Catching Up

It's been over three months since my last blog post, oops! I don't think I have three months worth of randomness to make up for it, but I can try!

This weekend was busy, but a good kind of busy. We spent lots of time outside enjoying the springy weather and enjoyed lots of quality time with family and friends. We explored the local parks and trails a bit, we went to our first cookout of the year, we had our first smores of the year, and I had my first chai. It was fun. Silly-faces-with-your-best-friend kind of fun. 



Now for what's been going on with life over the past few months...

DAD'S ALL DONE WITH CHEMO!!! YAY!! And he's got one week of radiation left. Five days to go, that's it. Woo-hoo! The side effects have been pretty rough, but he's hanging in there. In a couple weeks they'll test to see if the cancer is gone. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts. Happy thoughts.

R was selected as student of the month for her class in March (yay!). She'll be showing off her martial arts skills in her school's talent show in a week-or-so. She's got two more months of being a third grader, and she's getting taller by the day (I feel old. And short.). We've been trying to decide on some birthday ideas (June will be here before I know it), and I think we have things somewhat figured out.



L got her dance costume, and her recital will be coming up in June. Her class is dancing to Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, and she's excited. L likes to touch snakes, poke crabs, play with worms, and let ladybugs crawl all over her; but if she sees a harmless little ant crawling anywhere near her, oh my gosh, it's the end of the world. Oye.



Z has been up to his typical shenanigans. Locking himself in the bathroom, letting himself out the front door, painting with toothpaste, fearlessly jumping off of anything and everything, licking stone walls, eating sand, learning all about time outs, etc, etc. This kid drives me crazy, but the cuteness and snuggles make up for it. Mostly...lol.



I have been trying to journal a bit more often lately. I saw this quote on pinterest, and it just fits...

"I write because

I don't know what I think

until I read what I say."

~ Flannery O'Connor

 

(pinned from http://studiomothers.com/2013/02/15/meme-of-the-week/ )

Writing / journaling / blogging / etc helps me figure myself out, put things in perspective, and feel slightly less crazy. So...yay writing!

I lost 14 pounds last year (yay!), but I gained most of it back (doh!). So, I've got to work on that a bit. *fingers crossed* I can lose what I gained back and then some. 

I'm most likely getting furloughed to some extent over the summer (government budget / sequestration stuff...*grumble grumble*), and the pay cut is definitely going to suck. But I'm trying to look at the bright side...after all, a free day every week for the whole summer can't be all that bad, can it? I get extra time with the family, extra time away from a computer screen, extra time to enjoy the warm weather, extra time for comfy casual clothes instead of business casual. Who knows, maybe I'll even have the chance to sleep in past 5 or 6 in the morning, or catch up with friends, or keep the house semi-clean...the possibilities are endless!  ;)

And, that's all the randomness I can think of for today. Good-night blog world!

A Balancing Act

When our family gets sick, we go all out. Germ-sharing seems to be inevitable. (Now if only the kids would share their toys as easily as they share their germs…)

 

Z had a cold, along with a stomach thing. In typical boy fashion, he thought his “burgers” (“boogers” in Z-language) were hilarious, and he thought that blowing his nose till the “burgers” hung off of his chin was super-cool. And, since he was pooping a rainbow, he thinks “guess-the-poop-color-before-a-diaper-change” is a fun game now. *sigh*. Boys. Anyways, he’s doing much better, and hopefully he doesn’t get a second round of sickness from anyone.

 

L had a cold that would not go away after almost two weeks. She was coughing nonstop, having trouble sleeping, and acting exhausted. This, coming from the kid who rarely “acts” sick when she is sick, had us heading to the doctor’s for a sick visit. She’s got an upper respiratory infection, along with an assortment of meds.

 

R has had a bit of a sniffley thing, but seemed to be doing okay – until Sunday night, when she woke up in tears because her ear hurt and she thought she had an ear infection. So, it was back to the doctor's for a sick visit for R.

 

And I am fighting off the cold the kids so lovingly shared with me.

 

And A…he’s fine. I don’t know how or why, but he hasn’t caught any of the germs. Definitely not fair. (But, I've heard that a "man cold" can be a thousand times worse than a mommy cold, so I guess it's a good thing he's still healthy!)   :P

 

I feel bad that I haven’t been able to bring the kids to visit my dad in a couple weeks, but I don’t think my dad’s immune system would appreciate our germs right about now.

 

And some non-germ-related things that add to the chaos…

 

R had surgery a few days after Christmas to remove a cyst from her thigh. She had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic ointment we were using, but the incision is healing and the reaction has mostly cleared.

 

R just had some dental work done last week – she needed a tooth pulled, a cavity filled, and an impression made in preparation for the new space maintainer she’ll be getting next month. This kid has had one expensive mouth, ever since one of her 12-year molars decided to come in when she was 7.

 

R’s vision has gotten a bit worse, so she had an eye exam last week and we ordered some new glasses with her new prescription. She's super excited, since we ordered transitions lenses this time.

 

I’m getting some lingering GI issues looked into, and the testing and prep and everything, well, stinks. Blah.

 

*fngers crossed* that we'll all get healthy and things will settle down soon! Life's already a balancing act, trying to juggle work, sleep, kids, activities, errands, housework, and all the other "normal" things; adding medical stuff to the list puts a little too much extra "crazy" to the routine!

