The Shores of Sanity

As the new year draws near...I sense the closeness, the within reach, the opportunity to have sanity back in our lives!
Sanity, order, lists. organization, and yes our routine. They are all within my reach and I can not wait for the calm and serenity of the boredom sanity brings.

I don't know about you, but I could use a bit of boredom in my life about now. Let Spring bring with it the chaos of new. Until then, I will be cleaning, organizing, and relaxing with the boredom!

Happy New Year to everyone, may yours be safe and joyful!

Insanity, Chaos, And Fatigue- Are they making me crazy?

Insanity, chaos, and fatigue oh my!

Albert Einstein was quoted saying, "the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results".

Buddha was quoted saying, "chaos is inherent in all compounded things. Strive on with diligence".

Benjamin Franklin was quoted saying, "fatigue is the best pillow".

In my day to day routine of doing the same things over and over and hoping for a better outcome combined with the chaos of the unplanned, unwanted, and the daily good surprises, brings forward change in all results, which of course causes sever fatigue.

I can't say I would have it any other way. Am I crazy? Maybe a little bit. My kids are loud, they make mess after mess after mess, which I walk around picking up and pointing out to them as I clean it up. That's a little crazy. It would make more sense to point it out and have them clean it up, I know. I am in a constant state of "shhhhh" to my children. "Shhhh, the baby is sleeping, your father is working, your father is sleeping, I can't hear my own thoughts, please be quiet". Yet when the house is quiet I can't sleep or concentrate. That's a little crazy.

The chaos from our last 2 weeks was definitely crazy. We topped it off today with a trip to the Dr's office after my husband had his appointment and came out of it with a Strep Throat diagnosis. So I took them all in. We all have sore throats, so lets just get this over with. I think it made our doctor a little crazy, too.

So with a sanitized, tea tree oil and peppermint oil treated house, antibiotics for everyone, and a lack of sleep I go into this next weekend with my head held high. I will complete everything to do on my list. I will get my house back into an organized manner. How and why will I do all this? Easy, our life is awesome.

Our life is awesome. Just saying it makes me feel better. You should say it a few times. Why is our life awesome? We have security, love, comfort, and health. We are always cutting things close on money (duh, we have 5 kids and I am a stay at home mom-that's normal unless you are rich), but my husband has a good job, we have a nice house, our children are wonderful (even though they are brats because they are going through that teen stage), our marriage is happy and strong, and even though we have health issues, we are healthy. How can you not have all of this and see it as anything but awesome?

We all have our daily challenges and issues, but through them all we have what is truly important. I wish for you and your families a wonderful, safe, and happy new year! Be awesome thru the insanity, chaos, and fatigue, a maybe a little bit crazy. Its fun!

Chaos Anyone?

It seems that no matter how much planning and preparing I do for times such as these Chaos will find me and challenge me to a dual. Well you fought well Chaos, you lead a surprise attack on the eve of Christmas Eve,, you held your ground, and for a while there I did think you were going to pull off the win. However, I am strong, I am organized, I am fearless (until I am done anyway), I have the gift of power, and I have an incredible husband on my side! Not today Chaos, not today!

I decided to double the batch of fudge. I had all the ingredients ready, lined up, measured out and my stand mixer ready to go. I could do this. After all since the humidity here is so high I had decided to use a Tablespoon of corn syrup and not risk the "sugaring" of my fudge. I was ready. I began the process. I chatted with my husband as he kept our two year old son away from the hot mixture on the stove. And just as the boiling began a frantic child ran into the kitchen wearing her bath towel in total hysterics.

I love my children. And let me tell you before we get into all this, I am a clean freak! I hate going to bed with dirty dishes in the sink, I steam our kitchen floors often (because my son insists on eating whatever he drops on them), there is no food or drink aloud outside of the kitchen (and I am huge on this one, I go crazy when the border is breached), my children are not aloud to wear the same clothes two days in a row (no matter how hard they try), I even get irritated when they don't wear pj's to bed (it isn't good for your clothes), I change my children's sheets often, and I bully my children to bath if they have gone more than 2 days without a shower (I don't care if it's vacation and all you've done is sleep). So the residents of my house have no choice but to be clean. The problem is that for the majority of children who have the issue we had last night, it isn't about being clean. It is about contact with the wrong person.

