"Bushed" - Adjective...Definition: exhausted

I'm afraid that I've kept meaning to write on here but the weekend ended up being ridiculously busy which was only followed by what has become an insane week.

Ahhh, where to start?

Well, Thursday night I had to make some signs for an Open Mic night that Coast was hosting. I know, I know, I could have slapped some construction paper on a piece of cardboard and called it a day - but where's the fun in that??

So I whipped out all that painting gear I keep stashed under the bed, threw down a solid $3 for poster board, and went to work.

I complained a lot. Just not going to lie on that part. Complained to Scott about...myself. Why I do these things to myself, how much my knees were going to reach up and strangle me if I spent just one more hour on the floor bent over the work...yaddah yaddah. What a big mouth I have.

However, I was quite happy with the end results:

One for the street

Think Rey Giese will hire me?

And the other for inside. I hope the night went well even though I couldn't be there.

Friday night was brother Tim's birthday -- 19!! Scott and I got him a top hat as it was easily one of the most interesting things on his list of gift requests.

How fun is that? I wish everyone requested such amazing gifts. They are such fun to hunt down and to give. Happy birthday little brother!

Saturday, the mister and I headed up to Temec for a weekend away, and more importantly, for Julie's bridal shower. Such a good time!

I won't put many pictures up (I took 300 +) because I don't want to do so without people's permission (I'd rather not have one of those "Julie and Julia" moments where someone has to ask me to not put something in my blog...so let's keep things on the safer side, eh? Although I may have to include just a feeeew of my favs. Please forgive me!)

The Taylor residence was Gorgeous and perfect for the occasion

(This one is for Kirs and Ruthie ~ it's where the big butts are kept :)

You must check out this beauty. The perfect cake. Ah, delicious and gorgeous. Wish you could have had a taste!

She's a cutie pahtootie bride to be

I thoroughly enjoyed my piece to the last bite. Mmm Mmm good. It was a fantastic party with lots of fun ladies and good laughs. Not to mention all the yummy food. Only a few more days until the real deal and then what a party we'll have!

This was one of my favorites...I think it's just lovely :)

Little Jack was just so excited and enthralled by this clock, it was humorous just to watch and giggle at his attempts to stare as long as possible.

Last but not least from the weekend, Scott and I are in the market for a coffee table, but we want something not too standard and perhaps with some storage options. We can use all we can get. We found this beauty in an antique store and it's a possible consideration

Hmmm...any thoughts?

Well, the real reason that I am so whooped actually doesn't have a great deal to do with the busy weekend at all, at least not much. I was called in to sub this week for a teacher at the preschool and as it turns out I may be subbing for about 3 weeks. 7:30-4:30 every day is an awfully sudden change from "Here's a butt load of free time every day Heidi!" All projects are on hold for now since Scott and I are on day two and just wiped out. Looks like we'll be catching up on everything this weekend.

One of the more fun parts of working more is that with the paycheck I just got, I'm going to paint!! Woohoo!!! Gray here we come. Too bad I hate the actual paint-ing part of painting. I just like the end results :) Paint-ing is tiring people! I don't know why people choose to do it as a living. Rey, I'll be your apprentice any day, but painting the walls...no thank you.

Oh well, I can't seem to Bippity Boppity Boop it so Home Depot, here I come.

Alright, if I want even a prayer of being able to rise from the dead tomorrow morning, I have about 3 minutes to brush my teeth and climb into bed.

Hope you all are doing well out there in cyber space. Sleep well.

Incorrigible

I don't remember what movie that makes me think of, but it makes me faintly think of some girl in a movie. Ever helpful this memory of mine.

Anyway I'm afraid that I myself am incorrigible. I must tell you, I stole yesterday. No, I didn't steal the day yesterday, I stole stuff yesterday. You can have yesterday for all I care.

I was in Michaels and I have a new project that I'm working on and I just needed a few samples of leaves, I was already buying one thing of flowers and one cluster of leaves, but I wanted a variety to test with...so I did it. I bent down and picked up a handful of loose leaves that fall off the clusters. It must have been 10 cents worth at least. Then I bought my legit merchandise and just left. Walked out! Like I didn't even have a conscience.

I am one dangerous character. But it doesn't end there.

Then...I stole from California.

Yes. I went out and Intentionally plucked these flowers from their natural habitat and then brought them home for my own use! Horrendous really. I'm expecting Ranger Rick to pound down my door at any moment. In which case I may have to eat the flowers to hide the evidence. Don't ask why.

