the best of intentions

i've been thinking a lot lately about what my children will remember, what attitude they will take with them from their childhood. the thought has occurred to me that they will only take what they experience. while my intentions are always lofty in regards to what i want to offer them, they won't ever know my intentions they will only know what i give them.

-i've intended to have some great salad at dinner every night
-i've intended to prepare meals that are beautiful, healthy, and delicious; the kind where you will want your friends over when you're older.
-i've intended for most things to be handmade, especially your toys
-i've intended to be more patient and not lose my cool as often
-i've intended to know a little about a lot of things and use that knowledge to teach you about oodles of things
-i've intended to be more cheerful
-i've intended for our house to be like it could be out of better homes & gardens... clean, cozy, uncluttered, and organized
-i've intended for your rooms to be decorated & cute with all of your things organized in cute cubbies & creative storage
-i've intended for you to always have clean clothes, clean hands, and a clean face
-i've intended to teach you responsibility through my example and consistency in all i do with you
-i've intended to teach you the deep meaning of life through lessons & examples and how to use your brain to explore it
-i've intended to use a kinder voice and have a more gentle nature
-i've intended for you to only hear me saying good things about others
-i've intended to play more with you and work less
-i've intended to be more creative with you in the way i discipline you and teach you
-i've intended to be more in touch with the things you need
-i've intended to actually execute my great ideas before the time has passed

perhaps i have intended to be a more perfect person. the one thing that drives me the craziest about myself is my inability to do the things that i really want. it's like i can see it but there's just some strange force out there that's determined to stop me executing. i'm working on it. i will work on my list, too. i will start by making a big, delicious salad tomorrow for dinner. :) best of luck with your intentions.

i could've used that

a few days ago i almost made a post about my work as a mother. it was a post that would describe all the work i did in a day as a mother like cleaning markers off every wall in my house, cleaning spilled bowls of cereal, changing diapers, doing laundry, preparing meals, endless science experiments, and on and on. the point of my post was not to make me out as a super mom, but it was to document the major realization i had. i wondered how i could do this day after day and still find so much joy and fulfillment in my life doing these things. the realization was that there were some pretty special people who are the direct recipients of my labors day after day, and that is fulfilling knowing that.
i wish i would've written that post in the words i was feeling that day. i really could've used that encouraging reminder today. it was not one of those kind of days today. i'll leave it at that.

this may be gross

i have a problem. i live with 3 boys. that's not the problem, but the problem is is that 2 of those boys pee standing up. in result i feel like my bathroom smells like human urine ALL the time. i clean it often, and it still doesn't help. i scrub the floors around the toilet on my hands and knees, but it still doesn't help. maybe i'm using the wrong cleaner? please humor me and let me know if this happens to anyone else and what you use to fix it. PLEASE help.

can you guess?

i'm recovering from our disastrous house created last week. there's still a few more piles of laundry to fold, but i'm on to better things now. when weather like this strikes, it's time to bring out the projects. plus, my deadline is nipping at my heels. can you guess what i'm making now?? a few more weeks of neglecting my house, and i should have a reveal.

worthy of 3 stitches

we had our first experience with instacare last night. will fell getting out of the tub and split his chin open. surprisingly i didn't panic, but i knew instantly that he would need stitches. it always feels major when your child gets injured, but it all was pretty minor. he only cried for a little bit. it was such a deep cut that it hardly bled. will was totally happy to be at the doctor looking at the fish and playing with the toys. you would never know he had a split chin. the doctors gave him the "best behaved child" award because he was a perfect little angel the whole time. they decided to not stitch it but to glue it instead. i'm wondering if that was a mistake. i can't keep his hands off of it, and he's constantly trying to peel the strips & band-aid off. not to mention that he has fallen about 14 more times today, so i will not be surprised if he splits it back open before it is healed.
i'm surprised this has been the first visit for stitches that i've had with 2 boys. the way these 2 play i had expected that before now. trust me though, i'm not hoping for more visits.

sam was very concerned about his brother and cried because he didn't get to go with us to the doctor.

he was perfectly fine once we got home, and they were right back to clowning around.

dear fall

dear fall,
thank you for coming into my life today. i truly love everything about you from the foggy mountains, the brisk temperatures, the overcast rainstorms that last all afternoon, evening & night, the magnificent colors that you bring, and the way you cozy up my home the second you arrive. you change me. everything inside of me seems different when you are here. i feel motivated to do the things i love. i cook, i clean, i sew, i play with my kids, i read, and i stay at home all the time. i feel energized yet never stressed. i feel happy. i feel content. and i have peace inside of me all the time. this is how i always want to feel. i hope you are here to stay. at least for a really long time. i want to keep leaving my windows open and feeling your breeze all throughout the day and night. and most of all i want to keep tasting yummy meals like the chicken noodle soup and peach pie i made tonight; that's the taste your season brings. i love you and i need you, and i'm certain i always will. oh, and i think you need me, too. who else will stand on their porch and soak you in as much as i? please don't go.

