Real Life

This is a Wipeout course that Simeon drew, but really, I think it symbolizes our daily life.

I read two blog posts today about Perfectionism and Killing Supermom. I know that we all want to appear like we got it all together all of the time. In reality, I know I don't. I'd like to think I USED to have it all together, but my husband would probably tattle on me about the stellar tantrums I had when things didn't work out. I'd like to think I have it together now, but um...probably not.

Today I sat in my pajamas until 1:45. I had been up since 7:00. The only reason I showered and got dressed was because Isaac had an appointment this afternoon, and it's probably a good idea I not leave the house without a bra on. Curtis had an appointment this morning and had called me on his way home to let me know how it went (it didn't). I then realized the house was very quiet. I didn't hear the kids outside playing, I didn't hear them on the tv, or computers or games, and dang sure not doing their schoolwork. Then someone asked where Hannah was. She had just randomly hugged me and I didn't think anything of it. I heard the door open and close quickly, but no one claimed to be outside. A few moments later we realize Hannah's window was open and she was missing. At that exact moment we got a phone call that Hannah was at a neighbor's house with two big suitcases packed and announcing she was running away and had nowhere to go.

Curtis collected her, took her to lunch, and explained the "proper procedures" for running away, which is: write a note so we can talk her out of it discuss the situation or talk to us about her intentions. These suitcases were crammed with all her clothes, toys, books and I suspect a blanket or two. I've later learned she chucked those out her window and then slipped out the front door and rolled them two blocks down to the bottom of the hill. The reason for running away was that Jesse wouldn't share his bike and she just HAD to get away from all those brothers. (insert giggling here, but not really, because this could be a serious issue, but....still giggling)

Later today our adventures continued.

We refilled the bird feeders earlier this week because everyone knows the birds are gonna starve in the last week of September. This was just a ploy for the dog to hone her bird hunting skills. Yep, another bird was caught and killed by the dog. Ammon picked it up and brought it to Curtis for him to fix. Commence thorough hand scrubbing now.

Simeon decided he was going to learn how to skateboard today. He did have a helmet on, sort of lopsided, but it was on. Tonight we sit down and he's covered in tiny band-aids. One on his forehead, his arm, probably other places we haven't found yet. He told me "I scraped my head, so I'm not skateboarding anymore." I replied that I know I had seen him wearing a helmet, wasn't he wearing it to be safe? "No, I'm just not skateboarding anymore".

As Isaac and I got home this afternoon the dog got out. The boys chased her down as she ran up the hill, I got in the van and rode after them, but then couldn't find them. I assumed since I had instructed Hannah to keep Ammon in the house and lock the door, and Curtis was home cooking dinner, we'd be ok to divide and conquer. I find the boys and dog after my 7th drive by, I stop and while they are loading the dog in one house away from our's, Jesse yells out "AMMON!!" There was Ammon, standing by our backyard fence, starting out to go find the dog himself.

Curtis was making Coconut Baked Shrimp for dinner, with orange marmalade as a dipping sauce, peas and some chips. It ended up smelling like wet, burnt, dog hair, and then looked like a pale, slimy mess half baked onto our cookie sheet. Dinner instead was peas and tacos.

Joshua is suddenly stuttering.

It is like a three ring circus at our house. All of the time. There isn't a day that goes the way I wake up envisioning it, and yet I still end up laughing at the end of the day about all this stuff. My kids still went to bed clean, happy, fed and kissed. Or licked. Ammon seems to find licking my arm and shoulder hilarious. My house, for now, will never be perfectly clean or decorated and I've had to be ok with people coming over and seeing kid undies on my steps and trash falling out of the trash can, or as the case may be tonight, smelling like burnt fish, which is a far cry from apples and cinnamon or vanilla and nutmeg.

