Thursday, May 19, 2011

a belated mother's day recap

If being a great mother was judged on my ability to churn out an amazing mushroom risotto and fresh blackberry cobbler, I would have received an A+ yesterday. If it was based on time management, patience, and my effectiveness at ironing and putting away the laundry, the grade was an F. Thank goodness our children don't judge us this way! They detested the risotto (of which I was extremely impressed and proud of myself, thank you very much), and were annoyed when I insisted upon their help with the laundry. This is typical of most days where you feel like you win some and lose some on the parenting scoreboard. But occasionally, your children can surprise you and affirm that you are in fact doing okay as a mom. Mother's Day was one of those days for me. I know, I know, kids are supposed to appreciate their mothers on Mother's Day. Even so, their gifts to me meant more than any material gift and warmed my heart in an amazing way!

Exhibit A: Mackenzie's poem and book of art

I know I'm not impartial, but I see some serious art talent here!

Exhibit B: Avery's random scrapbook pages and poems
"rose are red vilis are blue and no won is a pretty as you" Sweet!
"Happy Mothers day - you are a brit as the sun" Swoon!
"Sorry its not the best presint its all I can do, but happy Mothers Day to you!" Ha!
"My mom is very wise.
She has gorgis green eyes.
She is loved very much.
Shannon is very comical.
My nice dasling (dazzling) mom is buteyful.
She drinks water and tee all the time." Makes my heart melt!
"Mother's day rocks - you are special like a dazy (daisy) and I love dazys! I love you, Avery, to a asme (awesome) mom" Swoon!

My girls had the best time making these and were so proud to give them to me. I love them so much and am now thinking of starting a "Mom Book". I will treasure those cards and poems forever. And just so my husband doesn't feel left out, he gifted me with one of these:
Love, love!

I am so blessed to be loved by such sweet kiddos and an amazing husband. Even when they aren't impressed with my risotto cooking skills!


Thursday, May 12, 2011

a little better

2 projects completed today = a little better attitude than yesterday.

Termites are on their way out. Unfortunately it was a positive diagnosis, but the damage seems to be minor and confirmed to one wall. Thanks to the Terminex man and a much lighter checkbook, we can sleep a little easier tonight. Oh yeah - the black widow spider Mr. Terminex found yesterday sitting on top of a few (!!) egg sacs? She's gone too. Shew. I am already breathing easier.

While the ground around our house was being saturated with all kinds of pesticide, I was able to concentrate on finishing yesterday's project.Avery's wall is finished and I'm so glad I tackled it. In the next few months, I'm going to be transitioning her room into more of a "big girl" room. I'm thinking of stenciling on the green wall (maybe a damask pattern?) and a wrought iron bed. Either way, it was great to knock something off my list today! Tomorrow is touch up paint in the remaining bedrooms and carpet cleaning! You know you are jealous. ;)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Failed projects = Whiny Wednesday!

A little lack of blogging lately....distracted by real life. :) With 3 weeks left of school (and one of those weeks being 4 days filled with events that require parent attendance - yes, awards assemblies, talent show, field day, I'm talking about you) I have been busy fulfilling my to-do lists that are not kid friendly. So I've been making my dentist appointments, planting our garden (for the 3rd time), oil changes, blah, blah, blah. One such appointment I've been putting off is having our carpets cleaned in the kids' bedrooms. So late last night, I had everyone haul everything out of their room that was on the floor and moved to our living room. Here's a view of the junk treasures. Seriously, all of this was on their floor. And I'm even a person who detests clutter on the floor. We are obviously doing some major cleanout before this goes back into anyone's room. ANYWAY. This morning Marty was asking me what time the cleaners were coming and it dawned on me that I did not receive my usual confirmation phone call yesterday. I ran to check my calendar, and sure enough, they are scheduled for FRIDAY. Which means my spare living room will look like this until FRIDAY. No biggie, more time to clean out, right?

After dropping the girls off this morning I do a check of their rooms and decided with an almost empty room and an almost empty schedule I could tackle a project I have put off forever - painting the wall behind Avery's bed green. I grabbed my leftover paint samples and threw a little on the wall to make myself commit to the project and I was off to Lowe's for some supplies. Came home, fed the boy lunch, made sure he was down for the nap and I was ready to PAINT. Cleaned and assembled all needed tools, grabbed the blue tape and started to wipe down the walls. Hmm, there seemed to be a little mud stuck on the wall in a place or two. Strange. How would mud get behind her bed? A little scrubbing revealed a tiny hole. And then another. And another. Then it hit me. Could I possibly be seeing termite damage? Surely not. Surely. A minute later, I'm going straight to the phone book to call Terminex and schedule an inspection. There's no way I'm playing around with even the REMOTE possibility of termites. So now I can't paint. And now her room has to stay like this until the inspection is over. 2 failed projects + possible termites = a not so good day. Oh well. At least I updated the blog, right?

I'm going to include a rant here just for a moment. Of course I went straight to Google and searched for signs of termite damage. I thought it would be helpful to view the images so I could compare what I was seeing at our house. Why does every image search on Google have to be so severely disturbing? The first 4 pages are filled with homes that are literally DESTROYED by termites. Like there is half a wall left after the termites have their way. I would consider that a level 10 on the termite destruction scale. Since my house is still standing, and I'm only looking at 4 pin holes in a wall, I'm guessing we would be a level 1 or 2, if we have anything at all. Where are those pictures? I don't think they are on google images. A month or so ago, when Nathan had allergies to the extent that his eye swelled shut, I did an image search of allergic reaction. Well of course, every creature that has had some life threatening, disfiguring, allergic reaction to their eyes spanned the first handful of pages. Why don't they lead in with a level 1 and work their way up? It really irks me and puts me in a foul mood. Some people have "Wordless Wednesday" posts on their blog. Consider this my first entry of "Whiny Wednesday". It's much more appropriate.

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Sure feels like Kansas

I've been a little MIA lately, but with good reason! First of all, last Friday we were within 25 miles of this:

Yikes! Then, on Easter Sunday we drove home through this:

Those storms caused such major flash flooding that one of my husband's barges broke loose and caused the shutdown of 4 bridges in our town. Essentially, there was no way in or out of the city during a major storm and my man was out there trying to corral the infamous "runaway barge". Actually he just notified authorities and towboats did the actual work, but we are still thanking God today that the barge only passed under one bridge with no contact. It was a crazy night to say the least!

Then Tuesday brought even more rain and storms with skies that looked like this:




This was basically a funnel cloud that never touched down. That's what it looked like from our door after the rotation had passed. During the few moments that it passed over, it actually looked more like this: (start at mark 1:07 to see the most accurate shots)



So very spooky, especially with the sirens blaring. It is also so strange to see only the tops of the trees moving. These storms continued to grow and were eventually part of the devastation that hit Alabama the next day. It is just terrible to see how much those people have lost and yet, we realize how close we came to our own tornado that day. Thank you God always for your protection!

Things calmed down later this week, but of course we have once again had storms all day today, with another threat of flash flooding. So. Ready. For. The. Beach. :) And summer! We have started our end of school countdown. May is always so busy, and yet, I love transitioning into summer and a more relaxed schedule. I hope your weather has not been as severe as ours!