i pledge my love forever....

digging out

it has been one of those kind of weeks around here. you know, the kind where no one takes a nap, you are lucky if you shower every day, there are no clean towels because you have every type of laundry that needs to be done, you've been eating frozen burritos for dinner, etc. on top of all that, i just haven't been very nice or very motivated to dig out until now. here's to hoping i have a forgiving family and that a week like this every now and then will do no real damage to anyone. i'm grateful it's the weekend; something might actually get done around here! :)

i'm troubled by this

this coming tuesday in a speech pres. obama plans to "speak directly to students around the country about the value of education and the importance of staying in school as part of his effort to dramatically cut the dropout rate." great. why not? george bush gave a similar speech in 1991. that's not the trouble i'm having. it's all the ridiculous outrage about this around our country. this is not a speech to indoctrinate children or sway their precious political views that have been ingrained in them from their family already. (heaven forbid they actually be introduced to the fact that others may think differently than them and their family!!!) i've read the arguments and complaints, and quite frankly it holds NO weight with me. sure, you don't like our president, you think he's a socialist, you don't what his marxist ways to get into your child's brain without you there to "protect" them, you think it takes away from critical classroom instruction time, and on and on. well, were you crying back in 1991? are you crying when your child has to sit through some useless assembly that takes them out of classroom instruction? or better yet crying when the teacher chooses to show a movie because they are tired of teaching for that day? or are you crying when teachers, friends, etc. try to encourage your children to work hard, set educational goals and take responsibility for their learning? yes, you know best. let them stay home for an hour to watch tv or play video games; that's definitely better for them than participating in a historical event. are you people really my neighbors!!???
i think it's far more of an outrage that parents feel the need to hold their child's hand and cover their ears every time someone speaks who may think differently than them. get real, all you're teaching your children is to love and listen to only the people who think exactly like you. that would be the lesson i fear my child hearing far more than a message about doing well in school delivered from the president of our country. come on people, respect his position that he was fairly appointed to and get over yourselves. just be grateful he's addressing our children instead of sitting behind a desk scheming of ways to piss away more money in a war that we never should've started.
i'm done now.

every other wednesday

every other wednesday is by far my least favorite day. it's the always the day before i work. i work from home every other thursday, and i know what many of you may be thinking. something like "you only work 2-3 days a month!" or "you work from home so that should be no big deal". that's what you may be thinking, but it's a totally different experience for me. the actual working day is never bad, but the day before ALWAYS is. i don't know why i get so anxious. i do have preparations that need to be made that don't typically have to happen in our normal days. i have to clean the salon and downstairs bathroom, wash the towels, and make a trip to the beauty supply store. i know they are not big things, but i fret & worry over them the WHOLE day to the point where i'm almost paralyzed. and now here it is 11:56, and i still have towels to wash and a beauty supply list to be made (thank goodness they open at 8:00!). instead of just doing those things right now i'm typing this post and worrying that i'll be too tired in the morning that i will oversleep. i know, i know, i should take an hour first thing in the morning or better yet on a tuesday and get the things done so i don't have to ruin every other wednesday stressing about it, but here we are 3 years into it and i haven't actually been able to do that.
oh, and that's just part of it. i get so worried about being away from my kids for 10 hours that i try to soak up every second with them. that's fine in theory, but i'm so frazzled i can't really focus on them but yet i insist on being around them at all times. i think they are so confused by the strange mommy that they only see like this twice a month that they just act weird, too. no one really wins.
working from home really is a great privilege. i would never want to work anywhere else. however, it would be nice to just have to go to work and not be the one having to make all the preparations for the work to happen.
i guess i should go to bed now; i'm still just not quite calm enough yet, and oh, i still need to do the towels and make the list. long 'SIGH'.

he's my brother

i can't stop laughing. this is going to be my boys in 2 years i'm sure.

two young boys walked into a pharmacy one day, picked out a box of tampons and proceeded to the checkout counter.
the man at the counter asked the older boy, "Son, how old are you?"
"Eight," the boy replied.
the man continued, "Do you know what these are used for?"
the boy replied, "not exactly, but they aren't for me. They're for him. He's my brother. He's four. We saw on TV that if you use these you would be able to swim and ride a bike. Right now, he can't do either."