'what's the haps.' weekly.

 

the week actually started off on a pretty good foot.  my tiniest kid turned seven months on saturday, and i can't believe it!  he's getting so big.

then, the answer to many prayers came my way:  the curtains i had been eyeballing went on sale, AND i got a coupon in my email for an additional 25% off... so i could finally afford to pick up seven panels of these lovely ladies for my living room and entryway:

so we took the fam down to world market saturday morning to grab them up.  now i just have to save up for curtain rods, so they're not hung yet.  but they're here and they're fantabulous.  the trip to world market was fun, but it's exhausting trying to keep small hands and feet from breaking and/or pilfering every.last.thing. in the store. 

also, speaking of curtains, i finally finagled a $.99 solution for our bathroom shade, so it's no longer taped to the window like a hillbilly curtain.  it involves a wooden dowel from hobby lobby, an upholstery tack, some safety pins, and a stray cup hook i found in my tool purse (yes, it's a tool purse: it's purple and it's 'do it herself' brand).  so my new curtain rod dowel is actually pretty decent-looking, even though in reality it's pretty backwoods and wonky.  what can i say?  i like my curtains like i like my britney.


todd caught this little gem of reality on film:

this crazy bird kept trying to attack a moth that was stuck between our window and our storm window.  it was the most intense thing i've ever seen in my life.

 

 

and penelope's hair managed...this:

some lady down the street has started purging a bunch of antiques and leaving them on her lawn, free for the taking.  so far i've grabbed up a solid wood antique bedframe, a huge mirror, a bunch of vintage books, including one named "all aboard for HEALTH," some old drawers that i think i'll mount on the walls as shelves, and more.  have i said before how much i love living here?!

then things kind of went downhill.  finneas' new favorite feeding schedule (getting up two to three times a night to eat) has started wearing on me, and the pain in my ankles eventually got so bad that they were all swollen and my left leg was going numb and my whole body was shaking.  long story short, i had a bunch of xrays taken while my kids were supervised by a stranger and my left foot is now splinted for the next two to four weeks.  awesome.

to be honest, i've been struggling a lot with self-pity this week because of my stupid ankle.  how am i supposed to do my job if i can't walk or stand?  this whole all-day-every-day, no-sick-days-and-no-schlepping-around aspect of stay-at-home momming has seemed like a major bummer this week. 

so let's raise our glass to next week, with the hopes of a healed ankle, more sleep, and that lady down the street leaving some oil-rubbed bronze curtain rods on her front lawn for me to take home with me.

 

 

i'm not going to blog today, and you can't make me.

video vednesday: eeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh.

it's only seven seconds.  so watch it about a hundred times and you're still only out like twelve minutes.  you won't regret it.

tuesday.

most days i plan out what i'm going to post about before i even sit down to write.  i usually write in advance and then schedule the blog to post on the right day.  in other words, i'm usually somewhat organized about this whole blogging thing.  well, it's currently 6:30 a.m. and this is the first i'm even thinking about today's blog post.  so this could get interesting.  or, more realistically, really really NOT interesting.

finneas has been waking up a couple times a night to eat again...it's frustrating and confusing and exhausting.  it makes me worry that our nursing days are coming to an end.  i just don't think he's getting enough to eat.  and i've prayed with each kid that i'd be able to nurse for a full year, but the seven month mark with atticus was when i got pregnant with penelope and my supply really dropped off, and the seven month mark with penelope was when i had to give up nursing entirely because she wasn't growing.  so here we are at the seven month mark with finneas, and i'm dealing with the prospect of having to quit nursing again, which is really emotional.

um, what else?  oh yeah.  i diagnosed myself (with help from the internet, not a medical professional) with tendonitis in both ankles.  i can barely walk or sit or sleep because of the pain, i have at least one sobbing episode a day, my ankles have swelled up and disappeared into my calves, and i'm cranky and complaining and somewhat homicidal all the time. 

and...let's end on something cheery, shall we?  let me think... oh yeah, after a week and a half of worrying and wondering, i'm now fairly confident that the neighbor lady isn't dead.

this is the real me.

it's time for the promised tour of our disastrous laundry room!

