It must be one of Murphy's Laws: if you buy a replacement for an item you lost, the item you lost will be found shortly thereafter. Seems to work for me. For 10 months now I have been missing one of my running shoes and have been making do at the gym with some crappy tennies with no support that give me blisters. I tore the house apart looking for my missing shoe, looking in all the closets, our mud room and beyond to no avail. I even found a necklace that I couldn't find while on the quest to find my missing shoe. But still no shoe.
Finally with my decision to really commit to a regular workout routine, I decided that a new pair of running shoes were a necessity if I was going to stop torturing my feet every time I took a Zumba class or worked out on the elliptical. I bought my new pair of shoes earlier this month and didn't look back. I figured the missing shoe has taken a walk all on its own and was never coming back.
You know what's coming next don't you? Well this past week we were cleaning out our camper trailer for the upcoming summer camping trips when I stumbled upon the object of my search. My missing shoe has been camping out under the table inside our trailer all these months.
I was doing so great blogging every day, then my husband went out of town for a few days and I was overwhelmed. I hope you will stick with me as I ever endeavor to be more consistent.
1. My 18-year-old sister Catherine just moved up from San Diego whence I came and is now living in our guest house -- aka my studio. It will be fun to have her around -- can you say "free babysitting"? -- as I moved out of my parents home just after she was born. Don't know exactly why at 18-year-old would want to trade sunny So Cal the wilds of North Idaho, but she did and she's here now. The past few days have been filled with getting her settled into her new home. The only challenge is that I had to cram my store's worth of scrapbooking supplies back into my already overcrowded house. Need to brush up on my organizational skills, not one of my strengths to say the least. And I think we are going to have a garage sale pretty soon too.
2. Decided to start saving up for an iPad, as I think they are uber cool. Well, lo and behold yesterday my husband surprised me with one out of the blue. Unfortunately it comes with strings: he wants my laptop. Talk about a hard choice! Luckily we have a working desktop here at home that I can transfer my computer work to, but still it's hard to let my dear friend go. Guess that means I will just have to put that iPad money toward the MacBook Pro that I've been drooling over and say goodbye to these PCs all together!
3. Been waiting for Borders to put out a 40% off coupon with a big purchase in mind: the boxed-set, hard-back Harry Potter series. Yesterday I was able to bring my waiting to an end and brought them home for $120 instead of the $200 list price. Still a lot of money, but I have a thing with hard-backed books. I very rarely buy books these days, for as you can see by the list on the right I go through them too quickly. Usually I just check books out at the library -- as it's free -- and most books I don't necessarily like enough to read them more than once. Those that are the exception I tend to buy in hard-back for their durability, but mostly because there is just something about a thick, heavy book. After checking out the Harry Potter series at the library to read three times over the last six months, I decided it was time to add to my collection. After weeks of waiting, Borders answered my prayers and put out a 40% off coupon and I jumped on the deal.
4.
Poppies are in bloom! The first year we moved here, these gigantic --
what we thought were weeds -- plants started to come up in front of our
large picture window in our bedroom. In early summer they bloomed with
red, orange and pink poppies the size of my open hand. They don't last
long, but as long as they do they bring a smile to my face each day I
look out my window to gaze upon them.
5. I'm singing at church with our worship team this weekend. Many people don't realize that I was a music/voice major in college, so getting to do something I love once again is such a blast. What's even better is our team ROCKS! I feel so blessed to get to jam and praise God with such an awesome group of musicians every month.
6. Last week Rite-Aid had an online code to get a free photo mousepad. Oh, I could have gotten a picture of my kids on it, or maybe a gift for Father's Day, but I went for a little whimsy instead: Pocket Edward on First Beach in La Push, Washington. Not only does it make me laugh every time I see it, but it reminds me of the awesome trip to Forks last summer with my Pack. And after all, I was in need of a mousepad instead of the piece of cardstock I have been using.
And on that note, a little something for all those husbands out there who have been abandoned by their wives for their Twilight obsessions, here's TWILIGHT (what have you done to my wife?).....
1. Make sure your room is a complete disaster before you get started, that way once you have actually put some things away, your rooms looks greatly improved with little effort and Mom will be very impressed by your hard work.
2. Blame the entire mess on the siblings that don't share your room. Make sure your mom thinks that your other siblings came in and made the mess and should be responsible for cleaning it up. Play the martyr by acting like you're so selfless by cleaning up a mess that you didn't make. This will win you serious brownie points.
3. The bottom of the closet makes an excellent hiding place for clothes you don't feel like hanging up. Just be sure they are hidden under other things just in case Mom checks. Under beds and behind the doors works almost as good.
4. The top of desks are a good catch-all for trash, papers, Legos, coloring books, boxes or anything else you can't find a place for. Just pile it on. Tell Mom you are "organizing" it.
5. Pile clothes you have worn on chairs. That is just the same as hanging them up or putting them in the laundry hamper.
6. Toy boxes are excellent for quick clean-ups. Grab everything in sight -- dirty socks, trash, old food, the hairbrush -- and just toss it in.
