I have forgotten

I have no idea why I thought I could be choir director.  I have forgotten everything about music theory.  I was figuring it out until in a 6/8 time there are only 4 eighth notes.  What???? So overwhelmed now... I wish I had time to take a class, but how, where, when? Blah...  All I wanted was to pick the music. lol

I have been realizing the last week or so just how important it is to have a strong relationship with the Savior.  I know that if I ever have difficulty understanding something, He will help me get what understanding I personally need to help me accept what I might not understand, even if I don't see the full purpose.  I wish the members of the church who are struggling to know what to think of their religion, especially with current events, would have the faith and foundation to turn to the Lord with their concerns.  It is really sad and even sadder to hear other members say "If you don't like the church, leave it.". Some just lack that understanding and others accept everything without question and can't understand some people need reasoning.  I consider myself balanced, but only when I turn to the Savior.  

The most expensive haircut

I went to get my haircut today.  The girl who cut my hair didn't talk much and neither did I.  At some point I noticed she seemed sad and the more I paid attention it became clearer.  I said a silent prayer for her not knowing anything.  Afterwards, I saw in my mind that I should tip her a specific amount.  As I argued with myself reasoning this or that, I almost began to cry.  I silently asked that could I just tip her a large amount, less than what was in my mind, and surely that would be good enough?  Then I heard clearly in my mind, "(X) will not help her, (X) will."  The rest of the haircut I pretty much waited in vain to hear the spirit tell me something different and wondered if I really would tip that amount.  Well, I did and left as quickly as I could to avoid any awkwardness - I don't really know how to accept gratitude for being overly generous and it wasn't even me she would need to thank anyway.  In the car, the first thing I heard on the radio was about how if God calls you to give, you give.  When the spirit puts something in your heart, you listen.  I started crying and at that moment was so grateful that I had followed my prompting.  Like all things, it's not how we think we should give or serve or love, etc..., but rather how the Lord needs us to be at the moment He asks.  The girl ended up calling to make sure it wasn't a mistake and when I told her that is how much I felt I needed to give her she was very grateful.  I am glad I had this experience and grateful that we are able to sometimes give.  After all, it really wasn't that much and I'm not asked to give money very often.
As it gets closer to when Will gets baptized, I find myself being filled with joy that he will be able to have the holy ghost with him at all times.  I depend on that spirit constantly for just about any choice I make and can't wait for him to receive that gift.  

Last night Dave and I went to an 80s party.  We played Jeopardy and won, no thanks to me.  Dave was in his element as was my friend and her husband who has seen about every 80s movie out there.  I think I may have been the youngest one there, but it was still fun.  We got some 80s shirts for our prizes.  I am starting(meaning today was my first day) to go to the temple every Saturday morning and today I went to the 7AM session.  I was so tired last night, but felt like I needed to go this morning, so I prayed that if it was important I go first thing, that I would wake up before my alarm so I wouldn't be tired.  Well, I woke up a minute before my alarm at 6:04, so I was able to get out and make the session.  It was good to go.  By the time I got to the Celestial room, the morning light was very bright and it was breathtaking.  Later I watched a girl come out and she said a loud, "Oh my gosh," and acted like she was blinded. lol  Well, I thought it was beautiful anyway.  I got home a little after 9:30 and changed and went to the church for Super Saturday.  I made these holiday block decorations; one side is Christmas and the other is for Thanksgiving.  I also made an origami ornament.  I think they turned out well.  Dave is out sighting his rifle so he can hunt some elk next month.  This will be his first hunting experience and he is pretty excited.  Things are going well.  I am excited to decorate for Halloween with all of the stuff I bought last year after Halloween.  I also got some stuff from the dollar store.  I didn't think I got that much stuff, but Dave came upstairs and said, "I see Halloween has exploded all over the counter." haha  What can I say, it's fun to be excited about stuff.  It is getting cooler and I love this time of year! Pictures:1)Will and Maddy were buckling up and Joshua just climbed back there and sat down like he was all ready to go.  It was cute.  2)Will in his new glasses 3,4)My craft today

