I am alive.

So wow. It has been many years since my last post. Many more than I realized. I've written a million posts in my head during my 5-year hiatus. And believe me when I tell you they were GOOD. REALLY funny, spunky, thought-provoking, terrific... REALLY.

But all you really need to know is that 5 years changes things. Five years changes everything. I'd like to think I've matured, but I haven't really. I wish I could say that I've learned life lessons that will no-doubt move you to tears. But that is not the case either. In five years I've gotten older, fatter, grumpier, and just plain crazier. My memory appears to have taken a permanent vacation, my skin sags in unexpected places and doubly so in the expected places, I've grown to hate crowds, most people, social events and even my favorite pasttimes. My bones ache, my wrinkles have wrinkles and my freckles have freckles. I even have those LINES around my lips that lipstick seems to find its way into on the rare occasion that I bother to put it on. How did this happen? Wish I knew.

My children continue to grow up despite my intention to keep them close and young and following all of my wonderful advice. I now have a 19 year old Freshman in college who recently told me that she actually didn't NEED my "permission" to change her major. However, she does require a "parental guarantee" in order to sign a lease for an apartment next year. Hmmm. Really honey? I think I'm going to REQUIRE that you seek "permission" to change your major, BEFORE I agree to GUARANTEE your ability to pay your rent in the future.

My 14 year old middle child and oldest boy has outgrown me in many ways. He went from 2 inches shorter than me at the beginning of the school year to towering over me in the last 2 weeks it seems. His shoe size LITERALLY went from a 7 to a 10 in two months. I can't keep him in jeans, shirts, shoes, or jackets. And lastly, I finally understand what other moms say about teenage boys eating them out of house and home. I can't seem to keep enough cereal and almond milk in the house to satisfy his voracious (yet picky) appetite. His other chief complaint? I'm out of books. I'm out of books. I'm out of books. He almost had to repeat kindergarten because he couldn't read as the end of the year drew near. I purposed to catch him up, and he did indeed catch up... then proceeded to surpass most of his peers, and even his older sisters. Perhaps a gift of his Aspergers Syndrome diagnosed in 2008, but certainly an interesting part of who he is. He has read nearly all of the selections of my Book Club, all of the required reading for both his high-school-aged sisters, as well as anything at the library that strikes his fancy. His newest passion? A computer game where he is building/creating his own city one brick at a time. I see architecture in his future.

At the other end of our familial pack is my precious baby boy. My youngest child with the contagious giggle that can brighten the darkest day was diagnosed with hearing loss and significant delays two years ago possibly stemming from his premature birth, maybe not. He continues to struggle with developmental issues, and he stands a full head shorter than the shortest girl in his kindergarten class. Bless his sweet, wee heart. But he loves his life and every single person he meets including the kids who pick on him on the school bus. I love that about him.

And keeping the balance of estrogen to testosterone on equal footing since one daughter left for college are my two adorable girls, 17 and 8. They keep me as sane as can be expected and bring flowers, art and beauty to my otherwise bizarre peri-menopausal life. As different as they are similar, they both add more sugar and spice to our familial mix than I could ever have imagined when they were born. I'll take all the drama they have to offer and more... because I guess I have learned something in the last 5 years... being a woman is tough. Being a 40+ year old woman is tougher. And as much as I love, adore and appreciate the men in my life, there is no substitute for the love of a sister or a daughter. I have lost friends in the last 5 years... one to breast cancer just last week, one to my own stupidity and selfishness, and once I thought I lost my sister. But in the end, it has been the women in my life that have shaped me into the person I am today. And it is the women I know that have taught me how to love the men in my life and my children better. It is the woman in my life, including those I have lost, that have made me want to do ME better.

So my mom emailed me...

Okay! My mom sent me an email letting me know how sick and tired everyone is of my hideous bald picture. I get it! I have 6 different posts drafted, but nothing truly "blog-worthy" in my opinion, so I've put off adding anything new and exciting... I've been a little busy. But my mom's email requested new photos of the kids and asked (jokingly) what I do with all my spare time... Hmmmmm.

