barefoot

The Great Fish Debacle of 2011

We had an incident at out house, an incident I am calling "The Great Fish Debacle of 2011". (I am calling it that so it will not be confused with incidents resulting from fish occuring in other years, both past and future.)

We have what is known in the biz as an "Easy Hatch Aquarium". That is somewhat of a misnomer, because from my experience, nothing about this aquarium is easy.

I bought it actually for Christmas, but then realized that it cost a bunch of extra money for them to mail me the fish eggs in cold weather.  It was a tight Christmas to begin with, and I really didn't have $25 extra bucks for fish eggs. So, the aquarium sat on the shelf in the laundry room until just a few weeks ago.

Being the amazing homeschooling mother that I am (*snort*), I figured it would make an interesting little science project.  So, I ordered the fish eggs (now in the warm weather, they only cost $8) and anxiously awaited their arrival.

When they came, they came with a half-page of instructions, typed single spaced in super tiny font.

Here is what I did not realize, but should have: the fish have to be fed. 

What do you feed hatchling fish? you may ask.  Why, they eat brine shrimp, of course. Brine shrimp that I have to grow from scratch, in a little tiny bowl that was (convieniently) included with the aquarium kit. And, I have to suck said brine shrimp out of the bowl with an eye dropper (also conviniently included) and feed them to the teeny-tiny fishies.  Each fish requires 2-4 brine shrimp.  Have you ever seen brine shrimp? They are like microscopic wiggling dots.  Also, brine shrimp do not live long, so I (actually Mike) have to whip up a new batch every other day or so.

So far, not so easy.

We ended up with 4 tiny little fish. An average turn out, according to the literature.  They amazingly stayed alive UNTIL...

...an inquisitve child (who shall remain nameless) was "looking" at it, and spilled it all over the carpet and piano.

"You need to put more water in the aquarium", I am informed.

Um, what? Why?

"Because I spilled it".

There was a tiny bit of dirt/fish egg goo/fish poo(?) on the bottom with a little bit of water left. Ewww, and my carpet is all wet, and I can imagine the tiny fish gasping for air as they are getting ground into my carpet.

Well, after the dirt (or whatever was on the bottom) settled, I saw signs of life!!

As of this writing, we have two, possibly three fish babies still alive.  Who knows, they may die of PTSD later, but you never know. 

I gave them some extra brine shrimp as a reward for living through their experience.

the first week of school, a new tattoo and the recipe project

We started school this week, Calah in 2nd grade and Sariah in Pre-K.  We are using a packaged curriculum for Calah from My Father's World.  This has already made my life at least 8 million times easier than last year.  For Sariah, I had this giant box of pre-school-ish stuff that I had been saving from back when I thought I would write my own curriculum. Oh, what a silly goose I am! 

 
 
Here's Calah with her spelling book

 
Sariah, with her hair in her face, but at least she's not sticking out her tongue. 

...and the Boy Wonder, looking shockingly like his father after I've just mentioned the latest remodeling project I would like to start.

It's gone pretty well so far, but the lesson plans start you out gently, and ease you in, plus we haven't started piano, dance or awana yet. (Ah, Awana, the bain of my existance. Will it even happen this year? No body knows for sure because NO churches update their websites. But I digress...) So, we'll see how it goes once we're in full swing.

This week I got a new tattoo, or rather, a continuation of an old one.  I had a swirl of a bible verse on the inside of  my left forearm.  Now i have two more verses and some flowery-viney things in between. It's pretty sweet.

 
 
It hasn't peeled yet, so the colors still look very dark, but you can see it's going to start any time now. (bleh, it's the grossest part.)

I have decided to embark on a new project I am calling "The Recipe Project". This has been something i've been putting off for some time now, and will eventually make my life less complicated. Or at least that's the plan.  These projects have a way of making my life more complicated, somehow. But it needs to be done, so what the hay.

The plan goes something like this:

I will update my current filing "system", in favor of an organized, page protected 3-ring binder. (Pause a moment to consider the sheer wonderfulness of it. Mmmmm....three ring binder....)

