Shared Email--I Have A Big Wonderful Family

I ask questions to let you know I care and am still thinking about your family, not because I have to have answers. I hate when I don't hear anything after sharing that I need help and faith and prayers. Don't want you to feel alone in a big family.
Love,
(family member)


Thank you. Family has been super supportive. Even the one-liner "praying for you" coming from everyone has been great. It is almost a relief to have your questions, to talk it out. My visiting teacher has been great and supportive and helpful with the details of living with the rest of the kids at home and getting them where they need to be. Suzu has driving test next week, which I need her to pass so she can drive herself to work!

And through it all, early morning seminary! I feel blessed during class to focus and teach, and then when they have all left for school I crash emotionally and remember.

Kiss your babies, and keep teaching them about repentance. We are all lost sheep. We all need the Savior. And He is the Good Shepherd, my Redeemer, my Support, my Constant, my Cure, my Help.

Love,
me

Some Things Stay the Same/Something Else Must Change

HAPPY FOREVER FAMILY DAY to my parents & parents by marriage!  Pretty cool they share an anniversary date!  Same day, same place, different year, same marriage longevity and happiness!

My in-laws frequently comment about the changes here at home.  My nephew who comes every school morning has to be careful where he flings his tired body, making sure there is still a couch where he remembered one...YES, I love to change, experiment, play with color, paint, arrangements of furniture.  So Ta-DA!  The latest:

Front hallway and coat closet door, looking from living room archway.  Frog Tape has a great reputation, but my highly textured walls did not cooperate.  It just wouldn't stick, no matter how hard I rubbed it, coaxed it, re-applied.  So I will not be stripe-making whole hallway like I envisioned.  And the pink isn't salmony enough to match living room ceiling.  And the black really looks like dark brown.  And the green ceiling has to go, or the pink.  Or the black turn to gray, the pink to white.

  Here is the inspiration picture from HGTV designer portfolio of a show home in MD.  Black walls can be rich--the snake skin texture on these fascinates me, but love the profile picture, sharp contrasts.

Yellow ceiling would solve my hallway.  Black and white and yellow.  Come look again for the next experiment in color/painting.

Wuthering Heights, Babysitting, & Boss/Secretary

This post is a little whiny-complainy, but it ends with painting (pictures promised tomorrow!).

When the family of my youth lived in Iowa during the 70's, my next younger sister & I shared a basement bedroom.  Far, far away from our parents.  Walking in the front door and around a corner (I still dream of this home) you could go up stairs to three bedrooms and a bathroom; or you could through the living room, dinning room and kitchen to downward stairs that led to a huge family room (where Dad taught early morning seminary, Old Testament!) and then continue to far end of family room to basement-leading stairs.  Not just one or two steps.  I don't remember ever hearing footsteps overhead?  Well-insulated, or finished ceilings???

This window-less basement bedroom is where I read "Wuthering Heights" under the blankets by flashlight because I couldn't stop and had to see how it ended and I had been told to go to sleep and turn out the light and stop keeping my sister awake.

It is where one of us killed the mouse we both stepped on (imagine bare feet, cold cement floor, warm-not-a-dirty-sock-squishy under foot in the dark followed by "TURN ON THE LIGHT!" scream.  Followed by more screaming and tears...).

It is where my sister and I would play an elaborate game:  Boss & Secretary.  We would trade, taking turns with each roll.  The glamorous job was the secretary (why?  What TV shows or media were influencing us?  I remember watching tough strong action heroines in "Wonder Woman" and "Charlie's Angels" and "The Bionic Woman"???).  Being the boss was always boring, nothing to do but make up chores for the secretary to do:  answer the phone, make appointments, type, bring drinks of water.

I have wanted to tell my sister all week that I never want to be the secretary ever again.  She can have the "best" job when we play.  (Sorry I missed your birthday.  Love you and miss you and wish we could play and hang out and talk about books.)

Working full time is awful.  The last week of summer I logged in a 40 hour week.  This last week was 33 hours, with me rushing through my duties and racing home to be there when my middle school baby came home.  That ended up with one day my two high schoolers locked out of the empty house and my huge guilt feelings (they both now have house keys carabiner-ed to their backpacks).  There was lots of racing around getting Suzu's harp to the right place, getting her to work on time, back to back orthodontic appointments, back-to-school errands, dinner to new mom, back-to-school nights...

