October Tidbits

Georgie was taking a shower (the bathtub isn't working yet), and said he was done.  On being reminded to rinse the bubbles from his armpits, very loud laughing and giggling was heard from the bathroom.

When Freddie heard someone raising their voice, he said, "Hey!  You should be more like me.  Sometimes I am mad, but when I'm not, I always try really hard not to be mad."

Angel insisted that she could do a good job washing her own hair - and then got distracted and didn't wash out all the shampoo.  Or didn't wash her scalp.  Or something, but ended up with an itchy head.  She scratched it so energetically that she made sores in the thin skin of her scar before we could get rid of the itch.  Here's hoping it heals up quickly.

Alec and I were visiting while he was working on his car in Opa's driveway.  He's got a concealed carry permit, and he let me hold his gun - after he took the bullets out.  Can't have a crazy mother shooting up the neighborhood!

Ben ran into an old elementary school friend.  The boy didn't recognize Ben at first, but thought he looked familiar.  Ben remembered the boy and introduced himself.  The old friend's eyes lit up, "Oh yeah!  But I thought you had red hair!"  He does still.

Trent and I spent the weekend at a marriage retreat.  It was pretty incredible.  So many good things... that I wish I had known decades ago.  It's never too late to learn a better way to do things, so I'll start today.  We found it so valuable that we decided to gift the class - plus a 3-night hotel stay - to each of our children as a wedding present.

Side note: the kids at home managed pretty well (with some Grandma help) while we were gone, but were relieved to see us back.  I'm happy to take over Mom duties.

Chris had a girl leave a note on his motorcycle, complimenting his bike and asking for a ride.  Now we know why he got a bike...

David is the high school's production of Les Miserables!  He is loving learning the songs and we love hearing them around the house.  He just had a choir concert that made me laugh and cry.  I so enjoy going to music concerts that that my boys are in!  I'm missing the junior high band concerts right now.

Eddie has finished a few art projects and is really enjoying the class.  I'm kind of bummed he didn't take cooking because I like the homework he would have gotten.  He is doing fabulously in his classes.

Fall is in full swing, and the canyons are gloriously bedecked!  Go out and take a ride this week if you can.  Bonus points for taking a cute girl.

Laundry!

I'm doing laundry!  That normally wouldn't be too terribly exciting, but see,  I'm doing laundry at my own house! In my own washing machine that is actually hooked up to running water!  Because of city codes, we couldn't hook up the washer and dryer until the kitchen passed its final inspection.  Trent made that happen this week and I'm elated.  I am a lucky lady to have such a skilled husband.  

Man, I take so much for granted and having an in-house laundromat is a huge convenience, especially for a large family.  We can work through a dozen loads a week without any mishaps (like a bedwetting!),  so we give the washer and dryer a pretty good workout.  I can hear it chugging away in the laundry room while I write this,  and it makes me so happy.  It's like having my very own maid!   I'm a bit embarrassed to admit that I've only been doing absolutely critical laundry for the past few months because leaving home to do the wash is so inconvenient.  It will be nice to have all the towels clean at the same time, or be able to do a late-night emergency load, or have clean sheets the same day.

I'm so spoiled.  And grateful today. 

Shredded Jeans

Growing up, my brothers and I wore jeans a lot.  We wore them until they were "high waters" or until the waist was so tight you couldn't sit down in them anymore.  Then you passed them on down to the next kid (who was obviously delighted to get another batch of hand-me-downs, of course!).  That didn't actually happen very often, because we always wore out the knees first.  I don't know why we think of denim as being so tough when the knees rip through so fast!  I say that as a mother of boys.  I do remember my mother getting Tough Skins jeans at J.C. Penney - or was it Sears? - because they had a double layer of fabric at the knees.  To her, it was worth it.

When my first little boys were getting bigger, Shop Ko had a return program that if the kids wore out any clothing before they outgrew it, the store would replace the item.  I would drive several cities away to get Shop Ko jeans for my little dudes, even though they were noticeably thinner than the other brands.  I went back to get those holey jeans replaced over and over and over... until I got sick of it and quit shopping there.  Boys are HARD on jean-knees!

When our knees blew out, the jeans were candidates for cut-offs.  Mom would cut the jeans off at the knee-hole.  Hopefully the holes in both knees lined up.  If we were lucky, she would hem the cut ends, or we would just roll them up.  Those were our summer shorts.  But we did not wear them with holes in the knees.  Not at all.

As I'm getting to be an old-lady-person, I'm surprised at the jeans on the racks at the store that are pre-thrashed.  First the jeans were pre-washed, then pre-worn-in, and now you can pay good money to have them pre-worn-completely-out?  I have a hard time with the idea.

