The first photo of me to be printed in a magazine of any kind

Dan and I did a little photo shoot. This is probably number 10 of 50 shots. It's amazing how the first few are usually the best.

I sent the photo along with my "hints" (how to make the project) to Stampin' Up! tonight. It's so much fun. I've had a few more bright ideas. Let's see if I can't get this photo published again. It's a good photo, and I'd love a few more free stamp sets.

A Creative Awakening

I've been turned on to some great websites in the last couple of days. Fellow stampers and paper crafters, a whole new world of connections. I'm humbled to see what they've accomplished and done with this hobby. It's phenominal. There are a number of companies out there that I was completely unaware of, all doing some wonderful things. These fellow crafters were living in a world that I never knew existed. Well, now I do, and I'm excited about it. Right now, I know that I'm quite a way back in line. That's the humbling part. I have a lot on my plate as it is. It's really good home-cooked stuff, and I'm grateful for it. I think I've just caught a glimpse of things that could be coming up and you know how much fun that is? Oh, super fun! Can't hardly wait, but I know that I have to, and that I will. The good homey food I have is really filling and exhausting. My plate will be cleaner at some point, and then who knows?

A major award!

No. Really!

I got some fantastic news yesterday afternoon. I am an "Independent Stampin' Up! Demonstrator". I love it. It is the pinch of sanity in my life on nearly-unbearable days. Demonstrators can send in things that they've created with Stampin' Up! products and each month Stampin' Up! chooses 1 winner in 4 pre-selected categories. I was one of the winners for the month of June! I'm excited to see my project in the quarterly magazine, and interested to see if we can come up with a good photo of me to be printed with it. D says he is up to this challenge. He says he'll even photohsop me to my heart's content. You know, even my skin tone, whiten my teeth, take off a few pounds. Whatever I want. Nice to have a Photoshop guru in the house.

These are the last couple of days of Stampin' Up's year - a new catalog will be coming out soon. I will be able to choose any 3 sets from the catalog. I'm very interested to see what's new because they retired so much this year. How exciting!

Awards and shows of Talent

Today I will spend at least half as many hours at the school as the kids do. When all of my children are in school, that might actually be fun. With many small ones in tow, however, it probably looks like something I would do to prove that I was insane. Giving birth to five children is enough to prove that to some people. At the very least, caring for and supporting this many children it is utterly exhausting. Added to other challenges it is truly mind boggling that I will have the nerve to keep walking and moving when it is all over. We have already attended Turner's assembly. He received a participation award for the school reading program and an attendance award for having only missed 2 days of school. He and his friend Sam sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star billing it as "the coolest song ever" - they got the most laughs of everyone. It was quite funny. Elynn has been fed and deposited in her Kindergarten class. Sounds easy, but it wasn't. In about half an hour we will return for Connor's Awards and a small theatre production that his class is doing, "The Popsicle Boy". He has a part in the production, and I'm tempted to try video-taping it. Due to the two small children that will be there with me, I'm tempted to NOT. It's one thing to video-tape something when you can actually focus on it. It is another story completely to attempt to video-tape while children are using you as a jungle gym. I learned from trying to tape Elynn's Kindergarten program that video-taping school programs is something that I actually loathe, at least where the two small children are concerned. I may have to concentrate simply on survival, with the hope that we will be able to enjoy it. I'm glad that I can go. I don't have to take time off, I just have to take my job with me. There's no hurry to get back to work or anywhere for that matter. I am free to to and enjoy my children. Speaking of which, it's time to go. Nothing better than hearing your child's name called for being a good kid. I know they love to see my face and the little ones love to be there too. I'm going to be tired, but it will be worth it.

Monday, Monday

Last week of school. Boys are at school, 4 days left.

Time to clean that wood floor. It looks terrible. Got a new "mop" - a big flat thing by O Cedar. That and the Murphy Oil Soap make quick and beautiful work of the dirt. It looks perfect for approximately 5 minutes. I fed younger children their breakfast, what did I expect?

Q to ER for possible Tylenol over-dose. (He managed to get the top off a child-proof bottle with the help of a pair of SCISSORS?!?!) ER doc says that he's going to be just fine - He would have to drink the entire bottle to be in danger of liver problems. Whew! Also, doctor mentions how impressed he is with Q's resourcefulness. "With that much ambition, the sky's the limit with this kid."