 
Here is part of the filing "system". I call it the "basket o'crap" approach to organization.  It's possible I could get a book deal for that. Here's another part of the "system", the "broken file box":

 
Like the little picture I taped to the top? I thought it was pretty.

In the process of organizing the recipes, I will cook each one to decide if it is worthy of a spot in the page-protected bliss that will be my cook book.

At the moment I have approximately 4,000 recipes in about 15 places all over the house.  In the lean-to off the kitchen, on my computer, in a basket, in a file box, on the book shelf, in another basket...you get the picture.

The first recipe I'm testing is Swedish Pancakes.  It's kind of cheating because I use this recipe all the time, and I already know that everyone will eat it.  But, I have 6 kids to feed today instead of just 3 so we're going with a proven winner.

Even though I use it all the time, it's still written on a little piece of scrap paper and shoved into the basket...or maybe the filebox, I'm never quite sure where the recipes will end up after I use them.

more

maybe i've been looking at the ikea catalog too much, but lately i've been feeling dissatisfied.  i don't like my house. i want more kids. i want different clothes. i want to live somewhere different (warmer!). i want new furniture.  are you sensing a pattern, too?

i have no reason to be dissatisfied. i have everything i need, and even most things i want.  my family is healthy, we have jobs, a place to live, we never go hungry.

i feel like there's something i'm missing.  what, i don't know. and i'm pretty sure it's not a material thing. 

that always seems to be my first move.   feeling dissatisfied? go to target and buy something new (that i don't really need).  add something else to my already giant collection of STUFF. then, i need more stuff to organize my stuff, store my stuff, clean my stuff.

it seems like i always try to make myself feel better with more.  more stuff, more food, more antidepressants, more time, more sleep, more organization, more coffee.  i never have enough. why is that?

names and nose jobs

i can't believe everyone is ganging up on me about titus.  i honestly don't know if i can handle a kid named titus.  it was a good point made about confusing elijah with eliza (that's my sister's baby).  i didn't think of that.
and (karil!) a nose job is a rhinoplasty (rhino as in the large animal with a big horn on it's nose).
i guess we'll have to brain storm a little more about names.

today has been a tough day. i'm exaused (this kid is sucking all my energy out).  it's been full of rude and stupid people.  i told a rude person she was being rude, and then she called my boss.  i guess she can dish it out but she can't take it. i've had enough of my job. 
anyone out there hiring for a job where i can stay home and raise my kid? i'd like benefits, too.

then, i couldn't get ahold of anyone to figure out where calah was.  jessi had her this morning, and then my mom and grandma were going to pick her up after they ran an errand.  nobody answered their home or cell phones, so i got a little panicky (it's been hard to control the anxiety and obsessive thoughts now that i'm off my medication).  i've been crying for about an hour, for no real reason (my grandma dropped her off at my house about 10 minutes after i got home from work).  i just can't stop (crying).  i guess i'll blame mike and his kid (not calah, the new one.)

an end to the wandering?

well, it's that time again.  my home is being reduced to piles of boxes.  we're moving...again.  this will be the fourth move in four years of marriage.  before that, i lived at home, before that an apartment, before that, a different apartment, before that, at home, before that, at school.  most people are from somewhere.  i'm from nowhere...and everywhere. seattle, chicago, mchenry, johnsburg, st.paul, mchenry, genoa city, mchenry again.
well, i guess we're putting down roots in mchenry. we keep ending up back here.   but, we did find a really great house, it seems like it has everything we're going to need--enough bedrooms to adopt a kid (maybe two!?), enough room for teenagers to hang out in the basement.  room for an office and a place for my craft/sewing table, a backyard for calah and zoee.  the rent is reasonable, and we're going to sign a two year lease.  living in the same place for two years feels so permanent. maybe God will allow us to buy the house at the end of the lease.  we'll see.
but, back to the boxes.
most of the pictures are off of the walls, the living room is filled with boxes.  calah is getting kind of discombobulated and upset because every thing is changing.  anyone have any suggestions to help a three year old cope with the stress of moving?

