Debunked

Ten p.m. on a Friday night, and we are hanging around waiting for Dominos to deliver.  Why are we eating so late, you may ask?  Oh, only because we have been busy hauling in TWO FULL TRUCKLOADS of new-to-us furniture into our house!  I love KSL.com.

It all started when we decided to sell the bunkbeds that we have had for the past 17 or so years.  They were used off and on through the years, and have been taking up space in our storage for most of our years in Syracuse.  We hauled them up and put them in Olivia's room a few months ago, and she loved having them, but they were really just too big for her room.  And Olivia and Will both need new mattresses, so we listed the bunkbeds on KSL.  In the process of listing them, I just happened to be browsing through the couch section, and had a brilliant idea to find something affordable to put downstairs for the kids to live on.

Enter fate.

We found a couch, a chair and an ottoman that we were really interested in.  So we went to look, and knew right away we wanted to buy it. The people selling that set also just happened to mention  a sectional they were selling, so we took a peek at that before we left.  It turned out to be only  the most perfect and beautiful sectional in Utah! And an absolute exact fit for our upstairs room.   It was such a good buy I could not pass it up.  Funny how we have spent the past four years looking all over for just the perfect piece, and even wound up buying one that was less than perfect, just because we were so tired of looking. And then, when we aren't even looking, the very thing we were searching for just fell into our laps.  Well, not exactly fell.  It did require quite a bit of heavy lifting, angling, maneuvering, cursing, etc. to get everything into place, but now all of our adopted furniture is home, and we have two cozy, comfy family rooms to enjoy.

As a side note, Olivia is losing no sleep over her new bedless status.   You have never seen a kid more excited to sleep on a mattress on the floor. She is begging for us NOT to get her a new bed.  It is a new adventure in roughing it.
 

Off

Today was one of those weird days where nothing falls into place.  The kids were off school for President's Day, and we had tossed around some ideas of what to do, but hadn't really come up with anything.  Then, everybody slept in til 10:00 this morning.  When we finally got up, all of us got up feeling....weird.  Dead tired, dizzy, and kind of sore all over.  I don't know if it was a virus or what, but it took everybody until about noon to feel much like moving.  I had a bunch of stuff I should have gotten done today, and did none of it, which is going to make for a long rest of the week.  Me and Mitch had a tentative lunch date set up, but he wound up spending hours and hours at the gym, so that never happened.  Will and Audrey  tried to make some plans with friends, but nothing ever materialized out of that either.  We finally decided to go see the second Hobbit movie, after a bunch of  hemming and hawing around, and debating other options.  Olivia was off at  a friend's house for the day though, so we decided to seize the moment and go.

It was a great movie.  So much better than the first one.  I would highly recommend it.

Then, since I hadn't made it to the grocery store, we hit up Chick-Fil-A for dinner, and Mitch met us there. He was also more than happy to accompany us to the frozen yogurt place, which was our family celebration for finishing the Book of Mormon last week.  We were supposed to finish by New Year's, but you know, better late than never.

Wow, this is a really depressing post.  Let me try that again.

Today the kids were off school, and we had no pressing plans, so we got to spend the whole day together, hanging out and being lazy!  We saw an awesome movie, made possible by Olivia's all day playdate at the neighbors!  And then, since we didn't go grocery shopping today, we got to go out to dinner! And Mitch came!  And then we went for frozen yogurt to celebrate our success in family scripture study!  It was a GREAT day off!!

Yep, that's better.

Charting Her Changes

Two happysad milestones today:

I stayed up really late last night, so at nine o'clock this morning, I was laying in bed, just waking up and thinking about how nice it was to just lay there and not have to move for a while.  Then I heard Olivia's door open, and I began to mentally prepare myself for her to come in to my room, like she does almost every morning that she is up before me.   I started to rev myself up to move,  and interact, and get her some breakfast.   I waited for my bedroom door to open and for her come busting in.  And I waited, and waited some more.  And she never came in.  I heard her go out to the family room and start playing with her new Little Ponies she got the night before.

She NEVER came to get me up.  It's probably  not the first time it has happened, but it's the first time I really noticed it.   Nobody got me out of bed this morning. Do you realize what this means? This is life changing.  It's been 24 years since I could stay in bed on the weekends without having to get up and take care of somebody.  It's a little sad.  But mostly amazing and wonderful.

Second, we were cleaning up her room today, and she decided, on her own, to sort through her toys and get rid of some.  She picked up a Barbie, declared it "creepy", and tossed it in to the discard pile.  She did the same thing with all the other Barbies, Barbie clothes, Kens, mermaids, all of it.  Barbie has been removed from her life.

I put all the Barbie paraphernalia  in it's own box and stuck them downstairs.  I'm saving them for my someday granddaughter.  I couldn't bring myself to get rid of them altogether.   This milestone is a little bit sadder for me than the first one.  She is growing up too fast.  However, I am reassured and comforted by the fact that even though she is done with Barbies, the toy she has moved on to is My Little Pony.  There is still lots of little girl left in her, at least for a few more years.

True Loves

This Valentine's Day, I am happy to announce that I have a new man in my life, and I think it might be true love.