So back to the hysterics. My daughter says I have to talk to mom...so I ask my husband to stir the sugar cooking that will be fudge. I casually walk over to my beautiful daughter and say yes? The tears start to stream, she is a mess and can barely get the words out. But she manages and the 7 words every mother in the world fears come out of her mouth, "Mom, I have bugs in my hair"!

Oh, CRAP! Maybe she is wrong, let me see honey, turn around. Deep breath. Nope, she is right. A full blown case of Head Lice, on the eve of Christmas Eve!

The orders are being directed now, they may be polite orders, but they are orders! I sent her back to the shower, continue washing your hair in as hot of water as you can stand. Husband, "Honey please go to CVS and get at least 3 Lice kits and a heavy duty lice comb. I know the kits come with one, but since our girls all have very long hair, we need the heavy duty metal kind. And please make sure that there is the disinfecting spray in the kits, otherwise get 2 or 3 of them as well. Done...husband grabs keys and is out the door.

Now I have 2 more minutes of stirring and the sugar mixture is ready for mixing into fudge. I am not going to waste a double batch just because utter chaos has hit my home. So I finish the fudge, it only took me 5-6 minutes. Fudge in pan, counters a mess, I grab the olive oil and I am off to the bathroom.

So I learned over 13 years ago that olive oil when used properly can help get rid of lice. That's the last time I had to deal with this, 13 years ago!!!So I coat my daughters long hair in olive oil as she is standing naked in the warm shower. She is really freaking out now because you can see the adults that are going down the drain. After her hair is coated, an entire bottle, I covered her head with saran wrap and she stood there while my husband continued his trip to the pharmacy. Meanwhile, as she is standing helpless in the shower, I make every other child in the house come to me and check their hair. I was just sure that there was no way one of them could have a full blown case without another having it too. Nothing so far, and my head starts to itch like crazy! I couldn't tell if I had the heebie jeebies or if I had it too. Nope, no freaking out. Deep breathes!

The husband comes in with exactly what I asked for (he really is a wonderful man, definitely a keeper). So with comb in hand I thoroughly check every child in the house and Christmas miracle...no one else has it! Although the supplies not including the olive oil was over 75$! Then I check myself with the comb. Oh thank you lord! I don't have it either. I still don't get how she is the only one with it, but I have more important things to do.

So we wash out the olive oil with hot water and shampoo. Did I mention that my daughter was freaking out? Well now it was worse, because olive oil does work wonders (although I wouldn't trust in it to do the whole trick, but it does condition the hair and scalp well for the poison to come). I would say that after the olive oil and regular shampoo 99% of the adults were gone. So then she sat on the toilet while I blew dried her hair. The medicated shampoo is to be applied to dry hair, and I am in no way going to stray from the exact directions. Shampoo applied. She sits there helplessly.

Meanwhile, the beds in the house are being stripped into black bags. Everything! Spray is being applied to furniture and beds. I start the sanitation process in the laundry (I am so glad we got that washer and dryer set with the sanitize setting). And then I decided to treat the daughter in my house with more hair than three of us put together with olive oil. Just to be on the safe side. Her hair is almost to her butt. So I get that on her hair, manage to clip it up, and put it under a shower cap.

Back to the poor girl sitting on the toilet with her hair covered in medicated shampoo, we wash it out. There is much less chaos as she has calmed down. She at one point was worried her sisters would embarrass her by telling friends she had lice. I told her I would keep that from happening, if they told anyone we would spread the rumor that they all had it. And finally, I got my first smile of the night from her.

We finished the showering (I checked my hair probably 5-7 times throughout this) and she got to put on jammies. We went downstairs, sat in the comfy chair, and applied the gel to kill and strip nits and began the painful scraping combing of the hair. All of it. Strand by strand, section by section. Then she had to go upstairs and rinse her hair again. She decided to lean over the bathtub instead of getting in. Can't say that I blame her after about an hour and a half in the shower earlier.