So I took a quick look at my calendar. It is so ugly, I closed it without even reviewing what is happening tomorrow. I'm sure I'll miss something critical, but I'm actually afraid of my calendar. I don't want to know what is SUPPOSED to happen...inevitiably, only part of it happens or more than what is there happens, and it's really more confusing than helpful. But here's what's happening in my unbelievable life.

After a year and a half on hiatus from any and all extra-curricular activities for children, we decided to add a couple of things back into their schedules this fall. HA! Try adding only a couple of things when there are five kids, plus two adults all wanting something more...

I have NO spare time, no life at all, I do nothing but go from one activity to the next, with each one adding little or no value to MY life. I do laundry load after laundry load, and it continues to multiply while I'm asleep.

My 9th grader is BURIED in work at the private high school. Not sure if it's the school or what, but we hear that even the kids not taking honors classes are having the same problem. She has spent no fewer than 2-3 hours a night in schoolwork, and rarely finishes it all. I don't know how much longer she can continue to stay up til 11 or 12 doing homework and get up at 5:30 to go to school again. She's had to quit the church choir, give up her weekly babysitting job and she's not even going to be able to participate in any extracurricular stuff that the school offers including the service oriented things (which, by the way, she's required to participate in 20 hours of community service each semester.... HUH? Really? When would like her to squeeze that in? I guess she could visit a homeless shelter and cover people with blankets between the hours of 2 AM and 4 AM... YIKES! This is NINTH GRADE!!!). For me, I've had to learn Geometry all over again to help her every night, but I've rehired her math tutor from last year so that should at least free up my evenings again (HA! Keep reading...) It sucks.

We're going camping this weekend, so I've been busy cleaning out our camping bins and making lists of what we need to survive 3 days in the wilderness with 2 teenage daughters, one 9-year-old-pyromaniac, one barely-potty-trained-3-year-old and one take-five-steps-fall-on-his-hiney-one-year-old. I bought a Barbie fishing pole today (WHAT?!), and I'm determined to cut up little worms and hang them on hooks so that she can experience "fishing"... ugh. YUCK! Isn't that the dad's job? Not in our house. In our house, "I hate fishing" means MOM gets to take Barbie and Bait to the quaint little lake by our quaint little campsite and ATTEMPT TO FISH. In the meantime, hubby and I have MADE A LIST of all the things we need to talk about while on the camping trip since we never talk in real life anymore. Usually if I'm talking to him, he's sleeping since he can't stay awake after 10PM, OR I'm sleeping when he's trying to remind me of the groceries I need to get on my way home from tennis practice. Of course, he's having this conversation with a comatose person since it's still dark outside and therefore, God is still sleeping and so am I. Anyway, in addition to our fishing, smore-making, hiking, horseback riding, general cooking and cleaning up, we're going to have some valuable bonding time and quality conversation about what to do with the rest of this year, next year and the following 5 years. At least I won't be doing laundry.

I'm also training hard for the Booby Walk. It's less than 3 weeks away. I walked 6 miles 2 weeks ago, and 8.5 miles last Saturday. It was brutal. I guess that's nothing compared to what walking the 20 miles in one day will be like, but I'm getting there. One mile at a time. I decided to go ahead and buy tickets for my reunion, and if I can still move after 20 miles, hubby and I are going to get dolled up and go for a couple of hours. However, I have to be back in the hotel sleeping by 11 in order to get up and walk the last 10 at 7:00 in the morning on Sunday. Is that even possible for me? To go to the reunion and not drink myself into a 3 day hangover? To go to the reunion for a little bit on Saturday night and actually LEAVE if I'm still having fun? To even be able to get "dolled up" after walking 20 miles? Will I even be able to stand upright and take a shower? I don't know, but I'm betting $170 plus an awesome dress that I will...

My weeks look like this...Monday morning, I drop off SJ at school at 9:15 then go to tennis practice from 9:30-11. Then I'm free for the whole day! WOW! What will I do with all that time? Oh, the grocery shopping for the week, and pick up the dry cleaning, pick up from the preschool at 1:30, oh then I have carpool to the high school which is over 2.5 hours each afternoon. But other than that, Mondays are pretty quiet.

