i'm posting to say i'm not posting.

so here's the thing: my living room looks like this:

yes, you're seeing one-two-three-four laundry baskets (and one rogue rubbermaid tub) chock-full of laundry.  my dryer also has a load sitting in it, and i have a pail full of diapers to wash.

it's indicative of the state of the rest of my house.  a ring in the tub.  hair in the drains.  meat in the fridge that needs to make its way to the freezer before it rots and/or spontaneously combusts.  a vagrant dresser in the hallway that i forgot was there and rammed my baby into in the dark last night...?  yep, that too.

i may or may not have had multiple meltdowns this past week about 'the neighbor girl's garden would still look better than mine if she poured battery acid on it and called down curses from heaven' and 'so help me if one more girl offers up unhelpful comments on how she could never do what i do.' 

there was a lot of crying at church this weekend over my sinfulness, which may warrant a blog post of its own sometime (as though you can't tell from my less-than-edifying comments that i'm a rotten dirtbag).

this weekend involved one of our children producing a bowel movement that was so huge todd surmised the turd had to have been tickling the kid's throat.

oh and then my friend kristy posted this:

"You know how sometimes you just get completely overwhelmed by life in general and things start to spin out of control and you feel like your brain is melting and you start checking your shoulders to make sure it's not oozing out your ears?  Come on, now. I know it's not just me."

the thing is, it's not just her.  while her overwhelmption (yep) culminated in her directing her husband to pee in the yard, mine is culminating in what i've dubbed 'hooky week.'  (not to be confused with 'hooker week,' which would also might make it onto the blog at some point.)  i'm not going to be posting daily, if at all.  i have no idea what this week will look like, but i'm signing my own 'excused absence' slip and cutting out.  i need time to get caught up on my real life.

so have a good week all.  in the meantime, check out the 'weekly what's up' post that finally made its way onto the blog yesterday.  also, here are a couple of gratuitous photos of the kids and i in our 'jammies' (read: remaining clean clothes) feeding finneas his daily ration of egg yolks.

yum-o.

van voorsts out.

the weekly 'wutup.'

what were we up to this week?

on friday night, the kids attended their first non-van-voorst birthday party, replete with a water balloon slingshot and a cake that (purposely) looked like it had gotten mauled by the hulk.  the kids came home with glo-sticks and the conviction that the birthday song is actually entitled 'the happy caedmon birthday' song.  we sing 'happy birthday dear caaaaaaaaedmon' multiple times a day now.

on saturday, my sister came with us to a local park where we exploited our free labor force:

(more photos from the day to come soon.)

i switched the wallpaper on my phone to a picture of todd. when penelope discovered that, at any given moment, she could have her daddy at her side, she became totally attached to my phone.  she carried it around, gazing at todd's photo and saying, 'my daddy is so cute! he's looking at me.  he's looking at my butterfly.  daddy is my friend.'

while i did have the minor gardening success of picking our first ripe tomato, i was mostly defeated by having to pull yet another blight-plighted tomato plant and having to rip out both of our zucchini plants and six bug-infested pumpkin plants.  our garden is looking like a barren wasteland.  next door, however, they planted their tomato plants from seeds in june, and their plants are looking lush and healthy and are larger than mine.  her peas are STILL producing in the 100+ degree heat, and she has so many green beans, she's letting them die on the bush.  trying desperately not to be jealous, but it's not going well.

on wednesday, i drove home from grocery shopping in a MASSIVE storm.  i had to pull off the interstate twice and sit there while the wind nearly lifted the car off the ground, i got pelted with hail (almost personally, when i accidentally started opening the moonroof instead of turning on the overhead light), and i made my peace with god that i very well could die that night.  luckily i got home safely, bawled and tremored for a while, and moved on with life.

thursday, my good friend, ex-roommate and member of my wedding party lisagrace came over and we chatted until well past 9:30 (when my brain typically shuts off).  i loved it.

i deep-cleaned the living room and ended up rearranging the entire space.  i love the arrangement much better, although i'm still dying for some COLOR.

i finally moved finneas to cloth diapers after watching myself drop seventy-five bucks on the disposables in a single walmart trip.  (granted, they weren't all his, but a lot of them were.)  i'd been holding off to avoid the extra laundry and the bubble-butt that would inevitably make his clothes stop fitting, but seeing all those diapers lined up on the clothesline, each individual one saving me around twenty cents (which adds up quickly), it's worth the sudden curves they've caused him to develop.


so - saving money, killing plants and preparing to meet my maker.  what were you up to?

get ready for your weekly microsoft paint fix from yours truly.

so, on a whim (meaning, at the urging of todd's curiosity), i decided to check out what search keywords were leading people to my little corner of cyberspace (CYBERSPACE!).  this is what turned up:

1.  bibby lee dukes lollipop.  what?  YEARS AND YEARS AGO there were these people called the maccabees todd wrote a blog post (back when this was a family blog and i hadn't hijacked it to write about stuff like the latest scandalous piercings that shock me to my very core) about the movie 'fireproof.'  and he pointed out that there was some ridiculous store in the background named 'bobby lee duke's lollipop shop.'  apparently he was not the only one who noticed.  although he may have been the only one to realize the guy's name was not bibby.  poor bibby lee duke.