Then I did my freaking out...checking bedding, stripping my clothes, respraying everything, sending the vacuum from room to room. Checking my hair again, checking the other children's hair again, oh and letting the olive oil soaked one finally shower.

Somewhere in the middle of all that my husband cooked dinner. Fed the ones who were not as affected by all this chaos (other than my constant checking of their hair). I love him and can't imagine life without him. Later we retired to our room and began wrapping presents, watched the football game (that was recorded thankfully), and actually relaxed. We even got all the wrapping done! HA!

So Chaos, if was a good fight, but you lost. Until another day my old foe, until another day!

So if you have had a stressful holiday season so far, maybe just maybe this lovely story will help you put things into perspective and feel a bit less stressed. Happy holidays to everyone! (I am now up to about 15-17 times of checking my own hair and really have the heebie jeebies)!

Thankful VS Pissy...

Today was a very long day. So I have a good news and bad news sorta list to vent in my own thankful vs pissy style. Are you ready? Are you sure you are ready? Ok, here we go. Hang on to your diapes babies!

I am so thankful that I got to sleep in this morning! Thank you honey for getting the 3 of 4 kids off to school! That was lovely. I was pissy because my oldest went to school. Hmmm, that doesn't sound right, wait for it.... she had an Endocrinologist appointment today and her high school is 30 minutes away. Although I completely love the fact that she wants to go to school even for just a couple hours, she added 1 more hour of driving to our total driving time of just over 5 hours today (it would have been 4 hours).


I am thankful we have such an incredible endocrinologist for my daughter Macy (she is a Type 1 Diabetic). He has a PA whom my daughter loves (because he has an incredible bedside manner) and the Dr whom we refer to as Dr. Blunt because he doesn't sugar coat anything! (My daughter doesn't like him at all, but I really do and he is incredible). I am pissy because we have to drive just under 2 hours each way to get to their office. Before we moved to our new home they were only 45 minutes away which was nothing, but now the drive is a bit crazy!


I am thankful that my daughter Haley got to meet and spend time with her mom and her brand new baby sister, Lilly. We let her skip school (since its a 2 day week and really all she missed was a class party) since her sister was born on the 16th and we had to drive that way for the Dr's appointment. (We would have gone sooner, but we got our first snow the day she was born and the roads were a mess, some still are). I am pissy because poor Lilly was born 6 weeks early and although she weighed 5lbs 11oz and is doing well, she isn't doing well enough. She had a tacha something issue this morning (heart rate spiked really high and then she corrected it). She may not be my daughter and she may be my husbands ex-wifes baby but she is also my wonderful step-daughters baby sister. Please send positive thoughts, prayers, or whatever your personal belief system uses to help her get healthy and home for Christmas!!!

I am thankful that Haley's little brother Lucas was relatively good while he went with us to Macy's doctor appointment so that Haley and her mom could go spend time at the hospital with Lilly. And Ethan was an absolute angel, waitting and quietly playing with a Mr. Potato Head the entire time. I am pissy because I was stuck in a small room with a 15 year old girl who knew the appointment was going to end with lab work (ie getting her blood drawn), a 4 year old boy who can't stop talking and asking questions, and my 2 year olds son Ethan for over an hour past our appointment time.

I am thankful Macy was so vigilant in her blood sugar testings and remembering to bolus insulin for everything she ate that her A1C level dropped .4 in just 40 days. She had a few ups, but mostly target range sugars with more lows than we are used to to keep us hopping(which bounces the A1C levels around, going low-eat bounce up high). She didn't gain any weight (which is difficult to do when you are bringing your blood sugars down. Your body naturally breaks down your body fat for the stores of insulin in the fat when your blood sugar runs high. So when you are running at the target zone and doing well most people will gain a few pounds. So that means she kept active enough to keep any weight from accumulating) so great job baby! I am proud of you. I am pissy because my baby will be a Type 1 Diabetic for the rest of her life and there is not one damn thing I can do to make it all better.