I had the playdoh factory toy out and hadn't put it away yet from the other kids playing with it.  So, Joshua climbs up on a chair and starts playing with it.  I immediately go into save-the-toy mode and reach for it as I say "no." Well, this kid who doesn't talk a lot, clutches the toy and says, "Mine! My durn!". I couldn't really find it in myself to take it away at that point.  After all, he had waited so long to finally have his durn :D

Well, I thought I'd finally sit down and write something thoughtful.  As I've sat here writing and deleting, I have been angry and cried.  Life is hard.  Marriage is hard.  There's a song I have been listening to about what love feels like.  It talks about how real love is hard, you feel used up and stretched out to your limits, but you're still giving and willing to fight for it.  I feel like that is so true.  At the end of the day I am so tired.  Joshua is always into something, climbing and escaping, and needy for my attention.  I can't multitask with him.  If I'm not watching him, he'll get a marker or crayon out of thin air, or the front door chain will magically be undone for him to run outside.  I literally have to put everything on hold until he sleeps or bad stuff happens.  I get nothing done until night when I'm exhausted and the other kids need my attention.  I suddenly had the bright idea to go to the gym and walk on the treadmill with Maddy and Joshua in the mornings. lol  Yes, half day kindergarten is not long enough.  Ok, I am hopeful for tomorrow now.  I have noticed more sweet moments with Will lately, it's nice.  He helps out a lot and is becoming more empathetic.  I'm going much slower on home projects since I am working out for 1.5 hours 3x and week and that's Joshua's nap right there, so not much time to do stuff the other days.  I need a vacation by myself on a high mountain where no one else is. Sigh...

I just have to vent a little bit.  Dave doing scouts is, frankly, making me angry.  They literally just had a campout the weekend before last and now they have another one tomorrow.  Then I'm told at a church meeting summers are full of campouts.  What the heck… I thought family was supposed to be top priority here and I can only think of my sleepless nights with all the kids and getting more miserable.  If he was getting paid I can see how they could ask that of leaders, but he's not.  And my cousin is in town and I haven't seen Grandma in a few weeks, so I was planning on going over there, but I don't know how I'm going to get over there because Dave has to take the van to the campout.  And even though there's a campout, they are still doing their regular weekly scout meeting tonight!!!  Filled with frustration!!!  Why don't they call older men with older kids to this calling?  The other leader has like 6 kids and just had a baby.  I can only assume she is equally frustrated. :(

So, we are hosting a friend-in-town party for my sister in law on Friday.  She said we should grill for dinner, so we then had to rush out and buy a new grill since our last one got blown to its death in a wind storm.  We needed a new one anyway, but now had the motivation to do it.  Then I decided it would be cool if we could extend our patio, so I got a quote and the guy was available to start right away.  I thought we could have this done by Friday's party, so the guy started yesterday and says he's going to be done by Thursday, which is awesome.  So now I've been envisioning a backyard oasis and got a covered bench swing, looking for a deal on patio table sets, and gonna build a fire pit, all before this party. lol  I wanted to have a brick enclosure for the grill too, but I need to be realistic here and hold off on that part.  The kids have been enjoying playing "mine craft" in the backyard with the dug up sod chunks.

It seems like a lot of people are getting divorced that I know, oh wait, they are… :( Anyway, I have had some major ups and downs in the last few years in my own marriage and I have recently been inspired by this thought: If someone told you right when you got married that you would be divorced in however many years with however many children, would you do anything different to try to prevent it?  I have been thinking about this a lot and my answer is yes.  I would work harder at communicating my feelings, I would compromise more, I would serve my spouse more, I would show affection more, I would be less critical, etc…  This list could go on forever.  The point is, if you are lazy with your marriage, you may as well expect it to end at some point and it shouldn't be a big surprise; and for those who are still in a marriage, you can start today to try to make your marriage stronger by already doing those things.  You get what you give in most marriages and it has really been an eye opener for me that my husband isn't the only one who needs to work on things - I do just as much.  I know some things happen that are out of our control and everyone's circumstances are different, but the majority of failed marriages occur because one or both partners didn't give enough.  It's like that things I see on Facebook, marriage isn't 50-50, it has to be 100-100, both have to give their all to make it work.  I didn't want to put this on fb because I don't know if anyone would find it offensive, but for my own marriage, this has been in some cases what has kept me from giving up.

