vicious cycle that at some point i will just have to do.

* we have our first 'real job' since graduating college and we are still broke after paying everything.

* my signature was 'questionable' when i last voted so i didn't get a ballot. Lord help us if McCain gets his hands on this country.

* my OCD has met it's limit.

* it's laundry day and i feel like it's a toss up.....clean the closet, hall and our bedroom OR give the men in my life clean clothes to wear to school and work.

* i got a kink in my neck last night in our old bed.

NOW  with all of that said, anything at this point is totally comical.

*we can only count our blessings for our family being all together (even if it's all in the same room)

* no one is vomiting,my husband HAS a job

*all five us in one room kinda feels like staying in a cabin on vacation

*it's garbage day so at least we are able to get rid of some of the mess

* i love to rearrange and clean so i am living a dream right now in a weird funny way

* i have coffee

*my boys have a safe school to go to for 6 whole hours

*we have a good vaccum

*when i clean the closet and get into boxes i have a good chance of finding my comforter

*we have running water and i am going to let go of the thought of conserving water and take a long hot shower today

* i found negatives of me at led zeppelin 10yrs ago in an envelope while cleaning my scrap room

* i have a blog to document all these crazy happenings because one day this will be freakin hilarious!

comedy or nightmare...you pick........

okay so let me start sometime back and then jump to this week.......

i have had the bed to myself except for weekends most of our marriage. there was a couple of years in there that brian got off at 3-4am and climbed into bed but he was gone by the time i woke up to get the kids ready so i didn't notice that much. well.....this week i noticed! on top of that luci sometimes climbs into our bed around 5am so now with brian home that makes 3 of us. i'm not the 'family bed' type of girl. works for some. not this chickie here. once in awhile or from 5-7am but momma is with you the rest of the 24hrs i need some space. enough said. so luci is sandwiched between us leaving my ass hanging out of the bed (did i not mention this is a full size not queen not king but a full? and that i still haven't found my down comforter that i packed?) so my ass is hanging off the bed, luci is on my arm, and i have a cat on my feet! i am DONE! at this point i had not slept in 4 days and i did not know it was possible to get a kink in both side of your neck.

so brian bought a new queen size bed in portland and it was just sitting in my sisters basement. the trick was to figure out how we were going to move stuff around for luci to have the full. she at this point was still in a toddler bed at almost 5yrs old. the plan was to trade my bed to luci because she would have her own room but as we all know the plan changed. i was also trading my matching book shelf and amoire for the boys' dresser so they would have a matching set and also get a new room. so we have a lot of trading to do.

brian decided yesterday that he was driving to portland for the mattress, i have no idea why it couldn't have been from my bitching. so here i am purging my scrapbook room for countless hours and just when i thought i was getting it back in order.........he comes home and starts moving rooms!

okay...make strong coffee.......can do this...can do this!

the process took hours, you have drawers to exchange, stuff under beds, taking beds apart, moving furniture, vaccumming behind stuff..........forever. not to mention emptying out the shelves for the boys room and not having shelves in ours yet, FUN. so right when it was all coming together ...aaaahhhhhhhhh!

we get the queen size mattress up the stairs, finally our own big bed! we take the plastic off....YES brian left the plastic on because it was in my sisters basement and didn't want to soak up any basement smell .....yes he slept on it for 6mo in plastic. what a man. so we pull the plastic off and..

there is a giant piss stain!!!!!! cat piss to be exact! nasty!

see we had it covered in plastic and a thick mattress pad so it could not have been us. they sold him a mattress that had pee on it. my husband is a quiet and calm man and well we all got to see something else out of him that day. he picked up his cell phone and started yelling at the mattress people. the people he pretty much called him a liar and asked "so are you telling us that you bought this mattress 6mo ago and have been sleeping on the plastic?" i can see their point but brian is one of the most honest people i know and well yes he did sleep on the plastic.

we couldn't sleep on it......there was no way i was sleeping on it. our entire bedroom was now taken over with the smell of male cat piss.  we finished the kid's room and made up our old bed and slept in it.

and why yes........i was upset about 5 of us in a two bed room so the Lord humbled me and now all 5 of us sleep in 1.