When it rains it pours.

The last few months have been just a snow ball of stresses leaving Mr. Sloth and I saying it only gets easier from here, right? The answer is no. It can always be worse, in fact it's my motto.

It started with natural stresses of life, long winter, four young children, colds and stomach flus chained together. Then Mr. Sloth took over the reins of bill paying which was a big of a mess as I thought it was. Then the business hit a hiccup, a big, giant, serious hiccup. And from there our stress snowball has picked up speed. It seems like it's one thing after another. Many things I won't name here, but  this week it got even worse.

Friday-My dad has emergency surgery to remove a bowel obstruction
Monday-Mr. Sloths car dies leaving the choice to fix a paid off car with 200,000+ miles on it or replace it. Replacement is not an option.

And then today happened. As I am teaching vacation Bible school this week I had to pretend to be a "real person", with a "real job".  I have been getting up between 4:45am and 5:30am everyday. Today I woke up a little late at 6am. I did the  usual, turned the shower on cold.....because our water heater only makes enough hot water if you run it on cold for a LONG time. (fun stuff) Grabbed a cup of coffee and said my morning prayers and did some morning web surfing before jumping in the shower. I was in the middle of shaving my first of two legs (in case you didn't know how many legs I have) when I heard. "BANG,BANG,BANG".  I knew right away that it was Mark, and he was serious. So I turned off the shower but it didn't get quieter. I jumped out of the shower.....and into a GIANT puddle of water. GIANT. MASSIVE. 5 INCHES DEEP. STILL POURING OUT OF THE TOILET ,WATER.

WHAT. THE . WHAT?

There was no clog in the toilet or anything, just started overflowing. As it was early the only people were awake were children. It was Prophet who discovered the sopping wet puddle outside of our bathroom and woke up Mr. Sloth.

This is where it gets worse.

It was RAINING in our kitchen. RAINING.

In all honestly the next hour wasn't more stressful than usual. (For all you non-parents out there put that into perspective, having children is like having your house flood every morning with an unstoppable disaster. ) In fact I think the excitement of the flooding house kept the kids occupied. I often heard Rooster in the background saying "Can I swim, Momma? I swim?"

Ah. Laughter.

Today we began demolition. All of a sudden the real mess of everything is starting to hit me. Thankfully insurance is covering us stay somewhere else. We haven't left the house yet though. After Vacation Bible School I dropped off another little girl at her home, picked up Mr. Sloth so we could all go out an eat. Then drove him to the dealership to pick up his car. Did I mention his car died on Monday? Fun stuff. And then headed back to the house. As of right now there are two ways to get in the house. To get upstairs you have to go through the front door to get to the main level or basement you have to go through the garage.  Right now Mister is sleeping and the rest of the bunch is in the playroom in the basement. Sooooo to check on Mister I have to go upstairts through the construction site, out the garage, around  to the front door and then upstairs. Did I mention it's raining? Because it is.


In order to keep us sane throughout this ordeal I will be starting Operation Bright Side. This should help remind me that things could always be worse. Always.

My list so far.

We were home when it flooded, not out of town.

It was a small flood, not a fire.

We didn't lose anything of value that cannot be replaced.

We get new floors and carpets, and possibly new table, chairs, and bathroom. (crossing fingers I can get a new shower!)

My dry dusty plants are finally getting a nice refresher sitting in the rain outside.

I didn't like Demands purple carpet anyway but it was fine condition, not being replaced anytime soon.

The kids may get to go swimming for a few days.

We are leaving on vacation next week anyway.

The playroom, tv, and kids rooms are completely useable which makes living easier.

We have three other bathrooms.

It's not winter. 


Here's out living room. Our bedroom is right above so a lot of the leaking happened here.

Kitchen took the biggest hit as the bathroom is right above our kitchen table.

Here our my houseplants getting a refreshing pick-me-up. The rainy day hopefully helps to wash all their dust off.  I trimmed the two on the left of dead leaves and such, haven't gotten around to the other one yet.

My homeschool room/ house bar. You can see all our drinking glasses lined up on the kids table and liquor bottles lined up on the floor.