You're wondering where it will all end, I know.

Not just yet unfortunately...the thievery part, yes, the incorrigible-ness, no way.

I've known it for a little while now, but was too ashamed to admit it. Then I would just argue to myself about it, surely you can't be serious! No way! You want to do what?? That's just wrong.

I can't fight it any longer though - I think I want to repaint our house!!! Gah, there I said it. I am my mother's child! I always teased her for painting the house a different shade of whatever every month and now....now just look at me! No don't! I'm too ashamed.

I keep finding myself dreaming of some grays or maybe very muted greens. I need help.

But let's change the subject to anything more cheery, shall we?

I have successfully finished a decorating project or two. My new inspiration board was last night's While We Watch TV project:

I bought a large wood poster frame from Target, and some heavy off white cloth, and began my craft. All it took was a layer of cardboard, some extra cork board sticky stuff I had, and voila! I put it above our desk so we can put up any inspirations we may have. I already have a bunch of pictures, sketches, and ideas to throw on there, but it will have to wait. Other things are in line.

Also, over the weekend, I finished these


Little house slippers from that blue yarn I got in my Blue Phase. Super comfy and nice just to wear around the house.

Lastly, my mini herb and veggie "garden" (aka variety of pots on our porch) have begun sprouting!


Well, I really need to get back to things and stop pretending that the large pile of new projects isn't sitting in the corner clamoring for their turns


Someone really needs to stop me. At least many of my projects are being completed though, that's a plus. Normally I just have remnants of past projects that fell off the face of the earth/my mind and are now stashed in a drawer somewhere.

I just need to forget this painting thing for a while. At least let this color stay for another month.

Maybe.

Of course I forgot

Well, they shut off our water again this morning. Naturally this time I did not remember and was in perhaps the second of the worst situations I could be in when they did it. First I think would have to be mid shower, that would be the worst. Suds in the hair and everything. Second would be if you were using the facilities.

I was wondering why the darn thing wouldn't fill the tank with water again and had proceeded to take off the back lid before it dawned on me. Phooey. I'm an idiot.

This also meant that I had to use the last trickles of water from the bathroom sink to wash my hands. Blech.

Since I cannot yet take my shower, I might as well fill you in on the rest of our weekend activities.
Scott and I have been buzzing around a bit this last weekend. We both worked Friday and got home exhausted.

[interjection] I almost forgot, Friday was 4 year olds again, fun, but this class was tiring! I guess they are known as a loud class so getting them to calm down took many of the tricks up my sleeves. And loads of patience. The worst was right after nap (nap time is a glorious thing...2 hours of children lying still and quiet, happily dreaming and producing alarming quantities of drool) - after nap we had a snack and I guess something in his lunch just set this little boy's tummy off because as I served their snack I came across his part of the table and it was like Insta-Tears. The fumes were alarming. What he had for lunch, I have no idea. Yowza.

Naturally this set the kids off - "Ewwwwwww, who tooted?!" fingers pointing, accusations flying, denials desperately being thrown out. Then the giggling. Oh how funny tooting is. So funny in fact, we should talk about it for the duration of snack time. At this point, there is very little you can do to stop any of this. Tooting is just too funny to a kid and there's no way to get them to stop giggling about it. I did put a quick stop to the "Let's replicate the sound of various toots while we simultaneously try to eat crackers" bit. Eesh. Conversation kept rolling though, "My dad tooted like a hundred times at my house!", "My brother always toots!", "I tooted ten times in my car!!" each exclamation followed by uncontrollable giggling.

The only truly terrible part of all this was that the boy who had actually begun the entire thing took ownership of his deed and worse -- took pride in it! This was followed by a proud proclamation whence a replication of the act was successful. It wouldn't have been so bad had he not had sulfur and bananas for lunch. Well, trying to toot in class is just not ok, but most especially when it is that pungent.

I got him to stop ... for the moment. But when movie time rolled around, he happened to be sitting right next to the computer where I controlled the video and when I ventured to adjust the volume, I was met with a wall of rotting eggs and indian food. He was cracking up but I had to put an end to this. Clearly there was an explosion in his intestines and I couldn't have it airing out in the room any longer, so I took a breath of clean air, squatted down to his eye level and told him that if he needed to pass gas again he needed to go use the bathroom. He told me, "You don't know when it's coming though". Ok, maybe true. I counteracted with, "But lots of times you do know, and I think that you are trying to do it to get the kids to laugh (and pass out), so next time I need you to go use the bathroom".