Fantastic Sale at Bath and Body Works. Just enough time to get there and shop before we need to pick up the kids from school. Totally makes up for the ER incident.

T breaks down because he can't get onto the computer to play his favorite games. So much emotion, so little time. Grounded for the rest of the week from the computer. Can you say withdrawal? He continues yelling and griping for at least another hour. Did not believe me about the week long grounding. "You grounded me for no reason! I'm not going to school! I'm going to die! Just because you grounded me! Why are you being so mean to me? Why? Why? Why?"

E makes bed and folds clothes so that she can go play with friends this afternoon. Wow! She didn't even cry for a half an hour first! That's what I call progress!

Put away all of my new Bath and Body works goodies. An embarrassment of riches. I'm so excited.

Starting dinner and dessert for family night. Turner still yelling. How does that fit into the parenting contract?

Baby A sweet and happy. Q is fine, except that he almost ends up in the ER again due to the fact that he takes a sugary drink through the house leaving drops behind like Hansel and Gretel. Clean wood floor again.

Day by Day, the work gets done, people are fed and grow. We all keep learning, new rules are considered and discipline doled out. Time for finishing dinner and maybe reading some "Little House" while it bakes.

Father's Day

I can't remember the last time that my Dad wasn't around on Father's Day. We had a little "give Dad your presents" event yesterday. Today, He and my Mother are headed down to visit her Father, who has recently moved much closer. That's a good thing, and I'm glad they can go. I'm not sure what our plans are. We usually go over to visit with my parent and siblings on Sunday after church. Before church, I've got things managed. Let D sleep in longer than usual. Serve special breakfast, give D his gifts, clean up and get everyone ready to go. I'll put something into the crock pot this morning too, so that we don't have to heat up the house on this hot hot day - up into the hundreds we go. We'll probably finish watching the movie that I fell asleep in last night and putter around a few more hours that we usually do. Maybe go for a walk. On Mother's Day, D made a big delicious dinner for everyone at my Mom and Dad's house. Today, we'll do anything that will create less heat. I think that the walk later will probably be something that I do to get the kids out of the house. As much as D loves them, well - we just want to make sure that "Father's Day at our house" isn't synonymous with torture chamber by the time we reach the end of it.

Thoughts and Quotes

Quote #1 - I just found this in an email from a friend:

"Be kinder than necessary, for everyone you meet is fighting some kind of battle." I like that.

Quote #2 - Today Q said in the most morose tone he could muster, "I hate you Ma Ma. . .You don't give me ice cream and chips." (for breakfast.) It was one of those payback moments that people tell you about. I laughed until my inner self turned blue. I couldn't laugh out loud, not with Mr. Serious draped on the couch like a wet blanket.

Thought # 1 - The other day I told D, when he commented that he doesn't know how I manage with the kids all day, how I can keep myself from running from the house screaming the minute he got home, "You have to remember that I have A with me all day long, along with all the other kids." Even when she is grumpy or angry, she is so cute that she really makes even the worst of everyone else combined very bearable.

Husband Repellent

Last week, for some reason I can't recall, I was spitting mad at D. Sometimes, he's just a man - and I can let most of the man stuff slide. Sometimes, however, he is infuriating. I have a harder time with infuriating. . .I have to leave the room and take a bubble bath or something. Last week, when I was spitting mad, that is exactly what I did. I marched myself into my sanctuary and had a nice hot bath.

Flash back to last year. I got some new bath products from my favorite place - I absolutely loved them. Let me just say that thirteen years is not nearly long enough to learn everything about anyone, including a spouse. After enjoying one particular scent quite a lot, D mentioned that . . . he hated it . . . always had hated that certain kind of scent, never ever liked it ever. I figured that it wouldn't do me much good to keep using it. I considered several times checking with my sisters to see if one of them would like to have the large portion that I had left. I was a little bit sad.

Returning now to last week. As I was drawing my nice hot bath it occurred to me that this would be the perfect time to use that particular D-hated scent. I didn't care if he wanted to snuggle up to me, so what did it matter what I smelled like? I bubbled, I body washed, I lotioned and creamed. If I had had the perfume, I'd have used that, too. I felt fantastic. I was thrilled that I had found a time to use my once banished bath products.