  It's My Tax Man!! 

 In special honor of Valentines Day, we had a date with him tonight.  Dan was not too happy about having to spend Valentines Day with me and another guy.  But Dan is not the one that has, in years past, spent endless, painful hours sitting in front of the computer and sweating over depreciation schedules and such.  So he did not get a vote.

  I am just so happy to be able to say that I have a tax man.  I guess he is technically an accountant or something like that, but I just like to call him my tax man.  Yep, I finally broke down and decided to pay a professional to do that income tax thing for me, and while it will go down in family history as one of the priciest Valentine's  Days we ever spent,  I personally feel like a new woman.  I just don't know what I will do with all the free time I will have on my hands for the next month, not having to worry about getting them done. Best Valentines Day EVER!

Since I am NOT doing my taxes this year, I now have time to download all these candid shots of my favorite people from my cell phone.  I have some pretty funny Valentines, wouldn't you say?

We had a bonnet modeling session last summer at the Church History Museum.  I think Will looks especially handsome in yellow.

And Grandpa did have a birthday this year, but we celebrated on a much smaller scale than last year.

 My handsome men at our family outing to Temple Square at Christmas time.

An Erwann Sandwich

This may be the only picture of our Christmas Crepe Fest, 2013

Moments before Alisa left us at Christmas to fly back to California.  Haven't seen her since:(

Found these lovely shots that I had forgotten about.  Beauties, ain't we?

My January Men, at a joint birthday celebration this year.  Looks like they got one candle each.

 

And now that Valentine's Day is all wrapped up, we can start thinking about spring, and daffodils and bunnies, oh, and another trip to California that I have in the works!!

Adventures in Art, Culinary and Otherwise

Today was a first.  I went to a cooking class. I'm not much of a foodie, but my friend has a friend who puts on cooking classes, and she was doing a Valentine's dinner, and my friend wanted me to go with her, and it was a good excuse to take a half day off work, and the class included eating, so I figured what the heck.  I learned how to make chicken Oscar, how to sugar walnuts, and how to make a Hollandaise sauce in the blender that you don't really have to cook. Will I ever actually make chicken Oscar on my own time?  Who knows?

  THIS:

is what most of MY gourmet cooking looks like.  Chicken Crockpot.  With mashed potatoes (real) and gravy made out of a powder I buy at Sams.  And yeah, it was delicious.  I don't usually take pictures of dinner.  But I happened to snap this one  the other night, just because I was raving to the kids about how great it looked, and they started harassing me about turning into one of those annoying people who post food pictures on Facebook, which I am NOT turning into, but just to scare them a little, I took a picture anyway.

In other adventures, Olivia and I spent the night making her Valentines for school tomorrow.

My other friend at work and I came up with this idea on our own.  We had the cards printed and put them in little baggies with the tootsie rolls.  This is as creative as I ever have been for Valentines.  Most years we hit up Walmart the night before for cartoon valentines and conversation hearts.

Also tonight, Olivia was working on memorizing her seven times tables.  At first, she was mostly just complaining about memorizing them, and whining about how terrible she was at math because she couldn't remember any of them.  Then  I promised her I would buy her a pony if she gets them all memorized by tomorrow night.  Not a real pony.  Just a little one. She suddenly turned into a math genius, and had them memorized in a matter of minutes.

Pushing the right buttons.  It's how I roll.

Marvelous Monday

Ah Monday, how I love thee.

Monday is maligned by most, but these days, I wish every day was Monday.

Monday is the day I get to see Will and Audrey off to school from the comfort of my pajamas.

 Monday is the day I get to drive Olivia to school, generally also in the comfort of my pajamas, park at the curb and watch as she and her friends climb out of the car and make a dash for the playground.  Dan calls me a helicopter parent for sitting there and watching her until she disappears into the throng of kids, coats and backpacks, but he is wrong.  I'm not watching her because I'm worried about her.  I'm just watching her because I can.  And because before too long, she won't be in third grade anymore.

Monday is planning day.  Meals, bills, budgets, appointments.

Monday is the day Duncan and I go to Sam's for lunch before we do the grocery shopping.  He loads the heavy stuff into the cart, and then into the car for me.

Monday is the day Alisa will call, and I have time to talk to her. 

On Monday I get to be home when everybody comes home from school.  We cook dinner, do homework, finish up laundry, run errands, go to the library, the doctor,  and all those other things that there is never time for during the other four week days.

And then, the next day, when I start my work week, it's already Tuesday, which is late start day for Will, which means an extra half hour of sleep, and really, by the time you get to Tuesday, you can almost say it's the weekend again!

Except for tomorrow, when Will is going to a Morningside ( yes, morningside. like fireside, only in the morning, duh.) at seven in the A.M. and needs a ride from me. No late start for this Tuesday.  I better go to bed!

As I Sit Here Sipping Sugar-Free Hot Cocoa, This is What I Think About

Know what's funny?

Last year, (as in six weeks ago), when a nearly entire pan of brownies would vanish on a  Sunday evening, everybody would blame me.