It happened once more and I just looked at him and pointed to the restrooms. He piped up, "I didn't know!" ...Riiiiighht.... But I made him go anyway, my reasoning being that his body was trying to tell him something and he needed to listen to it. Before he exploded.

Lucky for me, his mom came and picked him up just after this. I felt like warning her to drive with the windows down or she would have one horrible commute, but I was too relieved to see him go to think much about other people's air.

Other than this incident, the day was relatively uneventful - meaning that there was nothing that really stood out, NOT meaning that it was not full of events and me constantly doing something, controlling something, calming someone, cleaning messes, and the such. The preschool was trying out a new plan of only having the kids go out for outside playtime once a day instead of three times. I must say, I don't know that I support this and had considered a few times sneaking all nine of my children out just to run laps. A classroom is just not big enough for that kind of energy.

The rest of the weekend was full of going away parties, Temecula, wedding planning, lots of driving, and home decorating. I decided on Sunday that it is high time I started decorating our place and spent the day yesterday hunting down specific items needed. I have a few projects to work on today but I'll show and tell later.

I still have to wait 2 more hours before I can shower. Guess it's as good a time as any to vacuum.

Hope your Tuesday is going well and you are lookin better than me at this hour :]

death of a speedy friday proposal

Our building's water is being turned off sometime this morning, supposedly between 8 and 11. Therefore, what do Scott and I do? We wait until 7 minutes to 8 to jump out of bed and get our showers in before they might shut it off. We live on the edge. Unfortunately this meant that we cut into our regular Multiple Alarm regimen we have going. So we may be completely thrown off for the rest of today, who knows.

Since I got my shower in so early today, we can consider this Getting Up At A Decent Hour Day 2. Again, all is done by 10. By mid-afternoon yesterday I decided to watch some movies to help the time pass while I did laundry and such. So yesterday was His Girl Friday and Sandra Bullock day

His Girl Friday: good, predictable, but a classic Cary Grant film.

Sandra Bullock...I watched some of The Proposal, not worth it, and then I turned on Speed.


Question: why is Keanu such a bad actor? Is it so hard to have even an inkling of emotion in your acting? At the line "I have to warn you, I've heard relationships based on intense experiences never work." I threw up. I had forgotten just how bad it was and didn't have time to plug my ears or press mute before the nails on the chalkboard began.

Yeow.

Today is Death of a Salesman which is depressing and hurts my head a little, but it's one of those movies that you can't just stop in the middle and not see how it ends, even if the end makes you groan. It's a classic.

So we'll see how it turns out. I kind of feel like punching Dustin Hoffman at this point which is too bad since I usually like him. But maybe it'll get better.

Yea, no, I don't think it will.

Life before 9

I Believe in Miracles

Cue music for this post.

This song was playing in my head this morning as I was getting ready for the day. Not because of the "you sexy thing" part (maybe after my shower and tooth brushing), more so the "I believe in miracles" part.

I was resolved to get up this morning and not just stay vertical long enough to see Scott out the door, breakfasted and with lunch in hand, before succumbing to the sexy voice of my pillow - but really and truly up and awake. If I crawl back into bed, that is it. Game over friends, I knock out and there's no telling when my fabulous bed hair will make it's next appearance. And the more I try to wake myself up, the more I think, But Why? I'm not working today, I'm certain all the chores will still be there when I do decide to rise from the dead, and everyone else is busy until late afternoon, so why should I bother?


However, although sleeping in always feels delicious to some degree, I really prefer getting up early most days of the week with only occasional sleep in mornings. Otherwise sleeping in becomes gross. Much better for it to be an occasional and coveted treat. Trust me, the more you do it on a regular basis, the more you feel like life is slipping away from you, you start questioning all of your basic theology from under the covers, and worst of all, your morning breath lasts longer.

Not this morning though! I rolled out of bed when Scott's 3rd or 4th alarm went off, hopped in and out of the shower, threw on some sweats and made coffee. The first thing I did when Scott left was make that darn bed so my chances of winning this battle increased about 10 fold.

I am now make up-ed, hair done-ed, breakfasted, (more importantly) coffee-d, and although I look like a giant gray workout monster - I am clothed in a fashion. Kitchen, bathroom and bedroom are all cleaned and all this accomplished by 9!! A modern day miracle my friends!

Ahh.

...

So....what should we do now? Nap anyone?

A Sunday tidbit

Scott, Kirstie, and I were laughing about Modern Family today at lunch (Ramen, Yum!) and this scene came up. Such goodness.


