Ahh, a new year!

I feel like the year is off to a very good start! I'm not sure why, I just do! I mean, we just had a tummy bug sweep through the household, swiftly and severely enough to merit me calling in to work the next a.m. That was still in 2011 though, AND that's one thing off the checklist now of things to do. "Major flu bug?" "Check!" Now we can move forward into the new year.

Another big plus, I've gone out and run both days of the new year. Santa geared me up to run safely this winter, so I have no excuse. I got a flashing red light to clip on me, some foot accessories involving carbide spikes to put over the bottom of my running shoes, and I got a "worker jacket." I will include a photo of that possibly tomorrow. Suffice it to say that if anyone sees me running in that thing, they may think there's a fleeing utility worker and glance around nervously for the utility box that's about to explode. It's actually really cute and I love it..super comfy and perfect, right down to the zippered outside pockets I can use for a flashlight in one and my cell phone in the other, the soft cuffs that do a swell job at keeping the arctic air out and a hidden hood I can pull out of its zippered compartment to act as a wind breaker over my stocking cap on the really blustery days! It's an honest-to-goodness utility jacket. Oh, the "worker guy" thing...it's what one of my kids said when I opened it Christmas morning, "Oohhhh, that looks like a worker guy jacket!". It is, Dearie, it is. And I....I could be considered a worker guy!

Today it really helped to have a little mutt...I mean, pup...barking so loudly it honestly hurt our ears! As brutal as it seems to have to brave the elements and do what we have to do to burn this high energy dog's excess energy, believe me when I say it, it's truly more brutal to have to endure his barking! Going on a run with him Is well worth the trade-off of him being quiet for a few hours. And, going on a run with him is worthy of a post entirely devoted to that to topic! I will have to post about that when I post the pic of my running gear.

Oh yeah, a lovely event that happened the other day: our deep freeze was meddled with and we did nt discover it until one fine moment when one of the kids went to retrieve a food item from it and returned saying that the freezer smelled downright rotten. Yes indeedy it did! All our meat had rotted and the freezer smelled like we were storing cadavers in it. Thank you little toddler boy! I know you did it! BUT again, it happened in 2011. Done with. Another thing to check off our list. "Get rid of all our frozen foods! Time to start fresh for the new year!" "Check! Done deal!"

So, all in all, a very good start to 2012. A very good start indeed!

Testing

Okay, so now I can see if I can start posting images on my blog again..

See why I never post pics of myself? Eww! Oh well, like someone so kindly reminded me, "Cameras never lie!" Gee, thanks! In other words, no that is not a bad picture of you, you just always look that bad. :/

Mom, you have a BIG butt.

Just the other day, I went into the bathroom to prepare a mop bucket. My reigning princess was sitting upon her throne (the porcelain one). I bent over the tub to run the water, rinse the mop, and so on. Apparently my rear-end was right in her line of vision so she had no choice but to inspect it...and come to the conclusion that, "Mom. You have a big butt." I replied, "Yes I do. And you, Miss Izzy, have a small butt." She then said, in her little dramatically wistful whine, "Ohhh Mooom, when I grow up I want to be a mom just like you!" Then a pause, then, "Even if I do have a big butt. That's okay, right?" I said, "Yeah, that part's pretty unavoidable. When you get to be a mom like me, your butt is just going to be big."

An outing

Tonight, I decided it was high time to take a couple of my daughters out after the little kids were tucked in. These two fine young ladies babysit every Tuesday and Thursday night while I and the two oldest girls go to our martial arts class. E has been traveling the past many weeks, otherwise he is here when we go but they still do the majority of the work when we are gone to class.

We had so much fun tonight! We first went through MacD's drive-through and ordered small peppermint hot chocolates for them and a peppermint mocha for me. Mmmmm. We just sat in the parking lot in a toasty warm car, reminiscing. They remembered many things, "Remember when I ran away, Mom?" Me: "Um, which time?" "The time you had to call the cops to help look for me." Me: "Uh...yeah, I think I faintly remember that! Yeah, I very clearly remember that!" Also, "Remember when you climbed up on the roof and put Christmas lights all along the eaves of our house?" Me: "Yup. I remember that. I loved our house that Christmas." Fia: "I so badly wanted to come up there with you!" Me: "Yes, and I remember clearly fearing you would. You were a kind of fearless little gal." Fia: "Remember when Dad made you hot chocolate while you were up there?" Me: "Yes. And I scooted over along the roof to that skinny kitchen window and you guys handed out the hot chocolate. Then we drank our hot chocolate together, me outside the window, you guys inside. It was a very chilly evening and my hands were really cold. That hot chocolate was perfect!" Fia: "I so badly wanted to climb out that window and come up on the roof with you and help you with the lights." Me: "Yes, and I remember clearly fearing you would. I half expected to see you climbing out that window once you realized you could. And I remember you begging Dad to come out there."

Then, we took off for a little drive around town. We ended up slowly lally-gagging through this most amazing, idyllic neighborhood with houses that look like giant dollhouses and wonderfully landscaped front patches of yard...almost every house with a darling set of porch rockers or porch chairs on their beautiful porches. So then we dreamed of getting either into a larger house or a place with some acreage to roam...and to have a dog...and chickens...and gardens...and apple orchards. Mmmm, dreaming!

Onward to talk of IF we get another puppy, a Golden Retriever/Husky mix. They are called Goberians, I think. From what I read later, they would be very, very good personality dogs for small children, all people, other animals, etc. THey just require very good exercise or they can be very hyper. We plan to have it as a running companion and a sled puller in our yard in the winter, just to give it "work" to do (pull kids in sleds). We dreamed, we schemed, we planned, we plotted. Mmmmm, dreaming! :)

Then we came home to nearly everyone, including the big girls, sleeping!