I was proud of Maddy today.  My friend called me and said that her little 4yr old boy announced at dinner that he showed Maddy his underwear earlier today.  Then she asked him if Maddy showed hers to him and he said no.  When I talked to Maddy about it, she said she told him he was immodest.  Yay!! You train your kids, or at least I do, for these situations and hope they never actually have to be in them, but when they are and they make the right choice…I just feel so proud of her.   I honestly never thought I'd have to worry about it with friends this young, but I guess it's an innocent thing and happens.  I have been pretty miserable sick the past few days.  To the point where I was actually upset at Dave that he got me sick. :/  Silly, I know.  We had a short visit with Kevin last week and he says he's probably coming back up next month.  The kids are signed up for swim lessons next month and from there, summer is super busy. Top pic is the new pic I got for $25.  It will go nicely, if I find a spot for it being so big.  I thought the boys up close to the tv was a cute shot and the one of Maddy is on our girls outing.  The bottom picture has a story.  Will had hurt himself on the stairs and fell back and was crying and then Joshua laid down right by him.  It was so cute it cheered Will up instantly.  Love my kids!

I finally decided to get a kitchen aid.  Kohls sometimes surprises me with their deals because mostly, it's just an okay deal.  The artisan kitchen aid I got came with 3 attachments and a pourer shield.  It was on sale for $350, then I used my 30%off and $150 in free credit card rewards, which brought it down to $110.  Well then there is a $30 rebate and I got $40 in kohl's cash!  If I was thinking clearly, I would have used the two other gift cards I had and forgot about.  Oh well, I still feel like I did good.  We were going to get a wheat grinder and now all I need is the mill attachment. Woot!  On other news, I have been slow with the finishing of the bonus rooms.  I put up some mud on one side, but had a headache all day yesterday and today I am just tired and depressed again.

I saw this note on Will's bed today.  I felt like the worst tooth fairy ever since he lost his tooth several months ago, I just forgot.  I think the note is shaped like a tooth. Lol. I love my kids.

I am on day 5 of my reboot juice diet.  I watched fat, sick, and nearly dead and it got me in the right mind set to want to lose weight.  Oh my goodness though, all I want to do is chew something.  I almost cheated and ate some pineapple, but if I can turn down leftover cake and carls jr, I can turn down pineapple.  So far I have lost 9 pounds, some of which is water, but who cares when you are overweight.  Every pound makes me that more motivated to keep going. lol  My goal is 30 days.  My birthday was celebrated early and the juicer was my present.  I guess Dave thought it was so expensive he didn't need to get me a card on my actual birthday :/  Anyway, I am getting ready for the garage sale, setting it all up in the garage.  I don't think I'm going to have time to go through the upstairs like I wanted, but that's ok, I will still get the baby toys and some other bigger items.  Today, we got great news.  Dave changed his exemptions on his paychecks so we would keep more and get less when tax returns came around.  We were expecting hardly anything, but as it turns out since we sold one of our rental properties, we were able to adjust our income more or something and we'll get back close to what we have gotten the last couple of years!  Not thinking, I said, "Is that before or after taxes?"  lol I told Dave I felt like celebrating, but I can't eat anything so never mind. haha  We will pay off the infiniti, fix something on the firebird, put some in savings, and with any luck be able to hire a plumber to do some rough-in work so we can get a bathroom downstairs.  We feel very blessed this year.

