Bloom

I've been meaning for weeks to tell you all about Bloom! (Somehow the start of school, schedules, a little homeschooling, sports, etc. has made my memory highly unreliable lately. I am not programmed for multitasking, but I'll keep trying.)

But back to Bloom: It's a blog written by two lovely young mothers of excellent Rogue Valley upbringing (with lots of fantastic guest posts), and it's quickly becoming one of my favorites! (also with some fabulous art by my highly talented and awesome cousin, Emily.)

You can read what Bloom is about here. Thus far, I have harvested many helpful hints and delightful ideas. I love the overall feeling of finding joy in creating a home, while keeping it all real. Go read it, and you'll see what I mean.

This week's posts have been particularly fun to read, because they're all about photography, which is, of course, very near and dear to me. You'll just have to go read the whole week's posts, because they are PACKED with fantastic tips and clever ideas for capturing everyday moments.

Incidentally, Bloom is currently running a photography contest (details here) that has been extended until Sunday evening. It's all about capturing moments (simply and non-professionally). I can't wait to see the pix that have been submitted. This is something I've been trying to get better at: capturing moments instead of poses.

So, if you're reading this, you're about to be YONFed! Go to Bloom, read the last five days' posts, and then enter the contest!!

Hey, if we're all reading Bloom, does that make us Bloomers?

Confession Wednesday

Confession: I'm on a new fertility plan.

I've always wanted to have at least six children, but it turns out my body isn't very good at getting pregnant, and even worse at staying pregnant. Eleven pregnancies have produced four miraculous (and sweet) children, and if that's all I ever get, they're enough.

But for better or worse, here's my plan:

1. Thanks to a true friend who knows me too well and won't accept excuses, I'm a little more fit and a little less round than I was two months ago. I still have quite a distance to go, and am hoping for continuous progress.

2. My garage is housing a whole bundle of baby storage: clothes, swing, bathtub, jumper, crib, basinette, more clothes, exersaucer, etc. With the exception of a few very sentimental items (a few outfits and a basinette my father-in-law and brother-in-law made for me), it's all headed to a much better cause than cluttering up my garage.

3. Every day I discover more and more about how much I enjoy being a mother of older kids (four through thirteen). Believe me, there are many, many perks to this! Imagine, if you will, uninterrupted sleep, coherent verbal communication with all household residents, and only one 5-point harness in the car, which can be buckled and unbuckled by any of three older siblings. Everyone here can get their own drink of water, wipe their own - uh - noses, participate in the job chart, and tidy up their own bedrooms. Who couldn't get used to this?

So there it is: Physical downsizing, baby storage gone, and enjoying my big kids.


I'll be pregnant by the end of the year.

It's Yonf's Birthday!!!

Why Yonf deserves a Happy Birthday:

1. Because she is a fantastic mother to a whole crowd of children. (Patient, intuitive, fun, on top of things, relaxed . . .)

2. Because she hosts Project Nights at her house, and invites me to hang out with her cool peeps.

3. Because she's still my friend, even though as a teenager I may have contributed to a certain amount of misery in her brother's life. (Oh wait. Maybe that's WHY we're friends?)

4. Because sharing a birth month with her makes for extra fun.

5. Because without her Year of No Fear idea, I would have missed out on a whole bunch of memorable experiences.

6. Because my kids are as comfortable at her house as they are at home.

7. Because her kids are as easy to have around as my own. (Actually, easier.)

8. Because she's still my friend, even after I pointed her husband out to the fuzz.

9. Because when have mothering dilemmas, I know who to call for some advice and perspective.

10. Because when totally bizarre and embarrassing things happen to me, I know who I'm going to call and have a good laugh with.

11. Because she's so thoughtful, loyal and perceptive when it comes to her friends.

12. Because she can sail through 5 months of pregnancy without even noticing. (JEALOUS)

13. Because there's always something yummy to snack on at her house.

14. Because she'll deliver a ginormous and delicious strawberry lemonade on a sweltering summer day.

15. Because she is candid, yet kind, with her opinions when she's asked to share.

16. Because she helped her friends mop pudding pies off themselves following the Great Table Collapse of '08.

17. Because she takes very good care of her lucky man.

18. Because for all the time she's been Year of No Fear-ing, I don't think she's chickened out of anything yet!

19. Because she's an excellent seamstress, and not only helps sew aprons for weddings of people she hardly knows, but hosts the sewing party to boot!