2.  GF'ERS UNITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! THEY'VE FOUND ME!

3. i poop at parties.  i think this one is pretty self-explanatory.

4. labores de carolin ingals...now this is a search i can get behind.  little house on the prairie...in SPANISH?!!  my prayers have been answered by a good and loving god.  i bet caroline ingalls is up in heaven right now, quilting her delicate little fingers to the bone, gaily laughing at how her homemade butter dye has united people from many tongues and nations.  (and todd is all, how did that search lead them to your blog?  and after a semi-quick google search on our own to try to figure it out, we still have no idea.)

video vednesday: can't. stop. eating. walnuts.

i feel like if i had a twitter account, i could blow it UP with stupid crap.

we all scream. and also we went to coldstone.

on our summer bucket list (which is pretty short, yet still seems unrealistic - how is that?), i had written that i'd love to take the kids to coldstone.  there's ice cream, they sing when you tip them, we're in the middle of a heat wave and i'd do anything to borrow someone else's air conditioning for half an hour - sounded great.

so last sunday, we went there for 'lunch' after church.  (i am not above feeding my children ice cream for lunch sometimes.  i have three kids in three years; the name of the game is survival and no dishes.)

penelope had oreo filling-flavored ice cream.  (both our kids call oreo's 'daddy cookies' since they're todd's favorite; anytime they have the opportunity to eat anything remotely related to oreo's, they usually take it.)

 

atticus had cherry vanilla.  for about thirty seconds, before he wolfed it all down and spent the next twenty-nine-point-five minutes alternately crying about wanting more, and trying to mooch ice cream off the rest of us.  once he even tried to trade his bowl for penelope's (the Incredibly Slow Eater) still-half-full bowl.  sneaky, but nothing my eagle eyes couldn't catch.

 

 

and again, i probably shouldn't post this in fear of people suspecting i'm an unfit mother, but finneas got his own taste of melted oreo-filling ice cream.  he was not sure what to think: 'it looks like milk but it tastes like heaven.  my allegiances are being tested.'

and yet another maniacal picture of yours truly (someday soon, i should do a 'maniac photo round-up.' it will be fun.  and embarrassingly long.):

oh, did i forget to mention i brought lisagrace along in the carseat that is my heart?  she had an awesome time. 

the lonely non-mormon on my porch.

on friday morning, i was up before the kids, trying to get my blog posted for the day.  i heard a banging sound, which i assumed was the kids messing around in their room, so i ignored it.  then i heard it again, and it turns out it was someone knocking on the front door.

our living room has a HUGE front window, so the guy could totally see me just sitting there, all dissheveled and just-woke-up looking: you know, hair akimbo, no appropriate undergarments, retainer still in.  but he saw me sitting there, so i couldn't just ignore him and go on innocently and bra-lessly with my blog posting.

so i grabbed a blanket to wrap around myself (which we all know is a farce, since it was already pushing 80* out; that guy wasn't fooled), removed my retainer and made my way to the door.  the guy was politely looking away, and i was trying to judge what his business on my porch might be: financial planner? no, his polo has some kind of sports-looking patch on it.  which also rules out mormon, because he's by himself (it's never just a mor-man on your porch, it's always mor-men) and i'm pretty sure mormons don't wear sporty polos (or livestrong bracelets) while proselytizing.  or maybe they do; i've never answered the door to a mormon before so how would i know?

so, i stepped out on the porch, got about three feet from the guy, thought about my weird christmas blanket robe and my crazy hair and the fact that i was still holding my retainer...and was all, 'i can't do this.' so i waited for him to look away...and went back in my house without saying a word while he wasn't looking. 

i think i have the market cornered on how to lose a beauty pageant.

the weekly 'what's up'

most of what happened this week was decorating-related or related to snapping pictures of innocent strangers.  take this photo, for example:

todd took this picture of a van fully loaded with bags and bags and bags of white bread.  we were sitting at a stoplight, and he attempted discretion, but we still looked like people busting out a dslr to photograph someone else's van.  maybe someone else saw us and assumed zach braff was in the van...paparazzi much? 

we were wondering just what she was going to do with all that bread.  what's your guess?

oh, and then there's this:

what, you've never seen a sleeveless collared shirt?  it's the newest thing in business casual, and my husband deserves nothing but the best, which in this case is a 'member's mark' brand shirt with no sleeves and a cropped belly.  (can i just say that i think it's so funny that a) sam's club has its own clothing line, and b) it's still called member's mark, and c) we own dress clothes from sam's club?)   finneas looks super jealous of todd's work-tankini.