Well, I had a good couple of days of a pretty clean and mostly completed house.  I finished the tile, minus the pantry and to-be bathroom, and everything was put away and clean.  Then my neighborhood decided to do a multi family yard sale next week, which I have been wanting to do anyway to get rid of a bunch of stuff.  So, under the stairs and the to-be downstairs bathroom, which were both filled with boxes of a mix of trash, toys, clothes, tools, etc… are now all over the front room while I sort and price everything I want to sell.  After that, I'll just go through all of our everyday stuff and add that to my yard sale table.  It is a bit much, but I really wanted to sell some stuff and going through those boxes earlier than I had anticipated isn't entirely a bad thing.  On top of that, we had a framing contractor come over and put some studs up to convert the bonus area into 2 rooms.  Joshua loves walking through the studs and jumping the 2inches to the floor. lol  So, it has been crazy, but I am excited for everything going on.  The kids have spring break this week, but we haven't really done anything.  My birthday is Monday and I don't know what it is, but leading up to my birthdays, I always seem to get depressed.  I wish I didn't have these expectations of how good of a day I'm supposed to have because I always end up thinking I had a bad birthday because it is so boring.  Dave isn't anything of a planner or a romantic, so I may as well save us both from me getting depressed and just get a pedicure and go shopping by myself.  Speaking of depression, I have weaned off my wellbutrin and I can tell things are off, but it wasn't working as well as it used to and I have to pay $50/month for it, so we'll see how it goes without it.  As of now, I am feeling so all over the place, in a word bipolar; even though it's not manic enough to be, I am up and down a lot.  I'm hoping it's just the going off the medicine, but probably not.  

We were hosting lunch for Dave's family and I usually try to get everything set up before so I don't stress out.  I also freak out a little bit when people try to do things that aren't the way I have imagined in this setting.  So, I had everything set out on the island how I wanted it and am cutting strawberries - the last thing I had to do and people would be showing up.  I also had stacks of cups next to the drink dispenser.  I am doing pretty good and making good time when I look over and see Will filling all the cups and setting them on the table.  I immediately freaked out for some unknown reason, well actually because I had imagined everyone would grab their own cup when they were going through the line and sit where they wanted.  I didn't think I was freaking out too bad, but it was enough and Will ran out of the room and started crying, but trying to hide it.  I felt so bad, what did it even matter?  He usually gets angry and it's easy to just ignore his feelings when he is throwing a fit, but causing him sadness was something I never wanted.  I immediately apologized and told him why I freaked out but that it was actually better his way and then we talked later on about it again, but it was the saddest thing.  I never want to make him cry.  I still feel awful about it even though he said he forgave me. 

Will had another night terror tonight.  This time he was walking all over his bed and saying, "I don't know what is happening to me".  We said a prayer, just like last time, and I laid down with him until his shaking stopped and he fell back asleep.  It's crazy to think he's not really awake, though he seemed a bit more coherent than last time, yet he knows what to do when I say we will pray.  I have been selling a bunch of stuff on our city Facebook yard sale page.  I was amazed at the number of people who wanted my fake tree, and at more that I thought it was worth.  I've been doing my share of buying decor for the house though.  I need to stop looking.  I got a cute video of Maddy saying to stop decorating because the house is " too much pretty" lol.

Some before and after pics.  There's something to be said for bright and white, but I needed some warmth this time around.  It's feeling like home to me.  And the best part is, the downstairs stays relatively clean and free from toys...just liked I hoped!

We had the missionaries over for dinner.  It was kinda fun since we have never done that before.  I was waiting for today to be over before I start ripping up carpet in the tv room to finish tiling downstairs.  I should be all done, except for the pantry and bathroom, by mid March.
 I never really read all that much to the kids before.  I mean I did but it was never every day, maybe once or twice a week I'd read a couple of books.  Well, I read the Indian in the Cupboard to them a few months ago and they liked it and so I figured I would get some more advanced books like that to read to them.  It's a lot better than trying to make up stories every night and I read a chapter every night.  I read a Unicorn book I got Maddy at the book fair and this week we are reading The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.  I bought some goose bump books from DI since I remember liking those when I was younger and I ordered a big lot of Judy Bloom books off of ebay.  I want to read some Ramona books next.  I actually am very glad I have started doing this.  I want so much to spend quality time with the kids and some days I just have too much going on.  So this has become something we all look forward to.  It also is nice that I am also interested in the story since teddy bears and princesses don't really get me excited.  Joshua doesn't really say much yet.  Mostly he says nanana(banana) and g'dow(get down).  So, today I was moving the trash can away from him too many times and the last time when he started reaching in it I said, "No, no, no!"  He totally started walking away saying, "no, no, no."  haha  It has been very nice to slow down and take it easy this month, though I have spent plenty of time decorating and cleaning.  It's finally getting to the point where I can say I love living here!

