Nobody here but us chickens

Do you ever feel like you are running in circles and never actually getting anything done?  If you answered yes to that question, then you must be a mom.  I keep explaining to the other members of my household that there is only one of me up against the five of them.  Oh well, I can only do what I do, right?

What have I been up to lately?  Everything and nothing.  My 16th wedding anniversary was a couple of weeks ago.  Yay!  We survived another year without killing one another!  My in-law's anniversary is exactly a week after ours.  I think they have been married 49 years.  That means a big party next year.  As for this year, I've been working on a quilt for them.  My goal was to get it done before their anniversary.  Now, my goal is to get it finished before this summer.  LOL!  Not really.  I'm hoping to finish it in the next week or so.  I've been fighting a case of the lazies and the kids being sick.

I'm very excited to be going to a baby shower this weekend, and it's not even for me!  It's for one of my quilting friends.  Our mutual quilting friend and I went out shopping for a gift for said quilting friend and had a blast.  We initially intended to go in together and work on some crafty, adorable, homemade baby gift.  In the end, we wound-up buying it at Target.  Since we both homeschool, and she teaches a group of homeschoolers all day Tuesday and Wednesday, and I just flat-out haven't felt creative, we went for the retail therapy rather than the textile therapy.

UGH!

Things have been a little crazy around here, shocking, I know.  Cherub #3 has strep throat!  Sadly, I was happy to receive the blessed news.  I know, CRAZY!  But, the doctor used the "f" word when we first got there and described her symptoms.  I'm referring to the flu, or course.   What did you think that I meant?  At any rate, I never thought I would do the happy dance over a strep throat diagnosis.  But, if she had the flu, it would have taken her longer to get over it, and the whole family would have been quarantined for a few weeks.  With strep, you take some antibiotics and some motrin for the fever, and you are right as rain!

I have been working on a quilt for the outlaws this week.  Well, I started it a year ago, almost to the day!  I made 2 of the 9 blocks, but got frustrated when they came out different sizes.  So, the pieces all went into a ziplock bag to be tackled later.  I realized last week that their anniversary is next week, meaning mine is this week.  Anyway, I decided if anyone could fix my problem, Jane Sewmore could do it.  And, it worked!  I made the remaining 7 blocks, plus I ripped apart the one that was too small and got it to the right size.  Now, I need to add sashing and borders, then it's off to backing it.  If my weekend isn't too crazy, I may get it done by Sunday night. 

Did I mention that my anniversary is this week?  Yes, I skimmed over it a bit.  My 16th wedding anniversary is tomorrow, to be exact.  I'm not sure if we will celebrate, since one of my cherubs is sick.  We may just celebrate another time.  We'll see how it goes.

I know, this is a pretty dull post.  I am a bit tired and off my game.  Plus, my oldest cherub is standing over me, about to explode with anticipation of my placing an amazon order for him.  Oh yeah, the 2 year old keeps climbing on me, too.  I'm so tired of being the jungle gym! 

Goodnight from the looney bin! 

One step forward...five steps back

As I post this blog, my little angel is sleeping away, and it's only 10pm.  You may say, "That's marvelous!"  But, save your praise for someone worthy.  He is only napping.  He was tired, and I was weak!  He needed a nap, and I couldn't make him wait until "sleepy time."  So, he naps on the sofa, only to awaken in the next hour or so and keep me up until the wee hours of the morning.  This has been happening off and on since the weekend, when my first moment of weakness was spurred by my husband guilting me into letting the little guy nap.  I have just been going with it, percolating coffee, and working on cleaning projects until he's ready for "sleepy time."

Did you notice I said "percolating coffee"?  Yes, that's what I said.  I have joined the world of grown-ups and started drinking coffee.  I'm not a huge fan of "home brewed" coffee.  I much prefer a latte from Starbucks.  But since I don't have $4 a day to spend on coffee, I decided I had better come-up with a solution.  Coffee in a normal coffeemaker has a slight burnt taste, in my opinion, thus my dislike for it.  I would get at Keurig, but have you seen how much the things you put in those cost?  I may as well run to Starbucks!  So, when I was hunting a new kettle in Target the other day, I came across a stove-top percolator.  The one's I've seen in the past were around $40, but this one was a steal at $20.  You know what?  Percolated coffee is better!  Yay!  Plus, I feel like Kit Kittredge's mom when I make coffee.  It's a win, win! 
 

