what a difference a day makes

One year ago next week Ty came out to Memphis for his final interview for a job. It was a really exciting opportunity and we were thrilled when he got it. Thus began one of the most difficult years of our lives. He moved to Tennessee in September. We planned to follow shortly thereafter when our sold, but it didn't. And didn't, and didn't. After almost 7 months of living apart, of not being able to plan anything more than a few weeks in advance, of constant stomachaches and heartaches, we decided to move forward. We found a new home in two days, Ty did it without me. The kids and I moved in on April 1. They started school and I started trying to build our lives here, always with that unwanted tether to our old life. We finally closed on the Kansas house earlier this week. It sold for far less than we ever imagined and it will take us years to recover from the financial hit we've taken on this. That fact makes the closing bittersweet and I'm not quite used to the fact that this is finally over. But. I love it here. Our town is delightful, it has a lovely sense of community and an old fashioned town square that everyone adores. It's beautiful here, the flowers are vibrant and enormous, people are polite and thoughtful, my kids' schools are fantastic. This place is a perfect fit for us. Regardless of the cost, I would pay it again to be here now. I am so happy and so, so ready to be looking towards the future instead of the past.

screen time

I am stickler about screen time. My kids aren't allowed to watch any T.V. on school nights and computers games (all of which are educationally based) are special treats. They don't have Gameboys, iPods  or any of that nonsense and the time they spend playing on the Xbox is strictly limited to special times with Daddy. See? Grouchy, right? I just have this thing about little kids playing outside and getting dirty and get all curmudgeonly and talk about how we never had any of that growing up and we were the better for it, blah, blah, blah.

Then, last week, my beloved iPhone developed a serious case of stripes. One moment it was sitting on the counter perfectly fine, chirping out the occasional text message from my sister with whom I was having a pithy conversation and the next the screen is all stripey and utterly useless. Oh, the horror! It was 6:30 on a Saturday afternoon. I did what any red-blooded American would do, I hopped on the computer and immediately made an appointment at my nearest Apple store for that very evening. Heaven forbid I have to wait until Monday. I know. I see you rolling your eyes. Even in that moment I realized just how ridiculous I was being. But. My Calendar (that was capitalized on purpose, it's just that important) lives in there, and since I haven't bothered to set up a home phone yet, that's where everyone calls us. I know that Ty has two (count them, two) phones and we could have easily used them for the 24 hours I would have had to wait. But my church stuff is all on there too and all my little conversations with loved ones and my crosswords and scrabble (to prevent Alzheimer's obvs) and the whole thing was terribly upsetting in my ordered and very digital little world. So, I went that evening, and they gave me a new one and everything was alright.

And I remembered, once again, what a hypocrite I am.

i am not a pinterest sensation

I'm writing this while waiting for a coat of paint to dry in  the powder room off my kitchen. Painting in that little tiny room is awkward to say the least. Cutting in around all those pipes and whatnot has made me sort of grouchy and resentful (of pipes). Lately I've been running across all of these links to the before and after pictures that people post of their new houses. Houses that they have completely redone, all at once. Floors, walls, cabinets, everything. They make comments like, "It's been a long six weeks but....". How? How are these people doing this?! A. Houses are kind of expensive, how do they have all this left over money to do all this major stuff? B. How do they look at a space that is brand new to them and imagine something completely different and awesome? Obviously the whole 'two houses' thing severely limits the amount of money I can pour into re-doing a new house, but still. Even if I had money coming out of my ears, I can't decide that fast. I wander around gazing at things. I buy so very many of those little jars of sample paint and I spackle my house with different colors trying to decide. I can't commit to hanging anything, even in the rooms in which I have managed to both pick a color and actually get it up on the walls because well, I don't actually know why. I just can't seem to. It's all just sort of overwhelming and I'm having a hard time really getting started, let alone having some fabulous, overarching vision for the whole place. Probably, this is just proof that I am not a designer at heart. I know what I love and I can usually decide what I want to do with one little piece of my world eventually but it takes me a while decide and I often change my mind. I think in pieces and steps, not whole house, whole project. Clearly, I have no vision. Ah well.

Why yes, two of those samples are exactly the same. I bought the same sample twice. 

Can you tell which two match?

lately i've noticed

Lately, I lay in bed in bed at night and think of things I want to blog about so it's probably time to start writing again. I also think about that stupid, dumb house I still own in Kansas, but then I try to think about other things because that is one problem I can't fix.