Ending Project Week

I turned on the heat today. It's June 6th.  Laura Ingalls Wilder ain't got nothing on this Long Winter. No wonder my kids are going bonkers.

As I mentioned in my last post I am trying to spend this week working on house projects and getting some long over due spring cleaning done. (It's finally spring....in JUNE!)

Next week is vacation Bible School where I somehow found myself volunteering to teach preschool. Right. Because that went so well for me in the fall. Ugh. Why do I do this to myself?? Two weeks ago a friend asked me to make her sons graduation cake. Even though I had a stressful week including working two days at the Homeschool Conference I thought it was a fun idea.  So at 11:30pm the night before the conference I finished the cake two days before the party. Personally I'm not totally happy with the cake, but everyone seemed to love it.

Clearly there is foundation issues with the corners sloping down. I could have fixed it but chose to let it go. Humbly, let it go. I also want to point out the messy kitchen in the background. Did I clean it? Heck no. I had a glass of wine and caught up on the new Arrested Development. This is why Mr. Sloth dislikes my cake making hobby.





Then I had to work the Homeschool Conference. I say had but really I volunteered, sort of. The science curriculum we use is really expensive and the last two years I received one for free if I work the booth during the conference. Which is great, saved us $600 over the past two years but I miss out on a lot of the conference. While I set up the table a herd of women and their rolling suitcases bolted for the used book sale at the opening of the conference. I wanted to bolt like cattle too. (super sad face)  Then again, since I was working and our supplies were late arriving I actually sneaked over to the used book sale before it started and filled my suitcase at the first table!  I found a TON of wonderful things. American Girl book sets, chapter books for Demand, early readers for Happy, and I even found Level 1 & 2  of Demands Latin curriculum. Saweet!  Mr. Sloth and Demand are so excited they can't wait until the new school year to start it together. I figured since Latin is an extra curricular subject and Mr. Sloth has taken Latin before it would be a great activity for them to do in the evenings whenever they have time. Not every night but here and there.

When I showed Demand all of the books I bought at the conference she asked if she could sell them in her toy sale. Yeah, no.


 

After the Homeschool Conference ended on Saturday I met Mr. Sloth and the kids at our friends house for the graduation party. It was a much needed break, and they had Buffalo Wild Wings. Score!  Mr. Sloth called from the van before arriving and asked if I could take the kids while he ran to the Cathedral for confession. What we didn't know was that the priest who was doing confessions was hammering down some wings at the party before rushing off to the Cathedral. If we had only known!

So that was last week now you know why I didn't want to leave the house this week.  Next week we have vacation Bible School Mon-Friday from 8:30-12pm.  Then we head off on vacation. Friends of our who have almost the exact family except their baby is a girl and ours is Mister, they won the use of a duplex at Glacier National Park. So we are driving out there and taking our sweet American Road Trip time doing so. We can't wait to take the kids to Mount Rushmore, the Badlands, Custer's Last Stand, Wind caves, Walnut Grove.  In fact next week, when I'm not teaching VBS I'll be assembling a travel treasure hunt for the kids to take with them.

Today was much like yesterday. I wanted to get projects done and the children wanted to fight. By 8am. 8AM!! Rooster was throwing all out screaming temper tantrums. It is almost as if getting up before the crack of dawn doesn't benefit his mood at all. I'm already getting up at 5:15am I cannot get up any earlier to be the first one awake. I decided that I needed back up. By mid morning I had locked down a mother's helper. I could come and get her anytime, if only Mister would wake up from his morning nap. (taps foot)

(taps foot.)

(taps foot)

Finally at noon he woke up and we picked her up. It wasn't a perfect solution. My house was still a disaster (aside from my bedroom which is still loverly) but at least the kids were happy and not being yelled at by mom. I was able to finally organize the laundry room closet. It looks so purrrdy now.

This is the humble before. It became our, if we can shove it in and walk away without an avalanche-it works closet.

I made the curtains last summer when I was learning to sew. This is what I made with some of the left over fabric.

I desperately want a counter top for the washer and dryer. Grains of detergent get jammed under something and when I moved it horrendous metal scratching sounds are heard and felt. Plus the tops are all scratched up (I wonder why) and uneven and uninviting. Look how much brighter just trying these two white boards from the garage make the room look. I could fold all kinds of laundry on a counter top Mr. Sloth. I could I could. I also envision a bright blue vase filled with white or pink flowers. And a basket of sorts for a natural element. It will be grand. Someday.