Tuesday... SJ to preschool and home, and high school carpool again. Not too bad really... but this is laundry day...not to say that other days AREN'T laundry days, this is just the day that I ESPECIALLY do laundry because it has grown exponentially over the weekend and on Monday.

Now Wenesday, that is a special treat. No pre-school, but 3 different gynmastics classes at the same place but at 3 different times. Well planned, don't you think. One is 12:45-1:30, then I go do afternoon carpool to the highschool, come home grab another kid, go to the gym from 4:15-5:30, take him home, cook and eat, then take the last one to class from 8-9pm. How about that? Apparently SJ (age 3) is doing VERY well, as "daredevils make great gymnasts" according to her teacher.

Thursdays we do preschool, but both little ones go this day. I hope Gabriel likes it, but I'm not holding my breath. He screams from the time we pull into the church parking lot, through the entire check-in process until exactly 1 minute after we drop him off. It's the strangest thing. I'm sure school will have the same affect. Anyway, I'll drop them off then run to my tennis match. It will probably last until long after time to get them at 1:30, but then I'll still have to leave at 2:30 to do the high school run. Then I'll come home cook, we'll eat (early) so that Geo and Carri can get to Tae Kwon Do at 6:30. L will go to tutoring at 7, and I'll have plenty of time to buzz back out to pickup from Tae Kwon Do. Uh huh... right.

AND starting this week, Geo will be doing cub scouts with his Grandpa. We don't know when that will meet, but that's ok... it's not my problem. Oh, and Gabriel is finally walking. It is very sad. I'm going to have to promote him out of the crawling room at the church nursery. It will be a sad day. It is official...he'll be a toddler. WAHHHHHHH. Don't worry, I don't want to untie my tubes... you saw this schedule, right? I'm going to go an take my ADD drugs so that I can stay awake for the entire day, and then I'll take my anti-anxiety pill that I take well, for obvious reasons. Better living through pharmacology...

I have 5 kids in 4 different schools. You'd think I have all the time in the world. I don't. I do everything, but feel like I do nothing. How did moms do it with 8 or 10 kids?

PS. I just found my fully dressed toddler in the shower with the water running. (I had turned it on so I could jump in the shower after I posted this...) It goes on and on and on and on... Does anyone else dream with Sesame Street characters playing your friends?

Bald and Beautiful (or at least brave)

Finally a photo to give you a visual for Unbelievable #7. Told you it wasn't pretty...

Boobapalooza!

This is NOT an entry with pictures of a bunch of naked breasts! So if you were surfing for porn and found this, you may be disappointed. However, you should read on and see how you can make a difference and possibly save some boobs (er, breasts) in the future.

After careful consideration, I've decided to skip my 20th high school reunion in order to participate in the Atlanta Two-Day Breast Cancer Walk. Most of you remember or have read about when I shaved my head 2 years ago in support of my Aunt Mary who was beginning chemotherapy for Stage 4 Breast Cancer (see recently added scary photo). Aunt Mary's continued fight has inspired me to help raise funds for more breast cancer research.

Now to understand how big a deal this is, you have to know that I REALLY want to go to my reunion. Like most people (I think), there's a certain thrill in going to that reunion and looking fabulous and showing your friends how successful you turned out. Well, that's not my motivation. We all know that not only do I NOT look fabulous, I am almost never even recognized when I run into people from that era. While that has been painful at times, I'm pretty much over it now (being bald changes how you look at life).

And as far as success goes, I guess that all depends on your definition of success. If it's about having a happy marriage, I have that...now. But I had a 10 year marriage fail despite my determination to hold it together. My 3 children from that marriage have in been permanently affected by this particular failure, and I get to live with that every day.

Let's see, other worldly measures of success...oh, my JOB. Well, according to my son's 3rd grade teacher, staying home to take care of children isn't really "a job", so I guess I've failed there too. Unless you consider what CNN's MONEY said today. Experts did REAL research and put a monetary value on the occupation of a stay-at-home mom (http://money.cnn.com/2006/05/03/pf/mothers_work/index.htm?eref=yahoo). There was even a quiz that allowed me to break down the hours I spend a week as chef, chauffeur, laundress, psychistrist, janitor, housekeeper, CEO, etc. According to my location in the United States, my PERSONAL salary SHOULD be in excess of $125,000 per year. WOO HOO! Let's party! When do I get my first check? Do I get a signing bonus??? My signing bonus came in the form of an episiotomy and every paycheck I've received has been paid in hugs and kisses. (Not too shabby really, but is it "success" as my friends would measure it?)

