Ordinary Time

How did it get to be Friday? While in some respects, the week felt very long, it also feel as though it has zipped by. Let's start to get back to a more normal schedule, and do some Friday bullets. Kenzie is currently a very nervous dog. He looks concerned due to the hound in him, most of the time, but this week has him looking truly pathetic. Every time someone gets in the car, he tries to get in, too, as if to say, "Are we going to go home now?!" The cats and quail don't seem to notice or care too much about the change of scenery.  In positive Kenzie news, his recall is getting much better. P. and I have had him out in the back and been calling him back and forth between us. He has done a distance of several hundred feet now. Unless the barn cats from next door wander by. Kenzie has decided the barn cats are mortal enemies and must be vanquished... if he could ever get near them. We are not quite there to trying him off the leash. The wall was taken down yester

It took moving to a new house where we couldn't get internet and a week living without internet connection to push me over the edge and get a smart phone. I now have unlimited data, as well as a hot spot so that I can do basic things, such as pay some bills and blog. I thought I would share some before and after pictures of the the inside of the house. We have spent this week living in the kitchen while the floors of the rest of the house were being redone. The installers are almost all done, and it is looking wonderful. I'm glad we went ahead and had this done. First, the before pictures. This was taken before we bought the house, and I show it to you merely to let you see the carpet which was in nearly all the downstairs rooms. This is the living room, by the way. Upstairs we had a cacophony of carpet colors. This is just a mere sampling. But now... This carpet is going up both stairs as well as in all the bedrooms of the second floor. It is a terrific

The closings went off without a hitch, and so now I can finally show you where we are living.  Welcome to the Big Ugly  House  Barn! (Yes, it really is a converted barn, and while I love it, there are more than a few things about the decorating that allows us to retain the Big Ugly description of our home. Plus, we've become rather attached to it. This picture was taken a few months ago, so the trees have a lot more leaves on them. I also have been spending every waking moment trying to sort out the mess of what we brought with us, and have not been terribly diligent in taking pictures. That will have to wait for future posts. Speaking of future posts. I am currently sitting in the Town and Country Library in Elburn (which is very nice, by the way), where I went to make use of the free wi-fi, and get a library card. I'm not sure the librarian took me quite seriously when I said I 'needed' a library card, but it was absolutely true. I now have a happy sta

I'm not sure I would recommend spending one's 26th anniversary doing a final packing of one's home. It was definitely the most stressful part of the week, and even with some amazing packing on J. and TM's part (and an extremely full trailer, van, and two cars), we still had to leave some for the P. Family to bring to us on Saturday. But we did it, and are now settled in our hotel with five children and four animals. Last night, our older children started out having some fun wrapping siblings up in the leftover packing plastic wrap, which then devolved into a whole family dodge ball game in the empty dining room. I just want to go on record as saying that it is hard to compete against children who have years of dodge ball practice at church and Boy Scouts. (Besides the fact that my husband and children paly a far different version of dodge ball than I grew up playing. I think it is the difference between having gyms verses having PE class on a field all year long.) It

except on the floor or a few folding chairs, which are not so comfy. It's probably a very, very good thing that our little people are not here this week. The past three days have been fairly crazy, and that combined with there being nothing in the house would probably have proved to be too much for them. And for us dealing with them not dealing with things. Last night big people grabbed a sleeping bag and pretty much chose a random spot where ever on the floor. At least two slept in the kitchen because it, at least, had a rug. Not so tonight. The haulers spent the day here, today, and everything we are not taking with us is gone. Another very good friend came over this morning and helped me pack all the food. It was a good thing she was here. Not only does she have amazing visual spacial skills and is thus very good at packing, but more than once, I found myself just standing and staring with very few thoughts running through my head, except the vague notion that I should be doin

Look carefully, and you'll see D. lying on his back there at the end of the kitchen. A., who seems to be ready for bed, and R. Living rooms... these look even bigger without the furniture in them. Dining Room The movers were great and fast. Tomorrow the removers (the people taking away all the stuff we are not keeping) show up, and we play this game again, though a slightly different version.

