Best Christmas Present

I loved all the beautiful gifts friends and family gave me for Christmas, but my favorite gift this year was this pedigree chart my mom gave me. I think I'll have to frame it.

Beds and Treads

I really despise New Year's Resolutions...doesn't everyone? Like, what about the first of January makes me want to do something I wasn't willing to do yesterday? But I always make NY resolutions. I just choose something really small, and unimportant, and do it to remind myself that change is possible...that I am someone who can change, albeit in small, often undetectable ways. This year Jared asked me if I could have my resolution be to stop running over the grass when I pull out of the driveway. Two of my sisters quickly added that their dead grass could use a break from my peel-out jobs. So I decided I would oblige. But I'm also adding my own resolution and that is to make my bed...everyday...for one whole year. I never make my bed. I don't think it's important, and it wont stop me from crawling back in it, however, it's a change that will be noticeable, do-able (i think) and measurable to me. So here's to cha-cha-cha-changes!!!

And the winner is..........

This lady.





purchased by this lady (sporting her crown of glory)






Yes. Jessica won and it was well deserved. She spotted that hideous thing a year ago and has kept it hidden away for all this time. Check out my face when that thing is unveiled for the first time!



Here's the rest of the beautiful bean footage. My hippo in a borderline thong was in the runnings for first place but in the end could not compete with whore-ish grandma with a naval ring!

Bring on the Ugly!!!

Tonight will be our annual Grover Girl Ugly Ornament Exchange which, of course, is also a contest. (We are only competitive when it comes to having/being/doing something sucky.) I am going to win, and when i do, i will post the pics of the monstrosity that is my ornament. Just to give you an idea, I've posted a few pics of some past doozies.


Yes, that's right. One of his legs is 2 inches longer than the other!






Who doesn't want a strawberry with measle-covered twig legs and a pearl necklace on their tree?







The only rules are that it has to be store-bought, and it has to be hung on your tree every year of your natural life! Our trees are getting pretty ugly, people!

Dear Christmas,
Please leave. I am tired of you already. Good day I said good day!!!!
Liz Pabst

This is Amy.

She is one of the sweetest most determined gals I know. When she asked if we could have a little get together to celebrate the A she made on her college final I of course said yes.





She reminds me that I can always reach a little higher and do a little better and I am lucky she likes being my friend almost as much as I like being hers.






This is most of Pack 732.


They are rowdy, fun, energetic little guys who I get to work with in the Cub Scouting program. Jared and I were able, with generous help from other leaders and parents, to travel with them into Houston to lay Christmas wreaths on headstones in the Veteran's cemetary. I felt the spirit so strong as I watched these eager little boys traipse through the mud in the rain laying evergreen wreaths beneath the names of selfless heroes. They did it with huge smiles on their faces. My kids and Sarah's kids even got to lay a wreath on their Papaw's grave. It was a really great experience.

This is Aunt Lisa.


She would do absolutely anything for anyone including me and so I was eager to help when she asked me if I knew how to stain cabinets. (Even though the answer was no) So Jared gave me a little crash course (okay, I was eating cookies while he gave Jen a crash course) and me and Faith and Jen trekked up to Austin to see what we could manage.

When we got there the cabinets looked like this:

Twelve hours, a midnight run to Wal-mart, another to the hardware store, six attempts on an "inconspicuos" inside part of a cabinet, 25 iced oatmeal cookies, 6 liters of coke, 25 times sending the dog out of the kitchen for eating the stain, 122 m&ms, a lasagna, one minor pants-sticking episode and an entire can of easy cheese (that one was all me) later,

the cabinets looked like this.

Good times. Now I need a nap!

<>

The kids had a great time on our one before mentioned snow day building








this guy






Here's Faith, Matthew and Madison after giving a stellar performance in their schools rendition of Wizard of Oz. They were munchkins











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And this was my view this morning as I stretched on my driveway after a run. It was beautiful.

SNOW

In Houston. Fereel.