 

Here's how the closet turned out. I only allowed myself an hour to work on it (having already started sorting and purging the night before) . So it's not done, done. Mr. Sloth was concerned by the lack of labels.

Two $5 bins from Target, some scrapbook paper, and viola! A new pretty closet. Up top we have a bin for rarely used items like bread making and beer making items. With coolers on top (unseen) of the container. Then our meat slicer (surprisingly handy) and our ice cream maker, and no Rooster we are not having ice cream today.  Below we have our new griddle on top of our picnic bin. This bin has paper plates, cups, utensils, napkins, foil containers, etc. Then clearly we have our newly stocked paper towel supply with my cooking-candies bin below. Don't tell Mr. Sloth there is candy in there.  Below that we have our roaster and our bin of tupperware.

That's what I was able to accomplish today. I think I'm getting the mothers helper again tomorrow. Other than planning out VBS I'm sure I'll just get general cleaning done. That will be nice.

Are you nesting? Say WHAT?!?

The long winter took a real toll on me. I never really got out of a rut that started in October, and now here we are "the last day of school" and I don't know what to think. Are we done with the school? Nope. Do I care? Nope.  It's first grade for goodness sakes. We'll continue to plug away throughout the summer, not every day but when we have time.

I recently pulled together a new schedule drawing from the ideas of Managers of Their Homes. I haven't really implemented it as of yet, but I will soon. This week I am focusing on the house and the many projects, or half done projects that need to be taken care of.

Today I re-evaluated our homeschool room. I don't mind that we spent so much time in the dining room this year as it was a loooooong winter and we needed the Vitamin D, but I would like to make the homeschool room just a little more inviting.

While I was thinking about some changes that could be made I stumbled upon the perfect desk for Demand and the kids.  It was a HUGE white desk, very plain for only $30 on Craiglist.  65 x 30 inches! Before I knew it I had arranged for Mr. Sloth to pick up the desk and had ordered two shelves from Target.  The desk is so deep I had room for two four foot shelves to sit on top of the desk with plenty of room for books. My wheels were spinning I have a fellow homeschooling mom who hasn't been feeling the wrath of reproductive hormones over the past two years who loves to decorate and organize agree to paint the new desk for me.  The desk will be either orange or teal. If you notice in the picture of our shelving system we have bins with colorful polkadots on them. I wanted to take one of those neutral bright colors to bring more life to the room. Besides, bright colors are "in" right now. I may spraypaint one of the folding chairs that never seems to leave our house (???) instead of buying a new desk chair. And then a fun desk lamp should round off the look. So excited! Mr. Sloth has already picked up the desk so now I just need to wait for my friend to paint it and for my Target delivery to show up. I don't know why I waited so long for the Target Card. It's comes out of checking ( because we don't use credit cards) and I save 5% EVERYTIME I shop at Target and I get free shipping online. SAWEET!  So not only are those two shelves coming to my doorstep, I don't have to pay the $40 for shipping. Yippee!!


Here's the current bookshelf. I may sell the armoire on left and line that wall with the same shelving system.
 Demand is rooting for and blue desk while I am leaning towards an orange one.

 

 This is where the desk will go. This is Demands pile of stuff to sell at her toy sale. I'm going to sell the faded couch as well. We never sit down here. And I'll give away that swing (sniff, sniff) as we replaced it with an electric one with Mister. It's also been on my list since last year to make a curtain for our under stairs storage and to recover my chair, maybe this will be my year.




Next on my list of random projects was our bedroom lamps.Since we've moved in we've only had our ceiling fan light in our room as our former night stand lamps looked great in our new bedroom and we never got around to replacing them.  Last year I found some really nice Pottery Barn lamp shades at a garage sale in the perfect red for our bedroom. We were in no rush to get lamps however as little Mister, Mister was soon to become our bunkmate. As we knew so well there would be no reading in bed for sometime.  Even though Mister technically sleeps in our room (he falls asleep in our room) and then gets moved to his crib after his  wild brothers are asleep) we can actually sit and read in our room now. Hypothetically...if we wanted to....it could happen.