I understand lots of moms have to do this all the time.  I never have.  (Now, time to clarify.  I have worked this many hours as a mom, when John was out of work and doing the stay-at-home dad thing.  And he still does tons with BOTH of us working.  He cooked dinner 4 days last week.  He grocery shops.  I am not doing this all alone...)  And I would gladly go back to my blissful substitute-here-paint-a-little-here-baby-sit-blocked-out-days-clean-great-grandma's-condo lifestyle.  But the regular "secretary" (branch office assistant official title) is recovering from knee surgery.  I told a mutual friend to pass on that I DO NOT WANT HER JOB PLEASE GET WELL & COME BACK SOON message.  For the last year I have been training, subbing for other boa's on vacation, nice, easy, some stress-but mostly sweet fill-in, FUN secretary stuff.

The day-to-day grind, being responsible for follow-up even when you are tired (HA!  This is the difference between babysitting cute screaming babies and their parents come home so it's not you permanently dealing and go home to your teenage life vs. having your own children and there is no hand-off at 10 pm when the real parents come home from their date and rescue you) is a harsh reality check.

And it is not about the money.  I am keeping my relaxing 6 hour a week job by filling in for the next 4-5 more weeks.  Yes, some extra bills are getting paid off, but my family and I are not ready for me to do this.  I need to get all of them through high school, first.  Meanwhile, I am thankful for the blessing this job has been to our family.  I am thankful for the money management skills, the training in finances, insurance, retirement, investments, world markets, stocks.

I am thankful for a 3 day long weekend!  Even though my body-alarm went off at 4:30 am to get ready for seminary (!) I was able to go back to sleep until 8:30.  Luxurious sleep!

I am 3/4 of the way through "David Copperfield" (missing book group discussion Thursday because I am working) and I have my painting clothes on!  Time to go use some mad-painting skills!

1st Days

First day of school.  Busy flurry of paperwork and supplies. 

First day of seminary.  So serious.  Sleepy students.  New table arrangement (need more Church chairs if 4 more students show up).  Me nervous sweaty (but that could just be muggy Maryland).

First day of independence:  are you sober?  Living clean?  Can we trust you again?

How to Organize/CLEAN a Room?

I met Jane-Marie Sandberg, "Queen of Organization" at a party this week. She has changed people's lives by helping them come up with organizing systems, material flow in their homes. She confidently practices shameless self-promotion, declaring her talent and love for putting things together and making order out of chaos.  She is a certified professional organizer and an accredited staging professional. After talking with her for 20 minutes about my shame-cleaning (shove things in bags and hide when company coming) I want her to come help me wade through my fabric/quilting projects/craft room. It is a disaster. But I have hope.
Another friend (TiffanyR) at the party wants to invite a bunch of women over to listen to her advice and take notes. Would any of you be interested in attending a lecture from her? If we all chipped in to pay her fee?

If you are looking at her portfolio, click on the read "MORE" word to see photos of what she does.

$ How to Get RICH $

I work in an atmosphere of....affluence.  And I asked my boss "How do people get rich?"

1.  Get married, and stay married. (Tax breaks, wedding gifts, benefits, divorce=expensive...)
2.  Get a job with upward mobility, and stay in that job.  WORK!
3.  Buy a home you can afford, and stay in it.  Pay it off.  Don't upscale.  Live within your means...
4.  Contribute towards retirement, if it is employer matching funds, or something, anything!
5.  Good, clean living.  (Drugs, alcohol, and infidelity are expensive wastes.)

National Watermelon Day

If you missed it, last week was National Watermelon Day, and Mustard Day, Wiggle Your Toes Day, and Leave Zuccinni on Neighbor's Porch Day.  This Saturday is National S'more Day!

My favorite garden I discovered on my 6 am walks--get rid of ugly foundation bush plantings and put in FLOWERS!  (John pulled out a bush for me while I was gone babysitting.)

Painting makes me happy!  You should not leave me alone in your house for more than a couple of days without knowing I WILL FIND YOUR HIDDEN PAINTBRUSHES!  (Never did find tarps, so I painted everything by brush to avoid rolling splatter.)

And I will find fun fabric inspiration in your in-plain-sight fabric stash (I promise I didn't dig or disturb anything else fabric-quilt-wise...)

And maybe paint your ugly (I don't feel bad saying that, because I KNOW you would have agreed they were very, very ugly) washing room cabinets...

And play with scissors (black out curtain fabric seen in daytime, makes a HUGE difference blocking out hot sun!) and exacto knife.  (There is that great ochre fabric again, sewn as a header so 1 yard of black-out stuff would cover a window.)
And love your children with lots of hugs and try to turn every day into a party to celebrate something!