"Excuse me, Meryl Streep could be Batman and be the right choice."


Justin and Ashley, we want to buy the first season and watch it with you guys. Scratch that, all of the seasons :} Let's hang out soon.

where do babies come from?

I worked with 3 year olds yesterday and found that from this experience, I have discovered 4 profound truths.

1) Children that are 3 are often much whinier, more stubborn, and less self sufficient (as in a poop in the pants episode from yesterday. No, I won't even tell you.) than children that are 4. It is much harder to get them to do what you want them to do because they are still stuck on the word "No" and think that it makes everything in the world start going their way. i.e. "[little girl's name], it's time for a nap, please lay on your mat and rest your body." "No! ... I don't waaaant to" Well bummer for you kid.
Unfortunately for them, that doesn't fly so well in my world.

2) I have met the smartest child, I am convinced, that I will ever meet. She sat down and read the class a book about dragons and castles. The other children "read" it as in, turned the pages, said something like, "Then there was some green gooey stuff and they gots it all on themselves. And the horse was grey" and then giggled and turned the page the wrong way so we started over again. She read every freaking word. Read it. Children at 3 can usually tell you how to spell their first name, sometimes can't remember their last name, and can count up to 14...on a good day, 20.
My jaw dropped as she flawlessly and without hesitation read the entire book. Better than some 3rd graders I know. Which is almost 3 times her age by the way. She read the word "drawbridge" for crying out loud. Yea, I'm still floored.


3) One of my new favorites was telling me a story about babies and cats. It was fantastic to get a peek into his little mind and see how things connect. And it was hilarious. This is what he told me (insert some looking at the ceiling and deep breathing as he tries to find words periodically)

"Miss Heidi, I don't have a cat but uh but one time my mom got in a wedding and then I got in her tummy and then I came out and we had 1 cat and then my mom got in a wedding again and got [sister's name] in her tummy and then she came out and we didn't have a cat then. But now when we get a big house I'm going to have 2 dogs and 2 cats [holding up two fingers on each hand] and you can come over and two more friends for my birthday. It's almost my birthday and we're going to have cake. And you can come over and play with my dark knight in my room."

By the way, it's not that his mom has been married twice, this is just how he thinks you get pregnant. Something that his parent's told him got translated in his little mind and this is now the logical answer to where babies come from. And maybe cats too?

So cute. He also showed me a scratch on his wrist and told me that it was ok because God would heal it when he went home.

4) Calling someone a baby is the worst insult you can conjure up. Even worse than "poop head" shockingly enough. You have no idea how many times I heard some little girl (and a few boys) come up to me and sob, "Miss Heidi? He-e-e-e called me a Ba-a-a-by!" Sniff sniff, bury their head on my shoulder.
Surely the world is at an end.

Well, I have come away, sore from squatting and bending, with more patience, and with greater enlightenment than when I began. Thank you 3 year olds.

I think I need some cookies now.

On fountains and such

I have to confess. This morning I was minding my own business cleaning the bedroom and bathroom when and I saw the mister's Neti Pot squirty thing. If you don't know what this is, I'm warning you, this story is a little gross, but life is gross sometimes. The Neti Pot is for nasal congestion. You basically fill it with warm water, add the salt/baking soda mixture they give you, and give it a little squirt. Presto, fresh as a daisy.

There is absolutely no good reason for her to be smiling.

Yuck, I know.

There is no good way to explain why my curiosity got the best of me on this one. My nose has been bugging me for a while now and maybe the standard Tissue to Face and Blow method just hasn't been good enough. Who knows, it's gross, trust me - I've learned my lesson.

The experience was...unpleasant and relatively ineffective. Maybe I just imagined more of a voluminous response and I realize I probably was not doing it "just right". My head angle/blowing or nonblowing/squirting speed/or earth's gravitational pull were probably not quite right, but it was my first time, give me a break. Well, first and last.

After I had rinsed, kleenexed, and washed sufficiently, I swore that habit off and went about my day. Didn't really give it another thought.

1.75 hours later...I am in the kitchen making myself some pasta. As I poured the little shell noodles into my boiling water, one decided this was his lucky break and shot across the kitchen floor. When I bent over to pick the sucker up, yea, you guessed it. A fountain of water came out my nose. Fountain. Buckets really. As this is not a usual occurrence in life for me, I think I yelled, "Bleeah!! What?!?" as I frantically grabbed for a paper towel. I stood in the middle of the kitchen, a little shell shocked for a while, holding the paper towel to the unexpected geyser in my face. I also noticed that my eyes were watering profusely so I grabbed another napkin to mop those up.

