back to normal

Well we started school last week, but today was the most normal and best day yet. I was out of bed and doing some bible reading at 7:30, I had the children up about 8:30 eating breakfast and getting dressed. At 9:15 we were outside weeding some parts of the yard and picking up sticks, by 10 we had started school, and were done at 3:00 having covered all the subjects. Bible, Science, History, Math, Spanish, and Hadwriting. I also managed to cook a delicious supper of beef tips, mashed potatoes, green beans and french bread, after dinner Nate headed to church for a meeting and I headed to the basement to walk on the treadmill, I did a mile and a quater in 20 min, so I am feeling pretty good about my productive day.

We had an incredibly busy weekend, we worked at the old house, went shopping for front porch rockers, had some furniture delivered, and most importantly celebrated Austin's 10th b-day. This is the official big boy age to me, he has hit the double digits, and ten seems old to me. I can't believe it has been that long already, the week we were moving I found his birth and baby video, it was overwhelming to see how little and cute he was, but even then it was obvious that he would be a talker, he babbled and babbled to baby Noah (his cousin) who would just look at him kinda funny. I'm very proud of the person he is, and it feels good to not have any serious regrets on the way we chose to raise our first born. I'm not saying I didn't make mistakes, but nothing so far that has damaged him or changed his personality for the worse.

Homemade - mmm-good

We made homemade pizzas last night, and Luke and Evan created their own small masterpieces of pizzeria cuisine.

The last day of swimming

Evan places 2nd in the backstroke

Austin races in the backstroke

Just a little further

Luke is off to a good start

The race is on

Austin wins his race

Evan streamlines

The living room

All my furniture fits, and matches so nicley with everything.

My Haven

This is for Aunt Sandi in Africa, and Aunt Tammy in California, and Uncle Warren in Va.

Evan loves the swing

Me on the front porch swing

Nate on moving day

I'm Free

In all the hub-bub of the last month, I have forgotten to mention that I am now medication free. YEA! I started weaning myself off paxil awhile ago, and as of a week after the camping trip I have not taken a single pill. The pharmacist told me how to do it slowly, and I did it even slower than he recommended. I have had no ill side effects whatsoever. I will need to take the progesterone pill for the rest of my life, because of the imbalance of my hormones, but this is a natural healthy thing to do. I have also found it critical to take a good B-complex vitamin, even more than the RDA. The B vitamins have numerous benefits including balancing out your nervous system, energy, and mood stabilizer. I am so thankful everything went smoothly, it is hard to give up a crutch, just knowing that my hormones were off balance was a huge boost for me, it let me know that I'm not crazy. If you ever think that something may be off with you, I highly reccomend that you get a saliva test done, it is the only way to accurately determine your hormone levels. The blood test are not as accurate, and they don't test for cortisol (the stress hormone), well all is good here and I am grateful.

A breakthrough moment

As you know we finished up swim team last wednesday, well on that day they had races, a party and an awards ceremony. Austin and Luke ended up winning a prize in their separate races. Evan came in 2nd and 4th in his, with no prize awarded. For most parents and children this is just a time to practice good sportsmanship, and good attitudes, for my Evan this is a huge battle for him, to be happy for someone else and maintain any semblance of a good attitude. Well he noticed that his brothers won a prize, but he seemed ok with it, then came the awards ceremony, once again he was left out of the awards. Luke received a trophy for the most improved, and Austin received a T-shirt for being the most dedicated swimmer with a good attitude. I was very proud for those 2 boys, but my heart was aching for Evan who always seems to be left out. My other 2 have found 20 dollar bills before, they get free stuff from people, they seem to just end up getting picked for things more often then Evan. I was telling another mom that I would probably be going home before the pizza party, because Evan was probably not going to take this well, but when I was watching him he seemed to be smiling and even clapped for all the kids who got an award. He came over to me and I thought the tears would start, instead he just said " I didn't get a prize" I said "I know, but that's ok you had a great summer swimming" He said " I don't get why Luke got a trophy for being the worst swimmer" I chuckled and said "he wasn't the worst swimmer, he just improved the fastest." Anyway I was so proud of him for not throwing a fit and having a bad attitude that I went up to him while he was eating, and told him how proud I was of him, and for his excellent attitude I would take him out to dinner, just the 2 of us. Normally I don't award good behavior this extravagantly, but since he has struggled, and we have worked so hard on this area, I thought a big reward was due. I felt like for the first time ever, I didn't have to coax a good attitude out of him with threats and punishments, so I am very pleased about this giant step forward for him.