20. Because she has a lovely, lovely mother who I've adored since I was about 10 (clearly the loveliness is hereditary), and a charming father who I feared in my youth (see #3) but always liked also.

21. Because she's one of my dearest friends.


Happy Birthday Yonf!!!!

Confession Wednesday

Confession #1: I've never, ever, ever had my toenails done (until now).

This is Mickie. She sat on the floor for about 4 hours one night last week doing 11 sets of glamorously glittery toes. That's 110 toenails!! I tell you, she's amazing!!



Forty (well, 39 - missed one) toes, as posed by hostess Kay:

Mickie was right. I LOVE them!

Confession #2: I am really bad at enjoying autumn. I love the colors and crunchy leaves as much as the next person, but it's all such a definite reminder that winter is imminent. I dread it every year. I resent all the shoes, socks, and coats required to shuffle children out the door into a chilly car, when mere weeks ago we were sailing out the door for walks in our flip flops. I miss my bare feet and short sleeves. I pine for the sound of sprinklers outside my open window and daylight at 6am. Or even 6pm. And the holidays don't buffer it: they're over and done 10 days into winter.

But the whining isn't doing much to improve it.

So.

My mom used to encourage us, when feeling tempest-tossed, to find three positive things about the situation (you know, Pollyanna-style).

For example: If your 11th grade Pre-Calculus teacher gave you no reason to suspect you had anything less than an A, and then slapped a B onto your final report card and retired before the mailman could deliver the irreversible bad news, thus destroying your hard-earned 4.0 and dashing every hope you ever had of becoming a valedictorian and Benson Scholar with a full-ride scholarship to the only university you ever wanted to attend (you know, hypothetically speaking)(and I hope SOMEBODY played many a golf game in his retirement with a cankered conscience), well then, your father might pull you back from the depths of despair with some counsel like:
1. "Hey, the 4.0 is gone, and the pressure's off. Now you can enjoy your senior year."
2. "Your mom and I are still proud of you, so chill."
3. "Need a hug?"

For the record, it made all the difference. (I love my parents.)

Therefore, three things I can't help enjoying about Autumn:
1. Cinnamon scented everything.
2. The many birthdays and related gatherings comprising the month-long party known as October (oooh! I can't wait!).
3. Wrapping up in quilts made for me by my grandmas.

And Winter:
1. Cold, cold water, straight from the tap.
2. Life slows down, just a leeetle bit.
3. Snow days. Can't beat 'em.

Yep, that helps. (Now I need to work on a list of three good things about what a pain in the rear it is to get four children out the door on time every morning.)

How about you? What's something you're not enjoying, and what are three things that change your perspective?

(12 minutes until October. Let the parties begin!)

If We Had an Award it Would go to.....

Lately when I've been feeling sorry for myself I turn my thoughts to my cousin. He is not too much older than me and is going through one of bravest battles of his life. He has battled cancer throughout his life and most recently him and his wife had to leave their two teenage children in Utah while they travelled to Texas for him to receive a bone marrow transplant. His amazing and brave wife has a blog that details all the wonderful and all the terrible details.


If Year of No Fear had an award for someone who battled on through their fears I would give it to my cousin. A bone marrow transplant takes you to deaths door and then brings you back again. Right now he is in constant pain and doesn't know how he is going to make it. Any day now the marrow will graft to him and he will start to heal. We are all waiting for the day when things finally start to turn around for him. He continues to stay up beat and to hold onto his faith and his love for his family. He pushes his fears aside so he can continue to make memories with his family.


He has been blessed with an amazing wife who continues to be supportive and stay by his side. She constantly encourages him to get up and walk a couple times a day. She is so strong and brave to not walk away when he is in pain but to hold his hand continue to help him in any way he can.



I'm not super close to this cousin, he is older and I only saw him once a year when I was growing up but I have tremendous admiration of him and his family courageously going through this journey. His parents have always been such an amazing example to others. His stepmother's example in a blended family helped shape my relationship with my blended family. They are an amazing family and I continue to hope and pray he will turn a corner soon and start to heal.

I am starting to write an email to them to let them know they are in my thoughts, it is a work in progress. I was almost too afraid to do it because we aren't that close but of course I had to push that aside and continue to write an email.

Update: I started writing this on Wednesday and since then the marrow has started to graft and he is up and walking!