doing my part

i can't remember where i heard it or read it. but it has really impacted the way i've been thinking and praying lately.  it's the thought that, if i do my part, what only i can do, God will do his part, what only he can do.
for instance: in our adoption process, only i can fill out the paper work. (it would be nice if he zapped the answers into the forms while i am sleeping).  only God can provide the money to pay for all the adoption expenses.  only God can orchestrate the timing and the perfect match of the child(ren) who will join our family.  sometimes i get so frustrated that there are so many orphans, and here i sit with no money and a willing heart...but that's me trying to do God's part. i do my part, he does his.
it's working the same with getting pregnant.  i do my part, taking my vitamins and folic acid, reducing the stress in my life, enjoying calah and what i have now, trying to make and keep my body as healthy as possible to prepare for a pregnancy, and God does his part (and mike does his part!)  because no matter what i do, i can't make myself get pregnant.  only God, in his wisdom and plan knows when (or if) that's going to happen.
also with our house.  i'm doing my part by checking the real estate listings, talking to realtors and bank people, we're trying to pay our bills on time to keep our credit scores going in the right direction. we're thinking and talking about renting vs. buying, calling on different apartments that we see for rent.  God is going to have to do his part by providing the right place to live in the right location for the right price.  be that renting or buying, mchenry, crystal lake or woodstock, it's going to have to be God who orchestrates the timing, the real estate market and all the other factors that drive me absolutely INSANE when i try to control them.
this my part/your part philosophy has given me alot of freedom in my thinking and my praying.  i don't feel that desperation when i pray, like, "God, how is this going to work out? you HAVE to do this, i NEED this RIGHT NOW!"  i can trust that God will do his part, in his time, and i will do my part. i'll try to be prepared, so when God says, "go, there, i found just the right thing for you", i will have been watching for it, praying for it, keeping it in mind. hopefully i'll be listening for the gentle nudge of the holy spirit when he's nudging me in the direction that i should be going.
but, until i feel that nudge, i don't have to worry about what's going to happen, if God's going to take care of me, how the timing will work out, because i know that God is busy doing his part.

girls night in

tonight mike went to play poker.  it was just me and calah tonight.  when mike was leaving, we decided we should make cookies.  but, we didn't have any butter. so we braved the cold and slippery streets, and off we went to wal mart to get butter, vanilla and 2 shades of nail polish (blue and red--she picked!).
then we made my (nearly) famous chocolate-chip cookies, with most of the batter (dough?) splashing all over the counter.
then we watched the ending of finding nemo, ate our cookies and polished our nails.  one hand red, one hand blue. one foot red, one foot blue.
then we read books and she went to bed.
i finished baking the rest of the cookies and watched dirty dancing.  one of my all time favorites.  it's just so wrong that it's right.  and even better, i have it on video (as opposed to dvd), so the color is all off, patrick swayze's face is green in some of the scenes. but still, totally worth it.

mother of the year

today at church we lost calah. i thought she was with mike, mike thought she was with me. actually, she was playing in the arcade (she likes to "drive" the car game).  she was totally unharmed, when she saw me she said, (very calmly) "i couldn't find you mommy." 
the manager of the movie theater yelled at me like i was a total idiot, like i SUGGESTED to my two year old, "go play in the arcade by yourself while i finish up here."
for about two abolutely terrifying minutes, though, i couldn't find her. i had no idea where my baby went. mike and i started looking for her, and then kim and jessi helped, too. we found her really quickly, even though it felt like an eternity. it could have been a disaster. she could have run out into the parking lot, or even the street. she could have been snatched by a stranger and taken away, somebody could have done something horrible to my precious little baby.
i shudder to think about it. thank God he was watching out for her.
so, i'll just start writing my acceptance speech for mother of the year, because after that little spectacle, i'm a shoe-in.

