We Survived Thanksgiving

Good morning Monday! Okay, that exclamation mark was too much for a Monday. I just want to sleep for a week.

Thanksgiving is over and we are now rushing to the Christmas season. Have I done my shopping yet? No.

So the past week or so we’ve been busy. The kids have all had the sickness and hopefully that is finally over. The kids all had pukes and poops and it was touch and go whether we would be able to go to my mom’s house for Thanksgiving. We did end up going though one kid felt sick one of the nights. He kept himself isolated and got over it without incident. Thank goodness.

The whole week was a lot of work. Alex took work off only to work. We had to get the kids off the driveway and we all pitched in and got them moved to the back yard. Now the smaller logs are in an unruly pile in the backyard and need to be stacked. We were going to split them all but that is an insane amount of work so we’ll just chop as we go.

My sister had to drop her kids off with her ex- husband and we prayed for those girls the whole time. The poor dears. Their dad is an abusive narcissistic germaphobe and one of the girls was so stressed she got sick. You can imagine that it didn’t go well for her. To bad the courts aren’t fair and people get away with lying. I only mention this because it was in the back of my mind a lot this past week. Thankfully the girls are back with their mom and don’t have to go see their dad again until spring.

We had second Thanksgiving yesterday. My sister-in-law was sick over Thanksgiving (sounds like what my kids went through) and wanted to have a meal still so we all went over. All of Alex’s family in the area was there along with some of his sister’s friends were there. It was a good meal and a good visit. So we got both families in this year. Did that mean we’re off the hook for next year?

The kids all played outside most of the time. It was almost 50°F and for late November that is unusual here. I decided that snow is overrated and can stick to the mountains. I’d take a 50° winter. Heck, I’d take 33° winter if it meant no snow. Can you tell I’m over snow? Anyways, it was beautiful and sunny and relatively warm and it was nice to sit outside and to have the kids be outside.

My sister-in-law is renting a very large house with a huge yard and I will never got the life of me understand why houses with lots of bedrooms and space always have tiny kitchens and tiny dining rooms. Always. Where are the people supposed to fit and eat that live in these big houses? Mine included. I would love to design my own home and make sure there is plenty of room for people to gather.

I need to get going for the day. The kids have been home for nine days and I need to take today to help the house recover from that and the Thanksgiving holiday. It is going to be so fun. Please tell me you read the sarcasm in that last statement. I rolled my eyes when I wrote it as well. It’s going to be a long day and week. I have three more birthdays in the next two weeks and my in-laws are coming over. And all the Christmas holiday festivities are ramping up so December is going to be a challenge. Wish me luck and I’ll do the same for you.

Potty Training, Christmas, and A Death Cleanse

A new chapter in my life has begun. No more diapers. Yay! Decided Monday to potty train my baby (she’ll be three in three weeks). My sister said she waits until the kid is ready because she would rather change a diaper than clean up a mess. Me, too, sister. Me, too. That’s why I waited. I have trained potty trained eight children and after a little over sixteen years of changing diapers non-stop I am done! She has gone days without a single accident. I really should throw a party for myself. A big one. I won’t, but it’s nice to think that I can.

I spent a big part of yesterday Christmas shopping. It’s coming up and I’m nowhere close to done. I haven’t the gift for gift giving. Nor the skill. My husband and daughter are really good at it. I stress and stress and it’s still hit or miss. I actually only bought one thing with all the online shopping I did. And it was a family gift. I take what I said back. I am good at family gifts. Individual gifts is where I struggle. Just tell me what you want and if it is in the realm of possibility then I will get it. Maybe.

The little kids are easy and what they want is cheap. The big boys? Expensive. I finally got them to open up a little bit more and hopefully we can have some Christmas success. They came up with stuff I’d never heard of before. Ever seen an Otomatone? Me neither.

Otomatone: Weird synthesizer instrument thing.

Last weekend I spent days going through my grampa’s stuff and sorting it. He died a couple weeks ago, for those who didn’t know, and we’ve got to get the stuff cleaned up and the house sold. The main thing that we got out of the whole deal was watch what you buy and even more what you keep.

Have you ever heard of a Swedish Death Cleanse? It’s where as you get older you go through and clean out the stuff in your house so as to lessen the burden on your family when you leave this life. We went through literal tons of stuff at my grampas house. The funny thing was that it was all nice and ordered and cleaned up. Put nicely away. Who knew that much stuff was even there. It was incredible. What amazed us was that it was all good stuff but because we were all adults with houses of our own already set up we couldn’t use much of it. I grabbed some kitchen stuff and clothes (tags still on some, some sentimental) and my sister got some silverware. Another sister who had been divorced and had to leave quickly and sneak out of an abusive relationship needed pots, pans, and other dishes so Grampa’s stuff helped her. But most of the stuff was just not what we could use.

So, lesson learned. Keep only the actual real treasures (heirlooms, pictures, journals, etc.) and pare down the rest to a minimum. Especially if you haven’t touched it in years. It opened my mom’s eyes and she will be going through her stuff. I will as well and so will any of us who helped go through it. I don’t need to hold on to stuff for thirty to fifty years and just have it take up space. I thought my in-laws were crazy. They live like nomads. Literally. Tied down to nothing. Well, when their time comes there will not be much to sort through.

