I am not that mom.

We have been fighting the cooties in my house for the past 2 weeks. My daughter started 2 weeks ago with 3 days of fever. I sent her back to school fever free. 3 days later my son got it. After an entire day of trying to get his fever below 104.7.....to no avail after 2 doses of Motrin, 2 doses of Tylenol, and a cool bath....we made a trip to urgent care where he tested positive for Type A influenza. Tamilflu to the rescue. 2 days later my daughter got it....again! I made a call to my wonderful ER doc neighbor who called in another prescription for Tamiflu to the pharmacy...saving me another trip to the urgent care. In the mean time...my oldest son came down with an entirely different virus....no fever...but in it's stead a nasty upper respiratory and intestinal funk. And I wasn't feeling so hot myself. So, in dealing with all that funk....I was stuck in my home with various sick children for nearly 10 days straight.

I tell you that to tell you this....

I thought yesterday was Monday.

Yesterday was our first day in nearly 2 weeks where everyone was back to school and I was feeling myself. I had big plans for myself as I happily shoved all 3 kids out the door to catch the bus. With my to-do list humming through my head I got in my shower and sang happy tunes.

1st item to be tackled was to take the puppy to the vet for her bordetella vaccine....we're leaving for vacation (if visiting and staying with your FIL in Texas for the week of Thanksgiving can be considered a vacation....don't be jealous) soon and dogs can't stay in the doggie hotel without proof of updated vaccinations. On the way to the vet I get a phone call from Dreamy's sports medicine doc. He had his MRI on Monday morning and a follow up appointment to review the results was necessary.

Receptionist: "we had a cancellation for tomorrow Wednesday morning at 10am. Would that work for you?"

pause......

more silence.....

Me: "Tomorrow? Wednesday? Wait a minute......what day is today?"

Receptionist: "Ummm....today is Tuesday mam."

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

It was at that point (sitting in my car in the veterinarian parking lot) that I completely freaked out and told her I'd have to call her back as I had just realized that it was not Monday....but TUESDAY! And I was suppose to be in my daughter's classroom at that very moment helping out. And this is the SECOND time I've done this. I was.... for the 2nd time....a no call no show.

I. am. a. schmuck!

I totally thought it was Monday. It felt like a Monday.

So....

I run into the vet's office and tell them I'm in a rush....they whip out the vaccination in 5 minutes flat. But, of course, puppy wouldn't cooperate....she wiggled and 1/2 the vaccine ended up dripping off her soft coat of fur. Take 2: 25 minutes later veterinarian has successfully administered the vaccine and I am rushing back to my car.

Puppy is in the passenger seat. I live less than 1.5 miles from the vet. But puppy gets violently car sick every time she is in the car and chooses to vomit all over herself and my seat as I'm turning down our street. I run into house, throw puppy in crate, grab a towel and disinfectant wipes, and clean the seat as best I could. I throw the towel on the floor of the garage, jump back in my car and rush to the school.

It is now 10:30. I was suppose to be at the school at 8:30. The teacher relies on parents to help the students with their "stations" so she can pull the reading groups aside and work with them. I walk into the room and find that teacher has decided in my absence to skip reading group.

So, let's recap.....

because of me, little Suzie and little Johny who speak very little English to begin with, whose parents don't speak English at ALL, and who can only recognize 1/2 the alphabet, and can only count to 30....did I mention this is FIRST grade?....will be missing their daily reading session. Nice. I beg for forgiveness and teacher is very very understanding. If not sympathetic.... In a "OMG who decided this woman was capable of being a parent cuz clearly she is in way over her head" sort of way.

An hour later: kids leave for lunch and recess and I decide to try to knock a few things off my to do list.

Birthday present for Hefty: check...this took way longer than it should have as I ended up spending an hour in Best Buy...but it is done and I am confident that I have purchased the perfect gift for my soon to be a teenage son.  =)

Groceries: We are all out of milk. Which, in my house? Is a catastrophe of epic proportions....melt downs ensue and panic becomes the general state of emotion when we are all out of milk. We go through nearly a gallon/day. We. need. milk.