to be or not to be

disclaimer: this blog may contain more info about me than you really want to know. (nothing gross, just intensly personal)

i haven't been writing alot lately. i haven't felt very good. mentally, i mean. i've been feeling tired and down, crying at "the drop of a hat pin" (as my dad would say). i've been feeling sick and tired at work, sick and tired of people and their drama, sick and tired of the life i've been living, letting myself become caught up in unimportant, stupid stuff. i've been sick and tired of being sick and tired, but too tired to do anything about it.
i've also stopped taking my anti-depressant. due to the holidays, the way pay-days have been falling, and my own laziness, i have not gone to the pharmacy to pick up a refill. i'd been feeling pretty good, and so i thought maybe i can skip a few days.  a few days has turned into a few weeks.  i really hate taking the pills, but i really hate who i am with out them. i also hate that i'm so dysfunctional without them.
for anyone who has recently gotten to know me, i apologize in advance for what i'm probably going to be like. if you've recently met me or gotten to know who i am, you've met the "me" who has been on the pills.
now, at least for a little bit, you'll get to know the drug free me.  i've always struggled with the decision to take them or not.  it all started after calah was born. (actually, the anxiety and the obsessive thoughts started while i was still pregnant, but i didn't recognize it for what it was).  it took me about 5 or six months to figure out what was going on. by the time i asked my doctor for some medication, i was a nervous wreck.  i was crying all the time, i hated my self, i felt so guilty because i didn't feel the way about my baby that i thought i should. i was having these horrible scary visions of the people i loved dying in horrible fiery crashes.  everyday activities like driving and feeding the baby had become these terrible ordeals.  i don't remember very much about calah's early days.
when i figured out what was going on, i thought maybe i could fix it my self.  i thought i could pull myself up by my boot straps, as it were.  i tried being happy, praying more, pleading with God to fix my brain, i felt so guilty about taking medications, i thought no good christian would take medications, i felt like a failure as a mother, a person, a christian. if i just had more faith, prayed more, loved God more, i would get better. but i didn't. i finally got so desperate i got my doctor to prescribe me some medications.
i took them for about 5 or 6 months.  then i went off again.  i thought maybe it was just a short term thing, now that she was older, i was less sleep deprived, etc, that i would be ok.
i played the on again off again game for a while alternating feeling psycho and hating myself and feeling normal but hating that the pills were responsible for my normalcy.
this june i went on them again, feeling overwhelmed with the whole adoption/infertility thing. i took them faithfully, until about two weeks ago. 
now i feel like a basket case. that's good, though, because at first i didn't feel anything.  if there's anything worse than feeling crappy, it's having no feeling at all.  i understand why people may cut themselves--feeling the pain and seeing the blood reassures you that you are actually alive.
so now what? i don't know. since i made it through the no feeling stage, maybe i can just tough it out. this is,though, a bad time of year for me anyways, with the greyness of winter and the lack of sun making me feel yucky anyways.  initally i was going to try to get off the meds after winter, but then i just let the prescription run out and didn't refill it. so now what?
do i try to tough it out? am i choosing the easy way out if i start taking the pills again? am i just choosing depression over joy? if i was a good christian wouldn't God heal me? do i need more faith?
or are the pills God's way of helping me feel better? i feel like a loser either way.

here we go again...

last night i went to the ladies thingie for our church. i actually had a lot of fun. usually i'm either the oldest (like at a youth gathering) or the youngest (at every other church i've gone to i just tag along with my mom and listen to older ladies chit chat and give me advice).  i didn't feel like that last night, though. i felt like i could actually like these people, rather than just tolerating them (like at other churches). 
i almost didn't go, but then i realized i should because i don't really have any friends. and it turned out i was really happy that i did go...until i was driving home.
on the drive home i was thinking about everyone who was there and what we talked about and i started to think "i can't really be friends with these women", and i thought of all the excuses why not. i don't live in a nice house like they all seem to, my husband doesn't have an office job or travel for work, i'm not a stay-at-home mom, i'm not cute or enthusiastic or outspoken like they are. i'm way out of my league here.  all my little insecurities came popping back out, filling my head and my soul with toxic popcorn.
yeah, so mostly my experiment was a total bust this week.  last week i did really good, choosing to be positive and optimistic, seeing beauty and appreciating good things.
this week i did a horrible job.  i was depressed and feeling sorry for myself and mostly didn't want to choose to change it.
i'll have to try a little harder today and tomorrow and do a better job next week. i'm exausted just thinking about it. it takes alot of energy to be happy.