Growing Pains!

You may have noticed that I haven't posted in a few days.  My oldest daughter pointed it out to me.  I took a bit of a break.  I know you are saying to yourself, "Who takes a vacation when they have just started a job?"  To that I say, "Offer me a paycheck, and I'll gladly show-up to work!"  But, since that's not happening, I'm going to go with plan A, which is to focus on my family.  We have been busy around here, mostly staying-up all hours.  But, last night we made progress.  My little man was asleep by 1:30am.  A huge improvement, considering that the previous night he had been awake until nearly 6am.  He did wake-up before the sun this morning, but he only stayed awake for about 30-45 minutes, then gave-up and nodded back off.  I'd say that's an improvement.  Of course, I had to deal with a cranky toddler with no nap yesterday, but the pay-off was worth it!


Speaking of my toddler, I have decided that he understands what growing-up is, and he is smart enough to know it's not for him!  I know that sounds CRAZY!  But, have you ever known a toddler who, when asked if he wants his own big-boy bed, just says "no, I sleep with Mama."  This is in the store, not at bedtime.  And, even when offered bribes, he does not relent in his desire to stay in my bed.  He say Diego on something the other day, and wanted it until he realized it was a package of pull-ups.  I very positively described how he could go to the potty and get Diego pants and even treats for peeing in his potty chair.  I showed him the potty chairs and told him he could have any of them, even the ridiculous $50 one.  I showed him all of the cool big-boy pants and the different character pull-ups, even offering girl ones, if that's what it took.  NOPE!  He avoided looking at anything I offered, and he avoided eye contact.  It was almost comical!  NO, it was comical.  My mom, the girls, and I were giggling a bit. 

Beware the pillow snatcher!

I am P-double O-P-E-D!  I got virtually no sleep.  You know what happened Friday night, but last night is something else.  I blame my husband, the pillow thief for my lack of sleep last night.  I was so happy going to bed last night.  I just knew I was gonna get to sleep in.  I made sure that the ringer was off on the phone, so nobody could call and wake me.  The dogs were all snuggled up in their beds, with visions of rawhide dancing in their heads.  A nice rainy morning was in the forecast.  So, it was gonna be perfect.  Then it happened.  My husband took my pillows and got our pillows mixed-up!  I've only been telling him to keep his hands off of my pillows for 15+ years now, so why would he know not to take them, right?  In my exhaustion, I didn't realize that they pillows were mixed-up.  My little angel of a 2 year old decided that bedtime was optional, as usual, and was in and out of bed until about 4am.  My dear, sweet hubby, who had gotten about 10 hours of sleep Friday night, was apparently exhausted and sleep deprived, so he let me deal with the angel while he snored.  I wasn't gonna get mad,so I just dozed in-between being used as a jungle gym.  Little man got in bed for good around 4am, but wasn't sound asleep until hours later, like 5 hours later.  I had to snuggle him until then, or he would cry out.  When he finally was totally settled, I tried to roll over to get a little more comfortable, only to find that someone had apparently stabbed me during the night without my knowledge.  But, there was no blood!  Then I realized, my hubby had my pillows and I had his!  It felt like someone had taken a knife and put it in my neck and just ran it down to the middle of my shoulder blades.  PAIN!  Trust me, I don't suffer from back pain often, but this was BAD.  I have a very high pain tolerance (natural labor with 3 kids, 1 of which was over 9 pounds).  I couldn't move without severe pain.  I turned this way and that, but no relief.  So, I gave-up and went downstairs to see if the sofa would give me the support I needed to relieve my pain.  It took a little over an hour, but the sofa did the trick, thank goodness.  Once I felt better, I proceeded to make the pillow snatcher get up and out of bed and listen to me bark at him.  Henceforth he shall be known to me as "pillow thief."

The moral of this story folks:  Make sure that you have very different pillow cases than your hubby, or you to could be a victim of this dreadful crime!  Only you can prevent pillow snatchings!