Back with a Recap

It's been a long time, which included a blog hiatus for me. I'm back and will not bore you with too many details of what we have been up to. Let me address first the finale of Liz Pabst visits Dr. Wiglady. My bloodwork looked good. She said I was pretty healthy, slightly low on vitamin D and that I eat way too much sugar...duh. My billyrubin was funky and she did a urine analysis (anyone else have trouble catching their pee in a dixie cup?) to find out more about that. She said I must take too much Tylenol...and I do...everyday when my kids come home. Thanks Miss Piggy. Well, all done with that. Diagnosis is still: Plum Crazy.

Okay, for the recap:

In October we went on our annual camping trip with my mom's bro and sis and their fams. The kids had a ton of fun doing all things campish. I captured the best picture ever of the kids enjoying, with a surprising amount of euphoria, playing in a tent.






































Then, Halloween with Faith as a surfer, Ethan as a zombie skateboarder and Harris as a viking.




















































In November, Ethan played his last football game. They polished off the season with a big win and a fieldside, trophy-awarding ceremony in which the coach (that's Jared) described each boy's talents. It sounded a lot like "Travis, well, he's a skinny boy, but he sure did like to play football." and "Caleb, well, he's the shortest kid on the team but he's not the slowest." Way to go, Coach!
Faith also played her last volleyball game but I forgot my camera. Way to go, me!
I am thrilled that our sports encrusted Saturdays are on hold until Harris starts baseball in the Spring.
























Amid everything, Harris had eye surgery. Just an outpatient deal that corrected his out turned lazy eyes he inherited from yours truly. I also had the corrective surgery in case you were rudely going to admit that you had noticed that about me.
He did great and woke up from surgery exclaiming, "Am I in heaven?" He later wished aloud that he had said, "Am I dead?" It was all a calculated act though grandma still believes.



















Last but not least, though I have no pictures was Thanksiving. We had 40 folks at my mom's and it was great.




Oh, and just for fun I thought I'd share a photo of the hole burned into the top of my fridge by the light bulb when the fridge door was left open all night by.....the world will never know. I literally hugged the fridge and prayed over the $200 worth of groceries I had bought the day before that were resting at room temperature inside. We ate them all and lived.

This post is not yet rated

I'd like to think I can keep it clean but that's just not where I am. I have mental illness...I cannot say it enough lest someone forget that fact. It affects every single thing I do and everything I don't. It is an extremely heavy burden at times and this is one of those times. I'd love to spare everyone what will surely be like upchucking my insides which are oozing with black, ugly negativity but.....
I went to the og-gyn. to have a well-woman to have her run blood work just to see if my thyroid and Vitamin D and all that are okay, just checking all the underlying factors to be sure they are not contributing to my junk. She told me, as all doctors do, after reading my health history, that perhaps it is raising a child with a disability that is causing my depression and anxiety. Well, what caused it the ten years I had it before he was born? I have a chemical imbalance rude lady with a bad wig, not a bad hand in life. Perhaps your wig is too tight. Now finish determining that those two lumps in my breasts are in fact my breasts and let me put my paper "gown" back on! She wasn't too happy when I told her I had eggs for breakfast. Turns out I didn't get the memo that says you can't eat before having blood work. That means I have to go back in a week. I'm starting to detect some circumstances in my life that could be causing depression and anxiety!!! She will check it for all the things I asked her to if she can read the little bits of chicken scratch she wrote on my chart while she was pretending to listen to me. "No Miss Piggy, I really do think you should check my thyroid, and my iron levels and.....oh yeah, you must be right. I'm tired cuz' I have a child with a disability. That must be it."
"Doctors are no damn good!"
adapted from a quote by Mamaw

Feel it?

Harris had a stomach ache this morning. He kept grabbing my hand, lifting up his shirt, and putting my hand on his tummy and saying,"Feel it?" "No, buddy. I can't feel it from the outside, it's on the inside. But I believe you when you tell me it hurts."
So true, so true.