 I love my new house. Love, love, love it. I love the floor plan, I love the windows, I love the bird that lives in the crepe-myrtle outside my bedroom window that never (not ever) stops singing. I love the park out the back gate the Johnny is constantly disappearing to without permission. I love the mysterious woods and all intrigue that could be happening in there. I love (and agonize over) picking paint colors. I love that the neighborhood is so very quiet at night and I love how bright the stars are from the front yard. I love that feeling of nesting when you are putting together a new home. I love that I don't have to think about moving again anytime soon. I miss my friends. I miss having history and shared memories with people. I miss my children's friends and the tight bonds they have formed with children they have known as long as they can remember. I miss feeling confident about my life and circle and my direction. We are finding our way. We are making friends. We are painting walls and hanging pictures. Someday the to-do list will no longer be multiple pages and life will again slip by without us noticing, a blur of swim lessons, appointments, soccer games and homework. Now I notice all the days, for the happy and the sad, the easy and the hard, and the noticing is not a bad thing.

hurry up and wait

I have this picture saved on my phone. I look at it multiple times a day. Anytime my tummy gets that icky, 'this is all too much' feeling, I look at it. If all goes as planned (knocking on wood), in a little over three weeks my boys and I will move into this house just outside of Memphis and my husband will too. We will all live together in the same house (let alone the same city, state, etc.) It's not the perfect plan I had hoped for. We still own a house in Kansas, so that will be two houses, which is really more than I need but that can't possibly last forever (can it?!) and all this time in pieces of a family has started to feel like forever. So. We are moving on, without the closure I was hoping for, but with an eye towards pushing forwards anyway, with just a few strings attached. I have never actually been to this house. My dearest picked it out for me. He chose it for its giant front lawn, perfect for little boys who always want to run, for the big windows his light-craving wife requires, for all the space on the front porch for rocking chairs to watch the lightning bugs. Things are decided and it's time to go, except it's not. The mortgage is all arranged and the movers scheduled, the schools have been alerted and the paperwork is signed. My heart is aching as we start saying our goodbyes. And we are counting the days and planning a lovely spring.

one more reason I will never be considered a"homemaker"

(she is making DIY gasoline for her car just with the ingredients she has in her kitchen!)

O.K. So lately I've been spending way too much time trolling around on Pinterest, dreaming of my new house. I have come across a rather upsetting trend. Make-your-own-every-single-little-thing. I get it. I'm a SAHM. I spend way too much time and energy on valentines and halloween costumes and seasonal wreaths for my front door. Two years ago for Christmas, my girlfriend and I made all of our friends homemade lavender vanilla body scrub, with custom made labels. It was ridiculous. And I loved doing it. Heavens, last year I made my sisters wedding dress. Sometimes it's lovely to have it be special and unique and handmade by me.  I give all sorts of handmade gifts and my house if full of my DIY efforts. Maybe you are super worried about chemicals so you make all your own organic cleaning supplies. If that's why do it, awesome. I clean my mirrors with vinegar. Or if someone at your house has a terrible and very inconvenient allergy, I have deepest sympathy for you and totally support your efforts. But now all these people seem to be making things like homemade automatic shower cleaner. It's dish soap and vinegar mixed together, but the real stuff isn't all that expensive, works way better, and the dish soap is still chemically based. And laundry detergent. We're doing that now? Because I have to admit, I'm super happy with the Seventh Generation All Natural stuff that Amazon helpfully delivers automatically to my house. And really. I am so busy. To be fair it's because I insist on gym and yoga time and playdates and swim lessons and piano and soccer and just regular laundry and housecleaning and yard care and doctors appointments and playing on the computer and church and reading and lunch dates. Plus all the stuff I make because it's fun and makes me feel creative or because I can't find exactly what I want. I don't have time for there to be all these extra steps, home-making all these extra things that don't even give me a creative high. Don't we have enough guilt already? I totally do. My kids ate instant oatmeal for breakfast today (and everyday this week). Instant oatmeal, not steel-cut or organic, and by no means homemade! Gasp. I guess if I spent a really lot of time making all my cleaning supplies and pressing my own olive oil and making organic ketchup and mayonnaise from scratch in my kitchen maybe I would save a little money. But I bet not a lot and really I'm not all that picky about ketchup or automatic shower cleaner. It's like I don't even care at all.

the waiting game- doing it better

So, lately, we have been doing a lot of waiting. Not really all that patiently either. I have been pretty grouchy about the whole thing. We are still waiting, but it turns out that being irritated and crabby about it isn't helping at all. Instead I decided to make a list of things that will make me sad when they come to an end because you know when this other thing ends, I won't be sad. There are some other things in our lives that will break my heart a little when they come to an end.

1. Johnny's lack of the letter 'r'. "Mommy, I will be afwaid of the dawk fowevew." Every times he speaks it's super, super adorable. Every. Time.

2. Tommy's toothless grin. He lost his two front teeth several months ago and I sort of melt a little bit every time he grins at me. His grown-up teeth are finally coming in (and are enormous, our orthodontist will be thrilled) and soon he will have a mouth full of those giant things. Sigh.

3. My super clean house. When your house is on the market, there is no cheating. It's supposed to be shiny, shiny clean all the time. Right this second beds get made every single day, counters get wiped, mirrors de-smudged, every single day, no matter what. We're pretty clean most of the time and all those things happen most the time but I kind of love having an excuse to be super obsessive about it. Shiny, shiny clean makes me super happy.