For the record, I went to obtain employment recently. I was looking for part-time work to contribute a little to the bottom line of our household. I figured I had a lot to offer: I have a Georgia Tech education. As a senior I was chosen for a position in a Management Training Program with a high-profile bank while most of my classmates had been rejected. I have 7+ years work experience in Human Resources, Marketing, and Technical Support for a large company, and an additional 3 years as a manager of several different retail stores. So I went through the interview process, going into great detail about how flexible I could be so that the fact that I had five children wouldn't be a negative consideration on the part of my potential employer. Finally after the results of the drug screen came back, I received the job offer. For $8.50 an hour. WHAT? I pay my babysitter $10 an hour to take care of 2 children. Of course she does laundry while she's there, but COME ON! Surely, I'm worth more than that. "Let me talk to my regional manager (district manager, someone)...OK, I can do $9 an hour, but don't tell anyone I did that for you". HUH? I almost choked. Instead I said I'd think about it.

Ummmm, tell you what. I'LL stay home and do my own laundry, save money on the gas and clothes I 'd have to get to wear to work, pay my older kids $0/hour to watch the babies, and I'll just sit and write my blog. You can spend money to train an unreliable teenager to do the job you interviewed me for, and fire him next month when he no-shows for a shift...for the 3rd time. Then you can hire his best friend the next week, go to the expense AGAIN to train a NEW unreliable teenager until you catch him sneaking sips of Robitussin under the counter when no one's looking (except the security cameras!) By then you will have spent what would have been an acceptable hourly rate for me like a million times over. Oh well. Your loss.

How did I get here? Oh yes, my reunion. So while I don't have much to show off, I feel like I have the world. I have five of the sweetest, most annoying, smart, whiny, adorable little brats on the planet. I have a husband who cooks, cleans, moans, complains, and occassionally yells to be heard above the din. But he comes home every day, even after his call to gauge the overall mood of the house, and he changes clothes and digs in to help. My husband doesn't just love me, he's crazy about me. And while he drives me crazy a lot of the time, there is no one else I want to see before I fall asleep and again when I wake up. When all my little babes are gone, I can't wait to spend all my boring, empty days just looking at him. In a very quiet house. Or if he has his way, we'll be in a big RV parked in one of our kids' driveways.

I want to go to my reunion, but I'm walking in this walk to benefit a cause that I believe in. But I can't believe I'm not going see all the people I have such fond memories of from that incredibly weird and foolish part of my life. I can't believe I'm not going to see the people I have BAD memories of just to show them that my life turned out great even though they didn't like me when I REALLY wanted them to. But life goes on. The party will go on whether I'm there or not. But if I walk in this walk, maybe I can make a difference in some small way. Or MAYBE, I can find a way to walk 20 miles in one day, dress up and go to my reunion, and walk another 10 miles in the morning. What do you think?

The team I started is called Boobapalooza.
To support me in my efforts to raise $$$ for the cure, click the link below:

https://www.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=140092&supId=80862095

My birthday and the real world

So, I had taken a break from posting for a bit. No, the bleeding dryer didn't send me over the edge into an institution. While I had wished death upon that dryer many times, thinking I'd have a semi-permanent break from laundry; it continues to toss and turn and blow hot air giving me the opportunity to serve my family by folding yet another burp cloth, hanging multi-colored teeny tiny teenage bras, my husbands pants for work and wadding up the enormous granny panties with holes that now occupy MY underwear drawer. But I digress...

Yesterday was my birthday. I turned 38. I thought that when I turned 36, I was officially on the wrong side of 40 slipping further and further away from 30. However, having turned 38, I've decided that THIS is worse. The "mid-thirties" has passed me by and I'm now supposed to be exhibiting signs of maturity and wisdom that I don't feel. My body has morphed into something resembling a large pineapple, complete with hair that doesn't look right long or short (or bald) and skin covered in the speckled spots of sun damage from beautiful suntans long forgotten. And oh, my bladder. Thank God for Poise Pads. Enough said.