(remember when i took you on a video tour of our last laundry room?  this one is far from being the in-depth journalism that that post was, but maybe that's best for both of us.)

first stop?  the top of my dryer:

clean-but-still-wet cloth diapers waiting to be line-dried, the hated bleach necessary for stripping them, the diaper pail waiting to go back upstairs, and a book.  not just any book, though; it's called setting their hope in god: biblical intercession for your children, and i can't recommend it highly enough. (you can download a free copy here.)  it's a book of short prayers, all based on, and even pulled directly from, scripture passages, for you to pray for and over your children.

i read somewhere once about a lady that used her time folding laundry to pray over the little (and big) wearers of all the clothes. i don't do that; one, because i fold laundry fast to get it over with, and two, because i have a hard time praying while simultaneously cussing under my breath about having to fold the laundry in the first place. but since i spend a ton of time in my laundry room, i keep the book down there, and take a few seconds each day to pray for my kids.

and here is my other laundry room book:

my utmost for his highest. again with the few-seconds-a-day thing, i just read a short devotional from this a few days a week.  i'm not super regular about it, but when i do read it, it has a HUGE impact on my perspective.  i really need to make this a daily thing.

here's the shelf above my utility sink:

 

on the far left is a little enamelware container that i put my dryer lint in.  (i compost our lint, but i always forget to carry it upstairs after every load, so i just wait until this thing fills up and take it up all at once.)  next to that is a mason jar full of oxi-clean, and a little wooden bowl that holds my current set of soapnuts, my dryer balls, and any loose change, etc., i find in the wash.

that 'simple' sign behind everything might have to go.  i made it from a piece of wood i found in a campsite burn pile, and a vinyl decal i got for free at a garage sale.  i thought the thriftiness of it would bring me joy, but instead the stupid swirly font mocks my far-from-simple laundry tasks.  so i kind of hate it.

on the right side of the shelf is a mason jar full of liquid laundry detergent and my bottomless supply of unused soapnuts. 

i keep my detergent in a jar because a) it's prettier, and b) i buy my detergent in 5-gallon buckets:

crazy, right?!  especially considering that you only use one tablespoon of the stuff per load.  also on the topic of crazy bulk purchases (though unrelated to this post in every other way), here's a 50-pound box of dishwasher powder. 

 

no, i don't own stock in biokleen, although i could see where you would think that.

and last but not least, my sad little corner that will, perhaps someday, become a laundry-themed vignette:

(please imagine that empty frame is hanging on the wall with maybe some wall-mounted hooks inside with some cute little vintage items of laundry hanging on them.  also maybe imagine some plants or other stuff on the ironing board and maybe a clothespin chandelier hanging from the ceiling?  imagine really hard.)

and there you have it.  my perpetually messy and overwhelming laundry room, plus a couple of book recommendations, and a photo of a very large box of dishwasher powder.

the weekly 'what's up.' blaaaaaaargh.

this week has just draaaagggged on.  probably because i've been totally unmotivated all week, so i haven't been doing much of anything other than eating sunflower seeds.  and i don't have a picture of that.  so this week's post is sparse.

i have completed two weeks of my six-week fitness challenge.  it's super uncomplicated, just three days of cardio (20 minutes) and two days of strength training a week.  i've also had to give up refined sugar and start eating breakfast.  so i've been diligent and dedicated and (mostly) self-controlled.  and what do i have to show for it?  i've gained two pounds and sprained my ankle.  life sucks.

i baked a perfect loaf of bread, which todd promptly named The Perfect Loaf and gave the catchphrase, 'need some perfect bread? i've got you loafin' covered.'  i'm not exaggerating when i tell you that this really was, in fact, THE perfect loaf of bread.  they could probably have used it as a movie prop in a film about jesus if i hadn't gorged myself on the entire loaf already. 

penelope is pretty much completely potty trained at this point, which is awesome, and prefers to pee in the 'big girlboy potty' rather than the training potty.  she still waits until she's in a diaper during naptime to poop, but still.  i can handle changing one diaper a day.  (not counting finneas'.  or the diapers that penelope and atticus wear overnight.  sigh.  so many diapers.)

and finneas is consistently mobile now, even when confined in his sleep sack.  his favorite new activity is slithering his way into the entryway and puking on the rug.  also, he's been sitting like a champ.  i guess he's basically an adult now; i should probably teach him how to make a really good pot roast and consider my parenting responsibilities fully met.