Dangerous tool my friends. I can't imagine if I'd been at work or the market or something. How on earth do you explain that. "Sorry, sometimes when I bend my body leaks"??

I'm not sure what the lesson was here, but trust me, I learned it good. It was either Never Touch Things That Shoot Water Into Your Body Where You Usually Blow Boogers Out, or Let All Noodles Be Free. I'll let you know when I've figured it out.

For now I need to recover.

Let me tell you...

Jen mentioned in an email a while back that anyone breathing and with a kick of humor in them should check out Modern Family. I logged that somewhere in the back of my mind along with, "Oh! We need sour cream" -- also known as, Things I Will Forget That I Intentionally Am Trying To Remember. Most commonly this list has any groceries I think about throughout the day that we need and don't bother to write down since I have a Most Excellent Memory, funny things I want to tell Jana, Robin, or Scott, birthdays, where I put that dang rolling pin, and whether or not I replied to emails.

However, recently I was working on a more mundane dinner/kitchen cleaning task, and decided that some visual entertainment might be nice and magically my brain recalled the name of the show.

Hilarious. My favorite character is Cameron - Mitchell's partner. And Mitchell. And maybe Manny. They are the best. Scott and I laughed ridiculously hard at the Moon Landing episode. Holy Moly.

Scott's favorite character is Phil I think. But Cam almost got him with the moon landing.

So if you haven't watched it...do. But more importantly, if you know where on earth (online) that I can watch ALL of the episodes LET ME KNOW!! I am Huluing it now, but they only post 5 random episodes at a time. Poopers.

Gimme gimme gimme, I need I need I need!


Bill Murray at his finest.

Well, I decided to kick this week off right...so I need to go finish baking some cookies.

Haben Sie eine gute Nacht!

5 Things That Are Great About Being Married

I enjoy thinking about this particular subject these days and thought I'd share a few of my favorites with you. If I've left something out, by all means, comment and let me know what I missed :}

1. You don't have to leave each other, or say goodnight and then drive home. We are home! You aren't alone anymore (except when one of you is at work and the other is at home, say, on the computer...then technically, yes, you're alone) and time together at home becomes something very precious.

2. We are hilarious. So many fantastic memories have already shown up and I can't wait for more to come. Seriously people, we are laughing all the time. At/With each other- makes no difference.

3. You grow and learn new ways to love and serve each other and how to be served and loved.

4. You gain super powers. Scott and I are telepathic now. No kidding.

5. If you're a girl you can get an awesome new last name. Think about it, your whole life you've been one person, and suddenly you get an alter ego. A whole new start! Pretty amazing. I practiced signing my name yesterday :}


Scott and I agree, this has been the best chapter of life so far...trying to enjoy every day of it. Hope you're in a similar position.

So, anything I missed? Anything you're looking forward to?

Date at the Circus

Well, I don't have much, but I thought I'd share the few photos we did get of our fun date to the circus.

This is Scott, trying not to worry

I'm afraid it was a minor panic attack getting there because there was a GIANT accident on the 5North and it had started to rain pretty heavily so we were worried about more heavy traffic.
Fortunately we got there and parked 8 minutes before the show started, but not before the Lord decided it was time to whip out his reserve Raindrops of Gargantuan Size and pelt Del Mar with them. I despairingly looked at the distant tent from inside the cozy car and down at my heels. So much for dressing up...

I wish we had parked this close...but we were really something more like

this far. With raindrops the size of skull crushing gumballs coming down.

Of course we did not have an umbrella. We'd done a mad search for one before leaving the house but couldn't find anything in time and finally just had to go. So...I grabbed a catalog from the mail we'd picked up

and we sucked it up.

Then we ran, I think some of the time as I ran/waded through small continent-dividing bodies of water we were yelling and running ("AhhhhhHHHHhhh!!") ... at least people moved out of the way then.

We reached the line to get in about 6 minutes before the starting and just as they announced that late comers would have to wait until an appropriate moment before being ushered to their seats.

soaked

Once inside though we had a wonderful time

The music was fantastic, and the acts were just so fun.


This was our favorite one. It was fun to be a part of the audience and hear all the gasps and "Ahhhh!" s after each ridiculously frightening thing that they did.


Great time with the mister, and Chase and Michelle, you guys will love it!

Note to self: Find/Buy/Swipe an umbrella soon.