Yesterday we took a day off from packing and delivered our five who were going to church camp.  K. G. H. G., Y., and L. are all in the same cabin. K. gets to have best friends and a cousin in his cabin. It doesn't get much cooler than that. Today, we slept a little longer than we meant to. Without those five who were dropped off at camp. the house is very quiet for a very long time in the morning. We made up for it though. There are still a few things left to do tonight, but I think we are about 99.9% done. (A huge, huge thanks to the P. Family mom who spent all day here helping out. Without her help, we would be getting a lot less sleep tonight.) Here are a few pictures of what the house is looking like these days. This is my favorite box tower. That huge box on top is actually very light, and is our big beanbag chair. That is an extra large box, with its flaps still up, that M. constructed a new lid for it. The tricky thing about all t

Last night everyone (!) gathered together and we celebrated the June birthdays. (Have a mentioned that my family, when all together is loud. Very, very loud.) It was perhaps the most low key celebration in all the history of low key family celebrations. We'll do more next year. It was also the last celebration in this house. (Sniff.) Here are some pictures from the evening. (You'll notice the higher quality. M. had the camera and took some pretty good pictures. L. blowing out her birthday candle A. and G. G. blowing out her birthday candle The whole crew B., J., and D., who is waiting for his candle This little series was too fun not to share the whole set. I only had one '2' candle, so they were making due with on to make the age 22. The cats enjoyed the party. In their own cat-like way. L. was thrilled with the guide to bugs and slugs. G. got a panda lamp. D. received a book he wanted.

I seem to have hit a wall. Actually I hit the wall about 11:30 this morning when I called J. at work and burst into tears. (Lucky man.) I managed to get the bills paid (painful), and a friend came over and together we packed some things I wasn't quite sure what to do with. I am feeling a little better, but am avoiding looking at any boxes at the moment. I also realized that I had yet to fill out a change of address form at the post office. Now, those of you who have moved recently are laughing at my thinking that I had to actually go to the post office to do this. The last time I moved, you really did have to go fill out the little card at the post office. That was 16 years ago. I discovered you don't have to do that now. Conveniently, this can all be done online. If my version of Blogger that I use was updated enough, I would italicize the word 'conveniently' in the above paragraph. But I've learned the hard way that if I italicize words, they disappear. So pre

Yes, because we don't have enough going on, we also have a ton of birthdays in the next two weeks, starting with the three today. We are going low key this year, and celebrating these three officially tomorrow night, and D. as well since his birthday is after everyone heads to church camp and the day we move. It's all craziness. Today I had two very good friends come over, and between the three of us we packed nearly everything in my kitchen that we won't need for the next two weeks. It was about 20 boxes. I couldn't have done it without them. There's lots about our move that's fun. New house, lots of land, a new adventure. There's also a lot about moving that's not fun, especially at this point. The endless packing, not knowing where anything is, the feeling of being perpetually unsettled. As someone who likes nesting and feeling settled and organized, this is not comfortable. I cannot wait to unpack. Actually I cannot wait to be past the packing.

This is the song that keeps running through my head. It shows how marginally functional I am currently feeling. It's as though I cannot hold two sequential thoughts in my head at the same time. Now, I realize this is pretty typical for a mother, but this version is far worse. I've even started talking to myself to help me remember why I entered a room. Several times, children have asked me what I was saying to them, and I've realized I was talking out loud. This is my long explanation as to why there could possibly be a significant decrease in blogging over the next week or so. Here's our timeline: Sunday, we drive H., K., Y., G., and L. up to their week-long church camp. My goal is to be done by then. Monday is any last minute moving van packing, and sorting each room into discernible piles, to make it easier for the movers to know what to take. J. and I will also wander down to our lawyer's office and sign all the papers for the closing of this house. On T

A good friend came over and spent the day with me and we dug out packed up all the third floor playroom toys. We even got to K.'s room, which was really just a continuation of the toy packing. And she made me a really yummy salad for lunch. It was the most fun I've had packing yet. And then just as she and her children were leaving, a great big box arrived. (It says a lot that I was as excited about the size of the box and the bubble wrap inside than the item that was packed in it.) It was the giant rabbit hutch that I ordered. No, we are not getting rabbits. It's for Q. (Who may be going to turn out to be a boy after all. We're still not sure.) Of course, everyone insisted that we OPEN IT UP and TAKE IT OUT and PUT IT TOGETHER. RIGHT NOW! Delayed gratification is still a developing skill for some of these people. Here is what we ended up with. It's as though Q. started out in cardboard shack and suddenly found himself in a penthouse. He wandered around ma

In our family, girls at age 13 get to have their ears pierced, if they so desire. H. did, so that was one of her birthday gifts a year and a half ago. Since her birthday is in the middle of October, I was waiting until her sisters could join us to make it more of a party. And then the holidays hit. And getting ready to travel for Y. and R. And the whole next year, where she turned 14. Every so often she would ask, and I would mentally put 'get H.'s ears pierced' back on my to-do list. Where it sat. And sat. This morning, the H-S Family was back in town on their way back to the west coast, and I was asked if we would like to come be part of the party when MY H-S got her ears pierced. I said, yes, not only would we like to come, we would join the ear piercing party. So this afternoon, H., P., and A. and I headed to the store to join our friends to have a little piercing done. H. before she got her earrings. This look is saying, you say this will be OK, but I'm