About Not Blogging

"You haven't blogged for a long time," my mom told me the other night as we were talking on the phone. Should I take this as a hint? Or maybe... it's just that she's right, eh?

Well, so, I've been "not blogging" for a long time now, and the sad thing about not blogging is that the longer I "not blog" the less "bloggery" I feel. I know you know what I'm talking about, if you've ever tried to blog, right?

This will not be my most inspired attempt, but at least it's a starting point. I've toyed with the idea of just listing the things that make me not blog. But how boring would that be?

So instead, I will tell you about my last few days/weeks, etc. Might be just about as boring as not blogging, but hey, I'm baby-stepping back into this whole blog business. Cut me some slack, please. (And I write that mainly to myself, because I'm the one who reads back through and sometimes thinks, that was lame, Kam.)

So, starting with today:
I woke up at 5:47 a.m. to a piercing scream from Natalie, who had fallen out of her bed. Brian actually woke up first, and was out of bed and headed to her room by the time I was really stirring, so I let him put her back to bed while I took a trip to the bathroom. (Third trip since midnight, lovely pregnancy stuff.) I rubbed the backs of my legs awhile before coming back to bed, because they just ache in the night in a bad way, worse right before dawn. ouch! Then, of course, I couldn't get back to sleep, so I laid there and listened to Brian also not going back to sleep, until he finally got up around 6 and went into the other room to exercise. Then I eventually managed to get back to sleep for 20 minutes or so before it was 6:50, time to get the kids up for school. We made a deal that we'd start getting up ten minutes earlier, so there wouldn't be such a hectic rush to get out the door by 7:45. It was still hectic, but I managed to get them to school on time this morning, and didn't even yell. Whew! Then Natalie and I went for a walk with my friend, Kathleen and her daughter, Lydia. Nat feels humiliated to have to ride in the stroller with Lydia, but she endures as best she can. After walking, we came back home and Natalie hid with the iPad for a long time, and I let her, since she hasn't watched any PBSkids all week. And I worked on laundry and dishes from last night, and talked on the phone. After lunch I talked with Brian for awhile and worked on more laundry -- going on the 6th or 7th load today. That's basically all I got done all day, and it's still piled around me on the couch waiting for me to finish blogging and get back to work. :) Dinner was fettucine alfredo, with chicken and broccoli, and fresh corn on the cob and tomato slices. The kids trashed their room after dinner. We put up the bunk beds for them last week, and they usually trash the room every evening, playing some kind of "dodge whatever I throw at you off the top bunk" game. I ignore it and hope no one gets hurt, because that seems easier than trying to referee.  I left the mess tonight, figuring it would return first thing tomorrow since it's Saturday anyway, eh? No nap for me today, so I'm tired, crampy and nauseated tonight. But hopefully it will all feel a little better in the morning. Maybe the kids will let me sleep in?? I'm feeling this baby move quite a bit tonight. So fun.

But let's talk about yesterday, because it was more fun:
It was my go-out-and-do-something-fun day. But first it was not so fun, because the kids were draggy and slow in the morning, and I kept having to remind them to do things like put on their socks, put their homework in their bag, brush their teeth, etc. Then Samantha couldn't find her shoe, so we ended up being late. Spencer cried all the way to school and begged me to walk him to his class. So I did, in my just-woke-up clothes and hairdo. Not my best mothering moments there, in all the hysteria of being late. But I guess we all survived, eh? And then Nat and I went walking with our friends before coming home to start the fun part of the day. My sis-in-law Dalana and I planned a fun shopping outing, heading to some good thrift stores. And, we stopped at Kneaders for lunch. The shopping was good, and I came home with some new pregnancy sweaters and pants, as well as some nice kids clothes, including some "comfy shoes" for Natalie (her words, not mine). But the turkey sandwich from Kneaders tops my list of good-things-of-the-day. I could eat a turkey sandwich every day of this pregnancy -- and have, on many days! This one was on rosemary foccacia bread, with bacon, avocado and monterrey jack cheese, oh my! Pretty amazing. I tried their portabella artichoke soup as well, which I'd definitely get again. And, I also picked up a key lime tart as a treat for Brian and he let me have a bite later that night. Also pretty amazing. I love that Kneaders place. mmm! One funny thing about shopping with Dalana -- I went to pick her up, and we were both wearing three-quarter-length neutral color striped shirts, almost looked like matching (minus my belly!) I love when that happens, so funny! After shopping, I raced home to beat the kids off the bus, then got them started on homework while I took a little nap before picking up my nephew, John, to teach the kids piano lessons. Spencer cried about the lessons, for the third or fourth week in a row. So, I said we'll take a piano break for Spence until after the baby comes. Sometimes that's just the way things have to go, eh? We had a late dinner because of piano lessons, but the kids sang my praises anyway because I made mini-meatloaves in the muffin tin, which they adore. And then they had a somewhat rough bedtime, because it was nearly 9, and they were overtired. Brian and I were asleep by 10:30, which is good, for us -- and somewhat unusual.