Mental illness. It's a funny thing. People think if they can look at you and you seem happy or look good, or are "functioning" that you are not really ill. Like you can tell by looking who is wearing sunblock and who isn't. We are all standing in the sunshine, but some of us can absorb it, and for some of us it is "blocked". The joy is blocked. Mental illness is like wearing joyblock all over your soul. And no one else can see it, but you know it's there. Don't ever tell someone who has mental illness that they "seem so happy" or that you think they have a great life. How can you decide that it is great, when they are the one who lives with little to no joy? It's a problem with the brain, not the life.

"A child embarrassed by a parent, is just a child who hasn't lived long enough."
I'm going to keep this in mind. Faith is coming into the age, and the other two are never far behind her, that I embarrass her. She rarely likes what I have to say, how I say it, or that I'm saying anything about "it" at all. It is hurtful and sad, and yet, just part of life. We aren't parents because we get thanked profusely for it. We don't love them because they love us (although they do) we would parent and love them no matter what. I will continue to keep this in mind as well. There are some answers I really want from Heavenly Father right now. I want those answers desperately. There are some things in my life I really need help with, and changing things that aren't working for me is something I want to take place immediately...I don't like to wait on anyone...least of all He who I know holds the best answer, the only real answer. But I am deciding to choose faith. I choose to believe that he is a loving father who does not withhold things from me to be mean or to torture me. he loves me and wishes to help me succeed and so I choose to believe that those answers will come in His own due time. And until then, I will submit with patience to all he sees fit. I choose faith.

clinic day

Not too much to say. Today was Spina Bifida Clinic for Harris and he got a good report from all 2 million doctors and specialists who he sees on this fine annual check-up. The dietician reports that he needs more calcium (tums will work) and the orthopedic doc added ten minutes of stretching to his daily list of to-do's cuz his ankles are getting tight.
His tests all went well except he lost his religion when they drew blood...this is something new they do to check for renal failure since a couple of their kids suddenly went into renal failure with no warning. He seriously lost his damn (pardon me) mind and couldn't really get over the offense. Long after the blood was drawn, while Harris continued to lament his pain, my mom said, "Harris, maybe it still hurts because they wrapped that gauze around your arm too tightly?" To which he replied in a bitter tone, "Or maybe that lady stuck a needle in my arm!"

Joy

Life is always about finding that balance between what you want to do, what you have to do, what you should do, and what you feel you should do. It is a tricky business. Mental illness significantly complicates that business. And just in case anyone is rolling their eyes thinking every thing I say is about mental illness, well, it is. Just stayin' true to my reality here people. Mental illness makes it so that whether you are doing something you want to do (if you can even figure that out with your sicky brain) have to do, or should do, you don't get to feel what most others feel when doing it. You don't feel the regular happiness or satisfaction that is the effect of living a certain kind of life. That can be hard, when normal cause and effect stuff is missing. You find you are just managing...your anxiety, or depression, or OCD, rather than really living a life.
I layed with Harris today and read a book. I should do this, because he really struggles with reading and we try to do at least a little of it every day (let's be real and say every other day) As we were hammering out the task, and it was quite slow with fussiness and frustration (on both our parts) to boot, he started using this really funny voice. It made me laugh...hard. He started laughing hard too. You know, that really deep, from-the-gut laugh that your kids do tons as babies and less and less as they age? It was a moment of pure and utter joy. And I felt it. It felt good. Laughing really is my most favorite feeling.

lazy

today i layed around like a lazy slug. i read a book, well some of it, as i drifted in and out of consciousness. this was all on the heels of me telling jared that i needed him to clean out the garage and fix the dishwasher and i even told him and i quote, "Today is not one of those days you can lay around talking about how you are too tired to do anything!" And then I proceeded to do just that. And what did he do? He cleaned out the garage and fixed the dishwasher. I'm a bad wife. It's the truth. the bad punctuation in this post is due to today's laziness.

