A Return and a Departure All at Once, Kinda Like a Layover.

Dear Blog readers,

I am departing from my regularly scheduled dry and incredibly witty humor for a brief moment. The comedic side show shall return as scheduled, well as scheduled as I’ve ever been.

It’s been a while. Like, a long while. Life kinda, sorta got completely away from me the past few days weeks months. Months. MONTHS! I haven’t written, journaled (btw, word refuses to let me use journal as a verb), really put thoughts into a coherent train of consciously chosen words in all that time. I mean I thought about it. I thought about it a lot, but time just got away from me. It was school assignments, then finals, then the kids were out of school and summer activities, keeping the house clean became so much harder, and then Matt was asked to resign from his job back in June because he was going to be replaced by a volunteer.

Yeah, did you know churches don’t have to participate in unemployment from the state? Also, that you can earn vacation time as compensation and never actually get to use nor does your employer have to pay it out?

So, currently Matt is working with my stepfather, building decks, and turning his business Barge Heights into a full time thing. Needless to say, things are TIGHT around the house. Which stinks when your kids want to do 1010848598427896547 things over the summer, and they should be able to, because it’s summer.

But, we are making the best of it. 50 cent movies on Wednesdays for previously run films for kids, many we haven’t seen has been a huge hit. Trips to the Animal Shelter, because it’s kind-almost like the zoo, and you can take the animals outside to play. Dollar scoop night on Tuesdays at Bakin Robins, and free doughnut day at Krispy Kreme for fun treats. Teddy was able to attend a free art camp that the public school system puts on every year. Nate went to sleep away wilderness camp for a week, that we had paid for much earlier in the year, and currently as I write this Reese and Nate are making a film and it’s sound track in Apple Camp at the Apple Store, which is totally free and amazingly cool.

Our neighbors have been extremely gracious and generous with their extra pool passes and taken our kids nearly every time they’ve visited the public pool. I’m couponing again, of course wondering why I ever stopped, and we have a freezer full of ground chicken, turkey, and beef along with way to many packages of hotdogs. Our garden is doing ok, and the chickens are giving us plenty of eggs, so we’ve had people over for dinner and a fire, and that’s the best entertainment of all.

Oh.

I forgot to mention.

In the midst of all of this, my washing machine gave up on us. Like multiple failures, not worth putting money into fixing it, up and died.

And we can’t afford to replace it.

So I’m hauling as much laundry as I can to my dads and doing it. Scheduling errands around the area and when I can change loads over.

I won’t lie, it kinda sucks. I’m grateful for the ability to wash laundry, but it’s far from convenient when you have 6 people, one who is doing dirty contractor work, and a dog. I get almost caught up, and then things happen. Like the four year old climbs into bed with me in the wee hours of the morning. I think nothing of it, but that’s short lived when the soon to be 12 year old wanders in to tell me the four year old threw up. All over the couch. And down the hallway. And all over the living room floor. And basically made 3 loads of laundry for me to deal with in the span of 6 minutes.

So, it’s real here. Real pukey until I can get all the blankets washed.

On another completely unrelated note, I’m getting organized. I’m by nature an organized person. I like to make lists, color code, check and cross things off. Unfortunately, much of that fell by the wayside when I tried to go digital and do everything in my iPhone. I made a decision to switch back to pen and paper a couple weeks ago. I’m determined this is going to work. No more missing parent teacher conferences because I am relying on a piece of Asian sweat shop technology to remind me. No more forgetting to pick kids up because an alarm hasn’t gone off. No more forgetting birthdays, or not having addresses, or whatever. It’s all going to live out in my chicken scratch in my Filofax. You know, once it gets here from England. Because apparently it’s cheaper to order it from over the pond and pay international shipping than it is to order from the manufacturers US website. IT MAKES NO SENSE! But whatevs.

So I’m back. Mostly. I don’t guarantee regular updates. I do hope to not disappear for months at a time ever again though.

I know, sadsies. But here to cheer you up I will share a youtube video that is close to my heart.