So I go to Meijers. I load up on groceries, filling up on everyday staples and get side tracked by a bright sale sign hanging over a rack of tunic styled hooded smocky looking dresses. They were adorable. They looked comfy. And I was imagining how cute it would look with some smokey grey tights and my black knee high heeled boots. Did I mention they were on sale? But I don't have time to try one on. So a grab a small....it looks like it will fit. I head to the check out. The cute dress I picked out? Was probably the one and only dress hanging on the rack that had no tag. I don't have time for this. Too much to do. So I sadly tell the cashier to forget it. I left without the dress.  =(

I leave the grocery store, and 3 miles from my home realize I forgot the one thing I HAD to get. Milk. Yes, I went to the store for milk....bought $120 dollars worth of groceries....but forgot the frigg'n milk. Made a quick left and ran into Walmart for the milk.

I get home and now have no time to whip up a dinner so I make some sandwiches, clean some grapes and fresh mixed veggies, throw them in a bag and set the dinner table load up the van before driving to the bus stop so the kids can eat their dinner in the car on the way to their gymnastics and dance classes. 

On the way to gymnastics I discover that Jordyn has homework to complete from her days of absence.  No problem.  She has 2 dance classes but an hour break in between.  She can complete her homework during that hour.  Except she doesn't have the pencil, glue, scizzors, and crayons that she needs to complete them.  We make a pit stop to the corner drug store to pick up necessary items. 

Fast forward to this morning.  I had high hopes of making it to the gym.  To try once again to get on a work out schedule.  I rely on my Kindle to get me through a treadmill run.  But my Kindle battery is dead.  And I can't find my charger.  No problem.  I'll just grab my ipod and run to some tunes instead.  But I can't find my ipod.  Where the f*ck is my ipod.  I cannot run without my Kindle or ipod.  And decide to wait and start my workouts tomorrow. 

And so I sit here...at my computer....frustrated, disorganized, and feeling like I could really use an intervention of sorts.

I have a pretty calendar.  It's stuck to the side of my frig.  I diligently update it with our many things to do.  I also have a pad for grocery lists.  Those items do no good if you forget to look at them daily.  I've purchased a book planner..... a month later I purchased an electronic planner.... 2 months later I purchased the itouch.  All in an effort to improve my organizational skills.  I even joined FlyLady hoping she could help me in my tidy housekeeping efforts.   

I still suck.

Hello, my name is Mama Smurf, and I am a scatter brain and I suck.

I long to be the mom that has her shit together.  The mom that drops her kids off at the bus stop freshly showered and stylishly dressed.  The mom that works out regularly.  The mom that cooks 4 course meals filled with nutrition daily.  Even it is eat'n in the car.  I long to be the mom who's laundry is always caught up, and sink is always sparkling, and who's kitchen valences are clean from the inch of dust and cob webs. 

I am not that mom.

Our little piece of heaven.

My husband and I in the past 2 years have been tossing different ideas around. Do we want to move? Upgrade our home? We love our house but having a 4th bedroom would be REALLY nice. The boys share a room and their closet space is shrinking as their clothes get bigger each year. And a 3 car garage would be nice. We have a 2.5 car garage and can't even fit .5 cars in it. Sad. But true.

But we love our house. We've been here 10 years now. We love the neighborhood. We love the location of our sub. hubby's job is a 15 minute car drive away. We are less than a mile from major freeways. My parents live just one block away from us. I can see their home from my front porch. Only one side street and three homes separate us. I love that.

Do we really want to give all that up??

No. We don't.

And I won't even bother going into the whole "oh my gosh, we've put alot of money into this house and would probably just barely break even if we sold it right now" issues.

We decided that moving is not an option for us.

So, summer of 2008, we started tossing around the idea of purchasing a vacation home. We started casually looking at up north waterfront vacation homes listed online. And quickly discovered that vacation homes were not coming down in price like they were here in the suburbs. So we gave up on that thought.