Visitors from down south

Tonya and her clan have just left our house today, to go spend some time with Nanny and Papa before heading home to Alabama. This has been one of the most hectic yet enjoyable weeks of my life. This is what it looked like.
Saturday was move in day, and stripey the cat howled most of the night
Sunday was unpacking and trying to settle in
Mon thru wed was swim team in the mornings and soccer camp from 6-9 at night, plus Nate had some extensive meetings and testings going on Tues and Wed.
Friday afternoon Tonya arrives
Saturday night, extended family get together and slide show from when papa, and his brothers and sisters were young. They all were here as well.
All these activities, and not to mention all the friends that stopped by to see my new place, especially a dear friend that is in town visiting her parents, she came all the way from Brazil. It has been a really good week, I love my new house and the black moron seems to be less of a moron here. He has made friends with the other neighborhood dogs, a black lab, and a german shepherd, we may be able to keep him after all.

I am so incredibly tired, but it is not from the move or all the company we've been having. It is due to the fact that my sweet loving husband made me switch sides of the bed. If you were laying in bed, the left side was always mine, but now I've had to move to the right side due to Nate not being able to see down the hall from the right side of the bed. I appreciate his manly desire to protect our home, I just wish we had made the switch at another time besides moving week. I have had quite a bit of trouble sleeping lately, however last night my head hit the pillow at 12:15 and I didn't open my eyes again until 8:05, ahh a good nights sleep at last. We have another full week ahead of us. Nate's business partner is arriving from CO tomorrow afternoon and will be around for the next few days, plus the old house isn't finished being spiffed up yet.

The Move

I'm here at the old house collecting odds and ends. The move was hectic and quick, we had some good strong muscle, so everything big was brought in and set up. Now the real work begins, the going over all the small stuff and finding a place for it. This house is an upgrade for us so we don't have furniture to fill it, and I am going to have to leave lots of books in boxes till I can find some bookcases, I only have one, but the old house had built ins. Well I love love, love the new place, and maybe I will post a picture of me on the front porch drinking tea, if I get around to actually relaxing any time soon.

The Countdown

Well in 24 hours we will take possesion of our new house, I am very excited, but this will be the biggest move of our lives, since we are the owners of so much stuff. I have been thinning out and weeding through everything, but it is still to much junk. We have not had any luck finding a home for the big black moron, so I guess he will be coming with us. We will just have to put up a runner and keep him in the garage at night for now. This will probably be my last post for a while, because I don't know what kind of service we are going to get.

My Birthday

Today we started out the day going up to the Old Clarkesville mill looking for furniture. We took Nanny and Papa, but I think we were dragging Papa along for the ride. I'm sure a man isn't that interested in furniture shopping especially if it's not for his house. We went out to lunch at Zaxby's and then headed back to the mill to bowl. It was too expensive for us to bowl $4.50 per person, and then $3 for each additional game. We normally bowl on dollar night here, so we skipped the bowling, and went back to the in laws for ice cream and conversation. When I got home I noticed a box of chocolates on my kitchen table, they were from a dear friend (thanks Maura), I am embarrassed that she saw my house in the state of squalor that it is, but oh well what are friends for? This birthday is no big deal, 30 was a whopper and I didn't like 35 because that meant I was closer to 40 than 30. My b-day falls on a cool day this year so I was sorta excited about that. We just got back from my new house, I was showing it to my parents, they hadn't seen it yet since they have been vacationing at the outer banks (NC). Thanks for all the well wishes everyone, I am truly blessed.

Cooking

After posting that, I read my comments from yesterdays post, and Jane reminded me of Ratatouille. I just want to say that I love food and cooking, the movie inspired me to want to make and create beautiful and tasty food. Yes I am a weirdo, I know that if seeing cartoon food inspired me, then I have a screw loose. Oh but I felt the pleasure of this rat that wanted to cook. I want to go to culinary school, not to get a job in a restaurant, or resort, but to have the knowledge for myself. Alas the closest one is 1 1/2 hours away, so I'm storing this dream in the after the children are out of the house drawer.