 

don't even ask what he's wearing in these photos.  my kids are always mismatched or half-dressed if they're dressed at all.  most of the time they just stay in their jammies until they need new jammies for whatever reason. 

anyone have a more boring/unproductive week than i did?

loads (and loads) of laundry.

when todd and i were first married, i did two loads of laundry every week:  a load of hot water items, and one of cold water items.  in addition, every other week i washed sheets.  that was it.

fast forward to last week: a friend came over on Laundry Folding Day (yes, i know i should spread it out throughout the week, but i'd rather hate one day a week than hate every day of my life) after i had folded thirteen loads of laundry.  said friend is pregnant with her first baby, and i think i scared the jibblies out of her.

she was all, how much laundry do you people go through?!   and i was all, thirteen loads a week, apparently (although i do think i had pushed off Laundry Folding Day for a couple of days, so it may have been about a week and a half's worth of laundry.)  because, see, it's not just your daily clothes anymore.  it's your daily clothes, plus the ones you have to change into after they've been puked/peed/pooped/bled on by a second party, or after you spilled something kitchen-related on them.  it's not just your husband's clothes, it's his work clothes and weekend clothes and workout clothes.  it's not just your kids' sheets, it's the three sets of sheets that have been peed on this week.  and then there are towels and washcloths (both kitchen and bathroom), cleaning rags, cloth diapers, burp rags, blankets, questionable-smelling clothes you recently purchased at a garage sale, the too-small kids' clothing you're getting ready to store, the towels you used to clean pee up off the floor, the twenty pairs of soiled training panties, the daily jammies and regular outfits your kids wear, the white curtains with the mysterious toddler-height brown stains, etc. etc.

which is why, though i was totally caught up on laundry a few days ago, my laundry room currently looks like this:

yikes, right?! but you know me; i'm nothing if not transparent and also a walking disaster.  you may not be able to tell in this picture, but that pile on the right (my hot water loads) is nearly knee-deep at its highest point.  yeah, really.

 so, in summary, what would i say the point of this post was?  that when you sign on for family, you sign on for laundry. lots and lots of laundry. and there's no other point to it than that.



**while i was taking this photo, i thought i'd just do a quick tour of our laundry cave (which isn't really all that cavernous, since it's sky blue and huge, but it is in the basement and it does look like some kind of animal makes its den down there, so we'll stick with calling it the laundry cave).  clearly i did not clean up for you, but i'll give you a grand tour on monday anyway.

video vednesday: waaAAAAaaaaAAAAAaaaaaaa

please don't think i'm a butt wipe for thinking this is funny.

okay, the rest of old threshers.

 

penelope checking out some baby cows.

 

atticus in a one-room schoolhouse.

 

 

 

this is how finn spent most of his time.

 

 

 

 

lisagrace came with us and we decimated a huge turkey leg together.  jealous?

 

 

 

atticus checking out the bees.

 

 

 

 

finneas, enjoying his first gun fight.

 

finneas and my mom.

 

 

 

the kids are still talking about this gun fight.

 

 

 

our ride on a steam train, during which the conductor (dressed in period 1900's clothing) told us all about seeing the sears tower being built.  in the 1970's.  something about that felt unauthentic.

 

 

 

 

the kids rode on the carousel.  penelope was not a fan.

 

 

 

 

 

but she WAS a fan of this sorghum cookie.

 

 

 

it was SUPER muddy.  we all got filthy.

 

 

 

see? told you.

 

see anything funny in this picture? no?  well, let me zoom in for you...

 

she loved the steam train about as much as the carousel.

 

the toe socks themselves are surprisingly not the grossest element of this photo.

the other night, todd was searching on amazon for toe socks.  (why was he internet shopping for toe socks?  he's a van voorst, that's why, and that's the kind of crap we do late at night.)  and the heavens parted and the angels started sousa-ing it up on their trumpets and his toes actually started salivating at the discovery of the. perfect. pair.  in all of their ankle-cut, spandex-shot, sweat-wicking glory.  yes, the sample photo socks were pink, but ooh, the black...  his feet were already having a dance party at the mere thought of slipping on a pair of these bad boys.

but then, he looked a little closer at the sample picture...

...and was all, wait one cotton pickin' minute... let me zoom in on that...

OH!

yepper.   that right there is one stubbly toe-sock-model leg.   what strikes me about this is that some girl got paid to do this photo.  man, i wish someone would pay me to not shave my legs.  i could stop dancing in the street for nickels, that's for sure.

good luck relaxing your gag reflex enough to finish that cup of coffee and donut that were the only bright things in your life this monday morning.  i'm mostly not sorry for starting your week (and month!) off this way.