So last week I was motivated enough to buy the lamps to go with the lampshades so we could read in bed. Brought them home to find out they were incompatible with our lamp shades. (wan-wan) After thinking about it for a few days and studying the design of the lamps I decided there must be a converter of sorts out there. On one of my many daily trips to Target I discovered in fact that there WERE lampshade converters. I eagerly brought two home, put them on the lamps bases, put the lampshade on and then  Mr. Sloth declared that the lamps were too big for the shades. ARGH!  Today I exchanged the lamps for smaller ones and was finally able to put lamps, with pretty lampshades, on our nightstands so we can read. Theoretically. And nothing motivates you to clean your room like something new and pretty now does it?

Ta-da!









 Little Mister enjoying the new clean floor to explore.





I also did a lot of random things like changing light bulbs, cleaning showers and toilets, and finally getting around to hanging the coat hook in the boys room. But you don't know about the boys room because I have been off line for months thrashing about in that horrid winter. Blah.  Mr. Sloth asked me at dinner if I was "Nesting" I scoffed and said, "I was trying to fix all the damage that was done to my nest over the last year. "

Here's to hearing more from the Sloths!

Day One in the Trenches

Mr. Sloth left on a  business trip yesterday. I tried not to think about it for as long as I could while still trying to line up some plans for the week to keep me occupied. I had it all lined up, plenty of activities for the kids during the day and plenty of assignments for me to do at night.  Yesterday morning I woke up with the head cold that the kids have had for what seems like a week. Mr. Sloth had this cold last week. When he woke up with it I took the kids for the day, when I woke up with it he left the state.  Se la vie.

Here's how Day One went.

Moral was surprisingly high for the day considering I was sick most of the morning until the motrin kicked in. Demand and I got some work done before Mister woke up early from his nap. Then we all headed for groceries. As I got in line at Aldi I let a lady go ahead of me because she only had two items. She started to stare at us. I got the obligatory "my you have your hands full" comment. I don't mind this. I'd be lying if I said it wasn't true, sometimes quite literally. Then asked if "this" was a daycare.

"No. They are all mine."

She stares again, examining all the kids.

"My you are one ambitious mommy"

(I'm now faking a smile because I don't know what to say.)

"Are they all healthy?"

Yes. (?????)

"Good because that is what is really important."

Now maybe she just said something off the top of her head to end the conversation but I found the comment odd. First, what did she mean by healthy because they did have runny noses. And what if one WAS sick??? Anyway, I've now joined the "is this a daycare club".

Also, it  got me thinking. People ask if it's a daycare. If I were to say yes, would they then be ok with me taking care of four kids all day. What's the difference?  The only difference I can think of is that if it's a daycare I make money off of having children in the house, if they are mine I don't.  I don't want to even go down that road.

The rest of the day was fairly average although everyone took naps  except myself. This will come to bite me in the bottom later.

I made what I thought were delicious sandwiches only to hear, "What's that smell? It smells like throw up!" I guess it's cereal for dinner tonight.

Obscure was heading over to watch the kids while I went to the gym and adoration but the weather stepped in and canceled all of that. Obscure still came by to keep me company though. Which I appreciate.
It wasn't long until the kids were all in bed and I settled down for the night. Not a bad day one... or was it.

I fell asleep almost instantly and woke up when Mister started crying. As I got him out of his bed I thought wow what an easy night then I saw that it's wasn't 4am it was 1:30am and my night was just beginning. It was about 4:45am when I finally got to sleep "for the night" and by 6:45am I heard the inevitable "Mooooommmma! MOMMMMMA!!!!MOMMMMMA!!!!!!!" I had to drag my tired bones across the hall to 'shut it down' before Rooster (formally Pax) woke up Mister.

So two hours of sleep, children with colds, and four inches of snow is how we start day two. Part of my master plan was to utilize the two hour childcare at the gym but with the kids sick I can't bring them. Already one hiccup in my grand plans. I was also planning on showering at the gym so we'll see how that pans out. Right now the kids are finishing "The Muppet Show" from when I was giving them a haircut. When it's over we are going to try and normalize our life between nose wipes. Some school, some cleaning some room organizing before we head out for Feast Day activities later.