I am thankful we have such great roadside assistance through USAA. I am pissy because since we were running late for our appointment (after driving 2 hours I was not about to have them tell me they would have to reschedule our appointment) and we got stuck in between not 1, not 2, but 3 big rig trucks controlling the speed in both lanes at 15 mph under the speed limit I pushed things too far. I know I can go quite a ways once the fuel light comes on, I worked for Honda for over 5 years. But I pushed it too far. So after waiting an hour past our appointment time to see the Doctor, having blood drawn, and the backtracking search for Mr. Potato Heads mouth we had to wait another hour in a cold car for fuel to be delivered.

I am thankful we got home safely and well. I exchanged Lucas for Haley (which poor Lucas was very upset about, he wanted his Haley to stay) We ate crappy food on our drive home, which I am neither thankful or pissy for. Ethan fell asleep 2 minutes before we pulled into the restaurant we were going to eat at. And since I believe its a sin to wake a sleeping baby, we managed with drive thru. Well most of us did. We went to KFC, which is Macy's favorite fast crap food. She only gets a bowl. As I explained to Haley that a bowl had mashed potatoes, gravy. chicken, corn, and some shredded cheese she got excited and said oh yum, I want what Macy wants, from now on for everything. This was a bit  of a shotgun reaction that she very quickly took back with full on whiny drama. Which brings me to, I am pissy because I told her what was in those bowls and she wanted one. After 5 minutes of cranky and angry noises from the backseat I finally asked her what was wrong. "I don't like this. Its all together." Yes Haley, its in a bowl. "well you didn't tell me the corn would be mixed in. I don't like it". This was followed by a back and forth routine between Macy and Haley all about the food all going to one place. Its too bad she didn't like it, because it will be awhile until our next fast crap food purchase. I am not a big fan of it.

I am thankful my wonderful husband had a nice relaxing day at home by himself for the first half and then play time together with the twin teens. I am glad there was no fighting and attitude issues. I am pissy because after my day in the car with the 4 children and all its stress, I came home to a house that was a mess. I don't think going into this one is necessary, you get the point.


I am thankful all of my children are respectful, polite (for the most part), and don't bully others. Aside from fighting with each other, our kids are well behaved and good kids. They are loud, opinionated, and quite mouthy at times. But overall they are good kids.I am pissy because for the third time our children have had a problem on their bus. First Jessie was written up by the bus driver for inapporpriate behavior and once everything was worked out, he just assumed it was her that had yelled and thrown whatever it was. So after a long talk between my husband and the vice principal this was taken care of. Then about a month ago Jessie and her friend switched shoes. She was wearing her friends boots, and her friend had Jessies DC skater shoes in her bag (since her last class was PE and she kept her running shoes on) along with binders and notebooks. There was a fight on the bus and during the comotion, her friends bag was stollen. The bus driver was told by the girls, he did nothing. My husband called the school and again with the vice principal was led around in circles and nothing, nothing came of it. Well today a group of very obnoious kids (6-7-8th graders) were squirting lotion all over and thought it was hilarious. Our daughter Toria has very long thick hair and they squirted a large amount of lotion in her hair, against her will of course. The girls have a lot of friends and when one of them saw what happened they told Toria. She was furious, as I am and would have been myself. (although my husband is more angry than we are so he is going to handle it) According to our girls this group of kids is always causing problems and their circle of friends avoid them in a huge way. What is frustrating is that this bus driver is the same driver for our middle school twins and for Haley in elelmentary school. Since day one I listened to him yell (in a bellowing manor) at the kids when they board the bus (from at least 300 yards away). My husband is done with the vice principal, he will be dealing with the principal tomorrow. He called and spoke to the vice principal and made it clear that he considers this a form of assault (not battery but assault, much like spitting on someone is legally assault). The vice principal agreed with him which is a step in the right direction. Tomorrow will be fun. Yay.

