Mama said there'd be days like this...

Wow, was she ever right. Nothing particularly horrible, I'm just cranky. And NO, it's not that. I just feel very behind and with no hope of ever catching up. My house is about to cave in on itself with garbage and I'm just too tired to drag myself out of this chair to do something about it, which is uncharacteristic of me. I keep wearing myself out in my dreams at night - imagining that I am one of the characters on LOST and trying to problem solve all the weird things that are going on with that island. Oh, and last night I dreamt I was pregnant and I was really upset about it and then upset with myself for being upset. dumb.

I don't know what I am stressing about, we are kind of at a lull in our holiday rush. I'm ahead of schedule for shopping. I guess I really feel like Rob and I haven't connected in a while, just too busy running in different circles, I guess.

Next week we are going to Tanya's house to make chocolates for our secret friends. That will be tons of fun, I'm excited. Anyhoo. g-night.

days later

Sorry, that's just the way it is lately.

Everything is going well, except for me being consistently behind in everything. :) I think that's just a holiday thing, though. It's been a really good week so far, except for the kids, they've been kind of bratty.

Got started on the Christmas shopping, that's always fun. It will be a decent christmas this year, thanks primarily to ExpoTv.com. :)

Trying to get caught up on laundry. And we have MOPs this morning. yay! Going to run by the grocery store and stock up, we are in for our first winter storm tonight. Woohoo, I love a good storm if I don't have to go anywhere - which I don't. So we'll make chocolate chip cookies and hole up in our house and it will be so wonderful!

I'm in the final stretch with the christmas cards. Just have to cut out and glue and stickle the crowns, but other than that they look great. I added a little rhinestone on the top of the frame stamp and it gave it the pizazz I was looking for. Now I need to get my newsletter together, something I dread every year but always turns out fabulous. I just wish I knew more about publishing because it would make it a lot easier.

Ooh, I just realized I should send my pictures to Walgreens so I can pick them up after MOPs for some new inspiration - should we get snowed in. Yipee!

iSurvived

Thanksgiving 2006. Wow. It was crazy and awesome and I so hope to do it again next year. Sorry about the lack of blogging, but we still have company. They just ran to Lowes to get us a replacement pane of glass for a window we broke yesterday. That's the kind of uncle everyone wants - shows up at your house and says "What can I fix?"

We've stayed up excruciatingly late every night and the kids pop up at 6:45am (or earlier) so that is kicking our butts, but we are having a blast. I'm sure at some point Joe and Betsy will have to go home, but in the meantime it's been great.

We are learning a lot. First thing, we are realizing that we are not financial failures, and man, that is good to hear. And then, that there is hope, and maybe even a plan, which would seem impossible, but it's not. We've got a lot of praying and discussing to do here in the near future.

wasting the day

Sometimes, when I don't get enough sleep, I'm so unmotivated the next day.

Rob and I were up way too late talking last night, which would have been fine, but Sarah woke up coughing at 6am so it was just way too short of a night for me. I've suffered from lack of motivation all day.

It's kind of a weird day too, that early lazy start. I tried a new caramel corn recipe, it's alright. I've finished up five more Expotv.com videos. That's pretty cool. We watched another episode of LOST, which we are totally and grossly addicted too! Rob brought me a McDonald's chicken snack wrap for lunch (love that man). He totally supports my addiction now the the McRib is back. I watched Jim and Joyce cut out the offending bushes in my front yard. Sarah and I have done a serious amount of snuggling. I've managed to wash the kids sheets. Took a twenty minute power nap, interrupted by some rude 1 ring telemarketing call, just enough to wake me up. And that's about it, pretty much wasted the day. I figure it's ok, probably the last one I'll waste for quite a while, life increases speed here in the next couple days and should maintain momentum through christmas.

okay, take a seat...

I'd hate to have you fall over when I tell you that I scrapbooked today!!

I know!!

It's so exciting. It was overcast today and Sarah was wiped out by our Walmart exhibition. She slept from 11:30am to 2:45pm. I did four scrapbook pages AND took a couple phone calls AND wrote another part for the christmas pageant. I know, I'm a rock star.

Well, not really, but it felt really good. I hadn't played in over a month, and was starting to wonder if I had it in me anymore. Now to finish those christmas cards, grrr.

gobble gobble.

Yep, I bought our turkey today. I had to laugh because the register said "Tom Turkey $13.14" hee hee.

Got a super deal on it - $.69/lb. The nice lady at Walmart price matched it to Schnuck's for me, a whole 30 cents a pound cheaper than Walmart's low price. I bought a nineteen pound bird, the largest I've ever done, I'm pretty psyched. We are having 12-14 guests on Thursday and I know they say 2lbs per person, but a lot of our persons are little people so I am factoring that in. Plus, no one is staying for leftovers. I plan on freezing a lot of it.