I have to say that I still find myself perceiving being judged because we've yelled at our kids, or had naked kids running wild in the front yard or my house looked like it had exploded (even though we can still get it presentably clean in just two hours). I worry about my hair, lack of makeup, hives running up my neck and shirts that are too short when I see other women that have a cute hair style, make up applied, and kids that don't run away with two suitcases. Why do we do this to ourselves? I ask that, but I don't really have an answer yet.

The two articles I read are linked below. Awesome people wrote those and worth hearing again if you haven't already read them.

The Disease Called Pefection

Killing Off Supermom

The Cats

This is Jake, the cat. He showed up beside my garage on my 22nd birthday. I thought he was gorgeous, and while I loved my dogs, I loved having a cat. Jake was a pretty cool cat. In the picture above, he was cleaning Justin's ears. Justin would lean against whatever piece of furniture Jake was lounging on and wait for Jake to start cleaning his ears. Jake must have been very young when he got lost that night I found him so when ever he slept with me, he kneaded my side, leg or arm. I was quite entertained by him. Of course he had the normal cat habits: laying on the newspaper while you read it, sleeping in the dryer on the clean clothes, lounging in the bathroom sink when you needed to use it, and inspecting table centerpieces by laying on them or knocking them over. One night he sat in the living room with his tail twitching, eying my mom and then charging her as she sat in the chair, running up the arm, over the back and leaping into the window behind her. Mom screamed and dad and I were laughing too hard to be of much help. One morning Jake saved me from getting in the shower when a scorpion had gotten in by way of the drain. I couldn't figure out why he was acting so weird and refused to let me get in the shower by running in front of me everytime I tried to step in. Being fairly blind without my glasses, when I did put them on I realized what was in there. I'm surprised he hadn't been stung. I find myself wishing I had him back, even with the two other cats we have now.



We got Missy about a year before Jake died. Where Jake was pretty friendly and outgoing, Missy was not. She hid under our bed for 2 weeks before gracing us with her presence. She does NOT like dogs, although she tolerated Justin. Latter dogs usually find her quite prickly and have suffered a wicked slap upside the head. While she appears to be aloof and snobby, she's actually quite curious. I don't catch her playing too much, but night life seems to be her forte. Numerous frogs and fish have been terrorized by her, some loosing their life, some loosing a leg or fin, but she won't leave them alone. Missy weighs in at 17 lbs, although she lost 5 lbs last winter because of a bad tooth, she is bigger than any cats we've had in the past. Missy is however a good predictor of pregnancy. With the three pregnancies I've had since she joined our household if she held my hostage by laying right on top of my stomach for hours on end, I usually knew I was pregnant before taking any tests.



Nemo joined our family after we watched several of the Garfield movies for several weeks on end. He's playful, curious, friendly, and doesn't seem to mind being dragged around the house by young kids. In fact, he usually prefers the company of the kids rather than Curtis or my company. We have had him for four years and he's just now allowed to sleep only occasionally on our bed, per Missy's permission. Every now and then we catch him trying to play with Missy, but as she gets older, it sounds more like he came home one night without getting everything requested on the grocery list and she is chewing him out. No love there, I guess. A couple nights ago I finished binding a blanket for Hannah and I've been using a new sewing machine I just have not figured everything out on yet, so there was cut threads and string everywhere. Nemo pounced on a big tangle of string in the middle of the floor and then commenced to put on a great show of pounces, slides, and adorable kitty moves attacking the pile.
Even with these great antics, and Missy's preference for keeping our bed warm all day long, I miss Jake, and I guess I will always have a preference for the Tuxedo cats. I visited a friend the other day who has four kittens that have already been claimed, but in the bunch was a little black and white kitten. Ooh, how I wanted to take him home.

If you haven't seen these sketches found on You Tube under Simon's Cat, you are in for a treat. He has several others you can find on there, but I thought I would share one here. We got a good chuckle from them.

Apple Sauces

When we get these finished, I'll put up pictures for you to see. I love canning! I love how pretty the jars are when we get finished. We were given apples, peaches and plums in the last week so we decided to make some mixed apple sauces. Here's our recipes!



