To Salina with love…

Ok, now friends and family are starting to stalk me… OK, OK, I WILL write an entry!! [Salina – this for you!]

It’s not that I haven’t wanted to – it’s that I have chronologicalitis: I can’t write about events in my life out of chronological order. Thus overwhelming me that I have 6 weeks of my life to account for before I can even THINK about writing down the current stuff. Neurosis rules my life…

Ok, so – January cliff notes…

Jan 2nd – Present – Broke some or all of my New Year’s Resolutions. Dang it.  I’m still trying though – trying to overcome my "all or nothing" disorder.

Jan 4th – Did a stand-up comedy gig for a sister church’s women’s nite out. I did a brand new routine because last year (on their Women’s Retreat) I had used all of my comedy material. I think they all pooped their pants when I said the word "penis" out loud at a Women’s church event. Try it sometime – it gets QUITE the response! [Note – I was telling the "circumcision" story ]

Jan 9th – A glorious day in the photo mommy home! The Colonel was FINALLY old enough to join his siblings in their 2 1/2 hour DROP OFF weekly homeschool class. He missed the birthday cut-off in the fall so I was held captive every Wednesday for 3 months by the most extraordinarily talkitive 5 year old boy you could ever hope (or not) to be cornered by. Back in September, my friend was signing her kids up for this class and asked me if I was going to sign my 3 older kids up. "Um, no. I LOVE The Colonel dearly – but he will make me crazy. It isn’t worth the effort to drop off the three if I still have Mr Talkative – with NO siblings to talk to!" She said, "Oh come on – it’ll be GREAT!! You can have one-on-one time with him – it’ll be your special time with him. I did that with my daughter the 1st year we did this and it was great! Besides – we can hang out together each week and I’ll help you with him!" So, I let her talk me into this – and the very first Wednesday of the class we drop off our combined 6 kids and take the Colonel to "Ross Dress for Less". Wow. Dude did not stop talking for 2 1/2 hours. And I am not exaggerating – my friend’s eye was literally twitching by the end of it. "Wow, you weren’t kidding. I’ve never seen a kid talk that much – not even a girl!" And so went the next ten Wednesdays…

So, imagine the thrill in January when I walked Mr. Chatty into his class and then waved goodbye. Ah, the sounds of silence.

Jan-something – Craft time with photo mommy: Hubby’s mom sent me a check for Christmas and with part of it, I bought this great mosaic mirror on clearance for $10 that needed some help finding its greatness. Here is a before photo:

It was missing a knob and the bottom portion was painted by someone with ZERO style.

After:

MUCH BETTER!

It’s the little thrills in life…

Jan 28th – Snow day! We woke up to our street blanketed in snow. The Colonel overheard me say something about school closures in the area and led a mutiny in refusing to do homeschool for the day. I had to agree he made a very compelling case. After totally blowing it and not getting ANY photos of the (first in 17 years) snow on Christmas Day – I figured I’d better get out there and take some snow pics of the kids. By 10am there were 9 children out in front of our house building two huge walls of snow on either side of the street in anticipation of "The Great Snowball War".

Chia taking a break behind the girls’ snow wall.

The boys venturing out from behind their snow wall to blitz the girls.

Our sweet neighbor (the neighborhood Grandma) sent over a card table and large pot of hot cocoa for all of the kids. We had a regular soup kitchen thing going on!

The Colonel was sledding the driveway – the kid has no fear. "Sure stand up on a wobbly saucer and slide down an icy hill, sounds like a great plan – I’m sure that inch and a half of snow will cushion your landing!"

Jan 30th – Three weeks previous to this day, Bellie came home from Pioneer Girls and announced "K and I are writing a puppet show for the Pioneer Girl talent show in three weeks. I’m going to need to make a puppet." "No problem – I don’t sew and you don’t sew but we’ll figure it out! We’ve got three whole weeks – why even think about it now?

~Three weeks later~

"MOM!! The puppet show is tonight! I have no puppet!!" No problem – that’s what Google is for – someone out there will come to our rescue. As usual – goggle delivered. It started out with "Just draw a picture and we’ll glue a popsicle stick to it. Then it turned into: let’s just glue some felt together and make a hand puppet. Then it was, maybe we could make it really cool and sew it!" Eventually, it went the way it always does with me and we found a website that taught us how to make an ACTUAL professional looking puppet. Well, why not – we have 8 hours before the show!!! Never mind the fact that the kids had their homeschool class that day so we didn’t even get started on it till 4pm (three hours before the show). No problem – how hard can it be…? *<– The rhetorical question of impending doom*

Here is the puppet at 6pm (30 minutes before we had to leave for the show):

<img alt="" src="http://render1.snapfish.com/render2/is=Yup6lJQ%7C%3Dup6RKKt%3Axxr%3D0-qpDPfRt7Pf7mrPfrj7t%3DzrRfDUX

%3AeQaQxg%3Dr%3F87KR6xqpxQQQJxPJlxPeJxv8uOc5xQQQGGJ0enaePJqpfVtB%3F*KUp7BHSHqqy7XH6gX0QPGP%7CRup6aQQ%7C/of=50,354,442″ />
Tragic, no??!!

And here was the finished product during the show:

The thing looked like it was at death’s door. It was supposed to be a game show announcer – but it looked more like the crypt keeper.

Why people?!?! Why can’t I just be satisfied with the paper puppet on a stick? Why must I seek out the most elaborate and complicated version of everything?? I don’t know, it is a mysterious disease for which there is no known cure.

It is the same dysfunction that causes my obsession with grandiose themes…