So when I think of buying Christmas presents I want stuff that is useful and not superfluous. I hate having to throw away and get rid of things. I am somewhat of a hoarder and it’s not good. I think it’s hereditary and I get it from both sides. So we’ll see how that plays into this Christmas present buying this year.

Non-Stop wWeekend

This weekend was non-stop. Due to parent teacher conferences last week the kids had Friday off from school. The house was a disaster- when is it not?- and so I handed out assignments and tried to clean as well as supervise everyone all over the house. They learned a few things and I got the house cleaned, for the most part. Win!

Alex came home during the tail end of the work and then we went in our day-date. During the winter he plays soccer on Friday nights and Saturday just doesn’t work well for dates so we went out for the afternoon. We decided to see the movie Dune. Lauren had seen it the night before with friends and said it was good. Maybe I had too high of expectations because Alex and I had a lot to say about the movie. Long. Drawn out. Long. So long. And brown. It was a lot of set up for future movies, I guess. The premise was good but you can only look at sand for so long. I guess it wasn’t my cup of tea.

We got home, made pizza, and Alex went to soccer. The rest of of watched Enchanted.

Saturday we all wanted to sleep in but it wasn’t meant to be. Half the kids had practice for the Primary Program (the yearly program where the kids all sing and have their parts to say), two kids had a food drive to go to to collect food, and one had driver’s ed and work. I was running kids places and watching them and then am hour later we went home and got to work. I started cleaning out the garage while Alex worked on the giant pile of logs in our driveway had to go. Alex sawed logs and the kids and I carried them to the back yard to be split later this week. Since I had the kids home and the weather was decent, I let the kids get on the roof to put up Christmas lights. I had never put lights on the house before but I bought some on clearance last year. The kids love any excuse to get on the roof. I am terrified of heights and seeing the kids on the roof was causing me to have a heart attack. Not literally but I was panicking and they took full advantage trying to scare me.

While we were talking about break I looked at my phone and my sister had been in a car accident. Her car is totaled and she’s bruised up and shaken but thankfully she is not seriously injured.

After all the work was done, sun set, and weather cold, we had a birthday party to go to. I had gotten the time wrong and we were an hour late but we didn’t miss much. We were there talking, eating and then cleaning up until almost ten. The kids played and ran around like mad the whole time. If call that a success. We got home and I was exhausted and my feet hurt (more than usual due to plantar fasciitis) and I seriously couldn’t figure out why I was so tired and then I realized I hadn’t really stopped all day. No wonder I was beat.

Sunday was good. The primary program was cute and all the kids did well. My friend’s son, a 3 or 4 year old, stole the show. He sang at the top of his lungs (on key and the right words) and had an gestures and all. He was adorable.

Alex and I took full advantage of the “day of rest” and finally took a well needed nap that we’ve been wanting to take for weeks. We have Thanksgiving week off in a week and I fully intend to sleep in (if my mind will let me because it is stuck on auto and walks up early no matter what).

I’m looking forward to the holiday season and will be planning all the things this week in preparation. So exciting! I had asked the kids what traditions they like and they couldn’t come up with more than one. Either in doing a horrible job or they are not observant. I’ll try and step up my game.

So Much Stuff

So I made it home from my grandparents house in Nevada. A few observations. First, do not move hours and hours away from your family and only child and grandchildren if you want family to visit. Just don’t. Second, you really don’t need to keep owners manuals from furnaces in houses you no longer own. Nor should you keep canceled checks and receipts from the 70’s. Or your taxes from the same era.

We went through so much stuff. It was eye opening and fascinating. We found a vitamix blender in the kitchen from so long ago and actually found the owners manual and other paperwork that went with it.

My favorite was when we found the hotel receipt from Hong Kong along with tourist stuff as well. My Grandparents and father had gone to Hong Kong when my dad was sixteen and when they got there, in typical teenage fashion, my dad and his soon to be friends in the group they were with didn’t want to do the boring stuff the adults were going to do so they asked if they could do something else. The parents said yes and let three sixteen year olds loose in Hong Kong in the early 70’s. No cell phones, no way to contact them, just said meet at this restaurant at dinner time. What the heck! Even my dad, looking back, was shocked and stunned that they would do that. What in the world were they thinking.

When we were driving down my sister text us and said she was glad she wasn’t there to clean. I told her it was a treasure hunt. Yes, it was a lot of work. We had to sort through literally every single piece of paper because treasure was in the most random places. I looked through a folder of recipes torn out of a magazine from the 70’s and 80’s and there were family pictures strewn throughout. My dad only cared about the pictures and his reel to reel. His parents had saved it from the 60’s and when he set it up and plugged it in it was in mint condition. He had all his reels from back then and put them on and they sounded amazing. Perfect quality.

