bullets on a positive note.

 

 

Trying really hard to stay positive tonight, its been a really awful week full of my personal belongings, time and overall self being used, broken and invaded but never-the-less I’m trying to put the best foot forward and look for that tiny ray of sunshine in the midst of it all.

Here is my list style update, bullets of info about us this week.

1. My girls have been successfully delivered to IA as of Sunday evening.  They will spend 10 days total with my mom, brother & wife and cousins until they return on the 2nd via a midnight train ( obligatory journey reference here ;)  ).  I miss them but am very happy that they are having such a great time out there. (and I wish I was with them, boo hoo!).

2. I am blogging right now for the first time on my brand new laptop.  Just one of the expensive items my children sabotaged this week.

3. you would think with my girls being gone my house would be much quieter, but the truth is,…it isn’t. Boys make noise.period.

4. We are going to look at 2 houses tomorrow for fun…I say fun because while we qualify for another loan, I’m still not convinced that is where we are meant to head despite my own personal tiny house hell.  Part of me had a serious mental flip out today even thinking about that drama again. I am still in house loan losers land and I don’t know when I will leave. Maybe after the new year when my plate look normal…yeah maybe then.

5. Only 32 days till Big Daddy and I leave for vaca ;) omgosh………………..I C.A.N.N.O.T. wait. I will miss Lettie……………………….. lol, the others, well I’ll miss them at the end of the four days ha!  jk, I’ll miss them but this mama needs a break with my heart and soul. 4 beautiful long days to sleep, hike, sleep, eat, drink wine, relax in the indoor hottub in our cabin….sleep lol.

 

6. I just wanted to say how relieved I am that the oil spill has finally mostly been contained.  I’ve been praying they would find a solution, it makes me SO sick to think of all that grime and slime in  our waters :( so awful.

 

7. I keep forgetting to mention this, but I have made the switch back to being a carnivore.  Originally I gave up meat (with fish as the exception) in order to be healthier, but I have found that I have a really tough time finding decent protein sources without it.  Maybe I’m not educated enough?? I dunno…what I do know is that I personally cannot live on beans alone LOL and i don’t think anyone wants me too either haha!! No seriously while I consume mostly veggies, and we do eat fish or shellfish at least 2 x’s a week,…I will still eat red meat and especially lean chicken breast on occassion.

8. I finished boot camp only losing 2 lbs and 1 inch off my hips. I kind of got ticked when the trainer acted like he expected more??? and then tried to blame it on me missing a bunch of classes.  I gave him a puzzled look because that was anything but the truth honestly…I missed 2 classes only, 1 of those was the night they played soccer (and i do NOT do soccer for a multitude of reasons) …that night I ran 2 miles, and the 2nd day I missed was the day I ran a 5 mile marathon??? yeah I’m a TOTAL SLACKER, whatever dude lol!

9. Speaking of workout my sil is in a biggest loser contest of which I had the privilege of joining last week for a 2 hour workout.  Hoooooly smokes did my legs hurt the next day rofl!  Must have been those bleacher step ups ;) love what they do for my bootie heh heh! I am going back friday night, I seriously can’t wait. THAT’S the kind of workout that will make me lose those pesky 10 lbs I want off this month. ;)

10. Ok…you heard it here first (well, maybe). I’m applying to Extreme home makeover. I have no expectations what so ever…matter of fact its been a huge mental battle just to make myself do it because I’m like ok why waste my time….not because i don’t think it can happen but because I know there are so many people out there that have bad situations. Bad as in way worse than mine….even though mine majorly stinks and it upsets me often, I just still consider myself blessed in many ways so, I dunno take that for what you will.

11. i’ve had a lot of time to spend with Dyl Pickle’s this week, man he is such a cool kid <3  we are addicted Zelda Twilight princess game (Wii)….way too much fun and way to much of a distraction for this already overly busy mama.

12. I freaking LOVE Ikea. I need to go there again soon but I don’t have a lot of money to spend so I’m a little scared too lol.

13. do you have any idea how much school supplies for 6 kids in school costs? geeeeeeeeeeezzzz.

14.  I need to take some pics and post them and I think tomorrow is the perfect day to work on that.  Dean is off this weekend, I think…first full 2 days off in, a month? :/ so glad he is too, i want to take the kids to the fair sunday. I <3 the county fair.

Thats all, I have itunes to download tonight, and I have to get up early and get my new Droid ordered….Thanks to my 2 yr old my 6 day old phone now needs replacing.  My little Tiget has caused quite the stir here this week, he’s lucky he has mama wrapped around his finger ;)

15. oh and speaking of fingers…………the OTHER thing that happened was, stupid me I wore my GORGEOUS filigree diamond ring to IN this past weekend and sure and shootin, it fell off and I lost it. So much for getting it resized. Here is hoping this next week brings some better things into my path.

 

 

Something that I really hate...

Well 2 things actually.