Apple-Plum Sauce

Ingredients:
4 lbs. apples
4 lbs. plums
1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. water

Directions:
Peel the fruits, wash and slice. Put all together in a pot, add sugar and water. Cook for about 2 hours, until the fruit is a pulp. Carefully place the cooked sauce in a blender and pulse until desired consistency. Puree for baby food texture.




Apple Peach Sauce
This was a huge batch. I used 50 apples and 30 peaches. These were fairly small peaches, but the original recipe called for 1 peach to 3 apples.

Ingredients:
50 apples
30 peaches
1/2 c. lemon juice
1 c. brown sugar

Directions:
Boil 4 quarts water and turn heat off. Wash the peaches and cut and X into the bottom. Dip the peaches in boiling water for about 1-2 minutes. Remove, add more peaches to the water, and while those peaches are soaking, the skins the should peel right off the already soaked ones. Peel, core and slice the apples.

Add all ingredients to a crock pot (if doing a small batch)set on low, or a large roasting oven set at 225. Stir occasionally, letting them simmer for about 5 hours.

Spoon small batches into a blender, blend to your desired consistency, pour into clean, hot canning jars and seal. Water bath for 15 minutes in a canning pot.

Enjoy!

Sharing a Slice of Life: The J.O.B. of Our Ancestors

My grandmother's mother and father, the Henry's.

I am joining a little late, but my friend Texasblu has been posting these prompts and they have been fascinating. Since this is our family blog, I thought it appropriate to share a bit of family history on here too. Today's prompt is to to talk about a job our ancestors had. I'll share a couple.

My grandmothers fascinated me. My Grandma Beth started out in nursing school. I don't know why she didn't finish, but I heard she learned how to give a shot that didn't hurt. She explained to me that if you did it just right in the back of the arm, you would not feel it. My dad had caught a horrible case of strep throat one time and the doctor required him to get antibiotics by injection. I remember seeing him sit on her sewing table as she administered to him, and then hearing him exclaim "I didn't even feel that!". Grandma's other profession was seamstress. She sewed everything from wedding dresses to underwear. If it wasn't clothes, she working on needlepoint, cross stitch, crocheting, quilting, dolls and their clothes, and then for a bit, it was dollhouses and the furniture to go in them. The dollhouse she built was the same color as her house. It may have been from a kit, but it was huge and I LOVED it. She cut each shingle out for the roof. Then she crafted and sewed each piece of furniture. At one point, she accidentally sawed off a finger but they were able to save it. I sure it put a delay in her crafting.







When grandma Beth died, I inherited her dollhouse. Sadly, the house didn't make it, but I kept all the furniture out of the house. They were built to replicated her mother's home.

I loved Grandma's sewing room. It had a huge table that I can only remember seeing cleared off about two times in my life for a huge holiday meal. We were required to wear shoes at all times in there because her carpet was a wild orange, black, green and gold stripe that didn't make finding dropped pins very easy. Her table was large enough for her to spread out patterns and have full length wedding dresses lay completely on. Around the room were bags of scraps, a fish tank with angel fish, pictures and craftwork of roses (her favorite flower), and sometimes a huge bag of chocolate covered marshmallow cookies hidden under her table. Also in the room was a police scanner and if she was working at night while Grandpa was at work (town cop, one of two), she was listening for details about his night as they came over the scanner.

That room was a child's dream of interesting things. A red lava lamp. A radio that she listened to a different station every day. A buffet that held years of patterns. Plants that hung from the ceiling but their vines stretched around different areas. At the top and front of the room she had a stained glass window. Pictures of her as a young woman, her kids, cousins, parents, siblings, and grandchildren were in various frames and stuck in various spots. In one drawer of her buffet sat her family history efforts. Besides her bedroom, I think this was her favorite room, and I could see why. It was a room of Grandma.