I would even blame me.  I admit, I got my fair share. And  I always carried such guilt for eating so many brownies, and not saving more for my precious darlings to eat the next day.

Now, this year, thanks to this dumb no treats kick Alisa and I have going,  I eat NO brownies, on Sunday or any other day. 

And the pan STILL looks like this at the end of the night.

So who is eating  all  MY brownies, if I am no longer eating them?

And why did I ever feel guilty? Obviously, nobody around here needs my help in emptying out a pan of brownies.

P.S.

As per my previous post, I did indeed discover what was going on with Duncan and Olivia while I was at work the other day.  And I am now a trusted keeper of the secret, sworn to never divulge it to another living soul.  But I will tell you some things I learned about those two:  Olivia is trustworthy, loyal, and true to her word.   And Duncan is the purest in heart you will ever encounter.   They just don't come any better than him. And that is the end of my story.

Remember What

While  Duncan is at  home during the day, enjoying what is hopefully his last remaining weeks of  being an unemployed burden on society, and Olivia is at home enjoying what is definitely her last week as  an off-track burden on the family, the two of them have been spending some quality hours at home alone together.  Since they are both prone to laying around in their pajamas eating ice cream, and they both enjoy watching the same lame TV shows, most of the time they get along pretty well.

Today though, I left them a list of chores to do. They were supposed to clean up the kitchen together, and fold socks together, and read some books together.  I called them around lunch time to see how things were going.  Duncan answered the phone, and I quizzed him on how the chores were coming.   Then I asked to talk to Olivia.  As he passed off the phone to her, I heard him say, "Olivia, Mom wants to talk to you.  Oh, and remember..." then the phone went all muffled for a moment, as if he were covering the mouth piece.  Then I heard Olivia say "okay".

 Remember?  Remember what? This sounded suspicious.  I just knew they were up to something.  Unfortunately,  the eyes in the back of my head were useless from twenty miles away.  But my mom radar had stepped up into high gear.   What was she supposed to remember, and why could I not hear?  What were they up to?  So when she got on the phone, I drilled her.   Surely, my superior Mom manipulation tactics could break an eight year old.   "So what are you supposed to remember?'  I asked her right off.

"What?"  Oh. Um .....Nothing."  Guilty silence. So  I went  the usual rounds. Were the chores done? Did everything go okay?  Had they eaten something? Were they having a good time?  What was that Duncan meant about remembering?  What did he say? What are you not telling me?

She was a rock.  I got nothing out of her.  Nothing but denial and lies.  Whose kid is she anyway? So I got Duncan back on the phone,  Duncan, my honest, forthright and guileless Duncan.  I quizzed him again. "What is up, Duncan? What did you tell Olivia to remember?"

"Oh," he says, "Well, I was just..... uh......I was just...... uh.....telling her to oh.........you know...........uh, I was reminding her to.............well,..............to remember to always, uh.........be nice."

Duncan is a bad liar.

But that is as far as I got.  Right at that moment, things went nuts at work, and I had to go.  All afternoon, I wondered what it could be that those two criminal cohorts were not telling me.

When I got home,  the chores were pretty much done, except that Olivia had misread the directions on the chore list that said to unload the dishwasher.  She thought it had said unload dresser, and so she had dumped all her clothes out of her dresser and on to my bed.  That was kind of a big job, and she did great.  I don't think she missed a single item of clothing.  Not sure what she was thinking the whole time, but hey, she worked hard.

After we finished cleaning off my bed, and, despite my unrelenting questioning, neither of them would tell me what  it was she was supposed to remember.  Duncan is insisting that he was just reminding her to be nice, because, as he said, sometimes she yells at Audrey.  And Olivia is absolutely mum.  And I KNOW there is something up.   Something completely innocent, like they probably had brownies for breakfast, or they skipped out on her reading.  But still, I must know.

And I am not giving up.  I am after all, the Chief  Interrogator of this family, and it is a position I do not take lightly.  One of them will break, if I only apply the right amount of pressure, in just the right spot. Or perhaps it's time to learn the finer points of water boarding. 

Brave New World

During one of those  ever more frequent "when are we getting a dog" conversations that have started to occur around here,  I made the point to the kids that for the first time in about, oh 24 years,  I am not emotionally invested in anybody whose poop I have to clean up.   That is really my only big objection to getting another dog.  I just love my poop-free life too much right now to give it up.  I really like walking around in my backyard at night without worrying about where I am stepping.

Freedom from poop is maybe one of the benefits of middle age.  In your old age, you can't really guarantee that you will be free of dealing with it.  But once the kids grow up, everybody should have the option of a few years free of cleaning up other people's messes.  My kids still make plenty of other kinds of messes for me to clean up, but I guess those are slowly diminishing too. I don't have to clean up too much spilled milk anymore, and we don't have too many legos scattered in the hallway.  Olivia is insisting that she is old enough to stay home by herself now,  Duncan is dealing with the joys of job hunting, and Will is shaving, driving  and towering over all of us now.    It is a strange new reality, to have no more butts to wipe.  And if I have my way, we will have no dog poop to clean up either, at least for a few more years.