7. If Mom asks you, "What about your clothes? Did you put them in the laundry hamper?" Just jump up and say, "Oh, yeah!" like you were about to do that or that it slipped your mind and you are very pleased that Mom reminded you of this most important matter.
8. Never make your bed. You don't really need to as you are just going to sleep it again later anyway.
9. All the little toys like Matchbox cars, Legos, and Barbie clothes, can just be pushed into corners. You don't really have to pick those up; they just have to be out of the way so Mom doesn't step on them.
10. If you take too long to clean, Mom might just do it for you, so be sure to go as slow. As. Possible.
1. Looks like our job drought is over for the time being. We have had contracting jobs just pouring in over the last few weeks, praise God. There are lots of things I like about being self-employed, but there are times where it is a real test in my faith in God's provision. Thank you God for your blessings!
2. We took Daddy to the airport this morning for a quick trip down to San Diego to visit his brother -- a much needed break for my over-worked husband. On the way home, we stopped by Krispy Kreme for a little morning treat. The doughnuts were heavenly, but we spent the majority of our visit watching the doughnut machine. Mechanisms are so fascinating!
3. My 4-year-old Samantha just walked into the
room wearing a different outfit than
the one she had been wearing earlier today. I said to her, "Did you
change your clothes?" She
said, "Yes, 'cause we're salsa dancing!" Well, then I guess that makes a
change of clothing a necessity.
4. An eagerly awaited new release from Stephenie Meyer just hit the shelves: The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner. Just a 180-page novella, I turned this quick read into a 3-day affair just to make the experience last a little longer. I was not disappointed, although I would like to see some more full-sized books from Meyer in the near future. Oh, and for those of you who are interested in reading it but don't want to buy it, you can read it for free through July 5 at www.breetanner.com.
5. I don't know how this seems to happen so quickly, but my coupons were once again out of control. I had two months worth of expireds needing to be extracted from my files and four weeks of inserts needing to be clipped and filed away. I spent all afternoon Monday watching reruns on Netflix Instant Play on our Wii and sorting through the mess. Happily my coupons are back under control, at least until next week.
6. In honor of the upcoming movie release of Eclipse, the latest installment of the The Twilight Saga, I got another shirt to add to my Twilight apparel. This one makes me happy because it's red, which is my all-time favorite color, and it doesn't have any of the actors faces on it. I don't know if it's just me, but I feel weird wearing someone's face emblazoned across my chest... even if it is a sparkly vampire.
7. All the public schools let out today, which means that all of my friends children will be more available for playdates in the coming weeks. That means more sanity for me! Also, with schools letting out, that means the free lunch program at the public schools and the free summer movies at Regal Cinemas begin shortly. And the sun apparently will be reappearing tomorrow, so summer can officially begin!
It's hard for me to believe, but I now have a 10-year-old daughter. Yesterday we celebrated Rebekah's 10th birthday. I think the biggest event of the day was her Dad's and my gift to her: make-up. She was thrilled.
I know some would think that 10 years is too young for make-up. She is, after all, gorgeous without make-up. Here is our reasoning: we would rather our children be leaders than followers. She will be starting 5th grade next year, which is just a year until middle school. I would like our children to have the confidence to try new things out on their own with our support rather than doing things just because everyone else is doing them. My hope is that she would be able to come to us with other things too because of our approachability in things like this.
I have also discovered that as a parent you need to pick your battles. There are important things to stand firm on for moral reasons, but there needs to be some things that we should be able to just let go. For us make-up is one of those things. Not every milestone needs to be earned with fighting and tears. While I would like to keep her a little girl for as long as possible, I
realize that I would rather celebrate growing up with her instead of the whole experience being torture for us both.
Of course the make-up came with conditions, like letting me show her how to apply it and that it needs to be removed each night before bed. Keeping it simple as she has beautiful skin, she is just wearing eyeshadow, mascara and lip gloss. It's nice to make her so happy in such a simple way.
Happy birthday, Rebekah! You will always be my little girl no matter how old you get.
We splurged for lunch yesterday and had Taco Bell for lunch. My kids absolutely love tacos, so this is a huge treat for them. As we finished up our meal, the kids were looking through the contents of the bag -- looking for more food I'm sure -- and started to play with the leftover hot sauce packets.
Luke read one of them that said, "Will you marry me?"
Very matter-of-factly he replied, "No, Hot Sauce Packet, I will NOT marry you!"
With all this rain we have gotten over the last few weeks, you can probably imagine that there are a lot of puddles here and there throughout out property, being 8 acres in the middle of a forest. As it is now summer break, the kids are outside playing quite a bit and of course don't necessarily avoid these puddles, especially the boys. Some of these water sources now have names, as they have reached epic size and seem to now be more like small ponds then puddles. The names that they have come up with seem to coincide with the location of each of the "puddles" but one in particular is my favorite. The boys have named the one right next to their playhouse Pee Swamp. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why they call it that.