What a good outing!

Out of the mouths of....Princesses!

Izzy (lying on the bathroom floor as I was getting ready to go to our martial arts class): blah, blah, blah...lying...blah, blah. And you can't lie, right? Cause that's hell, right? When you lie, that's called hell...right?

Me, suddenly tuning in: Uh...oh, you mean lying is a sin, right?

Izzy: Yeah, it's a sin...and blah, blah, heaven, blah, blah, you can burn there, right?

Me: Oh, you mean if you go to hell instead of heaven, you could burn there. Yup.

Izzy: And there's that Level that lives there. It's that Evil Level guy that lives there, right?

Me: Yup. It's that Evil Level that lives there....

End of Discussion

Someone had a deep discussion with her, I guess.

Well, what do you know?

I'm on a roll. Two days in a row of blogging. I think I will give myself a Diligence Award!

What can I say about today? Hmmm...we currently have some logs being sawed by a few people in this house. I do wish I could join them. I am tired.

Well, tomorrow is going to be a busy day, like usual for Thursdays. I guess it will even be busier than usual. We have PT for Baby at 1pm. That means we need to have this house in presentable shape by then. THat can be a feat in itself. We also need to work a little harder on some of the exercises with her because I don't want the PT to feel like it's a waste of her time to be coming out here.

Also, we have our usual Ao Denkou Jitsu class at 5 but tomorrow night I need to pick up sparring equipment for our karate class and help run the beginners' class as well as our intermediate/advanced class that our girls are in. That means I miss ADJ again....but am still running the girls there, dropping them off and a sis-in-law will pick them up afterwards. From there, I run to another town close to ours, pick up the gear and paperwork, and run to the town we have karate in, set up, run the two classes, get the paperwork together afterwards to send with one of the adult students that lives near our main instructor...

Then off to bed so I can get up early FRiday morning for work....I have a 12 hour shift Friday. Then I'm off for the weekend! :)

Well, I'm being beckoned to help go through some pics my oldest is going to edit.

Ta-da!

Oops! I forgot!

I was supposed to blog every day! I've probably thought about it every day but never realized so many days have slipped by since I blogged last.

Hmmm, so much goes on in this life but when I sit down to write about it, my mind flat-lines.

I was knocked down flat the other night and all day yesterday due to a stomach ailment of unknown origin. None of my kids were sick so that should rule out any tummy bug 'cause I just don't get sick unless I've had all 8 kids rotate through some nasty bug 3 times each, taking turns at it for a week straight, ill with ill symptoms day and night...then finally, after enduring all that goes with tending to children that are ill with ill symptoms, not sleeping a wink for 168 days (as it would add up if each of the 8 children was ill for a week straight then repeated the rotation 3 times..), I finally collapse and get ill, with ill symptoms myself...Since all THAT didn't happen, I wonder if it was a food-borne illness.

It. was. horrible. To say the least. I woke up at about 1:something a.m. with knife-like stomach pain that would double me over. I went to the bathroom and emptied my insides of a pure-water-like-substance...multiple times... I went to lie down for a bit only to have to make a run again for the bathroom. By this time E was up, getting ready to run out the door to the airport for his 4th week in a row work trip. He sat and rubbed my back as I was lying on the couch, groaning, then holding my breath, then groaning, curled up in a ball as wave after wave of knife slices went through my stomach.

Well, to make my long story short, I was curled up in a ball all day yesterday, sleeping, groaning and sitting on the toilet.

Today proved to be a much better day, provided I didn't try push my luck and eat a tiny dabbling of ice cream (that brought on the knife pains again, just not as severe).... I sat out of my martial arts class and watched and learned (a lot, I might say) from the sidelines since I was so wiped out and still had water-like stool throughout today.

That's all I have to say about my stool-laced adventures! :)

Our house is a disaster zone! BUT, I've finally decided that, since it's gotten considerably worse since I've started working again but our finances have finally started to get considerably better, so that we are finally getting caught up again after 2 months of me working again...I'd much rather be losing control of the house than losing the house due to lack of finances. This is a much better option. AND, guess what! I work ALL day shifts now!!! Can you believe after all those years of working nights, I work days? I just got onto that schedule where I work every Friday, 7a-7p and every other Saturday and Sunday, 7a-7p. Then, I have another client that has 8 hour shifts that has many openings every week that I can pick up shifts with the weeks that E's work in slow and he's in town. So, as much as I resisted going back to work, it's actually going pretty well...the kids seem to understand that it's essential and are being pretty good about doing their jobs while I'm gone too. It's just that certain tasks, like dishes and laundry are my jobs while they pretty much cover the rest of the main living area...so my jobs, if E isn't around, get left undone. Usually E is home Fridays, so that's why I've chosen to work them. Then he can help with the homeschooling a bit, although I try to plan most of our work M-TH, with Fridays being independent work day...I assign them Math and then whatever they need to catch up on...usually handwriting and maybe Science.

Homeschooling has been getting more and more random, which makes me nervous at times, but at the same time, I notice a lot of the informal stuff we do has actually lots of learning laced into it. And the girls seem to be loving it and I see a big inner shift in a lot of them when we are homeschooling. Very good character building, self-motivation, leadership skills, self-discipline, super good interpersonal skills have been developed between all of them....all those good things that they actually work on in school. And this is in a very natural, real-life situation where emotions and tempers can oftentimes run high and uninhibited, unlike in a school setting, where most nice kids are on company-behavior mode (and not-so-nice kids aren't).

I've seen a lot of maturing and confidence develop in these guys. And we still have a lot of time to cram in the academics once the snow flies...which we tend to do.

Well, now, off to bed.

The End