Fast forward to August of 2009. We went on our annual 1 week trip to Higgins Lake with 4 families. We rented 2 homes side by side. 4 families, 8 adults, 11 kids. One week spent with our best friends and families. One week of jet skis, skiing, swimming, building sand castles, campfires, roasting marshmallows, telling ghost stories, relaxing, drinking, playing euchre & poker....my kids will be the first to tell you that this is our family's favorite vacation every year. And we take lots of vacations. And this vacation is only 3 hours from our home.

The day after returning from this vacation...totally on a whim because Hubby and I hadn't even revisited the "should we buy a vacation home" conversation....I decided to do a quick google search on waterfront vacation homes for sale in MI. To make a somewhat long story short....I completely fell head over heels in love with the 2nd home I stumbled upon (online). The little yellow house. I spent the next several hours (while hubby was at work) searching. Am I being impulsive? I must have looked at over 100 homes that day. All meeting my search criteria but non of them made my heart go pitter pat the way the little yellow home did. I spent hours that day watching and re-watching the on-line virtual tour.

My husband called to tell me he was on his way home and I could barely get the words out. "Honey, You're not gonna believe the house I just found online". My husband was a little confused because "eh-hem...why are you looking at houses?"

And when he got home? He fell just as hard as I did.

*The covered front porch I've been wanting all my life? It's got it.

*The lined up Crackle Barrel Chairs on the covered porch that I've always wanted? It's got it.

*The price was right.

The house was beautiful.

The house was being sold fully furnished.

5 bedrooms.

5 bathrooms.

SEVENTEEN BEDS!!!

On a gorgeous 2 acre lot.

Almost new pontoon boat included.

On the lake.

It's only a 2.25 hour drive away.

We have friends that live a 5 minute boat ride away right on the lake.

We know the lake as we've gone up there with our friends several times.

And last, but certainly not least, it was the perfect home for our annual vacation with our friends.

And have I ever mentioned that my favorite color is yellow? Yeah, the house is yellow. Such a happy house. =)

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this house was destined to be ours since the day it was built 8 years ago.

The previous owners just walked away from the house leaving it exactly as it was. Every piece of furniture, every wall hanging and decoration left exactly as it was. We walked in and had to do nothing. It was home the second we walked through the door.

The photos below are all from several different sources...hence the different sizes.

Without further ado....

Our new love...

They even left the 6 Cracker Barrel chairs...=)

Check out my new professional grade Viking stove. I'm in love.

The built in griddle on the stove....we can fry 9 eggs or 16 pancakes at once. =)

My boys' ship themed bedroom. Is this the bomb or is this the bomb??.....

My daughter's bedroom has 6 beds (there's another single under another window on the right that you can't see in this photo) and the bunk beds each have a trundle under them...for a grand total of 8 beds!!

We hope to finish the basement one day...

Our best friends came to help us celebrate our first weekend up north.

There's been a change of plans....

Today's to-do list was suppose to look something like this:

*Go to the gym
*Groceries
*Buy Jordyn dance shoes
*Take dogs to groomers
*Pack for weekend trip up north

Now it just looks like this:

*Stay home and take care of sick baby girl

=(

I miss blogging. Terribly.


Facebook, kinda took over. It's fabulous in a "OMG, I've reconnected with so many long lost child hood friends" kinda way. I don't enjoy writing. I have no aspirations to be a writer. Never have. But I enjoy keeping a journal of sorts for myself and my family. I originally thought that facebook would kinda kill 2 birds with 1 stone....I could give quick little 140 or less character updates about our family's happenings in a family journal sort-a way....AND....reconnect with friends at the same time.

Not so.