I spent all yesterday cleaning house. Of course, I'm not done. The upstairs still needs tackled and it will all need refreshing long before next Thursday, I'm sure. But I'm not too worried about the house, making sure everyone has a good time is far more important to me.

We are hosting all the teenagers in youth on Sunday for a lunch and practice, I'm excited for that too, making chili and caramel rolls. yum.

This week is it - holiday kick-off at the Thoresons. We are decorating the house (in and out) on Saturday, so it will be all ready for turkey-day. Sunday is hanging of the greens and then it's a holiday flurry from there. Woohoo! I love this time of year.

I'm getting something done.

We moved the gigantic pile of brush, so that's alot better now. The yard still looks a little yucky, I need a rake, I guess. Working on the laundry now. Finished putting up the garland - it looks sweet. Wanted to share my Xmas card photos and Eli's kindergarten picture. He's kind of got a goofy grin, but it's totally him right now, so I don't mind it. Last years was better, but this is kind of symbolic of the place he's at in life right now. Such a good looking kid. :)

Got more work to do. always.

good morning

Hi everybody. It's been pretty wierd here this week. More busy-ness. Yesterday I spent the afternoon tearing up my yard - pulling down 20 feet of Morning Glory (still not able to get it all - too far out of my reach), trimming hedges and whacking off these two monstrous bushes in my front yard. Now I have a gigantic pile of brush in the middle of the yard, waiting for Jim to come with his pickup truck and help me haul it off. I had to laugh, one of our teenagers last night said "I like what you did to the bushes, it opens up the front of the house." and I said "What? You mean how I moved them to the middle of the yard?" hee hee. But Joyce assures me, as sad and pathetic as they look naked this winter, they will come back alot prettier in the spring. So my faith is in her gardening ability, not mine.
As you can see from the photo, I also started putting up our christmas decorations - but I ran out of garland and need to go back this morning. Sarah and I are on our way back to Big Lots here in a few moments.
We had a candy making demo last night at WM's. And I won a sample box. Mmmm. So good. Tan really knows her stuff! I might be inspired to make some candy this year, beyond my usual caramels and sponge candy.
I also (Praise God!) got a good start on my christmas cards last night - which I still need to photograph and post. But I'm probably 1/2 way done with them, so that's cool. All while watching my shows last night, you can't beat that! Anyhoo, I've got errands to run and a house to clean and laundry to deal with. Off to make a dent!

recovery
Not even sure where to start. So much has gone on since my last post. Mom was in a horseback riding accident on Thursday. She was walking next to a horse and it fell on her, breaking her right leg. After a weekend of pain, she is in a mid-thigh to ankle cast and sadly won't be able to make it for thanksgiving. I'm so thankful that she is ok - after having a thousand pound animal use her as an easy chair. I feel terrible that she is in so much pain. And I'm really bummed out that she won't be coming for the holidays - I haven't spent any time with Mom since March and I was really looking forward to it - so were the kids.
So then we fast forward to Friday - lots of insanity there - getting the rental van (we lovingly nicknamed it 'the blue streak') was an issue, but it was resolved and only put us an hour behind schedule. Enough so that our laundry was still all over the dining room table and there were dishes in the sink when it was time to leave and Joyce came to watch the kids. Such is life, I guess. I did the best I could with the time I had last week.
So then we loaded up the van and headed out to Springfield, IL (ie- the 'other' springfield) for Momentum '06. I had to laugh - I had six teenage boys ride in my van. I think they were won over by the better sound system. We listened to christian rock and punk all the way there and back and had some awesome conversations. I think that was my favorite part of the trip. God kept giving my divine appointments with teenagers - we'd be rooming together, or standing in a an hour long line for Starbucks (totally worth it) or whatever and it was just amazing to me how everyone is starting to go deeper. The convention itself was wonderful - a good speaker and two great bands. But I really enjoyed the time with students. We got home about 6 on Saturday night, but had to return the van and mess around with that. Sunday was tough. I was tired, but super cranky - so were the kids. It wasn't much fun. Sunday night we projected a movie up on the side of our house and we had 24 students show up to chill with us. Hot chocolate and popcorn kept us warm and it was super fun. We might have to make it an annual event.
Yesterday we just laid low, wiped out from the weekend. We did a little light shopping in the am - found a used Palm for Rob at the Goodwill for forty dollars. He was extatic. Anyhoo, I have about a half a million things to do this morning. Better get to it.