But my brain, my fabulous brain. That wonderful gray matter that makes it all happen. Where all my dreams began and my imagination ran wild as a teenager. The thing that keeps me up at night worrying about my kids' futures. The organ that allows us the opportunity to experience a sunset, to smell a fresh pot of coffee in the morning, to feel the sand in my toes on the beach, to instinctively know when something isn't right with my oldest daughter, to balance a checkbook...that thing that allows me to have an ORGASM! What an amazing piece of God's work. But I guess, as all things do, my brain is getting older, and it isn't quite the same. You know what I'm talking about. Walking into a room and not remembering why you went in there? Your husband asking where his dry-cleaning is that you were supposed to pick up yesterday so he'd have his favorite shirt for a meeting? A child shaking you awake at the crack of dawn needing a ride to school early for a makeup test...citing "I told you last week!"? And unlike the lovable Dorie from Finding Nemo, it's not JUST the short-term is it? It's remembering the name of your 3rd grade boyfriend, recalling what it felt like to go to your first prom...it may even be a few details of your wedding.

Well, I say, no matter. Here is just a smidge of that wisdom...it just came to me while I was writing. This is what I know about MY REAL WORLD:

1) Not everyone remembers birthdays...especially ME...but SOME of the people who matter most remembered and called to encourage me. What a blessing. Some people have no one to remember.

2) My underwear may be huge, but that is because my HEART is so big, and gravity has pulled it down into my butt. Therefore, I NEED bigger underwear.

3) My children are the greatest gift God ever gave me. These days when they are young and learning and expanding THEIR brains and building THEIR dreams; that is what I want to remember. If I lose my brain (or my mind) entirely, I KNOW that they will help me remember.

4) My husband is my walking miracle. He loves me when I'm totally disgusting. He laughs even when he's mad. He will be with me putting the puzzle pieces of my life together until the very end. When we met, he didn't believe in God or true love. Now, he and my son will be baptized together at our church on Easter Sunday. He is a walking testimony to the healing power of God. And he not only believes in true love, he epitomizes it, lives it and teaches our children to wait for it.

5) The laundry will never go away. I will never be able to afford to hire someone to do all my laundry all the time. And that's ok. Those burp cloths and those white socks that have to be matched for 7 different people... that is my REAL WORLD. And if nothing else, it TEACHES me to SERVE. It REMINDS me that people NEED me. It allows me to experience true love in a very REAL way. Without TRUE LOVE in my life, my brain would have no purpose. So, Thank God for LAUNDRY. And for the invention of the dryer.

My Dryer is BLEEDING!

So, in keeping with the theme of my life...

I've been taking a class on finances, and I've recently started buying things in bulk to save pennies wherever I can. I switched laundry detergent to the cheapest one I could find in the largest container (300 fluid ounces to be exact). I patiently waited until my old soap was gone, and yesterday I proudly opened my new container and washed ONE load of the 96 promised on the label.

Late last night I went in to fold the last load of the day to put an end to the nightmare "beep beep beep" I'd been hearing ALL day long. I thought as I walked down the hall, "Wow, that new detergent really smells good...a little strong, but good." Then I saw it. The entire floor of my laundry room was green. I mean every single square inch...oozing into the heat duct, under both machines, seeping across the threshhold onto the hardwood floors. 300 fluid ounces of detergent, minus the 6 ounces I had used in that first load. The dryer had VIBRATED the container onto the floor. There were pieces of the broken plastic lid swimming across the shiny surface of the soap lake. Like any good mother, I bawled. I cried like a little girl, great hiccups of the child not wanting a shot, the sobs and wails of a grocery line temper tantrum, and tears like a river...over the lenses of my glasses, down my face, snot running freely into my mouth and down the pajamas I'd never taken off that day.

My husband held me and rocked me as if I were a child woken up by a scary dream. My teenage daughters burst forth from their basement room to see which pet had suddenly died. My toddler (who had taken a nap FAR to late in the afternoon to consider sleep before midnight) patted my head and told me over and over, "I can fick it Mama, I have shtrong mushels" while she flexed her tiny arm like a mini Popeye-the-sailor-man. And the little men of the house...slept blissfully through it all.