Today, however, I realized that it might actually be a marketable scheme. "Not feeling extra warm and fuzzy toward you know who? Let us teach you how to assure yourself a little peace and quiet. For just a small fortune, we'll show you the key to developing your own guaranteed husband repellant." I'm pretty sure that I'd be a billionaire within a year.

Boy oh Boy what a day. . .

. . .and it's only three in the afternoon. I am seriously on an emotional slide right now. This has been the day of spills. I've been cleaning up spills all day. There were more big spills this morning that there have been the entire rest of the week. Juice. Everywhere. That gets old so fast, to say nothing of sticky. I've cleaned juice from more square feet in this one day than the rest of my life altogether. I'm not exaggerating, I wish that I were. There is still cleaning to do. Rugs are in the washer, so glad I got machine washable rugs - it was my one requirement. By one this afternoon, I had had all I imagined I could take of the juice issue. I needed a treat for my sanity and I needed it fast. After picking up the children at school, I headed for Sonic. Cream Pie Shake to go, and I got some drinks for the kids, too. Maybe I wasn't thinking clearly. Drinks for the kids. My biggest worry was that someone would spill something in the car. I was pleased when we arrived home with everything still in its container. As I'm getting the baby out of the car I hear a wailing sob. It can't be, but yes it is. . .E has dropped her entirely full rootbeer float just inside the back door. My sister called while I was still absorbing the fact that at some point I was going to have to clean up another spill. Sensing the odd tone in my voice, she asks, "Are you sick?"

That kind-of says it all, doesn't it?

Pretend Play

I know what that mid-life crisis thing is all about. As I'm sitting here on one computer, my 17 month old daughter is clicking away at a keyboard to my right. She's sitting on my knee because she's too small to sit at the desk all by her lonesome. She's serious about this. She's having a great time. To me, she appears to be playing. Her job however, is to figure things out. This is the work of her world. It will be a long long time before she knows about letters and numbers. Years from then, she'll realize that those letters and numbers are represented on the keyboard that she is working at so diligently. Who am I to say that it won't make a difference to her down the road?
So what about the crisis? The crisis is what happens to people that never really get out of pretend play mode. They just go along doing what others expect, rather than living deliberately. They are mimicking others without really understanding what they are doing, just like my baby girl. At some point they wake up and realize that they've made many many choices that aren't easy to take back or rearrange. Others may have made choices deliberately, but the choices haven't brought them the "happiness" they expected. The crisis for them is the point where they "discover" that their own selfish "needs" aren't getting met, and may never be met in the way they had imagined. They feel stuck, prisoners in a cell of their own creation.
There have been movies made about this scenario, usually ridiculous comedies about some poor foolish man trying to recapture his youth. It plays out every day in the lives of far too many people, and everyone touched by it knows that there is no punchline. It's just a sad sad tragedy. I'd love to see another version of that movie made. Moments of crisis are stressful, but in reality, they are just moments of decision. As some point, caterpillars decide that they've gone as far as they can go as caterpillars. Do they decide to go back and try to recapture their larval stage? No. (Well, maybe some of them do, I haven't known any caterpillars personally.) Science classes have taught me that they wrap themselves up in a cocoon, their own self-imposed cell, and they completely transform. They become the thing that they were meant to be.
Human beings are meant to be so much more, and like the caterpillar we don't really "know" the destination until we arrive. I believe that we all feel the need to be better than we are, something more than we have already become. No Human Being flies higher than when they are freed from selfishness. I believe that the crisis can bring on a transformation of the soul. The decision can be positive and effect an end to seeking "the self". We find our best most beautiful selves when we start to focus on others, seeing to their happiness rather than concerning ourselves with our own. That is what being a mother is teaching me. Interestingly, it truly can only happen when you live life deliberately. Like my daughter and her keyboard, sometimes it takes a lot of chores before you begin to see the real possibilities and deeper meanings. Going through the motions of parenthood can only lead to a crisis. To find joy in it, you have to work in love rather than "chores". Stress and pain come along with transformation. After all, one could not possibly imagine that the creation of a completely new creature comes without cost. Round little fuzzy caterpillar. Majestically adorned floating butterfly. You run the numbers. You make the choice. I'd rather be a butterfly, personally. I want to fly.