You can't go back in time on Facebook to a specific year or month...say...August of 2009 to read about how my son qualified for nationals in his Future Stars gymnastics meet (oh yes he did!!)....or how the offer we placed on our dream waterfront vacation home was accepted....(oh yes it was!!)...Or to Sept. to read my quick little blurbs about our closing and our 1st weekend trip to our beloved new home. Instead, you have to scan through page after page of recent updates to get to the later updates. Not convenient. Within a week...posts are pretty much to be forgotten about.

So, now, I feel like there are 5 months of our lives that will be forever forgotten. Never to be revisited again. And these past 5 months have truly been 5 of the best months this family has lived. And I now have no words written to remind myself or my family of how special a time in our lives this has been.

But (YES! I started a sentence with the word "BUT"! Get over it!) every time I've thought about sitting at the computer and starting up this blog again....I've felt over whelmed. And (*gasp*) I have no idea why. I think I've let all these fabulous writers in this bloggy land intimidate me. No one's fault but my own. I can't keep up. And I really don't want to try. I let my growing desire for comments and bloggy approval make me forget my original purpose in starting this blog to begin with. It bothered the hell out of me to read other bloggers criticizing (on their own blogs) how other people were horrible writers... grammar and spelling imperfect....or how their blog content was boring....or offensive.....giving "tips" on how to have a great blog.

Really?

I felt like I was doing this whole blog thing wrong. That unless I was a fantastic writer I had no business writing a blog. And so I quit.

But now I have nothing written down to account for the past 5 months of my life and that makes me sad. So....

There will be poor grammar, misspelled words, and maybe even some offensive language from time to time. That's me *shrugs shoulders*. Don't get your panties in a bunch over it....just walk away. I promise you won't hurt my feelings.

In a nut shell....

I'm in a hurry cuz I'm get'n ready for my girls 4 night / 5 day "Group Therapy" trip to a Florida beach resort. I'm tie'n one on as I type to cure my pre flight gitters. And I'm still not done pack'n. I've been a sucky blogger lately. I know. I'll try to be better....but no promises.

I have a new addiction. Facebook.

I've kinda started thinking of my bloggy and twitter friends as my "imaginary" friends....friends I've never met and in all likelihood never WILL meet.

Facebook? Takes up only a fraction of my time and keeps me connected to my IRL friends. So? The novelty may wear off eventually but for now I'll be an occasional blogger and try to keep up as best I can with my "imaginary" friends. =)

If you're on facebook...and you're reading this.... look me up!

I'll be back from my trip on Sunday and hope to have some pics to share of my therapy session! =)

She died from "Fright"

I've been trying to spend some time with my Grandma to go through her old photos so I can get started on her heritage album. This is one of my favorite things to do. Learning about my heritage and preserving family members' legacies.

So, I was at her house yesterday afternoon and have to share this story with you. My Grandma is the funniest woman you all will never meet. She doesn't try to be. It's just natural.

In going through her old photos we came upon a photo of my Great Great Grandfather. My Grandmother's father's father. I started asking questions about her father's parents and here is what she told me:

G: Well, you know, he was raised by his father (in Italy) because his mother died when he was a baby.

Me: (writing all this information down in my notebook....fascinated) How did she die?

G: A milk snake.

Me: Huh?

G: Yeah, a milk snake scared her to death.

Me: Huh?

G: Well, you know, back then they didn't have finished floors...they were poor and slept on the dirt. She was nursing the baby on the ground and fell asleep. She woke up to a 'milk snake' drinking her milk and she died of fright.

Now, I obviously don't believe a word of this but she totally does. I was laughing hysterically while she told this story and she was just looking at me like "what the hell's so funny....it's a true story". So this will be the story that will go in the heritage album that will forever preserve this family's legacy.

Let it be known that my dear dear Great Great Grandmother died because a 'milk snake' latched on to her lactating tit and scared her to death....literally.....

This is why I'm trying to preserve this families legacy now....while I'm still alive....cuz there's no telling what kind of ridiculous stories will be passed down to my own family about my life...... or death.