4. I'm a gym rat. I really hate that Ty doesn't live here anymore. I hate, hate, hate it. It makes sleeping very tricky and lonesome. I do, however have lots of gym time because it turns out that that's how I deal with stress the very best. The more I workout, the better I cope. I think in real life, the number of hours a week I am spending at the gym might be hard to justify but right now, I'm living on endorphins.

5. Being the object of concern. Every week at church 25 people ask me in that very concerned voice, "How are you doing?" Friends and family call to check on us. People invite us to dinner and sleepovers. I hate feeling like a project and honestly we are doing just fine but it's lovely to feel like the people in our lives genuinely care about us.

See, we're pretty lucky, after all.

for all the wrong reasons- doing it better

You may remember the "doing it better" series from last January. It's all about not really making resolutions but just trying to be a little better at stuff that matters to me. So. Here goes.

I have become somewhat of a gym rat in the last several months. I am on a break from distance running (we had a fight because it didn't make me skinny, still not ready to forgive). I am sort of loving doing all these crazy hard classes every single day. I am loving getting in a yoga practice on most days. These things are also not making me skinny as far as I can tell. So I am no longer doing them to make me skinny. I am doing them because I love to wake up every morning, muscles aching a little from the previous day's workout. I love doing it a little faster or heavier than I did it the day before. I love that I went straight from crow to headstand yesterday without falling over. I love the rush of endorphins that is still humming through my body long after the workout. Skinny is different journey. This I am doing just because it feels fantastic.

the bitter with the sweet

When I was a little girl I was taught that in the afterlife we will all have perfect memories of every moment of our time here. I think it was supposed to scare us straight. "Won't it be awful to remember each and every sin, every mistake with crystal clarity?" they would ask and, with my eyes wide, I would nod, mutely terrified. But this idea has been returning to me over and over lately. How scary, how sad will our mistakes be when we can see them with perspective, see where they led us, see the lessons we learned? And really, so many of the moments are breathtaking, kisses, hands geld, sly glances, children laughing, missing teeth, missing consonants, the smell of fancy, overpriced baby shampoo in golden hair, forts in the kitchen, secret brother plans, tears of all kinds, and so much more. My days are so full of things that I would give anything to hold onto forever, I will gladly remember the bitter, if only I can have the sweet.

faqs

1. Is your house sold? When are you moving? Etc, etc, etc.?
No, no it's not. Hopefully things will pick up now that the holidays are over. We're not yet sure what we will do if they don't and I sooooo don't want to talk about it anymore. It just makes me feel sad and stressed.

2. When are you going to start blogging again.? (ok, not that many asked this question but it's kind of the purpose of the post)
Why, today, of course. January has me feeling all fresh-start-y and bloggy.

3. Does this mean you'll be writing every day?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA- No, I will not be any better at that then I have been in the past. Well, maybe a little better.


4. Since it's January, will you be doing your ever popular 'doing it better' series this year?
Yup, starting tomorrow-ish.

nothing to say

There are a lot of reasons why I will never be one of those famous, fancy bloggers. This is one of them. When my heart hurts, when I am not so copey, I don't want to write. I just don't have anything of value to say. You know, "if you can't say something nice" and all that. I am embarrassed by how hard this is for me. We are so very blessed and if this is the worst thing I have had to deal with in a long time then I am a lucky duck. But.  I hate this. I am frustrated and heartbroken and lonely and there is nothing I can do to make it better. And I don't want to write about that every day. That would be pathetic and sort of icky and nobody wants to read that. I am fine, someday (hopefully soon) this will all be ok and then I will maybe be excited and want to write about things. But not now. Eventually, I will be back. Promise.

kicking a**- thankful

This morning in boot camp there were a few extras. They were unintentionally skinny college girls who were home for the holiday. It's not their fault, but I sort of hate them for being skinny with little or no effort. I hate my own 20-year-old self for the same reason. I am not particularly happy with what I see in the mirror or on the scale these days but this morning, I was stronger and faster than every one of those toothpicks. So there.

Steph-a-rooni-macaroni- Thankful

Today was not my favorite day. It was a gas men and ear infections and all schedules falling apart so that I can get nothing done sort of day. The kind of day when you know you will have to eat cookies for dinner just to soothe your soul. Right after I almost rammed into the UPS man in the driveway he handed me a package. I assumed it was a grocery sort of a thing I had ordered on Amazon, not super fun. When I finally got around to opening it a while later it was a floaty, swirly piece of chiffon that someone had turned into the skirt of my dreams. I had not ordered this little piece of perfection. The receipt bore the name of one of my dear sisters. She knew I'd love it, so she sent it to me. It was perfect and definitely the best things that happened to me today, possibly all week. She made me cry the good kind of tears. I'm sort of tearing up now just remembering. Thanks, Steph.

(You can read all about her adventures here)

and wealthy and wise- thankful

So thankful for health and dental insurance because seriously, if you know us at all, you we need it.