anyway, that's a joke.  i actually turned it into a member's mark brand pillow.  with a pocket.  so i can keep my stuff in it while i'm lounging on the couch.  if we had remotes, they'd go in there.  i also made it a pillow buddy, so two of our seven pillows are covered (i still have a long way to go...):

todd trimmed the hedges, which were starting to grow fingers on their unruly arms:

i made curtains for the kids' room.  here's a sneak peek at the fabric:

a while back, i took the front off the piano, just 'cuz, and i can't get enough of it, so i thought i'd share:

and i've also been painting the bathroom, but that's a post in and of itself, so i'll just let you hold your breath until the big reveal. 

and lest you think i have actually been cleaning my house while i've been decorating it, i would like to assure you that my upstairs bathroom is going on a four-week-deep level of scum.  yum-o!

how i creep out even the tingting man.

a few weeks back, the husband of a friend posted something on facebook regarding what everyone used to call the guy who drives the ice cream truck:  the tingting man or the ice cream man or what?  and i was all, those guys are real people? i thought they were some kind of legendary figure, the kind that started out as some guy with a fifties haircut and a skinny tie driving down the road eating an ice cream cone.  and now, fifty years later, that guy has been exaggerated with our nostalgia for all things pleasantville and utopian until we're all like, 'i heard there used to be a guy who would drive a WHOLE TRUCK full of ice cream and all you had to do was stand on the street and he'd give you some and his truck played MUSIC and everything!'

to say i was shocked that an actual ice cream guy ever existed is an understatement.  (and the schwann's guy doesn't count.)  (and also, if i had known this in the nineties when it really would have mattered, i would have called him the ice cream man, not the tingting man.)

i have mentioned before that our town is pretty awesome and kind of pleasantville itself (a tree lighting ceremony where santa goes up in the basket of a utility truck to chuck pingpong balls at wide-eyed children?  that has 'fifties america' written all over it).  but never in a million years did i ever think i'd see this:

now, this isn't a great picture, and i'll tell you why.  first, because when i took the picture we were driving.  second, because as we drove past a curbful of children by the ice cream truck i probably looked like i was photographing the children and not the truck.  and that's never good.  so i did it as quick and matter-of-fact as possible. and third, because we drove by a second time, and we were starting to look like creepers.  so we clicked and dashed and hoped we wouldn't end up in the paper.

THEN.  the ice cream truck (which, i would like to point out, looks like a converted handicapped bus) drove past our house.  i dashed out to get a picture, and that poor ice cream guy thought i was in the market for a cold-something-on-a-stick-or-in-a-cone, so he slowed down.  i took a picture and dashed inside, leaving the tingting man lonelier and a quarter poorer than he would have been if i had been in the mood for a cold-something-on-a-stick-or-in-a-cone.

creepiness PWND.  van voorsts take gold.

video vednesday: wass in my mouf?

who wears short shorts? and no shirt? and needs a tan?

this one time in high school, i was at work, washing dishes, and this co-worker (who was generally predatory anyway) came into the kitchen.  we were the only two in there, and he stood in the doorway and took off his shirt and just stood there all bare-nippled for what felt like about 20 million hours.

so i did what i assume any normal seventeen year old human would do - i looked away, pretended he didn't exist, and turned bright red as i finished washing the dishes.  eventually he must have put his shirt back on and left.  or maybe he's still standing there to this day. i'm not sure.

let me tell you another little story: i go grocery shopping every other thursday night.  apparently, every other thursday night is also on some guy's schedule to go walking around downtown with no shirt, i'm assuming to show off his well-cut but very white pectorals.  once i even saw him walking shirtless while carrying a small child.  now that is dedication to trying to get the chicas to at least whistle at him.

let me tell you yet another little story:  i know a girl who has a guy friend who habitually removes his shirt at the most random times: in public, at his apartment, in large movie-night gatherings at other people's houses.  he just pretends to get hot or something and opens his top button...and just keeps going until he's just skins.

which leads me to my question: do guys think this is more sexy than awkward? it would appear so.  however, i know of no girl who gets all hot and bothered seeing a guy with a mr. cotter haircut and no shirt walking down the street, regardless of how muscular he is.  in fact, if other girls are anything like me, they try to avoid eye contact so as not to risk communicating that they're way into it.  because, in my book, guys who are asking to be ogled a) don't deserve it, b) make me extremely uncomfortable, and c) probably also have some weird skill where they can make their pecs dance, and if somebody looks at them long enough they might be emboldened to try it, and i really don't want that visual burned into my brains.

so.  i guess what i'm saying is that i spend a lot of time on this blog deriding girls who don't keep their orifices and fattiest bits covered up.  but now i think it's time to get on the case of the fellas who find it appropriate to walk around shirtless in public arenas other than the pool. 

also, while we're at it, short shorts on guys do not communicate 'look at my sinewy hamstrings' so much as they scream, 'awkward shirtless guy in shorties at eleven-o-clock.' 

please don't be that guy.  i implore you.