You can't tell exactly how awesome this trellis is in the picture, but I am very satisfied with how it turned out.

I have to say, it is quite satisfying to create something that you came up with yourself.  Today I cut some lattice and cut and tacked some trim around the edges and will suspend it from the ceiling a few inches right in front of my mural and hang vines on it.  I, like mom and dad, have finally gotten around to framing the picture David and Heidi gave us.  We should get it next week.  I also found this picture someone was selling locally.  It is huge, 53"x48" and is on stretched canvas.  I think I hit the jackpot because I got it for $25.  The frame itself is at hobby lobby for close to $300.  The house is really coming together.  It's nice to enjoy my hard work.  We had a good dinner with the kids.  It has become a tradition to have a nice meal at home.  We don't even bother going out anymore.

We got a piano.  It's a digital one and I am quite surprised at how much it feels and sounds like a real piano.  So after printing off a piece that I used to have memorized and struggling to even figure out the right notes, I started getting down on myself.  I don't think people realize how horrible my memory really is when I say it's bad.  I don't even remember much about my good friends growing up.  Anyway, so I told Will that I was a little sad that I don't have a good memory and he goes, "What's 1+1?". I answered 2 and he exclaimed, " How do you know so much!", like he was so proud of me for remembering.  He is such a sweetie.

New couch that I love!!  The person I bought it from said they had it in their "home teaching" room so it was barely used.  The funny thing is that Dave wanted seating in the front for home teachers. I just need to find a good deal on some wingback chairs now.

I don't know what is going on today, but halfway through the day I started feeling a little sick.  By 3, I was feeling so nauseous that all I could do was lay down.  About 3 hours later Will came upstairs and was trying to talk me into getting up.  Then he said, "Can you at least kneel?". He said he wanted to say a quick prayer with me.  After I told him Heavenly Father understood I was sick and I could lay down, he said the sweetest prayer for me to feel better.  After, he told me he was getting me a glass of water.  Well, before he had come back upstairs, I puked.  Will gave me my water and I told him his prayer worked that after I puked, I was feeling so much better.  I thanked him for thinking to do that and thanked Heavenly Father for answering his prayer in a very literal way, for Will's benefit.  Still feeling bad, but much better.

I finished laying tiles in the front area.  I have set a day for putting up baseboards as next Saturday, so everything else has to get done on time.  I was up till 11:30 because for some reason I thought it would only take a couple of hours so I started at 4.  Sigh... Today I clean and seal, Monday and Tuesday I grout and Friday is the final seal and then I will take a couple of weeks off.  I said we could host a family dinner here, so I want the downstairs mostly looking done.  My hands were so raw, they felt like sand paper.  I moved the dining table under the chandelier and had to call Cheryl because I was so excited.  I'm beginning to realize my vision! Costco had their rugs on sale so I got a 7.5x10 for $79 for under the table.  I'm thinking about getting one more for the TV room, but we'll see.  Maddy had been getting in trouble a lot this morning and came in and said, "You just think I'm the worst ever."  I told her I don't make kids that are the worst ever, I only make kids that are the best ever and sometimes the "best ever" make mistakes and get in trouble.  She hugged me and said I was the best mom.  :). Every once in a while I feel like I handle things the right way...

Me: Maddy, Why are your barbies sleeping naked? Maddy: Because in the movie, Joseph sleeps naked. Me: What movie? Maddy: The one about when Jesus is born. lol I was thinking I had let her watch a bad movie or something. Never thought barbie's first indiscretion would be picked up from a church movie. haha

I got another big chunk of tiling laid today. Miraculously, I didn't have to cut any tiles for the top and side wall. It went rather smoothly. I will post final kitchen pictures after we get some stuff moved out of the kitchen.