Post mortem: I was under the gun to find a missing receipt for the new dishwasher that was being repaired today. Find the receipt, prove it is still under warranty, no charge. No receipt, $300 plus 2 service calls. I did not have time for this kind of mess. So my hubby went in for disaster relief, and I ventured into the black hole of my office for search and rescue of the receipt. Next, I heard my husband swear...not a usual thing at all. Then he came in and showed me his hand and arm covered in green soap at least halfway up to his elbow. This was from sticking his hand down the vent. Apparently, the laundry room vent curves "just right" so rather than allowing the soap to gush down and flood the entire system, it was captured in this dip...6 inches deep.

So he scooped. Into a giant bowl. In addition to nearly 2 LITERS of soap (as proven by the markers on the inside of my mixing bowl), he retrieved one dead spider, several chunks of dog food, one cricket corpse, one icky gooey dryer sheet, 2 pennies, grit of varying shapes and sizes, and a giant glob of soggy mushy slop that could only be regular old lint mixed with wads of dog hair and drenched in thick green soap. "Do you want me to try to save it?" he inquired. "What? Are you crazy!? I don't know! Sniff! Sniff! I don't care! Honk honk (nose blowing)." What was he thinking you ask? He was thinking that maybe he could recoup some of the $26 investment I'd been boo-hooing about, and that perhaps I would use it to "clean our clothes". HUH?

Eventually he declared the cleanup complete, and I had finally recovered the receipt. SUCCESS! Time for bed. Another night lost to the urgencies of the household rather than spent cuddling and talking to each other and remembering all the things we loved about each other. (Yeah, right.) Sleep, sleep, sleep. Five minutes later, the alarm went off. Four kids had to get ready for school, the dishwasher guy was supposed to be coming sometime between the hours of 7am and 5pm, husband overslept AGAIN, and one teenager was on the verge of missing the bus. 30 minutes later, 5 people went out the door, and 1 baby was still sleeping (phew!)

Time to do the laundry. Remember the guy in the old Dunkin' Donuts ads? Time to make the donuts? He ran into himself coming and going from his store when it was still dark out. Yeah, that's me. Every day. Fat, old lady wakes up and heads down to the laundry room, bleary-eyed, but prepared to fulfill her responsibilities to "do the laundry". Day in, day out. Time to do the laundry. Time to do the laundry.

But wait! The strong chemical soapy smell is still there. Can you believe this??? MY DRYER IS BLEEDING! From under the machine during the too-short night, a massive puddle of green blood has pooled. I guess the cleanup was not so complete after all. But am I going to complain? Call my husband in outrage? Not after he cut his hand on some mystery metal and got a bloody nose during cleanup...probably from his nasal passages being eaten away by the chemical soup. But, this is crazy! Soap still oozing from beneath the dryer? I can't face cleaning it up. So, as any resilient mother would do, I scooped up the load of teenager's jeans (the ones that were BOUGHT all scuffed up and ratty) and dragged them through the soap. I took the little boy's jeans with Georgia red clay on the knee and swept it under the edge where the blood was coming from. Dumped it all in the washer and turned it on. DONE!

Then, despite my earlier misgivings, I went to my mixing bowl and filtered out the dog hair, grit, bugs and other junk with a brand new kitchen-screen-strainer-thingie, and "saved" nearly 2 liters of the cheap, green laundry detergent. How about that!?

Totally Bloggable Valentine...

This is the romantic Valentine I woke up to this morning, next to a steaming cup of hot coffee. What a blessing to be married to a man who takes the time in the middle of the night to do something so sweet and loving just so I'll feel special.

He even wrote a love note on the back of the homemade card. It said, "You mean the world to me- every minute of every day. And I will keep 'showing up' every day because my home is wherever you are, no matter what. Thank you for giving me my home. I love you!"

My husband continues to amaze me every day. I am a better person because of him. I pray that my girls grow up and find a love this intense, this authentic and this miraculous. I hope that through our example they will have high standards and be willing to wait for the real thing. There's nothing else like it in the world.