And Wednesday:
That's the day I finally finished the salsa. I whined about it all day Monday, but the kids were out of school and I just did NOT want to drag out the mess and try to stay focused on it while doing all the kid stuff. Anyone blame me? So I got it started on Tuesday, even though I felt crummy (feverish, headachy, exhausted...). I peeled tomatoes and chopped them from 10:30 a.m. until nearly 3 p.m. (That's four and a half hours, people!! just sitting in a chair, chopping juicy, ripe tomatoes... 30 cups!) My plan was to chop the other stuff after dinner and kids were off to bed. But nope. No energy on Tuesday evening. So I saved it until Wednesday, and chopped all the other stuff all morning (the onions just about killed me, all that crying!) and put in the first pints to process right after I picked up the kids from school. That was my best batch of salsa, of the three batches I've done in the past few weeks. The tomatoes were really ripe and sweet, so it's a gorgeous dark red color. And the texture is thick and chunky, and has a great balance of flavors (though I secretly wish it had a little more zip to it... my kids and Brian don't like spicy, so we stay mild, sad but true). By the end of the day, I had all the canning stuff packed up and sitting on the counter to go out to the garage. Hooray! Ready to be done with canning for this season. It's been fun, but it is sooo time consuming. Now I can maybe get my house in better shape, or go do something fun when I feel like it?

Tuesday:
I already wrote about the canning, so I won't share all that again. But I will share a cute Samantha tidbit. She tried out for a local children's chorus last week, and she made it. yay! So, her first rehearsal was Tuesday evening. I got to go sit and watch her, which was thoroughly enjoyable. She is so enthusiastic and has such a sweet voice. I could pick her out, even with 30 other little girls singing. The teacher drew a staff and treble clef on the board and asked the kids if they knew what it was. Samantha had the right answer. When Mrs. Walker praised her, Samantha shrugged and said, "well, I take piano lessons, so I just know." (We'll work on modesty. ;) It was treat to spend some one-on-one time with her, and to see her doing something she loves. I was proud of myself for just praising and appreciating her, and for refraining from telling her to keep her fingers out of her mouth and other little criticisms that I could have mentioned but didn't. :)

Monday:
Kids were out of school for a teachers in-service day. I wanted to go do something fun with them, but I didn't have a lot of energy, and kept telling myself I was going to start on that salsa. So, instead, we spent a couple of hours completely organizing our upstairs family room/play room. We played a Simon Says game, where I would tell them Simon says to pick up 25 legos and put them in the blue box. They loved it. Funny how they MIND when Simon says... a lot better than when Mom says! ha!

Sunday:
Was a bit of a rough one. I went to bed too late, slept terribly, and woke up feeling very overwhelmed and under-prepared for church. It was one of those days where, if I didn't have responsibilities at church, I would have taken a sick day for sure. But instead, I .... well, I kept asking the kids to do things to get ready (put on shoes, find scriptures, etc.) and they kept doing nothing to get ready. So, when it was time to leave, there were missing shoes and tears and a mad mom who took Spencer's tithing and put it on the fridge because he wasn't minding or listening but was just playing with his money. By the time we got to the parking lot, the tears were mine (and Spencer's too, actually), and it was one of those moments where trying to stop crying only made it worse. Much worse. The kids were like, "why are you crying? And why can't you just stop?" And I was like, "I can't stop. I can't do this. I can't be the Mom today." Not fun. Samantha took Natalie and went to foyer to wait for me and Spence to pull it together. Spence got a grip sooner than I did, so he left me and went in to be with the girls. I let it all out for several minutes before I finally got enough control to apply some superficial mascara and lipstick. And... off we went. Brian was conducting and kept trying to make eye contact with me, to see why I traipsed in 15 minutes after the meeting started. And I avoided eye contact the entire meeting because if I looked at him, I knew I'd break down again, and I didn't have any tissues in my bag, of course. Ah... well, it all got better after that. I didn't relapse, and I was able to do my part to get our primary program in shape (it's this coming Sunday, wish us luck!) Then I went home and made sandwiches for the kids, put them in front of some church movies, and took myself to bed for a long nap. Brian had a long, busy day, and finally made it home for the night after the kids were fast asleep. Some days are like that. I wrote it all here, just to remind myself that it's okay, and it all ended up alright, and crying about it didn't really help anything, but in the long run it also didn't really hurt anything either. Chalk it up to pregnancy, I guess?

I'll stop with the daily journal. Okay? Can you see why I'm not blogging these days? :) I will take some more fun pictures of the kids and put them up here sometime soon, kay? Or I'll back-blog about our trip to Hawaii or our Hone camping reunion over Labor Day. I promise, I'll get back into blogging soon. And I'll make it real, and fun too.

Bye for now!