Bucket List

I've been focusing on the short-term "goals" lately. Like...staying somewhat sane, being a better example for the kids, being more consistent with rules and discipline with the kids, staying focused at work, staying on top of the housework, getting enough sleep every night (or at least getting enough caffeine the next day), eating healthier, etc. But, I thought it would be fun to put together my "someday" list. I've always had things I wanted to do "someday", but I don't think I've ever written them all down. And, I realize I probably won't get to most of these until after the kids are grown and moved out, but still. Daydreaming is fun.

So...here's my "someday" list...

• Go whale watching
• Go on a helicopter ride
• Go on a hot air balloon ride
• Visit the Grand Canyon, and take either a helicopter or hot air balloon "tour"
• Visit / hike / explore some of the somewhat local mountains / trails / caverns / gorges (the White Mountains in New Hampshire aren't "that" far away)
• See the Northern Lights (without freezing to death)
• Go to Hawaii
• Go on a multi-day cruise
• Get a nice camera (DSLR with various lenses)
• Learn more about photography, and learn how to use a nice camera (maybe take a photography class, or learn a little at a time on my own through online tutorials / blogs / photography-skilled-friends, etc)
• Get a nice laptop
• Learn more about cooking (maybe take a cooking class, or learn a little at a time on my own by trying out online recipes, getting pointers from friends, etc)
• Organize our family photos
• Get natal charts done for me, my husband, and the kids
• Make a scrapbook / journal / baby book / letters-from-mom / keepsake type thing for each of the kids

And, that's all I can think of for now. Yay for finally making my "someday" list! 

Serenity

I find myself thinking of the serenity prayer a lot lately...

God grant me the serenity to

Accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

I already know that this year is going to be a challenge.

My dad was recently diagnosed with throat cancer, and he will be starting treatment soon. I've brought him to a couple appointments so far, and a few things the doctors said have stood out to me. One being that the treatment will probably be the most difficult thing he'll go through in his life. And two, being that the survival rate for people with his type/stage of cancer is about fifty percent.

Cancer sucks.

I...am a big jumble of emotions. I'm trying to focus on the things I have control over. For example, I can't "fix" cancer and I can't change the fact that my dad might die. But for now, I can give my dad rides to appointments, I can help the kids make cards, I can stop by to check on my dad more often, I can offer to help whenever my dad needs me, I can talk to the kids about cancer and treatments so they understand what's going on.

Another saying that's been popping into my head lately -- Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and take what comes.

I'm proud of my dad for making his health a priority and for facing everything. I hope that he can tolerate the treatments, that he kicks cancer's butt, and that he comes out even stronger in the end.

A Year in Crafts

I have some very talented crafty friends and family members, and I would love to be as crafty and awesome as they are some day.

 

So last year, instead of just admiring my friends' awesome creations, I decided to try some (basic) crafty projects of my own. I had lots of fun, and learned a lot! Here are some of the projects I worked on throughout 2012, along with links to some of the tutorials / blogs / etc that I checked out along the way.

 

For Valentine's Day, the girls and I made Valentine's cards for their classmates. We used the free printable template from this site -- http://inspirationforhome.blogspot.com/2012/01/15-valentines-day-craft-ideas-for-kids.html. After that, it was just a matter of cutting, decorating, glueing, and sticking. Easy enough. Here was our butterfly tootsie pop Valentine army!

 

I made the girls some korker hair bows using the tutorial on this site (http://www.girlythingsbows.com/korker_bows.html). If/when I make some more, I'm planning to do them a bit differently. I attached the bows to clips using my glue gun, but the glue alone didn't hold them very well -- next time I'll use my glue gun and a ribbon wrapped around the center of the bows; the extra ribbon would definitely make the hold stronger. Next time I'll attach the bows the other way (so they go the same way as the clip, instead of being perpendicular to it), I like the other way better. The link suggests 30-50 korker ribbons for each bow, but I found that using less (maybe 15-20) was a lot easier to work with, and still looked pretty neat.

 

I made some other style bows later in the year as gifts for some friends with little girls, and I really liked how these came out.

 

 

Most of them I did Pinwheel style, based on this tutorial -- http://www.girlythingsbows.com/pinwheel_bow.html.

I tried a few other styles, like this one -- http://www.girlythingsbows.com/basic_bow.html , and this one -- http://midwesternmoms.com/2011/02/how-to-make-a-boutique-style-hair-bow/.

 

I did a few mod podge projects, like scrapbook paper mod-podged to picture frames, and fabric mod-podged to letters --

 

 

I did a few glue gun projects, like a fabric-covered photo album and recipe binder --

Most of my glue gun ideas come from the "A Girl and A Glue Gun" blog --http://kimboscrafts.blogspot.com/

 

Later on in the year, I made super-hero ornaments for a friend, based on stealing the idea from this site (but I forgot to take a picture of the ones I made, oops!) -- http://www.happylooksgoodonyou.com/superhero-ornaments/. Then I made sparkley ornaments, based on the tutorial on this site -- http://littlegrayfox.blogspot.com/2011/12/holiday-diy-simple-filled-and-painted.html.
 

I made some melt-and-pour soaps (tutorial here -- http://crafts.kaboose.com/easysoap.html) --
 

And finally, I made some fleece tie blankets. The girls liked the ones I made as gifts so much, that I ended up making them each one of their own. Here's a link to a tutorial -- http://www.gettingcrafty.com/tutorial-fleece-tie-blankets/ (I went with two yards of fleece, and I cut 5" squares from the corners, instead of the 3-4" squares suggested on the tutorial), and here's a picture of one of the blankets I made --

 

 

I don't have many crafty projects in mind for 2013 yet, but I'm sure that'll change as the year goes on. Happy crafting everyone!