And finally I am thankful that I was able to run outside for a moment and catch a glimpse of the lunar eclipse tonight. I didn't think I would be able to because my son is sleeping on me. So I am also thankful for a friend Tony who posted pictures of the eclipse in its stages. I am pissy simply because I would have really enjoyed seeing all of the total lunar eclipse on this full moon winter solstice. But I will get over it...

No matter how many things make me pissy it just doesn't matter because I have:  wonderful friends and family, a caring, sexy, loving husband, incredible children, a warm and comfortable home, and a sense of security that has nothing to do with money but everything to do with the family support and love we have.

Cheers to venting! Enjoy this wonderful Holiday Season!

Santa Baby

I love Santa. Yep, I said it. I believe! Which is one of the reasons I love the movie The Polar Express and the first Santa Claus movie with Tim Allen. In my house Santa is real. Wait, just read on, you'll understand in a minute.

Now I know many people not only don't believe in Santa, but they also frown upon me encouraging my children to believe. Well I have a question for you...

Is the act of giving without expecting or getting anything in return (such as a gift in return or even the "thank you's" and "your so wonderful" personal fulfillment's) a bad thing? Of course not.

My older children (who range from my step-daughter who will be 22 Christmas day, daughters at home ages 15, 13, and 13) love Santa. When they reached the age of question and "hey...!!!" I taught them how much fun it is to be Santa. To give in secret without anything in return. Not only do they love being Santa to their younger siblings (ages 7 and 2), but also to others they don't even know. We have many times bought gifts for less fortunate and they got to be Santa (using their own money and mine as well). And of course there are those not so random acts of kindness to others.

We have the book "The Elf On The Shelf" that we read and "Smidge" our Elf is moved daily by my husband (because he gets up at 4:30 AM). Of course the behavior reinforcement is helpful, but its more of a tradition of fun and giving to believe in Santa.

I have read and researched the history of Santa. I read the information about "lying to your children". Is it a lie? Really? Giving gifts is fun. Giving gifts anonymously is even more fun. If giving gifts isn't fun for you then you should really stop doing it.

When I was 4 years old my Mother told me that Santa's Elves hid the presents for each house in that house to make Christmas easier on Santa. So of course I searched high and low for those presents. My Mother warned me that if the Elves caught me searching for the presents they would be very angry. So I was careful. As I opened the sliding closet door in our hallway, a yard stick fell and scraped the door all the way down which made a horrible sound, I ran screaming to my room! I thought the Elves had caught me. It took me 2 more days, but I found the presents. In hind-sight, I think it took me longer because I avoided the closets, and they were in the top of the guest room closet. True story, by the way.

Did my Mother lie to me? Technically. Am I angry with her for lying? Do I trust her less because of this? NO. I love Christmas, everything about it. Do I understand the original meaning of Christmas (Christianity wise)? Yes. Does it make me a bad Christian for believing in Santa and encouraging my children to believe or be Santa? NO.  (and anyone who has a Christmas tree in their house better not give me any Pagan believing crap over Santa. Because the Christmas Tree has Pagan roots too!)

Anyway, I love Christmas. I love shopping, buying, wrapping, and giving gifts to my friends and family. I love giving more than I love receiving...seriously. I love Christmas baking, decorating, smells, music, and lights. I miss my family and friends so far away in California and wish we could all be together. But most of all, I love the way everyone seems to change during the Christmas season, a little more polite, a little nicer, more generous, and many more smiles than the rest of the year. And I am not talking about the children who are worrying about Santa knowing whether they are being Naughty or Nice!

So if you love Christmas and Santa but your children are starting to doubt you, a kid at school spoiled it with their negativism, or someone else ruined the Santa fun with their bah humbug mentality...teach your children to be Santa. Buy some gifts for a charity, take some donations to a shelter, give your time at a food bank or soup kitchen, or just do something in the giving spirit anonymously together with your children,(have one sneak over to your older neighbors and shovel their snow without them knowing...that's a fun one!)

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!!!

Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with a few nuts. -Author Unknown

I would like to add:

If you don't think your family has any nuts, then your the nut!