This house...

I am now sure that we have done just about everything possible to improve the chances of this house selling and must now wait. If I had a dime for every person who has given me that precious look and said... maybe you're just not supposed to move... I would be rich and just as irritated. I am oh, so very aware that it looks bad... but I am also so very aware that God has given Ben and I the same dream and the same feeling of urging that this is the time and not to give up.

What is it that has convinced people that if it is difficult to accomplish or takes longer than you had penciled into your day timer to happen, that it must not be God's plan. Have you read the Bible? There is (usually but not now because we have taken everything unnecessary down) a sign in my kitchen that says " CAUTION: If the going gets easy... you may be headed downhill". I have been unpleasantly surprised by the amount of believers that think if it all just goes together without a hitch that God was in it... and that the harder it is the more likely you're out of his will. I am inclined through personal experience and reading the Word to completely disagree. LOL.

And so, we wait! Don't get me wrong, I don't want to move if that is not what God has for us and I believe that He is in control. I just know that nothing good comes easy and the harder the journey the sweeter the homecoming.

My Father Is Turning Orange

I was raised in a household of all or nothing people and we do not do anything halfway (unless the directions actually call for you to stop there). My mother is diabetic and I suggested that she try switching out the fully sugar loaded fruit juice that she usually keeps on hand for the all natural organic carrot juice that has a different kind of sugar and might not affect her as negatively while still giving her the "juice drinking" experience she apparently craves. Needless to say it went the way it usually does, she doesn't do change and my father was all over the new and exciting experience.


This would have been ok if he were a normal person but... he started drinking two bottles (BOTTLES!) a day. I have since convinced him that no more than one bottle a day is even in the psychotic range. In his defence this act of insanity has greatly improved his psoriasis but with one teeny tiny side affect, he is actually turning orange! I have seen this happen with little kids that only eat the Gerber carrots, mac n' cheese, peaches and squash (my friend Julie had to take her daughter to the ER only to find out it was from only eating orange things lol) but never to an adult person. I wanted to include some of the photos I have taken of my parents together lately to prove my point but I still don't know how to include pics on the blog so... (I figured it out! But I bet you already figured that out didn't you now?! LOL) My dad.... and my mum!

Ooooo! A couples charector building project! Yippie!

For all those of you who have attempted to do a major remodel project with your spouse, you already know where I am going don't you?! LOL For those who have yet to wake up and think "let's put our relationship through the proverbial ringer today!" ... don't.

It started off innocently enough with the decision to replace the carpet in the house and turned, somehow in the last 48 hours into an event that has ranged from dirty, sweaty, and painful to back breaking, deep tissue injury from using a JACKHAMMER for HOURS! (totally true) LOL If Ben weren't my best friend, I so would have killed him!

Our house is now piles of furniture anywhere there is not carpet and anywhere there was carpet is striped bare, vacuumed and ready to rumble! For those of you who have been to our home you know that that is not actually possible to do house-wide and so that is what the upstairs looks like (which they will do tomorrow) and then tomorrow night we will put the furniture back in the upstairs, transfer the furniture from downstairs (minus the piano, don't even ask what our plan is there because we so don't have one) and eventually after putting back all the furniture, trim work and freshly painted vents and return covers we will finally have the house just the way we always wanted it... and then hopefully, it will sell! LOL Why do we do the things we do?!
Wait don't anybody answer that... I love a good mystery!

White and Yellow Tent Day!

It is opening day for the VBS that my kids look forward to the most every year. It runs four four long days this week and they have more than a thousand kids. You totally read that right, over a thousand! It is so much fun and it is the week every summer that they get to see just about every playmate in Spokane they have ever had. With all the churches we have done things with and MOPS groups we have been a part of it is like a big reunion for them. I will be shuttling them back and forth between VBS and grandmas house this year however because we are replacing our carpets all throughout the house this week and it seriously looks like twister just came through! LOL All our worldly goods are precariously balanced on top one another in any and every space that isn't carpeted! Not the safest environments for the kids!

Smile and say.... Cheeese!

I awoke this morning to a conversation with a buddy I haven't chatted with for awhile. Awhile being code for, since the last major upheaval for me on a social level. I was faced once again with the seemingly endless issue of how much do you say and how on earth do you say it. When you have gone through a messy social divorce, (aka. once upon a time we used to be friends and now... not so much) it is tempting to want to defend that position which led to the separation. In my case, (I was the one begging not to be left... unsuccessfully) it is really tempting to try and explain how badly I didn't want this separation and the pain it caused. Unfortunately, in this case, I would only be trading my truth and I am sure her condolences, for her broken heart. She sees these people as trustworthy and for her, they are probably quite safe. The people in question are actually big hearted, warm, wonderful women. Wonderful women who have no respect for who their real enemy is and how happy they have made him. So what is a girl to do... (you guessed it) Smile and say..... Cheese of course! LOL

If I could implore you anything (oh great unknown readers and potential stalkers) it would be to take care with the people around you. Jesus wasn't kidding about the love your neighbor thing. It really is the hallmark of who and what we are. Look for the reasons to believe in the other person. Assume the best first. Give the benefit of the doubt that they mean you no ill. And last but certainly not least... treat them the way that you would want to be treated were the shoe on the other foot because I hate to break it to you... eventually it very well may be.

I will leave you with a poem (what you didn't see that coming?!) that speaks to my heart on this subject and then I will close the book on this little chapter...

Oh the comfort,

the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person;

having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words but to pour them all out,

just as it is, chaff and grain together

knowing that a faithful hand will sift them, keeping what is worth keeping,

and then with the breath of kindness,

blow the rest away

Dear Diary

My husband has this T-shirt that he ordered and I didn't get the joke, so he had to explain it to me... slowly. It says, "More people have read this shirt than your blog 00000002". Once he explained it I thought "I better get me one of those". He says no one reads them and so they are like a glorified diary. I don't have any of the diaries from when I was a kid. Not because I didn't have any... because every time I found my mom reading one, I would burn it (not kidding). So, since my mother is the most computer illiterate creature on the planet, with no intention of changing that, I find myself finally safe and sound having a diary... and oh so much to say LOL.

Today was like so many others. I woke up with almost nothing on the schedule, thinking that I might get a chance to relax a bit, only to have everyone and their mother's brother's dog send me their to do lists, like unfinished files on a social workers desktop. I am literally stealing this moment for myself and trying to feel bad about it... but I just don't. So far today I have made two meals (for the kids, that I didn't have time to eat), returned carpet samples (for my husband), ordered carpet (for the house), solved a major minor banking catastrophe (for my husband), purchased a birthday present (for my sons friend), prepped dinner (for 6) and driven across town twice. People it's midday. Well the list calls and off I go. The really scary part is that I love this... all of it.