Confession Time: When you are down and out what can people do to help you? visit? stay away? provide meals? call?

What Would You Have Said?

Why is that confession Wednesday keeps becoming Confession Thursdays? It seems no matter how hard Mrs. B and I try we always get our Wednesday Post out on Thursdays, one day late. Maybe if we change it to Confession Tuesday we will write it on Wednesday and it will be Wednesday Confession once again! Speaking of one day late, I was invited to help direct students on the first day of school this year. I showed up at the school on Wednesday at 2 for orientation, only to kindly be told it was actually the day before! No worries, I got to help anyway.

So today isn't a confession, it's more of a I wish I would have reacted to something instead of sitting in shock. So crazy week this week getting kids ready for school and husband working at least 12 hour days. So to help relax I went to lunch with my mom and the baby. We are enjoying our lunch and the baby was in his car seat, sideways on a chair. I had checked multiple times to make sure he was on there safe, after him cutting his finger badly at church on Sunday and having to take him to a Doctor on a Sunday I was overly protective after that. I kept feeding him my food and playing with him. I had my attention on him the entire time. We are almost done and ready to leave when this lady out of no where who was also eating there comes over and moves a chair behind him and says something like, ok that's better. I sat there and didn't say anything to her. I couldn't figure out what she had done. It hit me and I was in shock. She thought the baby was unsafe! What? Where she was sitting it wasn't like she could see something I couldn't. Why do people do these things? I was so shocked somebody would do something like that, I didn't have a response to say to her and I went out of my way to avoid her when I left immediately after that. So was she rude? Would you do what she did? What should I have said to her? I'm an overly protective mom, my kids aren't allowed to eat when left home alone, I don't let them out of my sight, so really was it important that this lady did this?

And on a positive note, after the baby sliced his finger open I ran him to the bathroom, him bleeding badly. All of a sudden I'm in a panic not sure what to do and this wonderful lady shows up and says she has a first aid kit. She asks what I need. She has Tylenol for the baby to take and she told me to keep it. She had everything for me to use to help the little guy. Then we decide we need to take him in to get stitches and we are trying to figure out how to clean up the blood around the sink and she says she will take care of it. Really? She was a saint! I'm hoping to find out who she was so I can send her a thank you card, she made a terrible situation for me a little bit better. I wish there were more people like her in the world than the woman I met the next day.

Colorado Julie-I consider you one of my sophisticated friends so what would you have done?

Confession Wednesday (ish)

You're never going to guess what I did last weekend! (Unless you were there. Or I told you about it. So maybe you can guess.)

I took my kids camping! All by myself!!

Sort of. Maybe.

Actually, a whole bunch of families were headed up to camp together, but one family went up a night early. For reasons I still can't explain, I suggested to the kids that we join them and camp for two nights instead of one. They readily agreed.

I LOVED camping when I was growing up, but it was one of the things (along with motorcycles and airplanes) that suddenly seemed less appealing once I had kids of my own.

For the record, I love the outdoors and campfires and waking up in the morning in a tent. I just can't seem to enjoy the massive amount of preparation and the never-ending cleanup that accompany the experience. Also, until this year, we've only had a 6x6 tent for the family, and I have yet to buy an air mattress that doesn't leak. Happening into a family-size tent and borrowing a camp cot both have vastly improved my affection for camping.

I'm certain I wouldn't have attempted it without the knowledge that another family would be there (one that included our Home Teacher, no less!). Luckily, one of the few available campsites was right across the path from theirs, and even luckier, that good family helped us with our tent when we arrived in the dark.

I can't deny that I was pretty doggone pleased with myself the next morning when I made pancakes and sausage on the camp stove and set up the rest of our campsite.

The rest of the families trickled in over the rest of the day and we had a fantastic time. Absolutely worth the frenzied preparation and the truckloads of laundry.

Here's what I've learned in the last 2 months of solo-parenting kids through air travel, road trips, and camping:

• Beautiful scenery and singing with my kids can make me a little giddy, to the point that I might perhaps run out of gas or go 15 miles past a turnoff. Must pay more attention.
• I have fantastic kids (I knew that a long time ago).
• I always end up buying way more snacks than the kids will ever eat.
• I'm beginning to understand what motivated my parents to take a three-week cross-country road trip with 8 kids in a suburban towing a tent trailer 20 years ago. (Not that I'm signing up for that one anytime soon. But I think I get it.)

When is the last time you surprised yourself?