My Sin Nature

I am so overcome by the realization that I am an angry, venegful person. When someone has done something truly heinous, I have a really hard time being merciful. Eventually I will get to the place of grace and mercy, but first I want to brude and be violent in my mind. I really do know that it is sinful to have feelings of revenge, but honestly I quite enjoy my day or hours of wrath. I used to not have as much control over my silent rages as I do now, (thank you God), I mean I could be icy and nasty to people, not really caring if I hurt their feelings just as long as my anger is "justified". Now I'm sitting here madder than a hornet, and not even for an injustice that has been done to me. I am offended for a friend, hello not even my battle or business, so why are the battle plans forming even as I type this. Yet my heart really aches for the people that are trapped in their sin, and I'm mostly angry that the devil wins so many battles. If all the people would repent I truly would be first (okay second) in line to offer forgiveness and help. when God takes a long time to answer prayer, and doesn't seem to be moving anything, then I get impatient and want to speed things up. I have no problem with people that sin and screw up, just as long as they know they messed up, then I am able to have mercy, but when people justify their heinous behavior, or don't seem the slightest bit concerned that they are sinning, then I see RED. My anger only applies to the "saved", the people that don't know God have my deepest sympathies, (even child molesters), so why do I get so angry with the people that are supposed to be in my camp? I think God is trying to teach me something because this is the 2nd time in a month that I have been over the top mad, situations just keep coming to my attention, I was able to put to bed an offence that happened last week, and now here I am again boiling over something new. I need to go practice being thankful, and asking God for more love, more LOVE. p.s. this is not about my husband, I thought I should make that clear.

The 4th

Our day was spent painting the homeschool room. For the past 3 years it has been a dirty pale blue, but now it is a lovely wheat color, I wish I had done it years ago. I'm sitting in the library looking into it and hoping all the little touch ups will help our house sell quicker in this stale market.

Papa came over about 4:30 to help Nate figure out some stuff, while I headed to the grocery store to find something to cook. Bubba burgers are actually really good for frozen burgers, and they make one that has less fat than some of there other flavors. We had some excellent corn on the cob, then we went to see the Ratatouille movie, it was pretty cute, I liked it because of all the cooking stuff and food, even if it was cartoon food. We then came home at set off some bottle rockets in our front yard.

Overdose

I think I accidentally overdosed today. You see I've been gaining weight at an alarming rate,(at least to me) and when the pants that were snug 2 months ago wouldn't even come close to zipping yesterday for church, I decided to seriously get down to business. I woke up this morning and had a V-8 and then rushed off to swim practice, when I got home I took one Zantrax? or something like that. I have never ever taken a diet pill, because I have never been on a diet, but I thought this would be a nice way to jumpstart my diet. Well fire and brimestone rained down on me just 30 minutes after I took it. I started feeling like I would have to go to the bathroom, which I had already done that morning. Then I started feeling dizzy and panicky and restless. At this point I started pleading with God for my life, and then I get the bright idea that it would be good to throw up any remaining pill in my stomach. So I head to the boys bathroom and lean over the toilet, where I am sure to get a good wiff of the pee smell that is in constant supply, I soon start gagging and get the desired results. I am still feeling horrible and shaking, so I call my friend Maura to tell her I've overdosed on one diet pill. She tells me I'm buzzing and not to ever do speed, (OK), to which I'm swearing that I will never take a diet pill again. She tells me to drink lots of water, take some vitamin B and eat an egg, which I do. Just then another friend pops over, and she finds me to pacing and holding my heart, I hand her the bottle of pills and say that she can have them. I will never use them again. She assures me that my reaction is somewhat typical and I will get used to them. I never want to get used to that feeling, so I am going to have to lose this poundage the old fashioned way, unless someone knows of some other kind of magic pill that will dissolve fat. (HA!) BTW if you think I am embellishing one ounce of this story, you are mistaken, I have been known to do that on certain occasions, but this is word for word and step by step what happened. And the puking part was super easy for me, I can puke watching myself brush my teeth, or for that matter, watching my kids brush and spit in the same sink I'm using. Sometimes I wonder about all the drama that surrounds just the everyday stuff, is it ME?

This and That

Well VBS is over and so are our dates for awhile. We will be busy getting this house ready to sell and all the other stuff that goes along with moving. I am getting excited about our new house and I can't believe we will be closing in less than 2 weeks. I also am excited because every time you move it feels like a chance to start over in a fresh place. I am already imagining family breakfasts that I cooked from scratch, eating dinner all together at the same table, (we have never had a table that seated all of us at once, so Nate and I ate all meals on the sofa, while the kids ate at the table. It's in the same room as them.) I am so looking forward to the added space, so that everything can be stored neatly. Yea!! The house has a big front porch so I am looking forward to hanging plants on it, and drinking tea while reading a good book. The best thing however will be sending the kids out to wander the land and play in the creek, they all love catching crayfish, water snakes, frogs, and salamanders. I also will not have to worry about them getting run over in the street, where we are now the cars go by at about 60mph or more. yikes!

Nate is off today riding his motorcycle with his buddies. This always makes me nervous because he pushes himself to ride pretty fast through the mountain curves. When I'm on back he takes it easy, it's hard to scrape your pegs when you got a passenger. He is an excellent rider, so his risks are less than some. He use to race superbikes before we got married, but somehow that didn't bother me, probably because we didn't have kids, and I didn't love him as much as I do now. So I think I will go make myself busy until he comes home.