I've already managed to give Rooster a traumatizing haircut. The haircut looks great but the process was emotionally damaging to both of us.

This could be a long week.

Cardinal G meets Pope Francis

Coming soon pictures, stories and videos our time in Rome for the Inaugural Mass of Pope Francis! Assuming I can figure it all out.....

Before and After

 Here are a few fun before and after pictures.

We received some Christmas money from my parents to use towards new bed sheets.  And Mister recieved some money as well. After searching online for days I found exactly what I was looking for at SuperTarget. So much for expanding my options.

Here is our bed a few months ago with our not-so-white  duvet and down comforter.

I found a gold pinch pleat comforter set for a great price at Target. Just what we were looking for. A little bit of color and no more down duvet. I'm convinced our bedroom was so dusty due to the feathers and we even had two covers on the duvet.

These next pictures are a month old, but I'll share them anyway. Mr. Sloth was going on a business trip to Vegas when he woke me up at 4:15 am on Sunday morning to let me know not only that the sink was clogged but that the dishwasher was full of drano-water.

Loooooovely. So I was up at 4:30am working on the clogged drain because it's easier to work on messy projects with aweful chemicals when the children are sleeping. A little less than twelve hours later and help from a friend and a friends snake we found the clog twenty feet down.

This is not a welcoming kitchen at 4:30am on a Sunday with the dishes that couldn't get done the night before still sitting around and no end to the problem.

This is the kitchen as I found it at 4:30am with all of the dishes that we couldn't wash from the night before.

And this is under my kitchen sink after the blasted clog. We have a new saying in this house that we don't decided what to organize next in this house, the house decides. Mr. Sloth had bought me an under the kitchen sink organizer for my birthday last May and it had yet to be installed. Well, with everything pulled out and having to clean everything anyway might as well do some reorganizing down there.

I have a basket that holds our garbage bags and dishwasher detergent. 

And I have a pull out organizer (the one from my birthday) to have a place to store the dish soap and brushes when we aren't using them. Our water bottle for cleaning the floor, and some drawer liner I picked up at the Dollar Tree but have yet to use in the kitchen. I also laid down a rubber mat to help with any future spills.  It feels so good to have such a clean area under the sink now.

Sunday and Monday

One of Sundays highlights was Mr. Sloth and myself getting the entire main floor really, really, clean before having his mom over for dinner. The night before all of us went to a dinner at the house of new friends. After a series of poor decisions we left their home at 10:45pm and had a forty minute drive ahead of us. The kids were great though. I have to hand it to them, they may get whiny and demanding at times but they are really flexible over all. I'm sure years from now I'll hear them tell tales of the dinner parties they were a part of and how much fun they had. "Those parties were awesome we got to do whatever we wanted and stay up super late as long as we didn't bother the adults." Eh, a little fun is good for all of us every once in a while. My personal favorite moments were after our hostess came upstairs giggling because she had given all the children some snacks and my children seemed really uneasy and said things like "mommy will be really mad". I just had to go down and see what was up. One of the snacks the hostess gave was M&Ms a whole bowl fully of them. Moderation is not a virtue held by anyone in this house so our children sat there in fear knowing mommy would never hand us more than two M&Ms at a time. I turned my prudish cheek and told them to have at it. I was surprised to see some M&Ms in the bowl later that night. Perhaps my children have more self control than I give them credit for. Someone in this house should.

Anyway, as I struggled to stay awake on the drive home Mr. Sloth mentioned that we needed gas before Mass in the morning. Riiiigght. So we are getting home and getting the kids to bed at 11:30pm and you are telling me we have to leave our house no later than 7:45am to make 8:30am Mass. Nevergonnahappen.