There really wasn’t a whole lot of items with value. We just went through the entire house and every item and it was all just stuff. Nothing fancy, just stuff. Made my siblings and I and even my dad realize it is only stuff and that we need to make sure we aren’t holding on to stuff needlessly. They hadn’t touched a majority of the stuff for years and it was all left for us to clean up. I don’t want to do that to my kids. And yet I hauled boxes of stuff home with me. Oops. I’ll go through and get rid of some stuff. But not today because I’m tired of going through stuff this week.

Weekend Away and It’s Not Done Yet

I’ve never been away from home this long. Well, yes, yes I have. When my daughter was in the hospital with botulism. This time it’s better circumstances. Well, I guess it’s better. My grampa died and I went with my dad to clean up my grampa’s house.

I left my house Thursday night and drove through a rainstorm and got to my parents house around 9:30. The next morning I got up and ready and we managed to leave by 9:30. I totally could have driven down in the morning. Oh well. As it was, we loaded up in the truck and we made it 45 minutes down the road before the check engine light in my dad’s truck turned on. He didn’t want to drive 800 miles with the light on so we stopped at a dealer to have a look. Nothing conclusive but my dad still didn’t feel good about it so we drive the 45 minutes back to switch vehicles. So much time wasted.

We switched cars and we got on the road again. De ja vu. Hours later we found out there was a horrible accident and we figured the timing and had we not been delayed by switching vehicles, we would have been there. We pray every time we travel to not see, cause, or be in an accident. Our prayers were answered. We missed th whole thing. All we saw was the cop getting into his car and lots of shredded tire bits on the road. The night before when I was getting ready to leave, I was very anxious. I was saying goodbye to my kids and just felt like that was the last time I would see them. It was a horrible feeling. I’ve gone through that before where we just say goodbye knowing that we would die but then God intervened and we were all okay. It’s a weird feeling and I am gladnim here to tell the tale.

We got to my grampa’s house when it was dark, just after sunset. It was weird going to the house and not having my grampa there. I cried for a little bit. It is hard when things change so permanently. It was early enough that we got to work. We cleaned out a closet. It took hours because it was so full of stuff we needed to go through. Hours!

We were up late and got up early the next morning. We worked for ten hours straight, stopped for dinner and then went for a few more hours. To say I am exhausted is an understatement. It was also mentally tiring. By the end of the night I had to remind myself not to snap and to keep my mouth shut because we didn’t need a fight.

The house looked like a tornado went through. An organized tornado, but it’s a mess nonetheless. If packed ever so many boxes. My sister is buying the house (maybe) so we don’t have to take absolutely everything out. Thank goodness.

We were physically done so we decided to look through photos. It was amazing that some of these pictures were 100 years old. And I knew the people in them personally. It blows my mind.

My grandmother’s grade school picture

My great grandfather’s sisters. They were such fun to talk to. The one on the left almost made it to 100. Couple months short.

Great aunt with my gramma. She is so cute!

My grampa. Pretty handsome fellow.

My great-grandmother and my gramma. I love this picture! Not a common pose in older photography.

My Dad. He is the cutest!

It was a long day and we had to get up the next morning and do more as well as drive the long drive home.

Christmas Prep and Leaving Town

I’m sitting on my daughter’s bed writing this while I wait for her to fall asleep. It was a day and I’m ready for it to be done.

My Noah must have been tired. He was snapping and screaming at everyone. He has never been like that. It was awful! I made sure he had dinner and got him to bed early. He has had a rough couple days due to a toothache that is actually an abscess tooth. No wonder he’s snappish. I would be too.

I spent the morning wrapping Christmas presents. I had them and wanted to just get it done and see what I have (and don’t have).

It looks like a lot, and it is, but it is literally just pajamas and movies for ten people. I’m nowhere near where I want to be. I had found all the DVDs throughout the year on sale for $3-$5 each; our favorite ones that aren’t always available to stream. So rather than rent it for that amount I just bought them.

I am struggling with what to get the kids. The little kids have a list so I will follow that but the big kids have no clue. I take that back. They want a VR headset. Not happening. $300+ so I can listen to them all fight over it and stare at a screen inches from their eyes? Nope.

Other than Christmaspreparations, I’m just doing the usual: cleaning and cooking and thinking. Actually, I got a book about the Second Coming of Christ and reading that has been educational. I also got a book that I’m excited to read next about a lawyer from Romania. I’ll let you know how it goes.

I rarely go anywhere but this weekend I’m going with my dad and siblings to Nevada to help clean out my grampa’s house. That should be interesting. The ride and the work. My dad wanted the work horses to come (my one sister and me), and the muscle (my brother and brother-in-law). My youngest sister is coming as well but knowing her she will just spend the weekend keeping those who didn’t come informed of what is going on.

I predict my brother will commandeer the radio and we’ll have to listen to his music. I really really dislike his music. So much. I’m hoping I can get a break from it with some talk radio that I know they will listen to. It’s a six hour ride one way.

I didn’t want to leave my husband and home, I am such a Nervous Nell. No sense of adventure. But it will be 80 degrees and there is a hot tub. I’ll just get the work done and help my Pops out and enjoy it. I’ll probably need a vacation after that and I hope that I don’t come home to a disaster.