We would make trips to Souix City, Iowa so she could buy fabric, yarn, or get her sewing machine repaired. Grandma made all her clothes. A couple years she made all of my sister's and my clothes as well. When I got married she made my wedding dress and dresses for my sister and cousin to wear for my wedding. She made quilts for all the grandkids and her two great-grandchildren. The quilt I still have is one she made and embroidered roses all over it, then embroidered her signature in the bottom corner.

Writing this makes me want to write about the other professions I know my family did, but maybe for another day. Thanks Texasblu!

Painting Grove Creek

Our scene we are painting

About a month ago I was on a Girl's Night Out with my friend Rebecca when we decided, spur of the moment, to start painting. We would meet every Saturday morning early (unless family or church matters took precedence), and oil paint. We got our canvases, our brushes, and paints, and hauled some folding chairs with us to a spot near the base of the mountain behind my house. Neither one of us feels very confident in our painting, but the good thing about oils is they are pretty forgiving. Neither one of us feels like we are creating our life's masterpiece up there, but it has been some of my most favorite moments in my life spent away from my home.

Waterfall trail

About two years ago I read an article that talked about the "Me Time Myth". After several parenting and marital trials, the author decided that her time away from home would not be spent in idleness, consumerism, or in selfish indulgences. She decided that the times she spent for Me Time would be spent in fulfilling or enlightening activities, things that would make her a better mother and wife. This meant her times to herself were with uplifting friends, church meetings, and other similar activities. Feeling that I needed to re-evaluate my time spent alone after a long day of homeschooling and house cleaning and chasing down the toddler with the permanent marker in his hand, I also started to turn to activities that uplifted me rather than things that left me feeling guilty. When Rebecca suggested we start painting on Saturday mornings, I thought several things. 1. Our conversations almost always turned to spiritual matters. 2. We get girl time together, outside, in beautiful settings. 3. We would be working on a talent. 4. Our time was limited to three hours and it was early on Saturday morning so we wouldn't disrupt family time, activities, or errands to be done later in the day. Win-win!!!

Getting a glimpse of what Simeon is going to look like as a young man

We are not expert painters by any means. Mine is limited to one semester in high school. Rebecca and I sit side by side painting at our easels and constantly compare our pictures to each other. I like how she did her rocks defined. She liked how I did my trees. She's slower and thoughtful, I'm fast and abrupt. We both clearly see it's going to take a lot of time for us to perfect our painting. I'm not complaining; that means we have a lot of Saturday mornings ahead of us to work together.

Our talks revolve around our family, our husbands, our kids, autism, ADHD, and a number of other things we share in common between our 13.5 kids. We speculate about our decisions we made before we came here. We talk about our religion. We talk about what luck we had in meeting in the same place 10 years apart. We talk about our plans for the future. And these conversations make it so we can come back home and hopefully be better wives and mothers to our families. We talk about the important things in our lives, and build each other up, and make it so we have that confidence to face another week.

Mountains in the distance I want to paint eventually

A bit off topic about our painting up at Grove Creek, but the first day we were up there a flock of birds landed beside us and pecked around for insects. This lasted for about 30 minutes, gradually getting closer and closer to us. In the flock, almost all the birds were a slate grey color, except for one in the center that was white with speckles. Early in the morning we see other people come through to walk their dogs and sometimes the dogs greet us, or their owners do. Today as we were leaving a woman with two horses and a cattle dog came to the water so the animals could get a drink. I don't have much experience with horses, but I giggled at her younger horse she had on a lead who was so curious about us she couldn't drink and just kept watching us pack up our things. A challenge Rebecca and I have is painting for three hours up there because the light changes and as the light changes, so does our picture. After seeing the animals that come around up there, it's hard for me not to want to paint them onto the canvas, but alas, I am not very talented at painting to begin with, let alone painting animals. Maybe one day that will come. Maybe one day my painting skills won't look so elementary, but for here and now, I'm happy to have the opportunity.