Well, the holidays are officially over.  Tomorrow we must start back to school, along with doing a million other things.  So, my oldest son asked me if I had the day planned out for tomorrow. I said, "I am going to give you your work.  You will take it to your room, then come downstairs complaining about forgetting everything and being angry because it's all my fault because we took too long off for Christmas.  Then, you will decide to work on another subject, but decide to play the xbox for a few minutes instead.  I will come upstairs about an hour later to see how much progress you have made on your schoolwork, only to find you still playing xbox.  I will then tell you to get to work, and you will say 'In a minute.'"   He rolled his eyes.  Can you imagine?!

Let the beatings commence!

Against my better judgement, I let my daughter have a friend sleepover last night, knowing that I had to get up before the sun this morning.  This is a sweet little girl who has a strict bedtime every night.  So, I assumed that I would be fine, and she would possibly influence my little nocturnal angels to go to bed at a reasonable hour.  Well, let's just say that you know what assume does, and leave it at that!  My youngest angel was pretty co-operative last night, even though he didn't want to give-up his dirt and take a bath.  But when we tried to settle into bed (Yes, he sleeps with me.  Don't judge me!), he kept popping up and not going to sleep, even though I dozed off a couple of times for 20 minutes, or so.  Around 5:15, I heard a door close (Without the knob being used; a real pet peeve of mine), and went to investigate.  There my darlings were, with their friendly partner in crime, playing on the laptop, eating snacks, watching tv, and playing with said friend's newly acquired Ipod touch.  Needless to say, I was pretty upset.  Not only because they didn't get any sleep, but because they were the reason that my little one wouldn't go to sleep.  He kept trying to go out of my room to play with his sisters, and I told him no.  Of course, I marched my darling daughters downstairs and gave them a good tongue lashing.  The angels are in bed now, with threat of the sleepover ending immediately and said friend's parents being brought into the scandal if sleep didn't happen before I got ready to leave the house.  And thus my motto, "Sleep is for wimps!"

Jane Sewmore

Many people name their cars, and nobody thinks they are crazy.  So, why  not name my sewing machine, right?  I have never been one to name items that are inanimate, but I felt the need to this time.  Well, I take that back, I did name my first car.  She was a white GrandAm named Sarah Lee.  I'm not sure where the name came from, but it just got in my head and stuck.  So, she was called Sarah Lee up until the day that I traded her in, with absolutely no remorse, for a shiny, new Honda Civic.  I'm very sentimental, but Sarah Lee smelled to high heavens in the summer, thanks to a drunk friend who mistook SL's center console for a porcelain god and christened her as such.  Imagine how yummy it was to ride in her after that when temps here reached the mid-90's.  So, as soon as opportunity knocked, I answered the door and gave ole Sarah Lee the boot.

Okay, I'm getting off subject here.  I was to discuss Jane Sewmore.  Who is she?  Why do you care?  I will tell you.  She is a wonderful refurbished Janome sewing machine that I ordered online last week.  Her coming has been in the works for a while now.  But, I honestly thought that I was going to wind-up spending hundreds of dollars on a new machine.  Imagine my excitement when I discovered that I could buy a simple, yet reliable, sewing machine for well under a hundred dollars.  I couldn't wait to get my hands on her.  The anticipation was killing me.  She sat in a UPS facility from Dec 30 until Jan 3.   I know, because I tracked her every day, sometimes more than once a day.  She arrived yesterday in the midst of the doggy mess I was cleaning, and the angels sang.  I needed to name her.  My rainbow among the dark clouds of naughty pets.  But what name should she have?  It had to be special.  I thought Jan or Jane, because after all, she is a Janome.  But, would that be too boring?  Then it came to me...

I watch the Tudors on BBC America religiously.  I dvr that baby and watch it as soon as I can rush my children upstairs.  There is a Jane in that tragedy.  And, she didn't lose her head, as a couple of Henry VIII's multiple wives did.  Her name was Jane Seymour, and she brought Henry his most cherished joy, his only son.  I anticipate Jane Sewmore bringing me great joy, not as much joy as a child can bring, but joy none the less.  Jane Seymour was Henry VIII's third wife.  As fate would have it, Jane Sewmore is my third sewing machine.  It's as if it was meant to be.  With a little play of words, I came up with my homage to the Tudors and a perfect name for my treasure. 

I hope to post pics of the treasure that Jane and I create together, as soon as I figure out that part of blogging.  Seem you soon!  Da-har, da-har!