Sure enough we all woke up at 8am. Early morning Mass clearly not an option at this point. Mr. Sloth made some lovely breakfast as he does everyday but especially on Sundays. Then we got ready to head to the Cathedral for 10am Mass. Just as Mr. Sloth jumped in the shower the children started paying us back for keeping them up late. Great timing Mr. Sloth. Oh, the whining, the complaining, the fighting. And there was nothing I could say or do, we brought this on ourselves. So we leave the house with just enough time to get to the Cathedral for Mass, driving out of the development when Mr. Sloth remembers. "We need gas". Blah! We swing by Sam's Club on the way clearly putting us at "maybe making it on time" status. We get in range of the Cathedral and realize, there is no parking anywhere close. Plus this city refuses to plow so its ice and snow banks everywhere. Double Blah. 10:01 and we are parking the van two blocks away in a snow bank.

We have to unload the three slowest children on the planet and walk on icy/snowy sidewalks for two blocks in church shoes/clothes before getting into the Cathedral. I was carrying Mister who was so bundled up that you couldn't even bend his arms or legs, carrying my over sized diaper bag with Happy clinging to my coat about three steps behind. We were halfway across the parking lot when I turned around just in time to see Happy BAM run smack into a rear view mirror. I mean his head snapped back and everything. Poor kid. Screaming child, that should speed things up for us.

As we approach the large Cathedral doors approximately seven to ten minutes late now with whiny kids and a screaming four year old it crosses my mind that all of my homeschooling friends go to this Mass. These are the friends with well dressed children, not children who chose liturgical purple clothing as opposed to something that might fit or be seasonal, friends with well behaved children not children who were kept out all night and were now super tired because their parents had a fun night, friends who probably made to Mass on time, or even, gasp, early.

Without going into detail we survived what was left of Mass and I will be waiting for my purple medal of honor in the mail. So back to my original point, Mr. Sloth and I were able to clean the entire main floor of the house because the children were all napping all afternoon. It felt so good to have a clean house. Granted the upstairs was horrendous and if Grandmas ever reveals to anyone the things she saw (or smelled) it will be curtains for her. For the rest of the day Mr. Sloth and I kept walking around saying. "It feels so good! It looks so nice!" Here are a few pictures of Mister hanging out in the high chair while I cleaned.

He watched his first ever "Baby Einstein" on my ipad. He went from whiny to speechless in seconds.

In case you are wondering those cheeks taste as good as they look.

Hey! I didn't know you were taking my picture.

Ok, now onto today. It was great in some ways, blah in others, but that is life.  The house was still clean so we started off feeling great. Demand got started with school and I started cranking out some activities for the boys. From now on if anyone asks me what curriculum I'm using I'm going to say "Pinterest". There are so many awesome ideas there, makes all my invested hours of "research" worth it.

Here is Pax playing a matching game with pom poms and a muffin tray. I actually made up a bunch of activites for Happy but as it turns out Pax LOVED the games and Happy, "eh".  

 

While Pax sorted colors Happy was playing a counting game. He was to take a pipe cleaner and put the number of pony beads that matched the number at the top.

Since that was boring we moved onto letter matching. I took some sight words from a Bob books we've been working on and had him match letters using scrabble tiles. "eh"

Pax liked the pipe cleaner game though. Only the occasional pony bead thrown across the room.

Later, after failed nap attempts by Demand and Happy they went outside to play in the snow. Of course they requested hot chocolate when they came in, but this time made a request for the left over birthday cupcakes. We spoke at lengths as to how we would be clean and not make a mess with either the hot chocolate or cupcakes. I was assured it would be the cleanest snack experience to date. I was lied to .

Here's a Lazywife triva, what is her number one pet peeve?  CRUMBS. I loathe them. I dislike seeing them. Stepping on them, and having to clean them. I......I......ahhhhhh!

Honestly, the camera doesn't do it justice. It was a DISASTER.

At one point Happy was treating the cupcake crumbs like a sand box and he was trying to smoosh it back together to make a solid cupcake.

Notice that towel on the table? Yes that was to clean up Demands 3rd spill. THIRD SPILL!

I was on the phone with "Mena" during this episode and I'm sure I sounded crazy to her but, honestly? Get a grip people. This is what my kitchen looks like when the kids are TRYING to be clean. At one point I jokingly told Demand that next time they should just rub it on the floor instead of trying to eat it at the table. She laughed and said, "No! Then you'd have to clean up crumbs from the floor." Sigh. Love is blind. Or sometimes the people you love are blind. Whatever.