David had a pair of jeans with holes in the knees.  They were hand-me-downs from Chris or Ben, so they came by the knee-holes honestly.  Usually I take such jeans and add them to my enormous pile of old pants that I fully intend to make denim quilts out of.  One day.  Don't ask how large that pile is (it currently lives in multiple big boxes), or when "one day" is.  But David liked the jeans and kept wearing them.  He even took a razor blade to them and ever-so-carefully WHILE wearing the pants scraped a few new holes in the legs.  This does not compute.

The holes got larger after every washing, and I think after every wearing and every time someone looked at the jeans.  Thankfully, there came a day recently when there was more hole than jean and they were declared legally dead.  Even more fortunately, there wasn't enough fabric left to worry about imaginary denim quilts.

Farewell, holey jeans!  Let's go to the store and get you a pair of new pants.  I'll pick them out.

The Zero Problem

I have a zero problem.  No, not zero problems - although that might be nice to try!  It happens when I am thinking about large numbers that have lots of zeros.  I know how much a house is worth, but I'm just as apt to say, "thirty thousand dollars" instead of "three hundred thousand."  That last zero makes a huge difference!  Some people are quite confused when I talk about numbers.  My husband has learned about this little quirk of mine, and doesn't bat an eye when I rattle off a number that is off by a magnitude of ten.  He calmly corrects the number and we laugh about my zero problem.

The other day, Trent was given cash as a payment.  He brought home the large bills and showed them to the kids.  Little Georgie's eyes got big as he looked at the money.  "Hey Mom!" he excitedly piped up, "Can I have 6 of those?"

Um, what?  That's an awful lot of money!  When I asked him to tell me more about why he needed money, he explained, "I need sixty cents right now."  Sixty cents... six hundred dollars... I guess I've passed on my zero problem and then some.  Yikes!

New Carpet and Old Pipes

We scraped the ceilings, painted the walls, and put new carpet in our fixer upper of a house.  We have lots of work left to do (the tub doesn't run water, we have no washer or dryer, several rooms don't have light fixtures, only one bathroom has a working sink...) but that keeps us busy and out of trouble, right?  (sigh)

But at least the framework of walls, ceiling, and floor were complete.  And then David and Eddie noticed a squishy splishy spot in the middle of their room.  In the carpet.  The brand spanking new carpet.

After pulling up the new now-nasty carpet, ripping out the now-mildewing carpet pad, and removing some soggy wallboard, we found the problem.  An old pipe behind the wall had broken.  It was the pipe from the kitchen sink and dishwasher, so every time dirty water went down the drain, the pipe leaked.  (Bad words)

See how those two pipes don't line up anymore?  Not so much that they dump water all over the floor, because then we have noticed it faster and been able to fix it.  No, the dumb thing had to just drip for a long, long time.  Bah.

Fortunately, Ben and Chris were moving back to college just after then, so we could move David and Eddie out of the mold and mildew room.  For now, the oldy moldy nastiness has been cleaned out, but the wall is still open, the floor still needs a new pad, and the carpet still needs to be cleaned.

Couldn't the pipes have broken BEFORE we put the new carpet in??  I wonder what other treasures this old house has in store for us. 

Dirty Dishes

Oh, I have a lot to say about last week's DesignMom feature!  I still can't believe that they really wanted to feature my house - my family.  I'm pinching myself.

I had so much fun with the photo shoot.  A friend came over and helped me scoot chairs and plump pillows and remove clutter and laugh.  Mostly, it's laughing that what is normally an every-day scene can be dolled up into a fancy-pants fashion photo.  It was so satisfying to see the inherent wonderfulness in my life - the beauty that I'm usually too busy to acknowledge.

A night or two later, I was headed to bed, trying my best to ignore the whisperings of the dirty dishes on the counter.  I really shouldn't leave them until morning, I know.  Not just because of flies and the health department, but mostly because my sweet husband does breakfast and a messy kitchen makes him crazy.  I appreciate that he takes the morning shift and I don't want him to have angst that early!

I was so tired, though!  I walked back to the bedroom with the image of the stack of soup bowls and piles of dirty spoons still flitting around in my head.  I'm grateful for those dishes.  It's a testimony that my family was well-fed tonight.  Before I could climb into bed, I just had to grab my camera and head back to the kitchen.  It only took a moment or two to grab the shot (and then I went to bed anyway).

The next day, I was looking through the raw files, getting ready to crop and edit the pictures to the format DesignMom wanted.  There, with all the pretty pictures was the shot of the dirty dishes, awkwardly hanging around the cheerleaders like a seventh grader with braces.  Oh yeah, that was me.

I don't know why I included that late-night picture.  I was sure they wouldn't use it in the article.  It wasn't prepped, it wasn't pretty, no natural light...who wants to see my dirty dinner dishes?

It's part of our life, and they included the picture in the home feature.  I gasped when I saw it, then bubbled up with giggles.  Really??

I guess we don't need to look that hard to find beauty in our lives.  Dirty dishes and all.

DesignMom Feature!

I can hardly believe my good luck today!  Our home has been featured on DesignMom - a publication I've long read and admired.  I've been alternately excited, humbled, and terrified.