Easter 2009

Easter's almost here and I've been hard at work with my annual Scavenger Hunt Madness poem. Bringing out my inner Edgar Allen Poe. And I think it's complete. I may tweak it here and there or add another verse or 2 but this is the semi final product. Thought I'd share it with ya'll again. For those of you that have stuck around this past year, you may remember last year's poem. I hope to get Easter morning on video and I'll share it with you. Assuming I can remember how to post a video!

I've returned to Smurfland
One of my favorite homes
To leave some Easter clues
For you little blue gnomes.


I watched with excitement
During Easter last year
As you found all the clues
With smiles and cheers.



I know how much you like
to run to and fro
looking for Easter eggs
both high and low.


But you know the rules
You must first hear my speech
About things I am proud of
And goals you must reach.



Justin,
You should be very proud
Of the accomplishments you've made
Both at the gym with your skills
And your report card grades.

Your dedication and focus
And constant personal best
Really makes this rabbit
Rather impressed.

I've seen lots of improvement
In this past year
In the way you treat your sister
Your efforts are clear.

But please remember
To always be nice
Before you open your mouth
You must first think twice.


Brendan,
you're next
My sweet dimpled boy...
Your handsome smile
Brings me such joy.

I've been watching you at school
Working very hard
You deserve every "A"
On your report card.

But will you really force
Your mom to agree
To allowing a mohawk
If you don't get a "B".

I think that a head
With that spiky hair
Will only encourage
People to stare.


Jordyn,
Your big wide smile
Is so very sweet
And watching you grow
Has been a huge treat.

This past year has flown by
With amazing speed
I mean...oh my gosh
You can already READ!

The one thing I love
Above all other things
Is your kindness to others..
It makes my heart sing.

Be sure to talk kindly
To your brothers too
Because I know you want them
To be kind to you.


All 3 of you smurfs
Fill my heart with pride
But you still have to work
To find where your baskets reside.


My clues have been too easy
these past few years
So I'm adding a little twist...
Open your ears.


I'll be smiling wide
Cause you may look like fools
Following the instructions
And all of my rules.


But remember I'm watching
And if you don't do as I say...
I may not return
For next years' Easter day.


Are you guys ready
To get this show on the road?
You'll find your first clue
Near the basement commode.



I stubbed my toe
When I left that last clue.
Please find me a band aide
To help heal my boo-boo?


Ah, Thank you!
I feel so much better!
Now walk on your hands
To where you'd send an email letter.


To find another clue
You could make a wish
Or simply tap dance to the cupboard
And grab a dish.


Now put on your shoes
We're going outside
You must walk backwards
To your daddy's new ride.


If your looking for your baskets
I might suggest
That you hop on one foot
To that birdies new nest.


Nope, not here
*giggles* this is so much fun
Now you must dance your way over
To the water guns.


I feel so cruel
For teasing you so...
All 3 of you must hold hands (& don't let go)
While you search behind a photo.


To find another clue
You won't have to go far
Just skip on over
To your tiki bar.


So, have you had enough
What do you think?
Maybe you should bunny hop
Your way to a sink.


Now go run 3 laps
Around your home
And don't you dare cheat
Or I'll ship your baskets to Rome!


After you've completed that task
Go talk to your mom
For she holds your next clue
Right in her palm.


Are you all out of breath?
Now touch your hands to your knees
And keep them just so
While you search under pine trees.


Remember I'm watching
I see all that you do
So cartwheel to the mailbox
To find your next clue.


Now you must twirl around
Like a ballerina in a costume
While you make your way over
To the basement storage room.

Now pat your head &
Rub your tummy
As you look in the freezer outside
For something yummy.


I really hate
For this fun to end
But I'm running out of rhymes
And I have more homes to attend.

For the grand finale
You must get down low
On your hands and knees
In a row.

Now all 3 of you smurfs
Must transform into toads
And leap over each other
To the room with the laundry loads.

Good-bye my little Smurfs
I look forward to next year
Prepare yourselves well
for the fun will be far more severe.

MWAHAAHAAHAHAHA......