1 is when people make a huge deal out of the size of my family. Granted...I know its not everyday in today's day and age that you see a young couple who has been married for nearly 17 years and has a very large family that shares the same mommy and daddy, I get that. What bothers me is the way people react when you tell them how many kids you have and make snide/rude comments, such as a few weeks ago while at a public function and it came out in conversation that I was a mom to 8 kids and someone nearby who didn't know me actually said out loud , and I kid you not... "WHY?!" with a puzzled look on their face. It's not so much the tone of voice as it was the question in general and the flippancy in regards to the fact of my children's lives. It might not have been meant as personal but it was taken as such. WHY I have 8 kids isn't really anyone's business to be honest, however if they or anyone must know ...we have eight kids because of the following reasons.
1. we believe they are blessings
2. we believe that life is sacred and beautiful
3. we fell in love with our first one and it snowballed from there
4. we prayed for God to tell us when we reached the number HE wanted for us
5. we tried to use NFP and we sucked at it
6. kids are amazing and if time/money/energy were of no consequence, we would have kept going
7. overpopulation is a lie
8. somedays I don't believe any of the above 7 bulleted items, but I love them and cherish each of them none the less and believe that regardless of how I feel they were meant to be here.


The 2nd thing that seriously irritates me is when people feel the need to remind me that I CHOOSE to have a large family.

Ex: JP's preschool teacher who reminded me that I should have thought about having a large family before I actually did it (in reference to me telling her I would not be able to participate in PRESCHOOL activities on a regular basis like they were asking me too because ....i have 7 other kids, several of which are older and involved in more important things than PRESCHOOL activities, 1 of which has major special needs, another which has ADHD and requires constant school contact, 1 of which at the time was a nursing newborn, another of which was a homeschooled teenager, also my husband works anywhere from 60-90 hours per week and I literally do it all on my own. Yeah, as you can see I don't sit in my lounge chair and read books all day.)

This morning was another example. The city in which I live in allows only 3 cans of trash each week per house. When i called to ask them to give us ONE extra can I was told the only option I have is to BUY bag tags to the tune of $1.50 each extra and attach them to each extra bag we have. The best part is, I have to try and find the time to drive to city hall, park my min church bus, pay the marking meter and go purchase these tags. I told her it wasn't so much the extra $ but the fact that they make it seriously inconvenient to get them. I asked if there was someway they could just bill me LOL CC, payment in advance or whatever via the phone and was told no, this is the only way. I said that's ridiculous that this is what my tax $ as a homeowner gets me and to that she replied "well it was your choice to have a large family"

huh, nice. Prime example # 2 of why I hate dealing with people in general. The ignorance just screams at me through a comment like this. I could write a book on the stupid comments I hear all the time over the life we live.

In defense against my hatred lol, I will say that on occasion I meet someone who has nothing but sweet kind loving words of awe and or thankfulness over the sacrifice Dean and I (and other families like us) make to raise a large group of children. God forbid we actually populate the earth with good , beautiful well rounded loving citizens who will grow up to pay the idiots above social security, but ya know....that was MY CHOICE to contribute to their future retirement/benefits. How dare I?! :P

Oh how i've missed you dear cloth diapers.

Yes , its true,...I have a full blown love relationship with cloth diapers. If you've never been down that road it's hard to explain but here is how I fell onto this road. While pg with my 5th child I started researching them, and by the time I was pregnant with my 6th child (just 16 months later lol) I realized I wanted to give it a shot.

It officially began when I went for my post partum check up after #6 and held a brand new fuzzi bunz that my midwife had in her office. I instantly fell in love and realized that nothing would ever been good enough to put on my babies bums except this gorgeous soft piece of fluff i was holding in my greedy little hands.

Don't get me wrong, i've had my time (or two) going back to sposies, even though I totally despise them....the smell, the paper-ness of them in general, the look, the chemicals that I KNOW are lurking deep inside them, etc. However each time I do is purely out of necessity versus wanting. the last 6 months have been a huge example of that. In the midst of the house hunt/house loss/laundry room redo and only having 1 W/D set, well lets just say that I had no other choice than to stop using them exclusively for a time (and for awhile wasn't using them at all).

However as of this week I am happy to report that outside of the random sposie my teenager or dh manages to sneak in LOL, we are now back in our fluff full time, yay!! :)

Here is a pic of Scarlett in the cutest scrappy skirty made by my dear friend Holly of handmadebymama. Holly makes the CUTEST stuff, Scarlett only wears her wollies lol and from you pic you can see why (as if she could get any cuter?! LOL).

In the meantime, provided my PC cooperates I'll probably have some pics of the new room and the kitchen (in progress) here in the next day or so :) I spoke with a really good financial advisor today about our sitch and he agreed with what we have known this whole time as well so it looks like God's going to have to pull a big one out to solve our housing issue lol. I know he can do it, I just hope I remain faithful waiting on him in the process.

In the meantime I'm trying really hard not to spend any $ on the goodmama cuteness (my fav's! <3 ). I did buy 1 new one this week, mainly because there was a FB contest to name said diaper and I suggested a name and the name I suggested got choosen, too cool! I had to have it after that rofl! ;)