It is Done

I am officially resigned as secretary of the Pecan Grove P.T.A. I couldn't be happier with my decision. Look out world, it's a whole new me! And let me just give credit where credit is due. The Lord is kind. He is merciful and he is patient. Our deepest inner struggles sometimes manifest themselves as trivial symptoms in everyday life but those teaching opportunities are never lost on the Lord. I've learned so much through this experience and I thank Him for loving me enough to let me have it. And I pity the fool who tries to get me to say "yes" when what I really want to say is, "NO!" Here's to me spending more time enjoying the true riches in my life. "For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also."

Tomorrow's To-Do's

#1. Quit the P.T.A.

Wish me luck!!!!

Talents?

During family night yesterday, the kids sang this classic with accompanying sign language that I assume was taught to them by their wonderful and patient Primary chorister, Sister Dent. It was cuter the first time, before Harris saw the camera and had to ham it up as usual. Let me just say I'm aware of Ethan's hair. It's not that I don't see it. He's just old enough to make his own mistakes..ahem, I mean choices regarding his hairdo.




Also, J-dawg sang his own rendition. He, unlike Harris, is not too fond of the camera which he tried to keep covered with his hand. You can hear me telling him to "put his tooth in!" That would be his retainer with a fake tooth connected to replace the one he had knocked out in a fight as a teenager. (He'd be really mad if I didn't tell you he actually "tripped over a blanket" during the fight and smacked his mouth on a coffee table. (insert eye roll here)) Don't know why but he always seems to take on some kind of accent when he sings...almost always british or pirate sounding.

Deals and Steals

Okay. One day I want to become one of those super ladies who does all that crazy couponing where you get a million dollars worth of groceries for a buck. As long as there is reality t.v. however, I do not have time. I do like to find good deals though, so I thought I'd share.
Today at Randall's (I went to the one on 359.) there are navel oranges (ripe, perfect) for .59 cents a lb. I got a whole bag for two dollars. Also, a bunch of cereals (Cheerios, Trix, Cocoa Puffs..you know, the healthy ones) are only $1.50 a box if you buy four and you can mix and match and there is no limit. When I checked out they handed me TWO coupons for a 10-pack of Capri-Sun absolutley FREE, no purchase necessary AND a coupon for $2.00 off the cereal I had just purchased for $1.50 a box (must buy 5) so tonight I'll run back to Randall's (most of you have already decided this is too much work but I live 2 min. away) and for $12.00 I'll get 2 boxes of Capri-Sun, 8 boxes of cereal and another big bag of oranges!!! Now back to the Real Housewives!

Anniversary in San Antonio

Well, the J-Dawg and I have been married for a million years so to celebrate, we drove to San Antonio before my mom could realize what she'd gotten herself into with our quarrelsome brood at home. We stopped at a Bucee's on the way down. I don't know if Bucee's is just a southern thing, or if they are international or what, but lemme tell ya! This was quite an experience for me, who had never been! This is the Taj Mahal of gas stations my friends. I had to get some buccee nuggets (glorified corn pops, but worth the whopping 200 calories a handful) and Jared tried rock candy for the first time. His exact words were "Rock candy is damn good!" (Repeated about 10 times!)We also stopped at the outlets in San Marcos (voted best in the country!) on the way down and I spent way too much at my favorite stores, while Jared cheered me on as usual....no one keeping us on financial track in this marriage! Well, there's Faith. Anyway, we stayed at a nice hotel, saw two movies IN A ROW (just because we could!) and also went to Fiesta Texas and rode every roller coaster about 5 times. It was so FUN! Jared spent $30.00 shooting hoops to win me this high quality stuffed whale.
On the way home we took a detour to stop at this crazy place called Snake Farm. It was disgusting, yet very fascinating. They had over 500 live animals to look at, mostly snakes and crocs.
?


They had a petting zoo which Jared was all about but for those of you who know me I abstain from touching most animals. These three little pigs did make me miss Faith, Ethan and Harris though. But still, nooo touch-y!! And Jared INSISTED on stroking this goats beard


It was a great trip. Here's to the next dozen years, J. There's no one I'd rather spend them with. I love you.